Yesterday was door to door work for the McCain campaign all around concrete and asphalt. Early this morning was a 3 mile hike at Silver Glen Springs under trees and fresh air lead by Sandra. I was the “Sweep”, the person at the end making sure everyone is accounted for. This hike was part of the Springs Festival. A very good crowd showed for the early morning hike. Above is one of the sketches I drew during the hike.

 Made a trip into Gainesville to pick up materials for the McCain campaign. Quickly sketched these University of Florida students waiting for the light to change, as I was, at a Gainesville corner.

After running around for the McCain campaign, I headed over to the Springs Festival dinner for sponsors, the Springs Festival committee and politicians at Silver Springs. Sandra has been gone in Southwest Florida this past week working on stories and updating a book. She had driven from there to be at the dinner.

There were a number of speakers. Below is one of those continuing to sducate us about the fragility of our water supply in Florida.

A brilliant gag by my buddy, Ken Culotta. I wanted more color in this, but the situation is so dour and New York is such a dark, grey, colorless mess unable to move it’s thought pattern from the 1950s, how else can the nightmare be portrayed.

The actions President Bush, Brenanke, Paulson and company are taking are the worse I would expect by Obama. I have been trying to point out that it’s Obama that’s a continuation of the Bush Administration, noy McCain. These insane anti-American free market moves are concrete proof of that.

I can’t deny Big Brother Business’ strangled hold on the White House. I’ve kept hoping the President would stop socializing our country, but he’s endorsing the worse that can be done. This stuff has had me very unhappy and probably has contributed to generally not feeling well the past week. I expect better of a President, especially one that claims to be a Republican.

I attended the Orlando Remembered meeting this morning at the Citrus Club. Below are sketches. Above is Claude Hunter. Below is Corb Sarchet and, 90 years young, Mayor Carl Langford. He told the crowd that if you can reach 90, he reccomends it.

Here is what the great Bill Coleman is up to these days. Bill, after being a valiant warrior in WWII and a life of political work, he is now volunteering watching the streets of Orlando as a Citizen on Patrol. Go get ‘em, Bill!

Also we got a photo taken of the group for the Orlando Remembered website, which is below.

My frustration is hard to say involving the sickening way the U.S. government is piercing the free market. Seeing the stock market drop at least is an indicator some are coming to the reality I live. Hopefully it goes under 1,000 and our savings growth is astronomical.

After the Dlorida Outdoor Writers Association meeting, I made my way north home out of Punta Gorda. sandra went south towards Fort Myers to research an artible and update her travel guides.

I was also on a mission to photograph as much of Genuine Florida as I could. Click here to see a small bit about the murals of Punta Gorda I photographed. I took US 17 north, what would be considered the looooong way home. I zigged and zagged in and out of all sorts of nearly lost communities in our great state of Florida. I took photos in places like Fort Ogden, Nocatee, Brownsville all the way to Bartow. After eight hours of stopping and starting and running around with the camera the sun settled as I tried to get all the photos I could in Bartow at the Oak Hill Cemetary where a hero of mine, Jacob Summerlin, is buried. With the sun out the two and a half hours home was more of a straight shot up US17, 98 to 75.

One of the longest stops I made was in Arcadia where at one time the wildest of Florida’s wild west was enacted. Of the many stops, one was at Crackerhouse Books. Dan, the owner has restored a historic home and has a terrific variety of books. Below are two great covers. One is by the swashbuckling actor Errol Flynn. The other is a classic Florida book by Robert Wilder. I have the hardcover, but didn’t know about the softcover.

We wrapped up our Punta Gorda trip by running around Punta Gorda taking notes and taking pictures for a few hours. Most of the photos will end up on the Genuine Florida Blog. Others will be in Sandra’s books.

Later we attended the closing night awards dinner of FOWA. Sandra won two! She tends to come home with awards from wherever she goes. Below are sketches from the dinner.

Above our sketches from a wading trip Sandra and I took with a group from FOWA off the Charolotte County coast. Later we went on a swamp bus tour of the Babcock Ranch. Below are sketches from that trip ,while we were on the bus.

Sandra gave a talk on how to greate a guide book to the Florida Outdoor Writers Association today. While I monitored her slide show, I sketched her above.

After that I drew a few caricatures for the Marion County Covention and Visitors Bureau.

Later we were at another FOWA dinner. Below are sketches of other attendees.

Sandra and I headed over to Boca Grande and spent most of the day exploring the island. Amongst the stops was to the Boca Grande lighthouse historical site. I sketched two park employees discussing something over a railing.

Later that afternoon we joined the beginning of the Florida Outdoor Writer’s Association annual meeting in Punta Gorda. At the dinner that night we sat besides fellow artists Linda and Keith Johns. The speakers at the dinner kept talking about IGFA. Linda, Keith and I were trying to figure out what the letters meant. Linda came up with the International Golf Fishing Association. So I made the drawing below at the dinner. What does IGFA really mean? Click here to find out.