We LOVE Fort DeSoto

I always look back at my last post to see where I ended up, which, in this case, was the expectation that we would take the rig into Sarasota Ford on Thursday morning, get it dealt with and then spend the night at the Walmart before heading to Fort DeSoto first thing Friday morning.  Well, that's KIND of what happened, but unfortunately when the mechanics looked at the rig and took it for a test drive, they determined that the "service engine soon" light was just kind of a fluke, but "the bad news" was:  one of our brakes was almost down to the drum.  Yikes.  They had to order parts which wouldn't be there until Friday morning.  So we DID stay in a Walmart overnight, but then we had about $850 worth of work to be done on Friday.  Can you say "painful"?  We left the dealership at about noon on Thursday, since they couldn't do anything that afternoon, and pulled into a Walmart just off I-75 in Sarasota.  We left the rig in the parking lot and went down to Venice for the afternoon.  We took Brandi to the dog park in Venice, which was cool because it had a dog beach in addition to the dog park itself.  She had a BALL!  We stopped at Sharkey's for an early dinner, then went back to the Walmart and went to bed early.  We had said we would have the rig back to the Ford dealership by 7:45 so we had the alarm set for 7:15.  But at 7:00 in the morning there was a knock on our door and when I poked my head out (in my PJ's of course!) it was a security guard.  He said "Ma'am, we can't let you park here!" (quite ferociously!).  I apologized and said we'd leave right away, but we had a chuckle about it because we'd been there since NOON the day before - did it take them 17 hours to NOTICE us????

So then we took the RV to the dealership and dropped it off and went into Sarasota for a few hours.  We love the drive out to the keys off Sarasota - Lido Key, St Armonds Circle, the Mote Marina - it's just such a nice area.  We just drove out there and took Brandi for a nice walk - it was a little cool, but not bad considering in was still morning.  By noon, they had our rig done (and our money collected) and sent us on our way.  Oh well - considering that the Sea Breeze is now eight years old, we certainly can't complain about an occasional repair. We popped back onto I-75, took I-275 over to the Sunshine Bridge, and headed over to Fort DeSoto County Park.  We love going over the Sunshine Bridge - it's just so BIG and there is such a beautiful view in every direction.  It can be a teeny bit intimidating if it's very windy, for fortunately we had a beautiful afternoon so it was a pleasure to cross over the bay.

We were all checked in and set up by about 2:00 Friday - Fort De Soto has got to be one of the most beautiful COUNTY parks in the country!  It's basically 5 islands (or keys), covering about 1,100 acres, and it has EVERYTHING you could possibly ask for in a park.  There are literally miles of beautiful beaches, the kayaking is wonderful with lots of choices where to paddle, the campground is very nice, there is a very interesting old fort and museum, there are two very cool piers - one is 500' feet long, the other is 1,000' - there are miles and miles walking/biking paths, and there is a spectacular dog park and dog beach.  The dog beach is only 1-1/2 miles from the campground, so I think we've taken Brandi to the park every day except once or possibly twice since we've been here.  I'm attaching a map of the park, but I doubt if it will show up very well.  I'll throw in a few more pix before we leave, but honestly this place is really wonderful.  We've done lots of just "park stuff" - riding our bikes, running on the trails, going to the beach, kayaking, Dave's done a fair amount of fishing, etc. etc.

But no matter how beautiful it is, you can't just stay in the park every day - and we've done some nice "day trips" during the week we've been here.  On Monday, we went into downtown St. Pete and did an AVA walk - a very nice one, I would have to say.  It was called the "Northeast St. Pete" walk and it was very pretty - it started in an older but very beautiful northeast residential area.  We walked along the edge of the water for about two miles, and ended up in downtown St. Pete which is actually a very pretty area too.  We added 3K to the walk by going out on the city Pier, which has this big sort of inverted triangle building at the end, with shops, restaurants, etc.  (It's OK, but frankly nothing compared to the Navy Pier in Chicago.)  We went out there and got ice cream cones, but when we took them outside to eat a seagull dive-bombed me and took a big old bite right out of my ice cream cone ....REALLY??????  (Actually I haven't had good luck with birds this week, because when we were out walking on the big pier in the park one afternoon, another bird took a big old DUMP right on my head - it was all over my clothes, my hair, NASTY!)  Anyway, I know I've said this before but it is SO nice to have Dave able to do these walks with me - he couln't have possibly walked 10K (much less 13K) before he got his brand new knees.  He's not interested in doing every walk with me, but it's a treat for both of us to be able to periodically go on these walks together!  (PS-I'm not exactly sure what I'm sitting next to here - it's kind of a pirate-elephant-on rollerskates thing. But the main thing is - notice my T-SHIRT!  It's for running the Tulip Time 5K last spring-I LOVE this shirt!)

