Life seems to be settling back into its normal steady hum of routine. I’ve been making soup and bread. Two things we missed on our trip.

It’s been a smooth transition for the most part, but I did wake up a couple of nights ago in the middle of the night. In the haze of sleep, I wondered what hotel we were in and where the bathroom was located. We were in a lot of different hotels on this trip!

Happily, when I think of the trip, I don’t dwell on the long hours in the car. I think of the alligator lazily swimming at Corkscrew Swamp. I remember the almost magical natural sculptures on Driftwood Beach at the tip of Jekyll Island. And the peace of Horton Pond where we were captivated by turtles and two alligators sunning on a platform in the middle of the pond.

I’m not a camper, and long hikes have never had appeal, but the time we spent in natural surroundings were the times that stand out in my mind. I loved the Naples Botanical Gardens, and the gardens and coastline of the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, in addition to the Audubon Sanctuary at Corkscrew Swamp, and Horton Pond and Driftwood Beach on Jekyll Island, GA.

Perhaps I already knew this about myself, but this trip reinforced that I respond happily to settings of natural beauty. I would rather see an alligator in a pond than a picture of an alligator on a museum wall.