My lower lip is on the floor, as Bill Cosby used to say.

A few days ago, I lost part of a filling, so yesterday I called a dentist in Palm Beach Gardens, and they were able to squeeze me in today. Consequently, we parked here at Jonathan Dickinson State Park (map), the closest park to the dentist's office. We booked two nights, tonight being the second. Unfortunately, I need more work than the dentist could do in one visit, so I need to go back tomorrow. The park was happy to extend our stay for another night, so we will be leaving here on Thursday.

The bugs that ate us alive Sunday night a few miles north of here included, apparently, chiggers. I say this because Louise has symptoms of multiple chigger bites -- she looks like she has some sort of pox. Moreover, the itching is driving her nuts, and she spent most of today in bed. We're hoping that most of the swelling and itching subsides before we leave Sunday on our cruise. I did mention the cruise, right? Oh dear... I'd better explain:

OK, since this will be our first Christmas "on the road," we decided to ease the holiday burden (you know, decorating, making visitis, etc.) by skipping the country -- we got a smokin' deal on a Holland America Caribbean sailing out of Ft. Lauderdale over the Christmas week. We need to be in Arcadia on the 29th, and we wanted to be in Florida by now anyway just to get out of the weather, so the timing was ideal for a sailing out of south Florida. So we're going to kennel the pets, park the coach at a secure facility near the pier, and kick back. The MS Oosterdam sets sail on Sunday the 19th from Port Everglades, but we will need to be in the area by Friday night, because the kennel closes early Saturday morning. We return the day after Christmas, whereupon we will pick the pets back up and be on our merry way.