With this post, I’m rewinding the tape—back to surgery and everything that’s happened since. Recovery was mission-focused. For nearly four weeks I didn’t touch so much as a beer. Bone healing was the objective, and I wasn’t about to sabotage the rebuild. Discipline first. Celebration later.
I started my perfusion career in 1981 with a group out of Ormond Beach, Florida. After leaving in 1990, I stayed tight with one of the surgeons, Jim Wuamett. This year he turned 80, and we were invited to the celebration. An avid bicycle rider he rode 100 miles for his birthday the day prior. Standing in that room, reconnecting with colleagues I hadn’t seen in nearly 45 years, felt like stepping through a time portal. The stories picked up mid-sentence, as if the decades between had been nothing more than a long weekend.
Daytona gave us more than a party. We visited my mom and dad’s burial markers and drove by their old home in Port Orange. They built it after I left for college, so I never officially lived there—but I’d passed through enough times for it to feel like an anchor point. Being back wasn’t quiet or sentimental. It was grounding. A reminder of where the road started.
North of Daytona, St. Augustine was lit like a medieval city preparing for festival. Christmas lights washed over the historic downtown, and we dove in. We drifted through old haunts, cold drinks in hand, the night humming with music. One busker—a young guitarist in a duo—was absolutely shredding. Complex ’70s and ’80s rock licks poured out of him like he’d been born wired to an amp. A talent scout there to see him confirmed it: completely self-taught. Raw ability. No blueprint. Just hunger and hours.
Back in Orlando, we regrouped with the kids and made an evening run to Disney Springs. Christmas trees lined the village, each one competing for attention. Lucy’s birthday was days away, and the celebration at a local jump park was pure kinetic chaos—kids launching off trampolines, noise levels somewhere near jet-engine range. Watching it all unfold felt like observing a different species in its natural habitat. Maybe that’s age talking. A steady drink in hand didn’t hurt.
The next day we pushed north to Homosassa Springs and queued up at The Freezer, a waterfront crab shack where the line forms before the doors open. That’s always a good sign. Blue crab and shrimp, cracked and devoured with zero ceremony, right on the water. On the drive back we discovered Florida Cracker Kitchen—cold beer, wood-fired pizza blazing in the oven, the kind of place that demands a return mission. We made a pact to do just that.
Christmas pulled us back to Alabama and a gathering at Polly and Doug’s. Old friends, strong laughs, stories that gain horsepower with every retelling. Then it was time to pivot again. We buttoned up the house and rolled south to the RV park in Bowling Green, Florida, landing just in time for a New Year’s Eve party. The first week was reconnaissance—learning the rhythms of the park, mapping out routines. Soon friends Mark and Gina Marie pulled in across from us, and the campground turned into a neighborhood.
One weekend we aimed back toward Orlando because Albannach—a Celtic war band of bagpipes, pounding drums, and even didgeridoo—was playing at a festival north of town. The place felt like a Highlands outpost dropped into central Florida. Highland games. Heavy drums. Beer poured into a horn. The music didn’t just play—it charged. You could feel it in your chest.
The month became a steady cadence of training, recovery, and motion. Strength returning. Confidence rebuilding. And then the marker: 12 weeks. I drove to a friend’s house and rolled my motorcycle back into the daylight. I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d feel.
Swinging a leg over that saddle, hitting the starter, and feeling the engine come alive—it wasn’t cautious. It wasn’t tentative.
It was freedom.
Cheers,
2WANDRRs
2WANDRRs 
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