Tuesday I had to do some Kerkstra stuff in the morning, and then we went out kayaking in the afternoon.  We generally start out together, and then Dave settles in someplace to fish while I head out and do a little exploring.  I was pretty proud of myself because I was paddling in some shallow water and suddenly noticed I was right over top of a pretty BIG stingray.  He let me paddle by him, and he just sort of gently flapped his...fins?  wings?  whatever they are... but then when I circled back he took off.  After a couple hours, I headed back in and stopped by and told Dave, and (just to show me up, I think) when he got back in he told me HE actually saw a stingray jump up out of the water SEVEN times in a row.  I would have said I didn't believe him, but we actually saw the same thing happen yesterday when we were at Coquina Beach, so I guess I have to believe him.  It's just weird - we've been down here eight years in a row now, and neither of us ever saw a stingray before, and now we had 3 sightings in the same week.  Crazy.  We love spotting the sealife down here - it's just so different than what we see at home.

Tuesday evening I noticed I wasn't feeling too well, and I ended up spending ALL day Wednesday in bed.  I have NO idea what it was but I literally slept all day - I'd get up for an hour and then go right back to bed for another 4 or 5 hours - and then I went to bed at 8:00 that night and slept through until 9:00 Thursday morning.  By Thursday I was feeling better, but kind of weak so we just stayed in the park and took it easy, which was fine with both of us!  I still have no idea what hit me but by Friday I felt absolutely fine again.  Good thing, because Friday we had wanted to spend the whole day at Coquina Beach.  We love going there and just sitting up our chairs on the beach and relaxing.  I read, Dave did some shore-fishing, and we took a little walk up to the concession stand and splurged on some greasy French fries!  It is just SO pretty there.  We left the beach about 4:00 and went back over to the mainland to Bradenton and stopped at the Cortez Kitchen for dinner.  This is one of our favorite old "fishing village" type of restaurants - the freshest seafood you could ask for, served on this old scruffy deck on the edge of the water.  Dave had peel-and-eat shrimp, while I got the seafood combo platter.  It had shrimp, stuffed crab, grouper and the tenderest scallops I've ever had - you could literally cut them with the side of a fork.  I love scallops, but NOT when they're kind of rubbery - but these were great!  What a wonderful day!  (PS-now THIS T-shirt is another story - I actually got a tiny bit chilly walking up to the concession stand so I had to borrow Dave's NASTY Florida gators T-shirt - he made me let him take a picture and told me I had to post it in my blog-YUCK!) 

So finally we are up to today - what a LONG posting, but it's just been a really nice week (other than the sick day!).  Today we got up and took Brandi for a nice long romp at the dog park, and then we drove up to Tarpon Springs - it's about an hour long drive, but we absolutely love it up there.  It's been about three years since we've been there so it was nice to go back.  The initial plan was for me to do an AVA walk while Dave rode his bike around, but we ended up just walking around together and skipping the AVA walk.  We stopped at a couple of the quaint, old bars for a beer, and then of course we had to stop at one of the many authentic Greek restaurants for dinner.  Each time we've been here we've tried a different restaurant, and honestly they're probably all pretty much the same, but they are all GREAT!  We never eat Greek food at home, so it's a real treat for us when we come here.  I am absolutely going to get onto the internet and find a couple of recipes to try - there's a "classic" lemon-egg-orzo soup that just can't be TOO difficult.  Anyway, we spent the whole afternoon in town, walking around, buying a gallon container of olve oil (!), catching part of the Michigan/Wisconsin basketball game, and just enjoying the day.  I'm posting a couple pix, including one of my favorite Dave-and-Gail pictures, taken by our waiter at the restaurant.  The restaurant itself was a HOOT - it was very "aquatic" in ambience, hence the BLUE BLUE BLUE pictures.  Anyway, we had another absolutely wonderful day in paradise. 

We are here for a few more days - we'll be leaving on Thursday - but I had SO much to fill in that I decided to do a mid-stay post.  One last note-we did have something funny happen to us - we LOST a day.  Our initial plan for the week was to go to Coquina on Thursday and Tarpon Springs on Friday, and then spend the weekend in the park since there's generally so much more traffic on the weekend.  And that's exactly what we thought we were doing.  Both of us!  We both thought it was weird that families were arriving on Thursday in the park, and we thought it was REALLY weird that the Michigan-Wisconsin game was on Friday afternoon, and we really couldn't understand why the downtown Tarpon Springs area was having their "food truck" festival (...don't ask!) on a Friday, but oh well.  But the more we talked about it, the weirder these things seemed, until finally at 6:00 while we were driving home Dave said "are you SURE it's Friday?  Maybe it's Saturday."  I told him, no, I was SURE it was Friday, but I finally checked my I-phone and sure enough we were both off a FULL DAY.  And we don't even know when we lost the day!  We finally decided it was around the time I got sick - somehow we both got confused about what day it was and we didn't figure it out for DAYS!  Now THAT's how you know you are on vacation, right?  (Or maybe that's how you know you're BOTH developing early dementia....)  The good news is:  IT DOESN'T REALLY MATTER!

Visit from Brian and Mary!!!

