Another thing to add to your list Scarlett, honest to goodness Moonshine!

I kid you not.

No more than a taste. Ever.

Lawsy, GoTravel, I have enought trouble with Mint Julips, no moonshine for me :)

Imagine this, Scarlett! Sitting in your new backyard with the lovely scent of Confederate jasmine perfuming the air, a sweet tea in your hand, and Pup frolicking about. Life, Southern Style.

Mercy. I do have to get up your way. Yall have a museum now. Lawdy. I actually was up that way awhile ago. I got as far as (don't laugh) Welaka. At that point, I couldn't go any further because it was truly the most beautiful place I'd ever been in God's Green Florida. The St. John's is absolutely gorgeous.

And St. Augustine. What I'd give for my favorite room that overlooks that bridge with the lions on it. Lions!

Scarlett, when you've just had it with that big city of Jay -- oh, I have to stop myself, this is a habit of mine from my college days -- that big city of Jacksonville, get in that little car of yours (now that you're out of NY you can have a car because Jacksonville comes with PARKING SPACES -- did anybody put that on the list? -- no more hustling out in the snow to move the car before the plow or the garbage truck comes) and you can drive to St. Augustine. And Anastasia Island. And the Atlantic Ocean, this part of it that is where you can actually go for a swim!

Scarlett -- let me be the first to say -- WELCOME to Florida ~

Florida top ten list:

1. The beach
2. The beach
3. The beach
4. The beach
5. IT'S NOT BUFFALO
6. The beach
7. The beach
8. The beach
9. The beach
10. The beach

FainaAgain:

You can get raw peanuts in Chinatown in a Chinese grocery store.

Asians cook raw peanuts manu different ways, so you should have no difficulty finding some. Good luck! :)

LOL Buffalo Girl, NO it is NOT Buffalo :))

Today I heard from Florida, they are cold! The heat actually came on!! Maybe I can save some of my favorite coats and sweaters!!

Thank you for advices, everybody! Now don't worry if you don't hear from me for a while. I'm off for peanut-hunting, cooking and freezing so I can present those nuts at the next San Francisco get-together :)

As a military wife/Florida native currently writing from my temporary home in very cold Germany....I just have to say: Y'all are making me VERY homesick!! Quit that! :)

OK Scareltt, one of the first things you must do is get rid of your old license plates. This will save you a bundle.

2nd thing you must do is select which license plate you want. Last I looked you could choose from 71 different plates as well as the standard. You thought you had a job with paint chips, take a gander at this!! http://www.hsmv.state.fl.us/specialt...cialindex.html

I've got the standard one, but may have to go for "Protect FL whales" (although I've never seen one and doubt they are near this coast...but the color goes well with my car. :)

OMG OO!! what a choice !! Can they make the wildflower one just a little brighter? I think I like the Estuary plate, our car is black, anything goes with that..
Thanks! this is fun!

Knoel, my cousin was a Staff Sargent in Stuttgart. He loved it there, but he did get homesick around the holidays~Happy Holidays to you!

I changed my mind, I want the Everglades River of Grass!

This is just as hard as picking out paint colors :(

Scarlett, Don't do the estuary plate. All vehicles with that seem to have a snook decal on their back window (and it isn't the back window of a BMW). That's the fish on the Indian River Lagoon plate--prehistoric looking isn't it? I don't quite understand sticking that decal on my car, but then, I don't fish, either!

I like the river of grass too. The bird is a roseate spoonbill--they nest on our property and are usually mistaken for flamingos by guests. Same color basically, same size, different head and neck, but if it's pink and it's in FL and it wades/flies, it gets called "flamingo".

OK...let's help Scarlett choose a plate for her black beemer. How about sea turtles? Or panthers? The FL panther is a <i>beautiful</i> animal. I've seen one in captivity...most awesome up close! The plate doesn't do it justice, but if you've seen the real thing you can use your imagination.

Did anyone mention Key Lime pie?
Well do have some when you visit
Islamorada-Yummy!
Vaya con dios to Scarlett, her Yankee
and Pup!
R5

razzledazzle, Via con Dios Tambien, mi amigo/amiga ((F))
Key Lime Pie does have a nice sound to it :) and stone crabs?

I have the Sea Turtle plate for my Aviator and the Everglades plate on my husband's Geezermobile (er, make that Town Car).

