cruise, the beginning of the story

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The short story is that this year my better half and his college friends all have one of those birthdays with a zero in it.

It was decided by a small group of these friends to head south and take a quickie cruise to celebrate. As a surprise to the first guy to cross that threshold birthday, some of us came without him knowing ahead of time that we would. There were 11 of us, all together, including the mother of the pair of brothers in the group.

We have all known each other for decades (I am the newest addition to the group -- 1982!).

I've described this group as a traveling circus, only the circus is all clowns............

I laughed more than I have since I don't know when. The sort of evening where your belly hurts from laughing so much...........

The other Michigan people took the red-eye to Orlando on Friday the 30th. We didn't think that was a restful way to start a vacation, so we went down on the 29th, and met the rest of them back at the airport on the morning of the 30th.

We got there before they did, which was a good thing, as I wanted to take pics. Hard to believe I was taking these pics one week ago right now......

I like the three clocks on the post, even after I've watercolored the image to obscure the people.





Mickey, in bas relief.





Avec moi, for scale........





Lots of art.





Zoomed.





Someone had fun playing with opposites on the color wheel........





Lots to look at outside, too. We are definitely not in Michigan any more!

We are looking at the parking structure across from the airport.







Having walked across, looking back at the airport.





Some of these are grown as houseplants, in Michigan. They don't get this big....





I've seen bougainvillea in a Michigan greenhouse, but not as a regular houseplant.





Did I mention that it rained, most of the time we were in Florida? Rained hard, too, mostly.





Something else we grow as a houseplant. It's not this happy, in a house.....







I have no idea what sort of palm this is, or what kinds of palms can be grown as houseplants. Can you see the fruit?





The extravagance of fruit?







Loving the leaves on the palm trees, too.









Here's something that looks the same in Florida and in Michigan, only it won't look like this in Michigan until July or August!



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