So today is our last day here in Punta Gorda.  We'll be packing everything up by tonight so we can leave EARLY tomorrow morning and head up to Sarasota.  Actually, our next stop is the FORD dealership in Sarasota!  Our "service engine soon" light came on while we were on our way down from Michigan and this was the first time we could get into a garage.  Technically we could stay here until the 1st of February, but we decided to leave one day early, take the rig to the garage and let them have it for the whole day.  Thursday night we'll just pull into a Walmart or someplace and then Friday morning we'll go to our next destination, which is Fort DeSoto in St. Pete's.  Cross your fingers for us that the engine light isn't anything big!

We've enjoyed our time here in Punta Gorda, but we are SO SO ready to get back into a campground.  We are very tired of having neighbors pushed in against us from every direction - we want to get back into a CAMPSITE, where we can have a campfire and some PRIVACY!  Two months in RV parks is about all we can take!  And Fort DeSoto is SO nice - we can't wait to get there!

So our BIG fun since my last blog is our visit from our dear friends Brian and Mary.  They flew down to St. Pete's on Sunday and stayed with Mary's mom in Bradenton, then came down to us Monday evening.  We took them to the Slip Knot, which is such a fun little bar here in town.  I don't have any pictures, which is too bad, because it's just a great "Florida" bar with the tiki hut look, a "pirate ship", big orange neon palm trees, and all the other tacky-but-fun stuff.  They stayed overnight and got up really early Tuesday to catch the ferry down to Key West, where they spent Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday with Mary's friend Marilyn.  They came back to us late Thursday night and stayed until Sunday morning.  On Friday we took them "bar-hopping" to all our favorite places.  We went out to Pine Island and stopped in at Scott and Deb's for a minute (they weren't home so we kept moving), then we went to the Low Key Tiki, the Ragged Ass, then stopped at the American Legion where Scott and Deb were working the lunch service.  Brian and Mary got to meet our friends Paul and Mary, and then we headed back off the island, stopping at Bert's Bar in Matlacha for lunch.  We stopped back at the rig for a short time, then headed into Punta Gorda for a little tour of the area.  We made a stop at our favorite tiki bar by the Four Seasons, on the Peace River, and then took them up to Fisherman's Village for dinner at Harpoon Harry's.  I got some pictures, but I think Brian and Mary also took a bunch and I'm not sure we've shared them all yet, but I'll throw a couple in here just for fun.

Although we all had fun on Friday, Mary was dying for some R&R and sun-time by the pool, so on Saturday we did another little tour of Punta Gorda in the morning, stopping at the farmer's market for a quick walk-through, and then we came back to the park and let Mary "veg out" by the pool for the majority of the afternoon.  Saturday night we took them to the women's basketball game at the Alico Arena at FGCU.  We are so glad that they are both big-time sport fans and were happy to go to a game.  Both the women and men's teams were ranked #2 in their division and both were playing the #1 team, which was Stetson University from Deland.  The two women's teams were both 8-and-0, so it was a very exciting game and we all had a GREAT time watching the game - and our FGCU women WON, which of course made it even better.  It is just a lot of fun watching these games, and we're really glad that we decided years ago to look for basketball games to attend while we're traveling.  We didn't get home until late Saturday, so we all hit the sack and then Sunday morning we had a light breakfast with our friends and waved them good-bye as they headed back to St. Pete's for their flight home.  I think they had a great time soaking up some sun and we had a terrific time having visitors from home.  Brian and Mary are great guests-very easy to live with and very appreciative of every little thing.  They picked the perfect week to come down because Michigan had FRIGID temps last week.  We just wish they could have had more time down here before they had to go back to "real life" at home.

Other than our visit with them, the last week or so has been pretty much more of the same:  we rode our bikes into town, did a couple of "pool" afternoons, Dave put the kayak in a couple times and did a little fishing (...he has NOT had good luck fishing here in Alligator Creek and he is looking forward to Fort DeSoto if only for a new fishing venue!), took Brandi to the dog park in town a few times, and just generally relaxed and enjoyed life here in Punta Gorda.  I'm still trying to do a run every day or two, to get ready for a 5K at the end of March - the picture here is of one of the eight or so sandhill cranes that seem to live in the housing development I usually run through.  And I continue to do some work for Kerkstra, which I am enjoying, and that's kind of our life! Pretty good, huh?

Halfway through January already?

