Hey All,

As you can figure out from this post I made it safely to the Pensacola Naval Air Station RV Park at around 4:30 PM today.  This is after getting up at 2:30 AM from the hotel in Oklahoma this morning and then getting on the road from there at around 3:30 AM.  So actually drove for a total of 13 hours so far today.  Howevwer, after my  brief visit here, still have about another 1 hour 20 minutes drive bak to my brother’s house in the Fort Walton Beach area. So total driving time today will actually be a little over 14 hours!

The large seperate photo above shows you where I affixed the framed photo of Terry on the memorial wall in the RV Park Clubhouse at Pensacola Naval Air Station.  Along with the photo of Terry, I made a copy of Jodi’s “A Yellow Canary Named Terry” water-color painting as well as the poem thay I wrote about Terry to complement Jodi’s painting and placed these twp thimgs immediately below Terry’s photo. Now everyone that continues to come to this park year after year will be constantly reminded of the fond memories of Terry’s past presence here, sp he’ll never be forgotten.

I felt that making this brief stop to Pensacola NAS was very important to me as it was really the initial place that we started Terry’s intense measures with trying to fight his dreaded cancer.  It was during those times back then that Terry was sometimes able to participate in social events with the RV park group of friends that we had made there and at other times Terry was just too tired or weak to participate.  The important thing for me was that this RV Group at the Naval Air Station really became my initial support group.  I could always count on these folks to give me words of encouragement when I needed it or to offer me any assistance that I might have needed while here in caring for Terry.  They were also there to lend me an ear when I just needed to talk to someone or to vent.  Since the clubhouse was so close to the orginal location of our RV in the park (only about a 1 minute walk by foot) I often tried to stop in at our 4 PM Happy Hour (evenif just for a short time).  For the most part, this became the highlight of my social activiies while in Pensacola as this clubhouse was conveniently located and did not require me to do a lot of planning, especially never really knowing how Terry’s day would turn out in terms of being able to get out and to do something.

In the photos and videos of the group that I took today….this is only a representative sample of some of the folks that I got to know from last year that have returned back here for the new winter season.  There are still a bunch of other folks that at the current time of my visit today are either still away with family members for the recent Holidays, or have  have not arrived as yet to this park for the upcomming winter season, or there are others that just aren’t comming back this year due to unaticipated illinesses or other priorities to attend to this year. Despite the fact that everyone we knew are not fully back here yet, it was so nice to spend a few hours with my firends that were present and to get an update on what they have been doing, or likewise to update then about me and to just reminice about the past good times we had together from last season at dinners, pot lucks, kareoke nights or other special events.  I really enjoyed stopping by.

As of the writing of this blog, it is now about 4 AM and I have awakened at my borther’s home in Fort Walton Beach, Fl doing this blog so naturally I got here safely last night after my short visit this evening visiting with my frineds in the RV park in Pensacola.

Okay, going back to bed, as I am naturally still a bit tired from long travels.

Have a great day !

Gary