Palm Beach, Florida

While still staying at John Prince Campground, we took a drive north to Palm Beach. My dad use to live in West Palm Beach, before he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. In my early twenties, I came to West Palm Beach to see him. While he and my step mom were at work I would walk across the Royal Palm bridge to go to the beach. My father has since passed away, but I wanted to see if I could find his home. I didn't have an address, just a memory of the house and about where it should be.  I asked God and dad to help me find it. I had Joe drive in the area of where I remembered it to be and looked at the street names, in hopes the street names would ring a bell. Sure enough, after many streets, I saw the street Austin.Ln. I told Joe that sounded familiar. The street went in the opposite direction I remembered it, so we  kept looking for a Austin Ln in the other direction. We couldn't find it, so we went back to the Austin Ln. that we had found. While we were driving down the street, I said to Joe," The number 218, comes to mind". Then I saw his house. It was 281 Austin Ln. I really did not think I would find it. Pretty good for 30 years ago and only visiting him a couple of times. Thank you God and dad for helping me find it.

The upstairs is where my Grandma Freeman lived. The downstairs was either rented out or a garage at the time. The house next to it was my dad's and step mom's home.

Dad and Joan's home. View of side and front.

Picture from the front of the house.

Another view of the rental property and upstairs where my grandmother lived. People were sitting at a table in the lower level watching us as I took the pictures, but I didn't care.

After we found my dad's house, we drove over Royal Palm bridge where I use to walk and went to Palm Beach beach. We had brought Mallery and didn't plan on beach walking. So we just parked out front of the beach and had our sack lunch. Mallery had her dress on, because we were in Palm Beach and we planned to walk around town. We didn't want to be under dressed!

It was very warm that day, and there was no shaded benches.

The beach view while we ate our lunch.

Perpendicular from the beach is Worth Ave. A very upscale shopping area.

This is the sight where a pier once was, but after many storms, it was removed.

If you can't find Worth Ave., go to the beach and locate this clock tower. Worth Ave. is directly down from the tower.

Time to go. Good thing we did not plan on swimming. Parking here is $5 an hour.

After walking around the shopping area for a short while, we called it quits, because it was just to hot to do anything, but beach, walk with water on your feet and an ocean breeze. Both Joe and I were sweating, and Mallery was panting even though she was just riding in her stroller. We got back to the car and drove around instead. This house is at the far end of Worth Ave.

And this one is at the end of Worth Ave.

I also remembered that there was this very nice bike/walking path on Palm Beach along the intercoastal waterway. I told Joe, I wanted to see, if  I could find it. I used to come over here, and walk or ride a bike around the circular route. We found it right after the Royal Palm bridge.It is behind a Art Center.There was free parking in that area.

Unfortunately, even though it had cooled down some, there was lighting close by and it looked to be ready to storm very soon. Plus Joe had worn some sandals that were giving him a blister, so we had to say, "We found it for another day!"

It got dark fast.

It really is a beautiful walk along the water and beautiful homes.

We got back to the car, and I took a final shot of a view from behind the Art center looking toward the intercoastal way and West Palm Beach.

Next Joe wanted to drive to the John D. MaCarthur Beach State Park. We we got there, and just wanted to drive through to see the beach, but we found out that no dogs were allow on the walkway to the beach. Another, " do that another day!"

We decided to head back home on A1A, a longer but nicer drive back though Palm Beach again.

More lovely gates!

When I got home I took Mallery's picture in the tree, that is in our yard.

The tree had a very nice cupped out area between the branches.

" Mom, Enough already"