January 2026

Maxwell Joins the Crew

Team Tortuga Brings a Cat Onboard

Well!  2025 is finally finished.  We have high hopes that 2026 will be a better year; more fun, more rewarding, and filled with more happy moments.  We suspect you may have similar thoughts.  

For the last three months of the year we have been quite happily settled here in our park in rural southern Alabama; enjoying the flowers and birds.  We got back on October first while the weather was still quite hot, but managed pretty well; soon it became much more pleasant.  The magnolias were in prolific bloom and the birds were fighting for position at the feeder.  It was great.

We got back into our routine of time together at the gym, doing yoga classes and spending time in the pool, Kathy walking and riding her bike here in the park, and Rick putting in extra hours exercising back at the gym.

We both feel we are making some slow progress towards better health, although it will surely be a long haul.

This last year was a fairly quiet one for us.  In messages to you earlier we’ve talked about our travels west and north of here.  We hadn’t actually intended to get all the way to the West Coast, but ended there anyway, and very much enjoyed that trip.  

We spent a small amount of time in western Canada along the way, meeting up with a German friend who was exploring that area.  We had first met Diana in Australia back in 2017 and had stayed in touch.  She was going to explore some of western  Canada in the fall, and we managed to cross paths a bit east of Vancouver.  Best news of all?  She’s planning a return trip in March, and after picking up the vehicle she had stored between-times, might even be able to head down to Alabama shortly after arrival.  So we might get to see her again soon.  Yay!