Mini-Vacation

We recently took a long weekend and flew down to Ft. Myers, FL to visit some friends. Specifically Duane Crumb, who we traveled to Africa with this past summer, and his wife, Kathy. We also got to see some of the missionaries who were serving long term in Narok, Kenya as members of the organization that Duane is a part of, NMSI (link on the right under Links).

Ft. Myers is in a great location, nestled between the gulf and a river that runs all the way through Florida. We didn't get to see much of town other than their neighborhood, but we did get to check out a great sunset at the beach. And we got to see the largest Banyan tree in the continental U.S. The Banyan tree is pretty amazing, "It's pretty much my favorite tree." It is native to India, I guess the story goes that Thomas Edison brought this one to his winter home in Ft. Myers. Here's us with good 'ole Tom:


What you see behind us may look like a forest, but it is in fact one tree. These vines grow off of the main branches and once they reach ground, they dig in and form these new trunks. The tree can then support the branches which grow more horizontal than vertical, 100+ feet from the main trunk. It just expands forever.


So what you see behind us is one of the longer branches that has a ton of these secondary trunks growing down. There is one in Hawaii that is a little bigger than this one.

Anyway, Florida was warm and nice. We could go back :)