OK, THAT is hard to believe!  It's already January 18th and we are already past the mid-point of our time here in Punta Gorda.  We are kind of in love with this little town of less than 20,000 people.  I think we both agree we could envision ourselves living in this town in a while - but not for quite a few years, of course!  It's very nicely located - really pleasant winter weather (hotter than you-know-where in the summer, it goes without saying).  It's about halfway between the greater Fort Myers area and the Sarasota/Bradenton area, so you have access to all of the big-city amenities quite easily.  It feels like it's a bit off the beaten path - it's not a MAJOR tourist attraction because there are no beaches, and it's not directly on the Gulf.  But it has a lovely downtown waterfront area, along the Peace River.  The bike/walk paths are extensive and very pretty.  It has a somewhat fresher, newer feel about it, which we finally decided might be due to the recovery from Hurricane Charlie back in 2004.  It's our understanding that a LOT of buildings were lost to the hurricane and
a lot of subsequent rebuilding has taken place.  There are quite a few wide open lots scattered in unexpected places, and we THINK these may be the result of buildings that were destroyed and removed after the hurricane.  There is a nice commemorative statue on one of the waterfront paths that states that Hurricane Charlie "bent us but didn't break us".  We've been down to the riverfront a number of times now - we've ridden our bike a couple times, went down there one evening just to sit at the Tiki Bar and watch the sunset over the water, and today we did the 10K AVA walk.  I was very proud of Dave - he did the whole thing and only toward the very end did we digress slightly from the walking directions.  There's a nice event center right downtown, which we might try to get to before we leave.  There are a number of pleasant restaurants and bars, both here in Punta Gorda and directly across the river in Port Charlotte.  Port Charlotte has a larger shopping area, with a Sam's Club, a Kohl's and a pretty decent looking mall.  There are a number of places around here where you can put the kayaks into the water, plus there are a number of fishing docks.  I've seen the library, just from the outside, but it looks quite nice and there is a great little dog park right in town.  All in all, we just like the feel of the place.  We don't intend to move into a permanent location for years yet, since we hope to keep traveling between north and south for a long time; but we agree that when we have to settle in one place, we would prefer pleasant in the winter (even at the cost of hot in the summer) as opposed to pleasant in the summer but cold and snowy in the winter (i.e. south vs north).  (OK-having said all that, I still told Dave that before we EVER bought anything down here, we should rent a condo for a month - like in July or August - and see what it's REALLY like down here during that time of year!)

One of the places we really like along the bike path is this great little tiki bar right on the edge of the waterfront.  It's so cute - they brought in a bunch of white sand and put in a lot of andirondack chairs and little side tables and a gas firepit and people just come in and get their drink and sit wherever they want and watch the traffice going across the bridge to Port Charlotte.  We were there the other day and this woman came and sat down

with her big old German Shepherd ("Princess").  We stopped there another day when we were riding our bikes and there were a couple little kids playing in the sand with little sand pails and shovels - I assume the bar has them right there!  It's just a cute, comfy place to sit and relax.  We went there one evening just about sunset and watched the sun go down over the horizon, and then headed out for pizza.  Just a fun place!

So the "biggest" thing that's happened since my last posting in that I flew back to Grand Rapids for a couple days, for Kerkstra.  I flew up on Tuesday and had a great time having dinner with Cindi and Glennda that night.  I was staying at the Hyatt at M-6 and Byron Center so we just met at Monelli's across the street from my hotel.  Our house is totally shutdown for the winter (no hot water, refrigerator or anything) so there was no sense even thinking about going home for the two days - I wouldn't even know HOW to get everything up and running, plus it would be kind of stupid!  So I was happy that my friends just happened to be free that night - it was great to see them!  Then I worked all day Wednesday (actually, until about 9:30, then went back to the hotel and worked until about midnight) - Kerkstra readers, I hope you're taking note of this!!!  I worked until 3:30 or so on Thursday then flew back down to Florida.  Of course, with a connection in Atlanta (which is just CRAZY!) I didn't actually get back to the RV until about 1:00.  I was PRETTY tired!  But the trip went really well and we did some great work during the two days.  I think I may be coming back up in March and if I do I'm very tempted to pay for a little swing through Columbus for a couple days - we'll see!  It was very nice to see my co-workers at Kerksta, but BOY is there a lot of flu and colds there!  Yikes!  I am actually quite amazed that I got in there and back out without any signs of getting sick!  Maybe it's because my first evening, after my dinner with the "girls", I stopped at the Walgreens and got a big bottle of echinacea and a jug of hand sanitizer and used them both extensively during my visit.  Needless to say, it was nice to come back to my 80 degree weather down here.

Dave and I have been trying to do a little "day trip" just about every day, since our remaining time here is going to pass pretty quickly.  As I mentioned before, we've done a couple nice bike rides - I finally figured out the route for getting from the RV park to downtown via bike paths the whole way.  We did the AVA walk today, and yesterday we did another group kayak trip.  That is one thing that we've definitely enjoyed here.  This trip was over in Matlacha (which is the "bridge" to Pine Island).  We had a nice little paddle around the mangrove islands in the bay, although the wind definitely picked up on our way back to our put-in location.  I think there were supposed to be about 26 people - not sure if that's the right number - and with this being our second time we felt like we already knew some of the people and had a chance to meet
some new ones.  Although we tend to shy away from a lot of the park socializing, we are finding that we really do like this group of people, probably because they are more adventurous and physically active.  If they have another paddle next week, I assume we'll go since this would be the last time before we leave the park on January 31.  When I say we tend to avoid the social activities, the exception is the activity we joined in tonight - THE POTLUCK!  That is one event we DO tend to take advantage of.  As usual, we had delicious homemade food, and Dave was in bed reading by 7:30.  (You have to understand - the potluck is at 5:00 (!!!) and everybody has to eat and run so they can break down the tables and get set up for "movie night" at 7:00.)  Nope - we are definitely not QUITE ready for this lifestyle yet!!!!

