Visiting Good Friends in Palm Beach Gardens!

Visiting Mike and Debbie!

2/17-2/19
    It was great to visit our good friends, Mike and Debbie Johns!  We became friends when they lived in Tallahassee nearly 40 years ago!  Karl and Mike met at a race and struck up a conversation. They soon started training together and running races.  Our families have been friends ever since, even after they moved to south Florida.  It is hard to believe, but we are all now grandparents!  Mike is doing well, his smile says it all!  We enjoyed spending time with them. He and Karl smoked a cigar together, and we talked about old times!
     We got our dinghy engine serviced.  The impeller was damaged.  The mechanics did a complete service, so we should be good to go now.

The Drawing Room in Whitehall, the Winter Home of Henry Flagler

      We had a rental car, so we went to Palm Beach to visit the Henry Flagler Museum.  This was the winter home of Henry Flagler and his wife.  It is a huge palatial mansion with 75 rooms, 100,000 square feet, decorated in the Gilded Age fashion (Louis XIV and Louis XV style).   Every room was filled with beautiful ornate furnishings, art and gold covered ceilings.  It was built in 1901 and opened to the public in 1960 as a museum.  We learned that at one time, Henry Flagler, along with Rockefeller were the richest men in the world.  They founded Standard Oil company.  Henry Flagler was an important developer in Florida. He built the railway that linked the entire east coast of Florida down to Key West.  He built luxury hotels, including The Breakers, to attract tourists to visit Florida.  He developed over two million acres of land to help establish tourism as the foundation of Florida's economy.  He was phenomenally wealthy.

Whitehall