2011 Year in Review

So once again we're getting ready to fly to Florida so we can bring Mark's mom back to Wisconsin, and lazy me has not posted a single photo since this time last year when we were getting ready for the same trip! But in my defense our main home computer crashed about a month after we got back and then it got to be summer here so I wasn't on the computer much anyway. Luckily all my Florida photos were still on the camera card, so sometimes procrastination pays! 

I plan to add a few more posts soon because I still have lots of photos I want to archive on this blog, but for now my review of the year has to include at least one shot from this funky little place in Key Largo called Sunset Cove Beach Resort. We stayed there for 4 days soaking up the sun (and margaritas!) before going to Century Village to close up the condo and bring Mom home in April last year.

We spent the summer close to home because we had a lot of projects to work on, but when it got really scorching in late July we took a week off and went camping at Point Beach State Park on Lake Michigan.



In October  I headed west to Encinitas, CA for a week-long Feng Shui training program, which took place at a hotel just a few blocks from the beach.  My classmates were a great group of ladies and we had a lot of fun during our stay, so there will definitely be more photos to follow from that adventure!

Just a few weeks later we saw our first snow here in Wisconsin, when Mark and I spent the Veteran's Day weekend at our favorite retreat cabin up north. After that we had a series of home Packer games and that brought friends and family to our house almost every weekend, so that was the extent of our travels for 2011.

Thanksgiving in Florida

I know, it's already spring, but since we'll soon be heading back to Florida to pick up Mark's mom I thought it might be nice if I actually posted the photos from when we took her down there in November!

We enjoyed a lovely Thanksgiving dinner at Nestor's, a popular restaurant in Boca Raton that we always visit at least once every time we go to Mom's condo in Deerfield Beach.

And who says it's a rule that you always have to have turkey on Thanksgiving? At Nestor's you had a choice of turkey, a lamb shank, fish or ham. As you can see Mark went with the lamb. I'm not sure why they even offered ham, since almost everyone there is Jewish.

For Thanksgiving they only had one seating and it was limited to maybe 100 people, and the tables were set up family style so we ended up with four small groups of people at our long table. Fortunately they gave us all plenty of wine, so by the end of the meal it felt like we were one big family!

Welcome to Century Village (or not!)

Mark's parents bought into this development when it was brand new, so his mom has been going there every winter for more than 30 years now.

She has an end unit in one of the 2-story buildings, which they call "Garden" buildings. It's also in a pretty nice location not far from the main entrance to the village.

Above is a view from the parking area, and below is a view of the pool area directly behind the building.

It's nice that this pool is just outside the patio door, and it's not too crowded because there are pools all over the village for the various "neighborhoods" and people tend to stay in their own areas.

Many of the areas consist of clusters of high-rise buildings like this one in the photo below, which overlooks the golf course and one of the many ponds. It's a lovely place, yes, so why my snarky comment about not feeling welcome in this place?

Well let me tell you ... in addition to a ridiculous rule that prohibits any outdoor grilling (huh?) this duck is about the closest thing to a pet you will find in this entire little village of more than 16,000 residents. They have a strict "no dogs or cats" policy, which I think is insane. No wonder all those old people are so crabby all the time! When we were there in November Mom was telling us about the "scandal" in one of the associations where someone was trying to use a doctor's note to keep a small dog. She wasn't kidding! I was just trying to find a link to the association and its encyclopedia of "rules" you have to follow there and I found this news story about it that appeared just today. What a coincidence!

They do however have a lovely club house, where you can take classes of all kinds or go see cruise ship-style shows several evenings each week if that's your cup of tea.

It's kind of sad to see at least 1/4 of the parking lot closest to the club house is reserved for those with handicapped stickers, and it's kind of scary walking around the village because there are way too many people driving who probably should not be behind the wheel anymore.

Use the shuttle bus service ..... please!!! They have a whole fleet of these little buses that go around the village all day long.

As I mentioned they have many classes at the main club house, including water exercise every morning. They were working those noodles the day we watched them!

Over the last several years as more and more units have been resold, the village has become quite popular with the French Canadians. Apparently they are really big into bocce, so they have taken over the old shuffle court and turned it into a bocce ball court. I'm not quite sure how it is played or scored, but it didn't look too exciting to me.

Although in some neighborhoods it seems like all the cars have Canadian plates, the village is still predominately Jewish.

Schlep is one of my favorite words, so I got a kick out of this poster on the wall in the golf course snack bar. And bagels with lox is one of my favorite snacks, so you know I was over there almost every day!

Wal-Martian Sighting

If you've ever received one of those emails with photos of "The People of Wal-Mart" and thought to yourself they surely must be made up, I'm here to tell you they're not. They're for real!  Just look at this fashion parade we fell into while walking from the car to the entrance.

This guy was only one example of the "fruits" we saw inside. If I'd had more time to follow people around discretely I could have added several more photos to the collection!

Atlanta Revisited

After four days in Cemetery Century Village, we needed a little vacation so we decided to stop in Atlanta for a few days before returning home. Mark and I had never been there together before, and it just so happened the Packers were playing there that weekend.

Ahhhhh, there's nothing like a nice plush king size bed after four nights of sleeping on a back-breaking sofa sleeper!

We stayed at the Omni Hotel, and this was the view from our room in the north tower looking over to the CNN Center above, and looking out over the downtown area below.

