Leaving Behind Year 2015

We will soon be ringing in the New Year of 2016 and as I look over my shoulder in retrospect I see a whole year that I feel that I have wasted.

Many people have accomplished some outstanding goals this past year but, I personally have been in a funk......  I just thought since the New Year was approaching that I should stand up tall, well, as tall as a 9 inch bear can stand and carry on!

I, Gear Bear had an interesting Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.....My first adventure was when my dear friend Ms Donna decided that we were all going to head to Florida to visit Charlene.  Now do I know Charlene?  Nope but, have heard about her for years and felt that I probably know about most of her shenanigans as well as I do Ms. Donna's.  You see Ms Donna and Paula have been good friends since they were teenagers so that meant they have had plenty of time to pull their "capers" and I am not even going to go into that part of my story, at least not now.

So April 19th Paula, Donna, Sue and myself met at the Rockford Airport. We had plenty of time to get through security, have something to drink and then it happened......plane delay! No problem we had a non stop flight so we didn't have to worry about missing a connecting flight.  So within an hour or so we were in the air heading to the sun and surf of New Smyrna Beach FL.

I rather sensed that Ms Donna didn't travel by air very often.  She had her "panic look" all over her face during take off not, to mention her Rosary beads in her hands.  I guess it was the Catholic upbringing that made her resort to praying.  She was sitting across from Paula and I.  Sue was seated in the row in front of me.  Well, that wasn't to bad until I looked over and there she was with a magazine opened on top of her head looking like The Flying Nun.....the poor man in front of her was laughing so hard all we could here was "this was going to be an interesting flight to Florida" they were named the "three sisters" Sister Donna, Sister Sue and Sister Paula!

We landed, picked out our "red" rental car and headed to the Beach to  met up with Charlene at the Condo.  This place was great.  I have never been to a VRBO (vacation rental by owner) before and since Charlene owned the unit it was extra special because she was able to stay with us.  The view was great.  Waking up to the ocean view from our balcony was amazing.  We had a great time sightseeing, renting scoops on the beach, eating and doing more eating, and shopping. On our last day Charlene invited us over to her home and her husband took us all out on the boat and out for lunch and a wonderful boat ride.  Of course it had to start raining but, that didn't dampen our spirits at all. We even seen a few alligators sunning on logs in the little canals leading out to the lake.

We all seemed to have a lot in common and when the girls were reminiscing and looking at high school photos of their classmates it made Paula think of her high schools days and some of the friends that she  haven't heard from or seen since the "good old days."

Our short 5 night visit quickly came to an end and it seemed that on that last day the four of us all went our separate ways.  Paula and I decided the weather was great in Florida so we talked Pat into driving his motorcycle down to New Smyrna Beach and pick us up and continue our adventure south to the Florida Keys.  Sue decided to stay with Charlene and her husband for a few days more and catch a later flight back to Chicago and Ms Donna headed back to Orlando International Airport and had to do the flight home by herself.  I am thinking there wasn't much trouble she could get into by herself!

Florida Keys here we come!  To Be Continued.

Happy New Year to all of my Facebook Friends and Family and for those who read my Blog.  Thank you so much for taking the time, and I hope you enjoy them....

Sincerely,

Gear Bear