Sept 21, Today Sandra and I sat on our kitchen stools and had lunch. Our conversation came around to since wee would be away, how would we be able to vote in the November election? We had requested absentee ballots weeks ago, but nothing in the mail so far. Our plan was that our gardener Chris was going handle the mail for the first 3 weeks, and then the post office would hold our mail after that.  The ballots (we thought) would arrive during that first cycle and Chris could mail them to us. But the ship line told us on the phone that there was no way they could deal with mail coming to the ship in Australia.

There was a story in the paper that the ballots would be mailed on Saturday to those who had requested them, and so we thought--maybe--if we drove to the County building, we could get an early copy.  (That's so unlikely that we were certain we were wasting our time, but armed with our usual youthful exuberance, we set off to joust with the windmills of the county). Well, in we went to the voting office, and there were no other citizens in there, just us and the workers. We explained our situation (out of the country for 6 weeks, missing all the dates to vote etc.) and it was as if the clouds opened and a ray of sunshine struck us--"sure", they said, "we'll print ballots for you and you can vote today!" And they couldn't thank us enough for making the request, since they expected more like us and needed to figure out how they would handle folks who wandered in needing this service. They told us we were No 1 and No 2 to vote in the 2016 election in Sarasota County, Fl. You could have knocked me over with a feather.

Sept 22 The big day is getting closer and my excitement is growing.  Lots to remember, lots to do, we're pretty well packed. I think we've done enough traveling so it should be easy from here on. On the real estate front, I had a closing today and need to submit my check to my broker for him to take his share and give me the rest. I'll do that around 5 as he would rather meet me at his house which is basically through our backyard.  My customer, Mark Thompson was really easy to deal with and is quite the gentleman, if they were all like that I probably would never retire. (but they're not). Now I'm just juggling computers and memory sticks so I'll have my stuff with me. And I'm wondering about the weather in all the different locales we'll visit--I'm packing shorts and jeans and short sleeved shirts and long sleeves and sweaters and jackets, lots of layers since today is the first day of Autumn here and the first day of spring there.