Happy New Year from Punta Gorda

Oops, I've been a little remiss in posting, so it's "catch up" time tonight!  We are in Punta Gorda right now, at the Encore RV park ("Gulf View" is the park's actual name).  We got here on January 1 so have only been here a few days, but we really like it.  It's a little bit smaller park, only around 200 sites or so, but it feels really "homey".  The people seem to be really nice, very friendly...  In fact, when we pulled in and were setting up, a number of people stopped by and introduced themselves.  One lady, name Jodie, was riding her bike past us and came to a screeching halt when she saw that we had kayaks on the car.  She organizes kayak trips for the people in the park and told us there was a trip scheduled for Thursday and she invited us to join them.  (We did, but more about that later - but it was really fun!)  Anyway, we are here for the month of January and I think it'll be a good month for us.  We haven't spent much time in the Punta Gorda/Port Charlotte area and are looking forward to doing some exploring.  We DO know that we like the downtown area - we did an AVA walk here last winter so are a little bit familiar with the riverfront area, which is very nice and has a GREAT bike path.  Speaking of bikes, the only thing we've found to be disappointing or challenging is the lack of a decent way to ride our bikes into the downtown area.  It's less than 5 miles, but it's right along highway 41, which is CRAZY busy.  There are stretches of bike path, but then it abruptly stops.  I'm in the process of piecing together a way to get into town (this involves going BEHIND the Home Depot, then behind the Publix grocery store, down the sidewalk on Tripoli, then crossing 41 at the traffic light and picking up one of the sections of bike path - anyway, you get the idea!)  This is probably the main thing we miss about Pine Island - there is a GREAT bike path on the island, and after 3 miles of peddling you are in the little town of St James City where there are lots of cute bars and stuff.  On the other hand, we can put our kayaks right into the water here at this park, which we couldn't do on Pine Island.  One thing we've learned - EVERYPLACE has it's trade-offs - you always get some of what you want, but you never get ALL of it!  Once we find a place that has everything we want, we'll probably move there!!!!!!

So - I need to backtrack a little - I think I left off right after Christmas, with our little "feast" at the club house.  Right after that, on December 27th, I headed up to St. Augustine to hook up with Brenda and her family.  IT WAS SO WONDERFUL TO SEE THEM!  I got there about 2:00 on Thursday,

had all day Friday with them,
then headed back down here at about 2:00 on Saturday.  So a grand total of only 48 ho
urs, but it SEEMED like a lot longer than that!  They had come down to Jacksonville to spend Christmas with Arnie's daughter Anna and her family (...NOT the best visit, apparently, but no need to go there).  Arnie and the girls went on a horseback ride on Thursday so Brenda and my sweet little Emma drove down to St Augustine while they were on their ride.  (Brenda and Arnie were in one car, and Tessa, Chelsey and Emma drove down separately, so they had two cars down here.)  Anyway, I spent the afternoon with Brenda and the baby, then when Arnie and the girls got there we all walked downtown and spent the evening just wandering in and out of the little shops and the park - I got some nice pictures at the park, which was all lit up and looked so cute.  It was a little chilly - probably in the upper 40's or low 50's by evening, hence the coats!  Emma was such a little sweetie, but after a few hours Tessa took her back to their room (actually, back to MY room - I had invited one or the other of the girls to share my room, so we decided to just get a "pack and play"

from the office, put it in my room, and just have Tessa and Emma stay with me).  Brenda and Arnie and I went out to dinner - we found this nice little restaurant that had Cuban food - VERY good!  Then we were going to a little bar in town that had one of their favorite local performers - Billy Buchanan - playing.  Chelsey came back and re-joined us and we were out until MIDNIGHT!  VERY late for me!  We all got a little tipsy so poor Chelsey got to see her mom and her grandma being loud and dumb!  I hope she recovers from it!

On Friday we all went out to breakfast together, then I went with the girls to do some shopping and stuff and Brenda and Arnie got a little "alone time".  Later in the afternoon we walked around downtown again and this time Arnie took Emma and let us "girls" do our own thing.  We had sort of planned to go out on the town, but it kind of fizzled early - I was tired from the night before, Chelsey decided to go back to her room earlier than the rest of us, and Brenda kind of wanted to go back and pick up Arnie so they could go see Billy again.  But it was still a really nice evening - we did a little shopping, got ice cream cones, and just spent time together.  HEAVEN!  But that was the end of my time with the girls - they got up early and were on the road by 7:00!  They wanted to drive straight through, which they did - they hit a little bad weather at the end of the trip, but I think they got home by 11:00 that night! Driving all day with a baby!  I was VERY impressed!  So Brenda, Arnie and I went out to breakfast then walked around - Brenda wanted to walk over to a wedding cake bakery that she likes to visit whenevery they're in St Augustine - and after a few hours we stopped at this nice little place and had barbecue.  Good but not GREAT - but I couldn't care less about the food, I was ALL about spending the time with them.  At 2:00 it was time for hugs and kisses and good-byes.  I won't see them now until we get home - it'll probably be May before I am able to get down to Columbus for a visit - but I don't even want to think about that!

