Good morning! And in case we don't see you, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!

Fresh from our mid-afternoon siesta, we come to you on this, our 77^th day of the Epic Journey. The significance of today is that it’s our last rest day in Florida :-(. Having spent the last 30 days enjoying this wonderful state and experiencing the many variations of Florida and the people who live in it, we’re feeling quite sad about our imminent departure from this state we have come to call home for a significant length of time. Of course we remain excited about the journeys into the colourful histories of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. Not wishing to prematurely terminate the fantastic Floridian times & places from our memories, we still have 2 days left in Florida to enjoy.

Taking advantage of the extra hour in bed the CST time zone now delivers to us each morning, we awoke relatively early today, feeling relaxed and free from the stresses of doing laundry. Come to think of it, writing about our stress levels only extending to ‘doing laundry’, life can’t be all that bad!

It was easy to tell how fresh it was outside. The sky was an uninterrupted blue, clear from clouds or any other foreign object. Gazing out from the condo window onto the ‘Truman Show’ streets, we saw a light scattering of people dressed in hats, coats and scarves crossing their arms in a vain attempt to stay warm during their 5-minute walk to their next destination. If only we were able to pack extra weight into our panniers (thanks again Pat/James/Lyn for relieving us of yet more heavy non-essentials), which are already causing Trusty and Steed to struggle under the current weight of mandatory clothing items, we would have coats, scarves and woolly hats and would be venturing out today, snugly wrapped up in them. Unfortunately, optional items such as coats, gloves, scarves and hair straighteners would weigh far too much and not fit into our bags. Making best use of what we had, we went for our walk inappropriately dressed in flip-flops and v-neck jumpers.

Rosemary Beach! Wow…this place is beautiful in its simplicity. It plays on all your senses and still manages to keep you calm and peaceful. Walking along the fantastic beach, the cold soon became inconsequential as we felt the baby-powder white sand in our toes and crystal clear emerald waters brightly reflecting the stunning sunlight as each wave silently rolled onto the beach. We took lots of photos and hope you enjoy viewing them! On our way to the beach we stopped off in a local shop (for Kat to use the loo…) and met Geri, the owner of GiGi’s, with whom we had an interesting chat. By the time we had walked along the beach and back to our condo, we found that Geri had already donated to the US MS site…thanks Geri, you’re a star.

Our next big rest days will be in New Orleans next weekend and Austin, Texas two weeks after that. Any recommendations for interesting things to see and do other than laundry will be welcomed. So, we are off to Pensacola tomorrow, our last leg in Florida!

Luvin’ y’all

Us x