Sandra and I made our way through Palm Beach County to visit a few parks in the area. We started off at Serenoa Glade Park. The posey below is from there.

From there we visited Sugar Sand Park. The sketch to the right is of a very rare plant sprouting from a sabal palm. We also stopped at Blazing Star Preserve.

The film above was shot at Grassy Water Preserve. Below is the sketch I made.

On the way home we saw this was the weather we encountered.

Picked up brochures with the artwork included last Friday, the 19th, from a new used book store on Bumby Avenue in Orlando. Thought you all would enjoy them.

All are from boating brochures involving Florida. I use like this art and wish more brochures had it today. We stood in the Welcome to Florida building on US 95 a couple weeks ago. Throughout the facility there was no illustrative artwork to be found on the brochures. Almost all photographs and digital graphics. The very few exceptions included one by me of the history of movies in Florida.

Sandra and Rob made their way to the Suncoast Inkslingers meeting in Pinellas County. It was held at writer Sandy and brainy scientist/bass choral singer Bill Huff’s large property.

Above is a film of Rob cartooning a suggestion by Ron Johnson at the meeting. Sandy Huff broke open a pile of sketch pads and colored pencils. Rob took advantage of them. Under the film is the drawing Rob drew. Ron is telling a story of an interesting encounter, if you can hear it.

Below is a photo of some attendees: Kurt Wright, Jim and Dan Smith.

Two more Florida based mysteries read. One of Mignon Eberhart’s Tampa Bay novels and a later Miami-based Mike Shayne mystery. Eberhart writes of a fictious Florida County on the east coast with a pretty good understanding of the area. The Shayne novel is after the actual series by Dave Dresser. This one stays pretty true to the original series, just with curse words. I veered into one of Vince Flynn’s latest, ‘Protect and Defend’. Another good thriller.

Was at the Ormond Beach Memorial Art Museum at their annual fundraiser.

Sandra and I went down to Punta Gorda to review a number of places for one of Sandra’s travel guides. Jennifer Huber, with the visitor bureau was kind enough to meet us for dinner at an interesting Mediterranean restaurant and then to a wonderful 1910 building that houses an ice cream shop, Chubby’s. Above is a sketch of the are underneath the porch of the 1910 structure.

We also covered the new Muscle Car City. It’s a museum of ‘muscle cars’. The most incredible part is that it’s in an old Wal-Mart building. See photos at Genuine Floria, by clicking here.

We later had some excellent seafood at Peace River Seafood and then Sandra and I made a return trip to Chubbys.

Wednesday we started off with breakfast at Brenda’s Restaurant, which also houses the Masons.  Brenda lost her original place because of Hurricane Charley in 2004 and the Masons were very kind to let her move in and save her business. Which clearly is a large and loyal one.

Then we continued on to hiking parts of the Babcock Rance. Below is a sketch of what’s left of a tree.

We made our way south out of Charlotte County and stopped in Bradenton and toured Robinson’s Preserve, along Tampa Bay and across from the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. Collectively we hiked 7 plus miles. Below is a sketch from there. We had hoped to stop at the infamous Shake Pit, but is had closed early. Instead we took US41 south through Ruskin and Gibsonton, Sun City Center and Tampa. We stopped in Temple Terrace and had some vittles at the Dairy Queen.

Three more books read. Another exciting Vince Flynn Mitch Rapp book finished. Ready for another one!

But I wanted to get a James Lee Burke novel wrapped as I knew I was seeing my good friend Jeff Parker, who has often recommended the author. Rob, the coffee shop fellow, warned me I wouldn’t like it. He was right. The main character was reeeeeeaaal depressing and I didn’t like him or much of anyone else in the book. In that way, it reminded me of Randy Wayne White.

I went back to reading through the Laurence Will series. This time ‘Okeechobee Catfishing’. It’s a history of catfishing in Lake Okeechobee in it’s prime years of 1900 to 1920. A lot of repetition of stories from earlier books, but still fun stories and fine information is included.