Florida in January - The Place to Be

The Rosenlund Family American Tour of 2009-2010 ended with a wonderful trip to Fort Myers Beach, Florida.  Here are some of the quick stats:

States: 15 (NE, KS, OK, TX, AR, LA, MS, AL, FL, GA, TN, KY, IL, MO, IA) 
Miles: 4265.
Travel Hours: Approx 67.5
Ratio of Car Hours to All Other Hours: 1 in 4
Souvenir Spoons: 10
Souvenir Bells: 5
Souvenir Alligator Heads: 1 (authentic alligator!)
Temples Visited: 6+ 1 site (OK City, Dallas, Baton Rouge, Orlando, Atlanta, Nashville, St. Louis, Far West Temple Site)
Gas Station Churros: 30+
Average Gas/Potty Stop: 11 min.


Oklahoma City

Left Grand Island in the afternoon of Dec 30 and drove our way to Oklahoma City where we saw the temple and stayed the night.  First thing in the morning, we visited the Oklahoma City Memorial downtown.  It was a somber reminder of the consequences of evil in our world, but an inspiring and touching rememberance of the victims, survivors, families and rescuers.  There were portions of the memorial dedicated to each group, and we found the experience profoundly moving.

One of the things we tried to do along our trip was to visit Temples.  We were fortunate to see 6 temples (see above) and the Far West temple site in Missouri.  In most cases, these visits happened when we arrived into our nighttime destination and the temples were lighted up and looked very beautiful.  The kids loved these short visits for photos and I think it gave them an idea of the widespread nature of the church in these latter days.

Florida

We arrived in Florida after three days of driving from Grand Island, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Texarcana (so we could add Arkansas to our list of states), Baton Rouge, Mobile, Tampa and Ft. Myers Beach.  Arriving in the evening, we hurried out to the coast and got our feet wet in the Gulf Coast waters. 

 Rosenlunds finally see the Gulf Coast!

 Daina's uniform for days and days at the beach!

 Peaceful sunsets. 

 Matthew found these dumptrucks at the hotel sandbox and never stopped driving them up and down the beach.

 The boys and I particularly enjoyed the shuffle board.  I always won! :)

 Grandpa Roger and Daina spent many hours in "Grandpa's pool" right off the beach.

 One of the funnest things we ever did was take a kayak out to the ocean with the kids.  At around 55F with a stiff breeze, no one could believe that we'd go out in such weather.  Our response, "Hey, this is a great day at the lake in Nebraska!" 

 We took a drive along the Estero Island and found many homes in the area with back yards right along a little "water alley" where they park their boats.

Matthew tries his hand at what he called "honkey".















We all agreed that there is no better place to be in January than Florida.

Our thanks to Grandpa Roger and Grandma Leslie for such a wonderful trip. 

Well, this is enough for tonight.  Next time:  The trip home....