Gain And Loss     01/26-30/23

Rainbow Springs State Park, Dunnellon, Florida

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses… ~ Hebrews 12:1

This verse is preceded by Chapter 11 of Hebrews about the “Hall of Faith”.

It was with great sorrow that I returned home only to hear that Blaine’s dad’s younger sister, Sandi had gone Home the first night I was home with Blaine.  She’d been ill for a while and it was God’s blessing that He brought her to be with Him, but we lost a wonderful Godly wife, mother, grandmother, aunt and friend. Her joy for life and those she knew will continue to affect all of us. We are all looking forward to the day when we’ll see her again!  What a day of rejoicing that will be!

Ron carrying his little sisters, Sandi and Sherri during his paper route days. : )
Sandi and Bill, her husband of 30 years

The rest of our January days found both me and Blaine mourning as well as me recuperating.  I didn’t expect to be so out of it!  One of my friends said it’s because all that adrenaline and Holy Spirit power I was running on evaporated, leaving me spent for several days.  But Blaine was an angel of mercy during that time.  Just one more reason I’m so very blessed in this life!  He took wonderful care of me and allowed me to move slowly and at my own pace to get back to our normal active lifestyle.  I seem to recall doing little else but sleeping for two days.  😊

There were a few things we did with the remainder of our stay at Rainbow Springs – walking, kayaking and attending Dunnellon Baptist Church (nice place, but we caught them on a 5th Sunday and the Pastor was extoling the blessings of giving toward their expansion project 😊).

I took few pictures, but here are the ones I have from five days in the Park:

An easy bike around some areas of the Park.
This is a private home, but it was set so far back from the gravel road, you couldn’t see it.
They have some Rainbow Springs history in their Park Office. Enjoy!
Ha! There were other pictures like this, but they had too much glare for my phone to pick up.
After lunch, Blaine took me on a bike tour of the wooded paths.
Matthew was so excited to go hiking in the wet with his dad! This was also on Sunday.
We’re on Monday now.
An easy paddle day.
We saw an otter!!!! That’s his little face staring at us! He actually poked his head up to eyeball us several times. One of those times I wish we had a wildlife camera.
The crystal clear waters of Rainbow Springs.
These reflective pictures show how Rainbow Springs got its name. : )
So beautiful!!
Only those from our old Summit Sunday School/ABF class will understand why I took this picture.
It seems the fisherman has made it to Florida, Gail!
We went back out after dinner for an evening paddle.
There were a bunch of ducks here, but it’s dark and you can’t see them very well.
Here’s my picture.
Doesn’t look much different from Blaine’s, does it?
…..I blew out my flipflop….
So Blaine had to walk back and get the boat-transporting cart they have at the Park for people to use.
That’s him in the picture – in the dark. : )
It’s really too bad, but I’ve had those flipflops for at least a decade.
I thought I paid too much for them, but at $1/year, I’d say I got more than my monies worth out of ’em!
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