Regarding the Roseate Spoonbill. Two Easters ago we attended services on Sanibel at St. Isabel's which is right across from Ding Darling preserve. After the service we drove slowly through the preserve and at one turn the sky turned shocking pink as hundreds of Roseate's took flight. Usually they are hanging around the mangroves looking like egrets. That shocking color is primarily on their underwing.

Swimming with dolphins: last summer I was just standing around waist deep in the gulf digging up sand dollars with my toes (I never take them, just look at them and put them back) when I felt a strange presence in the water. It was a pod of dolphin, maybe 5 or 6, who just paused on their way to feed somewhere close to shore.

As I write this the bald eagle is sitting on his snag (no nest but this tree is definitely his now) looking for breakfast. Natural Florida is still a wonder, even with all the development.

I must confess to having the boring orange plate.

Roseates have pink bodies but white necks. Immature roseates are paler, more white, but the color deepens over a period of 3 years until they become bright pink. (That from my Florida Bird book which goes on to describe orange tail feathers which I've never noticed, I guess 'cause their tails are stubby, and bright red rump, shoulders and neck patch). There are definite color differences...some much brighter than others, but I didn't realize it had to do with age.

They are all around the preserve the hotel sits in and we have had a bald eagle as well, which I saw for myself the first time, incredibly, on 9-11. We were sitting on a bench overlooking the bay that evening, looking for a little peace and thinking how beautiful this country was as the sun was setting over the water and the shore birds were feeding in the shallows, when we saw it approaching in the distance. We thought it was an osprey initially, but as it got closer and closer, (and bigger and bigger as it did) then flew directly overhead, we realized it was a bald eagle. Pretty amazing sight that particular night and moment in time!! I'm glad my husband was there too as it was the sort of thing that after it happens, makes you wonder if you really did see what you thought you saw!! Staff had seen it before, I had not until that evening. Evidently they adopt favorite sitting poles or trees...and this eagle had his favorite telephone pole down the bay a bit where he'd sit in the day, but (according to OC's valet parkers) would routinely fly over on it's way to the nest...or wherever he/she rested for the night right around sunset.

About a week or so after that, a Tampa Tribune columnist, Daniel Routh, wrote a column on the one he saw with his son's high school golf team at the Rocky Point golf course about 1/3 mile due north of us as the eagle flies--and how amazed they were (also relating it to 9-11). I'm quite sure it was &quot;our&quot; eagle as the golf course was the direction ours had been headed too. Daniel Routh is normally one very sarcastic son-of-a-gun with whom I rarely agree, but he wrote about this with the same emotion and awe we felt seeing it on that surrealistic day!

Now...want to hear abut the manatee that came up by the boat as I was hosing down the motor? LOL Just hung there, his &quot;face&quot;, only a couple of feet at most from my hand, probably hoping for a drink from my hose, but I was too shocked to do anything about it and he gave up and went back under.

OK...that's more nature lesson than anyone can bear for one day. See what you are coming to Scarlett...and see what happens to you when you've been here a while! :D

Wow OO! Great story about the eagle. I get excited seeing Osprey.

Pelicans would be my favorites. I don't think they have evolved at all over the centuries. They just soar down the beach never flapping wings then dive for food. I also like to watch them glide a foot or so over the water while they hunt.

If you've never done it, you should try to make a trip to the Florida east coast in the summer months, anywhere between Melbourne and Ft. Lauderdale. This is turtle nesting season. And although this happens on both coasts, the prime habitat is this particular area -- during the summer more than 14,000 sea turtles crawl ashore and nest in the evening hours along this shore. From about 10 to 2 is a great time to check for one. This is a really incredible experience to see this huge lumbering reptile crawling from the ocean (this also occurs in Texas, as well as other countries outside the US). If you're really lucky, you might see one on the west coast where they occasionally nest but the prime nesting habitat is along the Atlantic (I could get into plate tektonics here but it is way too boring for even me to write about).

And let me caution everyone to be sure to be real quiet and not bother the mommy or you will upset nature. She is a protected species, despite her great numbers. About six weeks later, about ten dozen little baby turtles will hatch from that one nest and head to sea.

This, as much as I know, is the only advantage to those choppy Atlantic waters (smile) as I am not a big surfer, and do not like being eaten by sharks, ever.

Tandoori Girl, we also get the nesting turtles on the South Carolina coast. It is amazing to see.