Traveling With The Cold

Everyone in the country has either experienced the recent cold spell or heard about it on the news. In some places the cold is definitely news. When Florida loses citrus crops to cold weather, people understand that prices of their favorite OJ will increase in coming months.

Having just left the Sunshine State, I can tell you to start pinching those pennies for your OJ. BTW, the citrus that have survived is some of the sweetest that I’ve ever been privileged enough to taste. We happened to stop at Hancock Groves in northern Florida on our way to Georgia. We purchased a three-pound lemon and two oranges that weighed a pound apiece. They were a gift for my aunt whom we’d be seeing soon. Lawzy, were they worth the $4.50 we spent on them. Don’t count on pretty fruit, though. Once the cold hits them, pretty goes out the window.

Florida doesn’t look quite so shiny this winter. The freezes have caught so many off guard. The lush vegetation is brown and shriveled many times. The flowers are few and far between. The natives are restless, or at least they were when we were there a few days ago.

In Kentucky’s thoroughbred country, foaling is beginning and the tough winter weather isn’t good on mares or foals. We get to go out to one of the farms today for visiting and photos. One of my cousins manages the breeding program on a big farm. Woo Hoo! That will be a highlight. I haven’t been out there in many years and the foaling barn is always a wondrous place.

Ice and snow just keep coming to the northern states. We have to head into Indiana in a few days and will not look forward to seeing how much trouble the roads will give us. Sightseeing right now is spotty at best. The weather has seen to that. With luck and perseverance, we’ll be able to get some things done over the next few months.

They may not be what we planned, these new adventures, but they’ll be different. Perhaps that’s the whole point of an adventure–learning to make the most of all things handed the explorer and finding a way to make great lemonade from the fruit handed you.

Getting online has been challenge much of the time during this trip and may continue to plague us. If so, I can only hope that what I do have to say when I get on is of benefit to someone. For right now, I wish everyone a great week and good fortune in your own adventures.

Until later, a bientot,

Claudsy