BOX 206: Florida and Sheboygan.

Does this shot say "Florida" to you? It does to me--it's the house my brother and sister-in-law had had built in Palm Beach Gardens for a vacation/retirement home and, for as long as they still lived primarily in Cleveland, a rental property. They generously offered Anne and me the use of it for a week in August 1997. (When I first posted this, a couple of days ago, I wrote that it was my first visit to Florida, but in fact in 1993 and 1994 I had attended conferences of the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts, held in Fort Lauderdale, an hour south of Palm Beach Gardens; and after the first of these I'd driven down to see Miami Beach. But did I not take any slide photos? There may be a box or two missing (once again).)

We arrived at night from the West Palm Beach airport (a bit south of the house, which was in the large PGA complex with "neighborhoods" scattered among golf courses), so these photos date from the next morning and later. Our favorite feature of the place was the pool in the back. (The more vertical photo shows a typical South Florida winter sky.)

But the interior was very attractive too:

We hardly needed to leave the house to have a good vacation, though we did stroll around the Monterey Pointe complex:

. . . and walked to other complexes, like the Villa d'Este, which had a different design from the others, including several fountains (in homage to its Italian namesake, I imagine). Of course we did go beyond the PGA grounds, notably to the Atlantic Ocean, about 8 miles away. This photo was probably taken at Jupiter Beach, the closest:

I can't say where this next one was taken--East Florida beaches tend to look alike to me (compared to Hawai'i or California) since they are very long north-south stretches of sand:

We also visited the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens some miles to the south. I'm disappointed by my photos, which give little sense of the place, only views of a rock garden and koi-and-turtle pond:

And we drove to ultra-wealthy Palm Beach. Along the coastal road we took note of one mansion with a fancy gate and unusual design features--I am now shocked to discover (after looking for it on Google Images) that it's the ocean side of Mar-a-Lago.

We stopped at the historic (1904) Breakers Hotel. I have no photos of its grand exterior, just a couple showing its elegant dining room.

Back home that fall, I see that I took photos of all three of the kids and some of their friends as they were about to go out to Homecoming festivities. Here is Michelle with her date, Zac, and friends Sheryl and Travis:

And here's Becky with Lucas and a friend of theirs:

Next are a couple of charming pics with Becky and Aron:

Finally, here's one of Becky, who looks like she's tired of having to pose. I've included it because it shows a hanging that my mother-in-law helped the kids make when they were much younger--a "family portrait" that we had hanging on that door for a good number of years.

The rest of my Fall '97 pics are of Michelle. First are a couple of her modeling an outfit for some reason--maybe the jacket was new? These shots were taken closer to Halloween, since the ghost decoration wasn't on the speaker in the Homecoming photos.

And finally, here she is giving one of our cats, Stony, a bath:

I like these photos for their "historical" interest, since they show our main bathroom before it was completely renovated a couple of years later. On the right is a picture I took today from just about the same angle, with another tabby cat, Kona.

My next slides in the box are of our first UW-Sheboygan trip to Europe--what became an annual 9-day student-faculty trip in early January or late March (winter or spring break) for the next decade and a half. Our first European stay was based in Canterbury, Kent, UK, and I'll show the pictures in my next post.