Jupiter and the Palm Beaches area

Br-r-r-r-r-r-r, its cold here. Our low is 42F this morning, and yesterday only got up to 63F with a very chilly breeze. Now some might say that those temps are rather warm, but I guess when

you expect it to be warmer and it isn't then the chill hits you even more.

Actually though it is not bad, it is just much cooler than we expected in this area, and at least it is nice and sunny. I can never recall it being anywhere close to this cold in the previous years that we lived here, and even the years prior to that when I flew in on business. I think that this will likely be a record-breaker for the state of Florida and especially south Florida.

We left Hollywood, FL yesterday morning and stayed over in Jupiter (the "old haunts" - our prior residence in Florida about 12 years back), and today we are in Port St. Lucie, FL, about 20 miles north of Jupiter.

As Marilyn and I are quite familiar with this area, having lived here, we notice things that are the same, yet there has been a significant amount of change also. More growth and expansion; and very noticeable is the increased traffic; new housing tracts; some two-lane roads that have been widened to four-lanes; new shopping/strip malls; and the beat goes on. It remains though a very clean and well maintained area. And of course all the water is still here and as inviting as always (although it would be a mite more inviting if it were a little warmer).

Marilyn and I took a drive by the "old homestead" (our prior place of residence in Jupiter) yesterday and again very much the same, yet some significant changes have been made. The most notable was that the house has been repainted and with a different color scheme, and a few trees have been removed. But all in all, it was still very nice and appealing in our humble opinion. We enjoyed our time along the Loxahatchee River, and we have many great memories from our time in Jupiter and the Palm Beaches area.

Today we had lunch at one of our "old favorites" - 'Panama Hatties' on the water in Palm Beach Gardens. It is still a very good place to sit out along the water, break some bread and relax.

And we spent time looking and walking through different areas at a number of the places that we recall from the 'old days'. And that in itself was a lot of fun.

Tomorrow we are going into Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, and the PGA National, where we plan to visit with some old friends there.