Warm Ocean Breezes

We enjoyed a few days in the warmer part of the country as we got to travel to Palm Beach for one of Jo's business meetings.  All the travel connections worked perfectly and in less than 5 hours we went from 40 degree weather to a balmy 80 degrees with a lovely breeze coming in off the ocean.  It was really nice to trade our turtlenecks and sweaters for a few days in shorts and T-shirts.  We stayed at the Breakers hotel which is right on the beach.  The meeting was the annual conference with Northwestern Mutual's managing partners and there were multiple dinners with way to many courses and very tempting fancy and calorie laden desserts.  We both will need to start diets to shed four days worth of eating too much.

While there we enjoyed a day of shopping on Worth Avenue - although we window shopped since neither of us could pay $6,000 for a dress.  Yes for the price of a car (although a somewhat stripped down one) you can own one dress that didn't even come to Jo's knees.  It was still fun to walk around and see the shops and wonder about folks that have that kind of money to burn.  We also toured the marinas to gape at the massive boats (or are they ships once they are that large? I'm not sure where the transition from boat to ship begins).  No boats with helicopters that we saw, but still several way larger than our current home.  We also toured Whitehall, the mansion that the "Founder" of Palm Beach (that was Henry Flagler for those not in the know on Palm Beach) purchased for his second wife as a wedding gift (kind of made the small strand of pearls I gave Jo for her wedding gift pale in comparison - guess I needed to think bigger; or maybe a house is the usual gift for second wives, fortunately not an issue I've had to address).  Quite a house when you figure the first room you come in is the size of our current and first house combined!  We had a lovely day and ended it with a sandwich from the local Publix grocery store - which had valet parking!!  Only in Palm Beach.

We got home on Friday and spent the weekend catching up on home chores and resting up.  Jo has been on the road for two solid weeks with the NCAA, her trip to New Orleans, and Palm Beach, so she was ready for some decompression time at home.  On a sad note, we finished the last of the Papa Del's pizza we had brought back from our trip to Illinois last October.  Now it is back to our homemade version.