Unlike the Panama City beach, there wasn't a building in sight at Crooked Island. This beach butted against Tyndal Air Force Base.
A gardener dredged up tires, anchors and other trash from the beach area and turned it into a garden complete with a "pirate" dummy in a tree.
It may look nice and sunny, and the tourists below were wearing shorts. But we were more comfortable in long pants and long sleeved shirts. Even so Thursday afternoon was warm enough for a stroll along the beach, and warm enough to be a break from Virginia's cold weather.
Why doesn't erosion cause these skyscrapers to fall into the bay?
A hurricane damaged this wooden pier. . .now being completely rebuilt.
On Friday morning, we ran in tee shirts and shorts along this path at "Under the Oaks" park in Callaway, Florida. That's the bay in the background beneath the trees. We ran this path six times to make a bit more than three miles and each lap brought us to the edge of the bay and a welcome breeze. We had visions of running in similar weather during the Half on Sunday. . .
Former president Abraham Lincoln's grandfather, also named Abraham Lincoln and also married to a Mary, lived in this home built by the Revolutionary War veteran Jacob Lincoln, the president's great uncle. The home is about halfway between Broadway and Harrisonburg, Virginia, on Highway 42. The first Abraham Lincoln moved to Kentucky upon the encouragement of a relative of Daniel Boone's.
Jacob Lincoln was buried on the same property in the family plot, as were two of the first Abraham and Mary Lincoln's slaves (tombstones above). Five generations of Lincolns are buried in this family cemetery. That Lincoln's kinfolk owned slaves and farmed in Virginia made the Civil War a personal matter, as it was for many Civil War era citizens.
On a drive one afternoon, we went out to the Shrine Mont, the cathedral shrine of the diocese of Virginia. The shrine is near the Virginia House, formerly known as the Orkney Springs Hotel, where in the late 1800s, folks used to come for rest and relaxation. The green-shuttered white hotel is four stories high and 96,000 square feet. The common areas, meeting rooms and dining facilities were all restored in 1987. For more information on the Shrine and the Virginia House, see their web site at: http://www.shrinemont.com/. There's a better picturre of the hotel than I could take on that site.