We are still trying to get a little better acquainted with the broader geography in this area, since we've not been in this exact part of the state before.  On Wednesday, we went for a drive over to Gasparilla Island, which is home to the quaint (but upscale) little town of Boca Grande.  Gasparilla is only a mile or two from Pine Island as the crow flies, but is miles and miles to drive.  From our park, I think it was almost 30 miles to get to the very tip of the island.  But it was a very pleasant day trip for us - you have to go over the Peace River, north through Port Charlotte, then head west over to Placida and then south onto the causeway over to the island.  The island is fairly long and very narrow, and about halfway down the length of the island you get to Boca, which has a lot of cute shops and restaurants.  We stopped for ice cream - yummy - and went to the state park to walk along the shoreline.  The state park is comprised of about five separate beach areas strung along the length of the island.  We parked at one of them, got out and walked the shore, and ended up at the far southern tip of the island.  There is an OLD rennovated lighthouse at the end, which has been converted into a very interesting little museum that we stopped and visited.  Overall, a very nice way to spend the day - not positive we'll come back in the foreseeable future but glad we did it.  The only thing I'm bummed about is I forgot to bring my phone (therefore my camera) along and didn't get any pictures of the lighthouse or the island.

We had another fun event since my last post.  Scott and Deb had another one of their parties - they are such MAJOR party people - I'm in awe!  They throw these big parties 3 or 4 times while they're down here (plus we know they also have parties during the summer up in Michigan).  They probably had 60 or more people at the party and they did two great big turkeys, plus mashed potatoes, stuffing and gravy (...sort of a Thanksgiving in January thing, I guess).  Plus everyone brought food, so there were just massive amounts of stuff to eat.  We met some nice people (from Grand Haven, no less) who bought a house across the river in Peace River, although right now they are only here for two or three months in the winter.  I'd like to talk to them sometime about the logistics of owning an actual house down here.  We talked to them quite a bit, along with Jim and Lanay (I really need to find out how to spell her name!), and Scott and Deb's neighbors Judy and Kurt - nice people all.  Of course, once again you have to remember most of their guests are retired, so the party started at noon, and the majority of the guests were gone by 6:00 or 7:00 or so.  We had to drive back to Punta Gorda so we were one of the couples leaving at about that time.  We love Scott and Deb - they are so friendly and warm and giving.

So I know I'm overlooking some little things, but I think that's the majority of what we've been doing.  The weather has been consistently about 10 degrees above normal - about 80 every single day - but we've heard it's going to cool down slightly - all the way to the lower 70's - for the remainder of the month.  We are SO excited because our dear friends Brian and Mary are going to be coming down for a couple days next week.  And they are REALLY brave, because they are going to actually stay in the RV with us - actually with us AND the dog AND the two cats.  It'll be interesting - hopefully they'll still be friends at the end of their visit.  I'll keep you all "posted"!!!!

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!

Merry Christmas from Pine Island

I hope everyone at home had a wonderful Christmas.  This is our third Christmas in Florida, so we're starting to get used to the "weirdness" of being in 80 degree weather and away from family - but I don't think I'll truly EVER get used to not being home for the holiday.  This year is a little different in that Brenda and her family are actually down here in Florida, so wouldn't have been part of my Christmas anyway.  And I got some nice messages from Alan and his family wishing me a Merry Christmas and thanking me for sending a couple gifts to them all.  I talked to my mom on Christmas Eve and she is with my sister Dolores and her family for a few days, so I'm sure she had a nice holiday also.  We actually had a nice Christmas today because we went to the Christmas dinner here at the KOA.  What a feast!  The resort provided the ham, turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, along with beverages.  Then everyone brought their wonderful homemade dish to pass, which of coure always means wonderful food.  I ate way too much, but Dave really outdid himself and is teetering on the brink of being totally and completely miserable.  It's 7:21 as I type this and he just went in to lay down for the rest of the evening!  You just can't put Dave into a "buffet" situation and expect him to use any kind of self-restraint (as anyone who knows him will attest to).  The people down here are really very nice - the more we get to know them, the better we like them (...not unexpected, right?).  But in spite of everything, Christmas is always at its best when you're with family....

As I mentioned above, Brenda and her family are down here right now - they are in Jacksonville visiting Arnie's daughter and her family.  I spoke to Brenda this morning and they did their Christmas yesterday and she wasn't positive what they were going to do today.  But I pulled a bunch of pictures off Tessa and Chelsey's facebooks and obviously they had a wonderful day today.  I'm going to post a few of her pictures into this blog post - don't they look like they're having fun?  And I love the pictures of Arnie with Emma - precious, aren't they?  Emma's first exposure to the ocean, commemorated for all time.  What I'm REALLY excited about, though, is that on Thursday they are going down to St. Augustine for the rest of the week so I'm going to drive up there and spend Thursday, Friday and Saturday with them.  I CAN'T WAIT!  It's only about a 4-1/2 hour drive so I plan to be there by noon at the latest on Thursday.  This will definitely be my special Christmas treat!  I'll have a mega-post for when I get back, with tons of pictures I'm sure.