From the covered walkway between the north and south towers I took this photo of the restaurant where we ate Saturday night. It was Mark's birthday and we had a great time! The drinks and steaks were fabulous, and we ended up making friends with the really nice couple at the table next to us. They were from Athens but have Falcons season tickets so they were in town for the weekend too.

We also took the CNN Studio tour, which was really interesting for me. Mark works in TV so he acted like he wasn't too impressed, but I think he found it pretty cool too! And of course I had to stop and pose for a photo by the CNN Humvee that was used in Iraq.

The Agony of Defeat

Well we all know how this game ended, with the Falcons scoring a field goal to take the lead in the last seconds, but we still had a great time and it was fun to add another stadium to our list!

The Georgia Dome is a very nice venue, and it was nice that everything was within walking distance of our hotel. We didn't even bother renting a car there because there's a MARTA stop right there too.

Their idea of tailgating is nothing like ours here in Green Bay, but they did have a little "activity zone" set up with some lame games and canned music.

I was more impressed by this sculpture, which I'm pretty sure is left over from when Atlanta hosted the Olympics in 1996. Of course I had to zoom in for a closer look!

Ok, so the game starts at 1:00 p.m.  We're out walking the streets at 9:30 a.m. looking for a Bloody Mary, only to discover that nothing opens until 11 a.m. Huh?  When this beer kiosk finally opened it was naturally all the Packer fans first in line!

Life's too short to stand in line waiting for cheap beer, so we went on inside to find a place to get those Bloody Marys.

While we're enjoying our cocktails who appears at the top of the escalator but our friends from dinner at Dantanna's the previous evening! We knew our seats were not too far from their section, but to run into them again was just too much. We never did write down their names or contact info, but the way our world is shrinking I wouldn't be surprised if we run into them again somewhere down the road!

Unlike our really boring and colorless tickets from Lambeau Field last year, the Falcons actually gave us some cool ones to keep as souvenirs from this game.

And of course, the obligatory self-portrait shot that we do at every single game we ever go to it seems!

I feel a bit sorry for people who have to watch inside a dome all the time. To me a good flyover is one of the highlights of the game!  Instead they have to rely on the shooting flames and smoke effects, which are cool in their own way but just not the same.

I must say I really did enjoy the half-time show here though, which was some kind of battle of the bands finale that was being sponsored by the local casino.  I especially got a kick out of the little plastic cows with parachutes that they launched into the stands from the catwalk as part of a Chik Fil-A promotion. They were just too cute!

This little "cheerleader" routine was supposed to be insulting to the Packers and their fans, but I actually thought it was pretty funny, especially the guy on the far left with the Clay Matthews wig!

Getting Around in Atlanta

As I mentioned earlier, we never even bothered to rent a car in Atlanta because MARTA got us everywhere we needed to go, and it only cost $16 each for a three-day unlimited pass.

Mark had never been to The Varsity before, and it's kind of a landmark in Atlanta so I had to take him there just to experience it. I had a pimento cheeseburger just because it's the only place in the world I've ever seen that combination, and it's not a trip to The Varsity without a big pile of onion rings too!

My Old Stomping Grounds

I was stationed here in 1982-83, and I knew it had changed a lot over the years so I wanted to go take a walk around it again. It's not that big to begin with, and more than half of the acreage is a golf course, so you can basically walk around the entire post in less than an hour!

This used to be our parking lot for the Public Affairs Office, which was located on the first floor of the wing to the left. Now it's a nice little brick courtyard and the building houses various other offices along with the garrison headquarters.

My friend John was also stationed here in the early 1980s, so I had to get a photo of his old office in the Staff Judge Advocate building. This is prime real estate, right under the flag pole at the end of the parade field, and it appears the same offices are still housed there.

Here's the view from the other end of the parade field, where we used to have picnics and play frisbee when we weren't using it for our weekly physical training sessions. It was kind of a crappy day, with rain threatening the entire time we were there this time, but in the summer this is really gorgeous.

This is the view on the north side of the parade field, which is known as Officer's Row. Below is one of the largest houses with the most ornate trim. I always imagined that was where "The General" lived, but now this small post is home to two major headquarters so who knows where all the multiple generals are housed? Probably in Buckhead, haha!

Us peons lived across the field here on Troop Row, which was quite convenient because I only had to walk down the sidewalk about 100 meters from my barracks to my office. But even then the housing space for enlisted soldiers was very limited, so within six months I applied and was granted permission to move into an apartment off post.

Hey John, I just had to get a photo of this for the memories! I can't even remember now how many times around the parade field equaled our two-mile run, but I do remember running in that god-awful heat during the summer and how much I hated it!

This was the Main Gate when we were stationed there, but now I think they only open it when they have special convoys or something. We were there in the middle of the day on a Monday and it was deserted. The new Main Gate is at the far south end of the post, where the motor pool used to be.

This is the new headquarters building, where I almost got in trouble when some guy came out the front door and started yelling "no pictures!" as I was artfully framing up this shot from under the trees below! We were almost back to the gate anyway, so we high-tailed it outta there before anyone could come out and confiscate my camera.

Come to find out there was a huge sign right inside the gate that says photography is prohibited and you can be fined up to $10,000 if caught. The sign is very visible if you're driving in, but we came in through the walking gate so I honestly never saw it. Oops!