Day 17 - Bradenton FL - Wed 2 July 2014 No Miles today

  I will call this one a dead day, more on that later.  I am at Col. Bud and G. Lee Jone's house.  Bud was my Wing Commander at Cannon AFB in New Mexico flying F-111s.  I became his Wing Exec and a great relationship started right there.  He got out of the military in 1988 and has run a Landscape  and Nursery business since then and has a beautiful house on 7.5 acres out in the Florida countryside. He raises many of the plants he landscapes with right here on this property, so it's like living in a lush jungle with a house snuggled into the picture:

   This house was built with new styrofoam blocks and insulates itself in this FL heat! The inside is equally beautiful:

Ms G. Lee in her throne chair.  This is where she sits "until that thought passes" ;-)

Bud Jones relaxing

The formal living room

Kitchen

Dining room

And my room for the time being ;-)  No hotel is this nice!!!

   Well, I slept in that bed till 7 this morning and a great sleep did I have!  It was a long hot day yesterday and I needed the rest.  I saw G. Lee for the first time as I got here too late for her last night.  She was out the door for an appointment, so Bud and I had a snack for breakfast.

   Bud wanted to visit this new Veteran's Cemetery in Sarasoda this week and I said I would love to go with him.  We left  and headed south about 11:30.  Both of us hungry, we stopped at Brian's Seafood and what a great place for fresh fish!

   This was the countryside, defiantly different than yesterday . . .

   You know it's going to be good when it is also a seafood market!

Bud ready to put the feed bag on!!!

  We sat by this hugh fish tank with all sorts of salt water fish

Mr Ell

Mr. Oh I'm glad to meet ya!

 Mr Ugly!!!

and Mr Bud, wondering where I disappeared to . .   ;-)

   We had a great meal of fresh shrimp and Grouper for me and Bud had fried oysters. . .  On the way out, I'd thought I'd take a few pictures of the seafood market:

 

and for Snake and Bart

   We left the restruant and just about across the street was this famous statue

  These were shot from the car moving, so they aren't the best, but the thing is HUGE. . .  You can see the people in the first pic to judge size

  We then hit the road for the cemetery:

  This huge structure was just dedicated to Veterans Sunday, 30 June 2014.  Except for Arlington in DC, this is the most beautiful place I've seen for a cemetery.  Here are a few shots:

There were these oblisks all over the place with wonderful pictures on them  Here are some of my favorites:

  This one was for Nick

Vietnam Days

  As we walked around this place, right behind the big Plaza, there  were just a few of the thousands of internment boxes for the urns.

I thought this one was cool.  In stead of flowers, someone had tee'd up a Titlest 2 for the next game up there!

You could choose to be cremated or buried whole, in a casket, out in the ground proper.  It's your choice.

  As we walked around, there was a funeral going on for the next Marine reporting in . . .

And he was friends with a motorcycle club, and all his buddies showed up.  They all had flags on their bikes and it was cool to watch:

They do look good, don't they?

  Bud's father-in-law is buried in this cemetery, so we had to figure out where.  We went to the visitors center and outside was a computer.  With a few taps, we found him and the thing prints you a map of where he lives in this huge place:

Willis Adams, G. Lee's dad was in section 13, plot 849.  After driving to that section of the cemetery, right beside the POW Memorial, we found the section and the search began:

I asked Bud to put his hand on his sholder ;-)

   This mission complete, we headed home for a well needed nap.  Next on the agenda was Dinner with G. Lee.  They picked a place called Dericks

And the first guy I saw, I asked, being funny, "Hey, are you Derrick?" and he said, "Well, yes I am!"

  We proceeded to have a fantastic meal, I had fresh shrimp in an Anjoille Sausage sauce on top of cheesy grits, 

Ummm good, and G. Lee had a steak:

  And Bud had some Bouillabaisse:

  Bart would have loved this one.  You can't tell how big this was, but it was . . .

   The Jone's and your's truly!

For Jenn, the street was on Manatee Ave ;-)

After coming home, talking for a couple of hours, showing oictures and You Tube videos, G Lee crashed, and Bud and I continued on into the night.  After he went to bed, I had to write this and it's now 2:52 am . . . YIKES!!!!

Night Night all

LUKE  Out!!