When I looked back at the blog, I see that it's been ten days since I've done an update - the last one was December 15.  That's kind of a long time, but it seems like the time has just kind of slipped away.  It's weird to think that, by the time I get back from St. Augustine, we'll only have two more days before we leave Pine Island and move up to Punta Gorda.  Crazy!  We've really enjoyed the past week and a half.  So what did we do?  Hmmmm.... I have to think.....



Well, for one thing, we went with Scott and Deb to Mary and Paul's condo in Cape Coral.  They were having a few friends over for the Christmas boat parade.  We had two boats that went down through the channels and down to where the parade was getting organized.  We rode around through the different boats, checking out the very elaborate decorations on some of the boats.  Wow - some people put a few bucks into this event!!!  I'm attaching a couple pictures, but it was hard to take good shots because we were moving, they were moving and it was dark.  So this is the best I could do.  After we rode around on the boats for a while, we all went back to some other friends of Mary and Paul's and had a very nice campfire on their dockside patio.  It was a really nice evening with some old and new friends.

We also put our kayaks into the water a couple times, including once at the little city park in Matlacha.  That was fun because we paddled through some of the channels, looking at some of the "funky" little residences in this wonderful little fishing community.  We really like Matlacha - it's the connection between the mainland, which is technically Cape Coral, on the north side of Fort Myers, and Pine Island itself.  You have to go over the bridge at Matlacha in order to get onto the Island. Matlacha is this great little fishing village, with lots of little brightly-colored shops and restaurants and some wonderful restaurants and, one of our favorites, Bert's Bar.  Bert's is an old OLD bar that sits right on the edge of the water and has lots of atmosphere.  They have really good seafood, frequent live music and what they advertise as a "million dollar view".  We went there for our Christmas Eve dinner and enjoyed just sitting out on the dock overlooking the water, the fishing boats and the birds.


We even had a special little outing for Brandi - if you go through Fort Meyers and down to Bonita Beach and then head north, you come to Lover's Key.  There is a very nice little state park at Lover's Key, which we visited last year.  It doesn't have a campground, unfortunately, or it would definitely be a place we would camp at.  But just a little ways from the state park is a special little beach that is dog-friendly.  It is one of the very few dog-friendly beaches that we're ever come across, so it's a really special place for us to visit.  We took Brandi and, OH MY GOSH!, she had a BLAST.  She ran and ran and ran and ran.... well, you get the idea.  She is such a good little girl, she went up and "met" all the other dogs (which of course involves LOTS of sniffing of body parts!) but she always plays nice and is never agressive even to the little dogs.  And BOY where there a lot of dogs there - over the couple hours we were there I would guess there were 50 dogs that came and went.  The only problem with the beach, as with many places on the ocean, is that the whole place disappears when the tide comes up!  Yep, according to some of the people that we chatted with, the whole beach is virtually underwater at high tide.  In fact, I was standing there talking to one nice "mom" of Raza, a very nice mellow old German Shepherd, when she nicely pointed out to me that my bag, my chair, and my towel were now sitting IN the water!  Yikes-I don't know if we'll ever get used to this "tide" thing!

I know I'm missing a couple little things, but that's probably a pretty good summary of the past ten days.  We do a lot of walking, some biking (Dave pretty much every day, me not so much although we did ride to the Publix together the other day), and I'm still plugging away at my running program.  We've been to the pool a number of times, gone out to eat a few times, and somewhere in there I continue to work a couple of hours a day (on average) for Kerkstra.  All in all, a REALLY good life, right?

So tomorrow I pack up my little suitcase and get ready for my little road-trip up to St. Augustine.  I can't WAIT!  In the meanwhile, I send out best Christmas wishes to everyone back home - I hope you all had a wonderful day today!

Halfway thru our Pine Island visit... already?

Hard to believe it's already the 15th of December, and our month here is half done.  It seems like we're being a little more "mellow" and laid back on this trip - are we getting OLDER???  I told Dave we'd better get off our behinds and DO stuff because I have nothing to blog about!  Obviously we have to do SOMETHING every day, but quite a few of those days are spenting doing things like sleeping in, taking the dog for a long walk, Dave going on a bike ride, us going to the pool and then spending an inordinate amount of time deciding what to do for dinner.  (I do have to admit-the pool is quite nice and as long as you aren't overly offended or grossed out by a bunch of old people with fairly bad bodies, floating around on their swim noodles, it actually isn't a bad place to spend a few hours in the afternoon!  And the people are all very nice, I have to add.)

