Torreya State Park, Bristol, Florida
When I woke up this morning at 6:15am, it was 55 degrees – – inside! It’s cold in Florida right now, at least in this part of Florida. I have “carpet” now for comfort, out of necessity. Blaine found a moving quilt in the basement that he put over the tile floor. There’s another one in the bedroom. He will have to unhook our water at least a couple of the nights we’re here. I know most of you are experiencing much colder weather, but we’re not totally prepared these days.
To be fair, the reason it’s so cold in the morning is because we refuse to run the coach heat at night due to the noise level. We do have two electric floor heaters we run to keep the temperature up. So we choose – – electric blanket to stay warm at night and deal with some coolness in the morning, or no sleep. Cool is good! I’d still much rather be in cool/cold temperatures than warm/hot! I don’t like it when it gets over 75.
This morning we worshiped at The Chapel in Green, Ohio. Pastor Mike’s teaching on Grace and Faith was, as always, wonderful! We are Christians because God gives us that gift, not because of anything we’ve done to earn it. That’s Grace. Faith is Belief. It’s not knowledge. It’s not based on what we do. Once we believe in Faith, that can never be taken away. We are a child of God. Forever. Just like your child can never stop being your child no matter what they or you do or say, they are still your child. It’s identity. So it is with being a child of God. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is a gift of God. Not by works so that no one can boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9
After church, we ate lunch then took a short hike. I can call it hiking here. They actually have hills and ravines! It’s been pointed out to us several times that the landscape here is very unusual for Florida. But it’s still sand.
Today we walked behind the Gregory House on a trail that points out the Civil War battery that used to be here, built by 137 slaves that the Governor ordered to work on it. Most of the pictures today will be of the story boards along the trail.
We started at the Gregory House
This looks like the picture I took of our front yard. : )
You just can’t see it in the picture – no depth perception – but in person, you can definitely see where the cannons would have been.
We (mostly Blaine) left the trail to check out the river.
This is the way back up
We clocked about 3 miles today. Blaine wanted to get back to watch the play-offs. Of course he was rooting for Jacksonville! No self-respecting Ohio native would ever root for Pittsburgh! And YEAH! Jacksonville won!
Today’s high? 47 degrees. Wednesday we’ll be staying in – with a low of 22 during the night, it’ll be quite a while before it hits the predicted 40 degree high for the day!
TOTAL MILES: 3
Year to Date: 39.25
Daily Average: 2.8