Otto and Esther made their first trip to Florida with Esther's sister and brother-in-law Marion and Mike Powers in late 1960. Nephew Dick Powers and his family had already moved to the Florida West Coast a year or so previously, first living in Dade City and then Clearwater. Mike and Marion rented a house at the corner of Betty Lane and Douglas in Dunedin. Otto and Mike went fishing almost every day and evening from the nearby bridges and piers, especially Indian Rocks Pier, and would come home with phenomenal catches of trout and butterfish!

Left: Otto with a big grouper catch from a deep-sea excursion. Notice the hammerhead shark on the picnic table! Right: Marion, Mike, and Esther at Buena Vista Trailer Park circa 1962 (photo courtesy of Kathy McCumber Armstrong)

By 1962 Mike and Marion had purchased a mobile home for the winters in Buena Vista, a mobile home park at the junction of U.S. 19 and 19-A just over the Pinellas County line in Pasco County. Their place at 486 Shady Cove Dr. N. was a few blocks from the park's Tarpon Springs branch post office on Holiday Drive known as the "Holiday branch" - hence, the eventual name for the community that has grown up there in south Pasco, "Holiday."

The next year Otto was back, alone on a real-estate hunting expedition to find some Florida property for Esther's and his retirement years. He settled on an acre lot in (for that time) remote northwestern Pasco a block off 19 in a newly-cleared subdivision developed by the Pasco real estate magnate Henry Dingus. Until Otto and Esther sold their house in Hoosick Falls and built their Florida house, they lived in a small trailer on the property for the winter months. They usually went south in November, returning to New York in April or May.

After selling out in Hoosick Falls, they became permanent Florida residents, living there year-round. But they never failed to travel back to Hoosick Falls and Petersburgh every summer for a month-long visit with old friends and relatives.

Below: Guy Mendell, Marion, and Mike at 486 Shady Cove Drive (photo courtesy of Kathy McCumber Armstrong, all other photos collection of DJB unless noted)