We did, however, make some new FRIENDS!  And, frankly, we don't do that very often because we kind of like our own company and we like our privacy and we don't really want to "adopt" people as we travel - in other words, we're anti-social!!!  But we met this nice couple from Indiana this week - their names are Tina and Ed, and they are very nice.  A couple years younger than us, but retired - he from GM, and she was actually a bank teller for about 30 years.  They just bought their rig last year and used it a lot this summer, going to a lot of state parks.  We love that of course, because we too believe in USING your RV if you have one!  We met Tina and Ed at the pool, and made a "date" to go out for peel-and-eat shrimp on Tuesday.  Of course, there is a "special" at one of the seafood restaurants in town (oops-I forgot the name of the place - I think it's something like The Waterfront or something similar).  Anyway, they have shrimp, either hot or cold, for 45 cents apiece on Tuesday.  We got 4 pitchers of beer, close to 60 shrimp, and this decadent dessert ( a deep-fried, coconut-dipped piece of cheesecake-YUMMY!!!!) all for $48-for the four of us.  And for us retirees, there's nothing that makes us happier than a good food deal!

Wednesday was our anniversary - unreal...I've spent SEVEN years married to "the Lokes" - and he's spent seven years married to me.  I'm not sure which of us should be commended the most.  No-I'm just kidding-we actually still really LIKE each other a lot, at least most of the time!  So, since I did NOT end up flying back up to Michigan, we got to go out for our anniversary and we picked this excellent Italian restaurant on the island (actually, in Matlacha) called Micelli's.  Of course, neither one of us actually ordered Italian...Dave got the ribs (check the picture-doesn't he look happy?) and I got the stuffed flounder.  Excellent!

So-regarding Michigan-since Chris decided to stay on, we ended up deciding that we should delay my trip up there until early January.  That way, we'll be through the first couple days of year-end processing, so maybe I can jump in and help out with that, plus our support person, Deb, can schedule a two-visit at that time also.  Hopefully we can spend some time strategizing about the ERP implementation and keep things moving even while I'm on the road.  I'm fine with waiting until January to go up, but am a LITTLE nervous about there being SNOW!  But I guess I'll just have to wait and see, and just deal with it if I HAVE to!

Yesterday Dave and I did an AVA walk - together!  This is my 57th AVA  walk, but up until now Dave just couldn't walk that far.  But now that he has TWO new knees, he's doing GREAT with walking.  We take Brandi for a nice long hour to hour-and-a-half walk every day or two, and he said he wanted to tackle doing one of the AVA walks with me-and those are 10K (or 6.2 miles!).  I picked the downtown Fort Myers one, which maybe wasn't the best choice.  It 's probably not one of the most scenic walks - I think he might have enjoyed Sanibel a little more.  But we did it, and he did really well!  It was really fun to have someone WITH ME-normally I do these walks alone (unless Cindi and Glennda are down for a trip, or I'm with Brenda) so that was a treat.  Little does he know that he set a precedent now and I'll be expecting many more of these in the future!

And last but not least, we went out fishing with Scott and Deb again today.  I absolutely LOVE being out on the water, on their pontoon boat, with the sun and the water and everything.  We had an extra special treat today, because we had a mother and baby dolphin swimming around by us for the longest time.  Apparently "mama" was teaching baby how to hang out by a boat and snap the smaller fish that the humans throw back into the water.  I snapped a bunch of pictures, but it's really hard to catch them because by the time they come up and I hit the button on my I-Phone and the picture actually "snaps" a second or two have gone by and they normally are already back under.  But I did catch them out of the water a couple times, so I cropped the pictures and am posting one.  If you didn't KNOW it's two dolphins you might not recognize them - but since you DO know, you can tell...right????  Anyway, believe me - it was SO beautiful to see them swimming together and coming up out of the water side-by-side.  And, we also saw a bald eagle sitting in the mangroves watching us fish - also a beautiful sight!  Dave and Deb both caught groupers - too small to keep but fun to look at - boy, they are really quite UGLY!  When we got back to Scott and Deb's house, we had a wonderful fish fry.  Deb was such a sweetheart and kept each separate type of fish apart, so we could taste the difference between each type.  We had kingfish, sheephead (which are wonderful tasting), pompano and sea trout.  They also had some halibut they had brought down with them from home.  So we had a wonderful dinner together, along with their friends Jim and Lanay (I have no idea if that's how she spells her name).  By the way, I have to add a comment regarding this last picture - when Scott and Deb come in from fishing, Scott cleans the boat and Deb cleans the fish.  Their fishcleaning station is right on the channel, so Deb attracts a lot of attention from the local birds.  She tosses the skin and guts to them and it's a hoot to watch them fight and scrabble to get their share.  Fishing, floating, eating:  it was a great day!










....But I can't end my post today without mentioning how heartsick we are over the senseless, horrible shooting of those precious little first graders in Newtown yesterday, as well as the teachers and others at the school.  We've watched hours of coverage of this tragedy and our hearts go out to all of the families of the victims.  How can such horror exist in the world????  We all need to tell our children and grandchildren how much we love them, don't we?

