Happy Birthday Mom!

I am blessed to still have my parents and today we celebrated my Mom's 79th birthday. Doesn't she look great!

A glass of South African wine and a Maine lobster! Doesn't get any better than this!

A firm "no cake" was requested so I created these fruit tarts to celebrate.

And a little french champagne!

Auto Train

I saved 900 miles of driving, gasoline and wear and tear on my car and brought it with me on the train! I had a stress-free journey by rail, skipping the traffic congestion on I-95. I read a book, worked on crossword puzzles and met some interesting people. Great way to travel and I'll be doing this again for sure! There were about 500 people on the train and over 300 cars - the train was over 3/4 mile long with 30 train cars filled with cars and one motorcycle! Our route north. Our trip started in Sanford, Florida just north of Orlando and 17 hours later we arrived in Lorton Va, about 10 minutes drive to Alexandria!

Sanford Station

A peek inside a loaded car train

Staging area for car loading

People loading! Double deckers cars.

The sun rising somewhere around the North Carolina/Virginia border

My car arrives in Lorton!

Triplets

The busy season at Rudy's has officially come to a close and it's been another fun year with Julie and Sally. Can't begin to tell you how many people asked if we were sisters. What can you say other than, why yes, we are triplets. Too funny!

Julie and I have been best buds since 1969. Wow, that is a long time. We were in 5th grade and lived right next door to each other. Seems like yesterday when we collected enough Bazooka comics to get a free walky talky to hang between our houses so we could talk after we had to go in at night!

The locals have returned to Rudy's!

Gulf Storm

Not quite as exciting as a good ole Nor'easter but it's always fun to watch a storm come in over the water. This one is coming in from Texas. Lots of rain and wind and a little surf for the normally calm Gulf! High tide and wind made for a good work out this morning!

Shuttle Discovery's final voyage

The space shuttle Discovery made its final voyage today: a piggyback jet ride to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum annex in Virginia. Here is a picture of it landing today at Dulles airport. A friend was on one of the people movers going to their flight out and caught this picture - what a sight it must have been!

Happy Easter from Florida!