Thursday left me with some good Central Florida vibes. I was up in time to take a walk before breakfast and enjoy the Live Oaks. Good grief! I could devote an entire post to pictures of these magnificent trees. The temperatures here are still reasonable, and something of the rich, tangy, humid, earthen taste of Florida’s dense vegetation seeped into my senses.

The old, “Live Oak hammock and swamp Florida” has a distinct feel to it, redolent with decay and organic decomposition. Here in Apopka, still at the interface of 19th Century pioneering and Twenty-first Century ultra-modern, you can almost see the difference from one side of the street to the other.

So we ate a relaxed breakfast, played with the grandchildren when they got home from school, then headed over to Winter Park for the rehearsal, the rehearsal dinner, and the “after-party surprise.”

But that’s going to have to be another post. – DEREK