A Checkup On Luann's Knee
Geo-Canoeing With Karen At Howard Park
We paddled 3.87 miles, chasing down 6 geocaches. 
The route we took and I'll explain some of the points of interest I marked on this track I pulled from my GPS...
Here we are, setting off for our first kayak / canoe geocache...
It looked like the first one is accessible from the open water side, so we got out and around to try and reach it.
Unfortunately, it looks like #1 is is actually along a kayak trail we must have passed by.
So, we made our way around this blue heron and dove back into the kayak trails.
Pushed our way deep into the mangroves...
...and came nose-to-nose with this sizable snake. It was tough to remain focused with this big guy nearby, so we figured we would come back for it later.
This is what our quarry looks like. We need to find 6 of these so we can find the codes and put them together in order to find the final cache.
The codes are written inside the caps of the containers and as you can see, I removed the code to keep from giving it away.
Mahalo! Our Florida Wahini says hello...
Looks like Karen found another one in the trees...
When we moved out to the open water side again, I came across this welk eating this smaller, unfortunate critter.
The on-the-roof setup we used to get the canoe here and back.
Yeah, it might look funky, but it sure did the job for us.
After we finished with the kayak caches, we looked for a couple of other caches in Tarpon Springs nearby. Karen was intrigued by the monument and spent some time reading it.
Well, that was our trip to Howard Park and the surrounding areas, who knows when we'll try another kayak / canoe cache? We'll see...
Luann Had Surgery On Her Knee
Luann had to go in for surgery on her right knee because it had been hurting more and more. She saw a specialist that tried an anti-inflammatory drug regimen that didn't work, next was a cortizone injection that also didn't do anything before finally scheduling her for the surgery. The work that was done is called a Partial Meniscectomy, where part of the cartilage in the knee that has been torn is removed, then a procedure called Petellar Chondroplasty was performed to encourage the formation of fibrous cartilage in the knee as an aid to healing. 
Here's a picture of her knee, all wrapped up. It didn't seem to be a good idea to take pictures while we were at the surgical center, so this is all I have...
Ren-Fest, Geocaching & The Moon
Here is a backlog of our activities and photography over the last week or two.
Time to head over to the Rennaisance-Faire. Got your tail on?
Katrina & Bradley working the soda booth (and a photo-bomber in the background).
Look at that smile. I'm sure the stout in the mug contributed a little...
Back at the kids again. "Are You Being Served?"
Trying on a bauble or two...
I always love the birds of prey, but this is the first time that we have seen owls there. Wow, look at the eyes...
And man, look at this one too.
Say "Hello" to this very alert kestrel.
Don't forget to say hello to our family tree-hugger too!
Whoa! You have to remain alert around those birds! You never know when one will want to land on your arm while you're not looking...
Gotcha!
Well, it's time to go. I often complain to Luann that she typically cuts off people's feet when she takes their picture, so the girls held their feet up to make sure they were in the photo too.
This photo was taken as the moon was setting on the morning we went to the seashore to do a CITO (Cache In, Trash Out) event for geocaching. As the moon was setting, it became dark red, or what is know as a 'blood moon'.
The walkway to the beach.
Here we are standing around at the muster area, getting our instructions from Captain Biggins (the moon has gone down and the sun is coming up).
Time to grab our trash collecting gear and head out.
Ok, Captain Biggins, this one's full. Now what do we do with it?
Well, it's time to head over to the Ren-Faire again, to meet up with Cerise & Jason and Jason's son.
This is the Sword In The Stone feature at Ren-Faire. Jason's son is intently focused on his task.
Next, he hung out with a man-tree. Looks like he's learning to smoke at an early age. Actually, I think the man-tree is on fire!
This is a new installation for this year, which is basically a living statue that is also part water fountain. A nice touch.
How about a little throwing-star practice? Looks like fun...
Next was a ride in the human-powered swinging barrel. Look at that smirk. He knows he's gonna have some fun.
We have now come to the creepy-crawly portion of our show. This spider was crawling around on my arm so when it stopped on my finger, I had Luann take this close-up photo.
At this point, we have left the Ren-Faire and I noticed this bee on the tire of the van. The eyes really had me wondering because they look more like a dragonfly's eyes than a bee's, so I looked it up on th einternet and this is a carpenter bee. Interesting...
This photo of the moon was taken the next morning on Sunday where Luann and I got up early to do a moon-set / sun-rise photoshoot on the Courtney Campbell Causeway. This shot was taken with her camera. I really like the zoom lens on that thing...
Here is a shot I got.
Then Luann turned around and got a picture of a rocket launch. We had no idea this was going up at this time.
The moon-set, which is what we came for.
Another moon-set picture, but pulled back.
Hi Luann! Well, the sun has come up, it's time to go...
And, we jump over to the next weekend where Karen, Parris and I went geocaching after installing a new dishwasher. We took in the view from this dock before starting on our geo-journey.
We came across this 'flume' of running water near the first cache location. It was weird to see that the area was choked with oysters.
It looks like we found another one, as Parris inspects the contents while Karen signs the logbook.
Time to relax a little after finding 5 caches in this park. It looks like PArris and Karen are getting along pretty well.
Ok, the sun is going down on us. Time to head home... Until next time.
Here is a view of the doctor's handiwork. The blue pen 'artwork' from the surgeon is still on her knee. If you look at the back of the wrist on her right hand, you can see the circular bruise from the IV they put in for the surgery.
It looks like Luann isn't happy with me taking pictures of her. 
Yeah, that would be confirmation of my suspicions. I uhm, had to edit out the full ''extent' of her emotional display... 
This picture is of a model they have to show the function and construction of the knee joint. The arrow points to the area that was worked on. 
We even got pictures of the athroscopic procedure to show what had to be done. This picture shows the ligament under the kneecap and how it has been frayed some. The surgery cleaned up the fraying. 
This picture shows the partial tear in the meniscus at about the 2-2:30 position. The dark line from left-to-right is supposed to be straight and not have the triangular piece at the right. That's the tear. As for the round, silvery thing at the bottom of the image, that's just a bubble.
This picture shows a 'pearl' in the lower-right part of the image where a piece of cartilage had torn loose and settled into that position in the knee joint and was eventually covered over like a pearl in an oyster. This was also removed during the surgery in order to free up her knee. So, the surgery is done and the bandage has been removed. Now the physical therapy has to be done. We worked on her Range Of Motion excercises tonight, and things aren't too bad. We'll keep you posted on her progress... 