First Week on Pine Island

REALLY?  We're already one week through our month-long stay here?  We really do like it here on Pine Island.  If you're not familiar with it, it's an island right off the shoreline from Fort Myers, actually Cape Coral to be more specific.  The island is about 20 miles long, and our KOA is about 3 miles from the southern edge of the island.  It's a very nice park, maybe a little pricier than most of the places we stay, but it's such a great location that we don't mind paying up a little to be here-we figure we make it up by staying at less expensive places later on, right?  There's a very nice pool here, although, let's face it, any pool in Florida at this time of year is pretty much filled with the geriatric group, so maybe the scenary's not so attractive... but, HEY, we have a right to lay by the pool too!!!  It's about a three mile bike ride into St. James City, and there are some nice little bars and stuff in town that are fun to go to.  I think I posted pictures from here last year, because we were here for about 6 weeks then - the last half of December and all of January.  This year we're only staying for the month of December, then moving up to Punta Gorda for the month of January.

For us, of course, the best part of the island is the fact that our friends Scott and Deb live here about 8 months of the year.  They are great friends, great hosts and GREAT party people.  Honestly, I don't know HOW they keep up the pace they do.  But they love people and they love to be with people.  And everybody here on the island knows and loves Scott and Deb!  Now that we've been here three times, we're beginning to know some of their friends too - especially Mary and Paul, who are super folks too.  In fact on Wednesday we spent pretty much the whole day "clubbing" with the four of them.  By clubbing, I do NOT mean like night clubs and dancing until 3:00 AM or anything like that - nope, I mean the "O" (for Oriole) club, the Vets Club, the Moose club, the American Legion club, etc.  Scott and Deb picked us up at 11:00 in the morning and we spent the next six hours "clubbing".  I'll say one thing for these people - they can sure drink a lot of beer!  I am a rank AMATEUR compared to them - in fact, neither Dave nor I even tried to keep up.  But it was a fun day and we bumped into different people that they knew along the way.  But honestly, I think we were in bed by 9:00 that night!  And I don't think we'll repeat the day in the near future.

Yesterday, however, was a totally different story.  We went out fishing with Scott and Deb on their pontoon boat.  We had a BALL!  It was a gorgeous day - some big puffy clouds, a little smidge of rain, mostly off in the distance, and a beautiful rainbow!  I snapped a picture of it and am posting it in the blog, but I'm not positive it'll show up very well - we'll see!  I didn't fish because I don't have a license and Scott and Deb are very religious about sticking to the laws down here - it's just not worth the risk of them losing the ability to fish by having guests and doing something stupid.  I brought along a book and had a great afternoon watching the three of them catch fish, soaking up the sun, and just relaxing!  It was a wonderful afternoon.

Dave loves fishing down here because the fish are so different from up home.  I'm posting a few pictures, although they aren't great.  The most fun one is the puffer fish - he's an ugly, lumpy little gray thing that puffs up like a balloon when he gets caught - and you would absolutely SWEAR he's going to explode any second!  Scott caught a pompano, they all caught sheephead (which Deb tells us are great eating), and then they all caught a bunch of sea trout, which are supposed to be wonderful to eat.  The majority of the fish were under-size and had to be thrown back, but Dave caught a lovely 17 inch sea trout, which was probably the biggest fish of the day.  Deb, however, is the QUEEN - she LOVES to fish and is very good at it.  Scott says she catches WAY more fish then he does - in fact, lots of times he mostly nets for her and repairs snapped lines and stuff like that.  It's great that they both enjoy going out on the boat so much, and we were very grateful for the chance to go with them.  TERRIFIC fun!

Tonight we went up to the Legion for the Friday night dinner - Dave had broasted chicken and I had the fish-and-shrimp combo.  Both were excellent, but we agreed that we can NOT eat like this very often - we need to get back to making our healthy home-made dinners.  We both feel like we should lose a few pounds.  So - going forward! - a little less eating out, a little more cooking in!

And I have to put in a word about work.  For those of you who know me, you are aware that I have been doing some "temp" work for K****** over the past five years, primarily in the summer but I'm also set up to be able to go online and work from the road.  It's been a "win-win" situation over the past couple winters, as they've needed a little extra help and it gives me a little extra pocket money.  Over the summer we converted to a new ERP system and are still in "early days" of going live with lots and lots of new procedures, so I'm definitely going to help with a little of the extra burden over the winter, which I'm very happy to do.  But this week we were also faced with the possibility of losing our controller and I spent quite a bit of time on conference calls, helping with some brainstorming and contingency planning.  Everything has turned out great - Chris is staying "on board" and there are some very positive things looming on the horizon, so all is good....  But it's been a little time-consuming; in fact, I've put in about 40 hours of work this week and will be flying up to Michigan for a couple days next week.  I actually love staying involved and helping Katie and Robin with some of the month-end duties - it's good for my "old brain" to keep exercising!  (Now if I can just get my "old body" to do a better job of exercising!)  Dave has been very patient and supportive this week because he realizes this is a pretty critical time for the company, and for people who I've come to care very deeply about, and he's also being great about my flying home for a couple days.  But I told him today - tomorrow is SATURDAY and I'm GOING TO THE POOL!  PERIOD!  So - the next pictures I post may have some of the afore-mentioned geriatrics laying by the pool - be forewarned!  But it's 80, it's sunny, and life is good!!!!