Experience, Learn, and Love Life

Sunday, October 12, 2014

12 October 2014 - Starting home

This morning, being Sunday, we followed our usual pattern and sought out a local ward to visit so that we could attend Sacrament Meeting.  Love the Church's website.  I was able to locate the nearest ward, the Homestead Ward of the South Miami Stake. It was only a short distance away and we were able to drive right to it.  We had packed up all our things because, as we looked at time and distance, we felt we needed to put some miles behind us today so that we were not pushing too hard to get home. 
The building was lovely and located near the outskirts of Homestead, in some agricultural and suburban areas. 
 

We got there right on time to attend the Sacrament Meeting.  We found a pew and sat down and a lovely sister introduced herself and then suggested to us that we pick up a receiver and headset for each of us, as the meeting was going to be bilingual, in both English and Spanish.  The Ward is a mix of white, Hispanic and Black.  We enjoyed the meeting and they had a brother sitting on the stand, off to the side and back doing the translating.  If the talk was in English, he translated to Spanish and if in Spanish, he did it in English. You only had to choose whether to wear the headset or not.  They had hymnbooks in the pew racks in both languages.  You could sing in either one.  The translator would sing the hymn in Spanish, not always in tune, but a nice try.  I sang the first 2 hymns in English and then tried to do the interim hymn and closing hymn in Spanish.  I am sure my pronunciation was not the greatest, but it was fun to try.   The Counselor in the Bishopric made announcements and conducted switching back and forth between the tongues.  We used the headsets and were glad we did.

The Sacrament prayers were in English for the
 bread and Spanish for the water.  I really enjoyed the meeting and we even had little children in front of us who wanted to hand things to us and then take them back, dropped binkies on the floor and tried to grab the sacrament trays.  Just like home.

After the meeting we went out to the car and started to head north.  As we were driving toward the Florida Turnpike, we passed some fields and plants which intrigued us.  At first I thought we were seeing avocado trees, but on closer inspection I could not tell what the fruit is.  Look at the pictures and see if you can tell.

Planted in rows and looking like tropical plants with the fruit hanging from stems attached to the trunk of the tree.  The fruit is of different sizes at the same time as if each piece is developing independently.











To me they are not bread fruit and do not look like avocados and the skin is not smooth or pebbly like you find on the 2 types of avocados found in the stores.  The large fruits are the size of footballs. If you know what this is, let me know.


We also passed some palms that I thought might be date palms, but the fruit hanging down was not dates.  It is some sort of palm fruit but I do not know if it has any specific agricultural value.  If  you know about this also, please let me know.  My curiosity is aroused.





At the same location we found a tree, growing by itself which did not appear to be part of the farm or cultivated area.  It had a fruit or nut growing on it as well.  It is a bit bigger than a ping pong ball, with slightly fuzzy skin and faintly lobulated appearance. I got out and reached out to hold one and it came right off the tree with the stem attached, just as if a ripe pear would do.  It was also a mystery fruit or nut.  We kept the one I picked and if we can get hit home intact, perhaps we can ferret out this conundrum as well.






I have included photos of the fruit and the tree as well, if it is helpful.











After this encounter we drove onto the turnpike and put the pedal to the metal.

We drove for about 4 1/2 hours, stopping only for bathroom breaks and tonight have found a place to stay in Ocala, Fl.  We had a nice dinner and will try to get a good sleep and head further north and west tomorrow.  We plan to go up to I-70, west to Denver and then north to I-80 and home.  We think this route may give us the best opportunity to see changing leaves in Georgia, Tennessee and Missouri.  We will not try to go as fast as possible, but enjoy the return drive.

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