I am posting some pictures from the two days, and some require a couple notes.  The picture of Arnie and Emma on a "leash" is one of my favorites.  She is SUCH a walker now - I can't believe how much more she is walking (...or should I say RUNNING?) than when we saw her at Thanksgiving.  And she wants to walk ALL the time - she doesn't want to be carried (except on Grandpa's shoulders) or ride in her stroller.  So I ended up buying her this adorable little panda bear "harness" - and Arnie ended up "walking" her (like a little doggie!!) almost all afternoon on Friday - it was SO cute.  In fact, one of the cutest parts of the trip was when he took her into this little pocket park and they played "hide and seek" and Emma just BELLY laughed the whole time - she LOVES her grandpa!

And one of the things that Brenda and Arnie gave to the girls was the photo session at one of those "old time" studios where you get dressed up in period costumes and get your picture taken in all these weird or funny positions.  Of course, the girls are so beautiful and they looked so gorgeous in their Western "bar girl" outfits, and Emma was cute as could be in her little outfit.  We all had fun watching the photographer pose the girls and then try to get Emma to smile and sit still - good LUCK!

Overall, the time with all of them was my wonderful Christmas present - It was so great to just spend time walking, talking, laughing, eating, holding the baby.  Lots of times when I go down and visit them in Columbus, the girls are working or doing things with their friends so it was especially precious to spend time with them.  Merry Christmas to me!

OK - enough about that - move on.....  So I got back to Pine Island late on Saturday - the traffic was HORRENDOUS all the way back!!!!  We only had two more days left there, so just did a few more little things but mostly started getting ready for our next move.  We had agreed to a pretty low-key New Year's Eve, so we stopped in at the American Legion for a little while then headed back to the RV for the rest of the evening.  New Year's Eve just isn't that big a deal to us anymore - we've both done the New Year's Eve party thing many times and it just doesn't do much for us at this point.

On the first of January we moved up here to Punta Gorda (only a 28 mile drive, which was nice) and, as I mentioned above, we were invited to go out kayaking with some of the people from the park on Thursday.  There were 14 kayaks, so we caravaned to the "put in" point which was Don Pedro State Park - I'm still a little fuzzy on the geography here, so not positive what town that would be.  I know we went across the bridge into Port Charlotte and then headed west for about a half hour!  Anyway - the people were very welcoming and we had beautiful weather and a great afternoon with our new aquaintences, getting to know each other.  Some very nice folks!  Dave spent part of the time out on his kayak doing some fishing, then he pulled up and joined the rest of us on the beach.  We had all brought our lunches with us, and most of us had blankets or towels for sitting on the beach, some of us went for nice walks along the beach, picking up shells - it was just a very nice relaxing few hours with everyone doing whatever they felt like doing (I definitely saw some napping going on!).  The only downside of the trip was the fact that a "red tide" (algae bloom) had moved into the area and there were LOTS of dead fish - VERY smelly on our paddle across the intercoastal!!! It was impossible to paddle across without actually hitting some of the floating dead fish with either your paddles or your boat - NASTY!  But once we got to the island and crossed over to the beach, it was much better because we were now on Gulf waters rather than intercoastal waters.  Jody tells us that they will try to have a weekly paddle, so I'm sure we'll go on at least one more trip before we leave at the end of the month.  Unfortunately I didn't have my phone so don't have any pictures - but if we do another paddle with the group I'll definitely get pictures next time.

So I think I'm ALMOST caught up - today we drove

down to Estero and went to two basketball games at Florida Gulf Coast University.  Both the men and women won their games, which makes it fun!  We went to a few games at FGCU last year and really enjoyed them, so we were happy to see that there are a couple more double-headers during January.  We really like their arena (Alico Arena) and they have a beautiful campus.  There is another double header on January 19th so we're definitely planning on that one too.

We are really enjoying our trip this year (as usual!) but I'll be getting a little extra reinforcement of my gratitude for the opportunity to be down here - because I'm heading back up to Michigan for a few days this week.  I'm flying up on Tuesday, and spending Wednesday and Thursday at Kerkstra.  I'm looking forward to seeing all the people at Kerkstra, and I know we'll get some great work done together as a team during the two days, but I am NOT looking forward to being back in cold weather.  I've asked them to PLEASE be sure that no really bad weather happens while I'm up there, and they've assured me they'll take care of it!  So for my next posting I'll probably have some pictures of snow!!!!  And I'm sure I'll be VERY happy to be back in the nice warm weather down here!