16-146

Mile 408.  A coast to coast walk on this narrow body of land that Satellite Beach sits on.  With the advent of the Intracoastal Waterway, Lou supposes it is now technically an island.  What Tortoise did today was go to the beach one more time with the Ragozzines, then walk back to their house by his usual "let's find a magical mystery tour" route finding method.  Walking thought was by Mary Cook ...

Cheerio!

16-145

Mile 405.  Walked with the Ragozzine grandchildren to the beach as the prepare to say goodbye to Satellite Beach.  How fun has it been for them to be in walking distance to the ocean!  Sure was fun for Grandpa to share this afternoon with them there!  The thought of the day was by Ann Dibb ...

Cheerio!

14-361

Mile 1,012.  A walk around the loop near Sarah and Darin's home to see the Christmas lights, with Sarah, Becca, Benjamin, Abigail and Chloe!  For pictures, today's walking thought by Merrill Bateman, and more, please click below to continue reading ...

Cheerio!

14-360

Mile 1,009.  Tortoise got another walk with Darin, Chloe, and Abigail, and Nathan this afternoon.  This one was in the Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands in Viera, Florida.  For pictures, today's walking thought by Howard Hunter, and more, please click below to continue reading ...

Cheerio!

14-359

Mile 1,006.  Tortoise had a nice Christmas afternoon walk with Darin, Chloe, Abigail, and Nathan through their neighborhood.  For pictures, today's walking thought (again today by Thomas Monson), and more, please click below to continue reading ...

Cheerio!

14-358

Mile 1,003.  Willyne, Benjamin, Becca, and I arrived in Florida this morning for Christmas with the Ragozzines.  We have a long family tradition of doing something fun together on Christmas Eve, generally including bowling.  Sarah broke her toe not long ago, so the conversation went to what would we like to do memorable that didn't include bowling, or anything else tough on that toe.  Turns out just a few minutes from their home is the yearly Surfing Santa event at Cocoa Beach.  In addition to countless surfers wearing red shirts and Santa hats, there were at least twenty Santa skydivers as well.

We arrived at the beach a little after 9.  The skydivers happen at 11, so Tortoise took the opportunity to walk a piece down the beach and back before playing in the water with his grandchildren and watching the Santa fun.  For more pictures and today's walking thought by Thomas Monson, please click below to continue reading ...

Cheerio!

13-242

Lots of Ragozzines visiting Darin's new office at the Florida Institute of Technology.
Seems fitting this family would be employed at www.fit.edu
given how much exercise they do :-)

Today's walks:  0.33 miles that I could measure, plus more inside buildings, in about 30 minutes at Florida Tech.  0.25 miles in 5 minutes at the Melbourne airport when sadness befell us and our 43 hours together ended.  0.75 miles in 15 minutes going from gate E35 to B8 in Charlotte.  No moving walkways.  Lifted my carry-on bags up the stairs in between the moving staircases.  Mr. Tortoise does what he can.  There will be more walking on arrival at LAX, and we wouldn't want to forget at least 0.04 miles from the parking lot to our table at Sonny's for the lunch special.  (So that's 1.37 miles today and 108.25 miles since 6/28) Can't go wrong with the ribs, and we agreed the sweet corn nuggets were the best batch we had ever had.  Thanks to the Ragozzines for that meal, Sarah's oatmeal pancakes with applesauce, strawberries, raspberries, and Florida's Natural Orange Juice for breakfast, green smoothies yesterday, and more.  They have been wonderful hosts!  Here's some more pictures, including some fun gymnastics with Abigail! ...

Cheerio!

13-241

Busily building sand castles.  Mine was a tortoise, of course.  Between Abigail,
Nathan, and the waves, it was soon just a fun memory ...

I got in about a 1 mile walk today, which gave me a walk touching water in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in a 36 hour period.  Pretty fun.  Total walked since 6/28:  106.88 miles.

What was really fun was all the exercise I got giving potato sack and moose rides at the beach and the pool, putting Abigail on my shoulders at Irish Dance so she could see Chloe practicing, lifting Nathan to try to shoot the basketball in the gym next to the Irish Dance studio, reading stories, telling stories, and generally being goofy grandpa.  Not sure we could have done much more in one day.

I also got to ordain Darin a high priest and stand in the circle while he was set apart as a counselor in his bishopric.  There was a sweet spirit and a lot of love there, capping off a terrific day.

You'd like more pictures?  Well, click here, and we'll see what we can do!

Cheerio ...

13-240

Lots of people like me waiting for Egg White Delight McMuffins at 5:15 am  after successfully navigating the LAX security line.  Word to the wise:  You want to arrive at 4 am for a 6 am flight.  Really.

Walked through airports today headed for 43 hours with Sarah, Darin, Nathan, Abby, and Chloe.  I'm pretty excited!  That's 0.5 miles in 10 minutes at LAX.  0.75 miles in 15 minutes at CLT.  0.25 miles in 5 minutes at MLB, for a total of 1.5 miles in 30 minutes.  Total walked since 6/28:  105.88 miles.  Tortoise rating:  6.8.

Here's some pictures on arrival ...

Cheerio!