Gardens With Dolphins!

Are you lucky enough to have one of those 'guideposts' in your life who never stops guiding? I am. Teacher, mentor, Drama Coach from my high school days, Phil Stewart remains a dear friend these thirty years later. Phil is happily retired and happily married living with his wife of 8 years, Nancy on Merritt Island in Florida. I was most graciously invited to come and visit them during my first real vacation in many years.

Florida is a place where houseplants got loose outside. Giant philodendrons are flourishing where the taxus bushes should be, azaleas are blooming in December, and scheffleras are pretending to be rhododendrons. The squirrels swing from the spanish moss-draped live oaks like monkeys, and lizards pose on the walls to have their pictures taken. Things fly through the air around here that are SO huge, they shouldn't be ABLE to fly and Chinese Fan palms are roadside weeds. The St. Augustine grass is doing its best to knit all the escaped houseplants together, but it's having a hard time acting like a lawn, and it doesn't seem to LIKE being perpetually mulched with giant pine needles.

The oddity of the plants all around me actually added to my ability to rest. I was looking, but not responding, it was just too strange.

The hoped-for highlight of this little three and a half day vacation was to be a sailing trip on Indian River which is actually more of a HUGE lagoon between the mainland and the first barrier reef. The Saturday afternoon after Christmas proved to be a perfect day for sailing - warm sun, not a cloud in the sky and a nice breeze.

The marina looked like a movie set with huge ropes on planted pier pilings landscaped with giant houseplants. I was most uneasy standing on the narrow pier that moved too easily and had to hold onto both Phil and the rental guy to get into the boat. I looked around at the sailboat and realized that I was utterly CLUELESS as to how all this works. I asked that Phil not give me any instructions in words I don't understand - he laughed.

With outboard motor going, we maneuver out of the marina. Phil points out pelicans sitting on the pilings. They are sitting SO still with beaks tucked so neatly down that I'm sure they're wood carvings, that Phil is pulling my leg until one of them moves! Good lord, they ARE real!

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