January 31, 2012

This is how we spent the last day of January:

We went to the beach fairly early. Arrived at Barefoot Beach Preserve before 10:00 a.m. because all the parking spaces usually are taken shortly after that time.

Water temperature was warmer today—69 degrees—only one degree warmer than the other day.

There is a beautiful aquatic butterfly garden.

Nice boardwalks lead to the beach area and around some of the preserve.

Lots of other things to do here, but we have plenty of time to do them another day. After three hours, we both had had enough sun so we ate a picnic lunch and left the preserve.

We stopped in at a pottery place we have passed several times while driving to the beach. There are many beautiful pieces here. After checking the price tag on a piece and found that it sells for $399.00 I just admired the rest of them.

Cordell took a nap.

I worked on my blog on the laptop…

…did some laundry…

…and read the local newspaper.

We had dinner at Pincher’s Crab Shack. Twice before, we tried to eat at another Pincher’s and it was always too crowded. This one had a much, much better atmosphere. We ate outside. The food and service were outstanding.

Cordell ordered stone crabs which are taken locally from the Gulf. The really neat part is that when they get the crabs on the boat, they remove one claw and return the crab back to the water where it grows a new claw.

I don’t know if we should be insulted by this sign at the restaurant entrance.

We are ending this day by watching a little TV until we both fall asleep!

January 30, 2012

Today we spent some time geocaching. It is an activity in which we have been involved for only the past year. We enjoy it very much and you can find out more about geocaching at:

http://www.geocaching.com/

Geocaching is a real-world outdoor treasure hunting game. Players try to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, using GPS-enabled devices and then share their experiences online. There are 1,634,932 active geocaches and over 5 million geocachers worldwide.

You are able to register at the above site to receive the coordinates and membership is free. Our granddaughters enjoy geocaching with us.

People are very clever in hiding caches and sometimes we never find the one for which we are looking.

This one was a plastic skeleton head with a small orange canister sticking in the eye socket.

We had to look for a while before Cordell found this small camouflaged container hanging in a tree away from the roadway.

This clever cache was a bit challenging. We knew from the clues that we were exactly in the right spot. Finally, Cordell raised the base around the light pole and there it was!

The hardest find by far was this one on the green box. Again, we knew we were looking in the right place and one of the comments from another person was that it was stupid easy. We were determined to not give up on this one.  Cordell found it when he pulled up the corner of this magnetic strip and found a log pasted on the back. I thought it was just a piece of tape which identified the green box for the authorities.

We ate lunch at Three Oaks Park in Fort Myers. There was a cache hidden in the park, but we were not able to find it.

After coming back to our suite, we spent an hour or so sunning at the swimming pool. Looks like we are developing a habit that we might have to break when we get back home.

January 29, 2012

Today we attended St. Michael Lutheran Church. It has been interesting to see the different styles of worship in Missouri Synod churches.

St. Michael has some beautiful stained glass windows.

I found their baptismal font especially interesting and very appropriate for this area.

All the words to the songs and the Bible readings were projected on a large screen (at left of photo) even though they were also printed in the service program.

After church, we stopped at Dairy Queen for lunch. I had a good laugh when I spied this speed limit sign in the parking lot. I wonder if it is even possible to drive this slow?

We hung out the rest of the day at our suite—watching a little TV, reading, napping and sunning at the pool. We are becoming very spoiled!

We were overjoyed today to receive news that our Italian friends’ son was born today. This baby has been prayed for by name even before he was conceived and for him to arrive on the Sabbath Day is even more special!

January 28, 2012

Our main goal today was to get our hair cut. Wow--our priorities have really changed since Cordell’s retirement!! It was strange to have my hair cut by someone else since my good friend has been doing my hair for over 35 years.

Later, we drove to Marco Island which has been described as a “large playground for sun seekers and outdoor sports fans”. We saw an aerial photograph of the island and it looked like the entire island is developed. Very beautiful homes, hotels and resorts are everywhere.

We ate our lunch outdoors at Rookies Sports Bar and Grill.

There were three other restaurants around an outside food court.

 The fountain and general atmosphere reminded me of the days we spent in Italy and I became a little nostalgic.

There are many, many palm trees in south Florida. I read in the local newspaper this morning that now is a good time to plant roses. Imagine doing gardening in January.

 

We have seen road signs in different places which inform us about panthers. I’m not sure if it is a sports team or real live animals. We haven’t seen any panthers, but I do believe there are some wild ones around.

I think this Fifth Third Bank name is hilarious and maybe not a wise business decision. There are a lot of them in this state. Why wouldn’t people rather put their money in First Bank or even Second Bank? And is there a Fifth Fourth Bank or a Sixth Third Bank?

January 27, 2012

We woke up to a cloudy morning with a forecast of continued clouds until late afternoon. One of us slept in until after 8:00 a.m. We decided to go out for a big breakfast today and didn't finish eating until almost 10:00 a.m.

We drove around town for a while and did a little shopping. We saw this interesting business and think the name is funny!

We decided that this would be a good day to catch an early movie. I had been wanting to see War Horse for quite some time and we found a theater that had a 12:15 p.m. show. We were totally shocked when we arrived and found the parking lot crowded at this time of the day. There were 16 theaters and the one we were in had many people in it---once again mostly old people like us!! It is quite a contrast to what we experienced at Disney World!!

January 26, 2012

We spent 3 hours at Barefoot Beach in Bonita Springs today. I saw about 3 young children and two teenagers. All the rest of the people were old like us!

The water temperature was 68 degrees. We just put our feet in to cool off. Not many people were going in the water. I figured those that did had probably just escaped from the insane asylum!

The seagulls here are very bold. A person sitting near us took out a sandwich and as soon as he began eating it a seagull walked very close to him. When people were walking up the shore line, the seagulls just sidestepped them rather than flying away.

There was a definite separation from the public and private beaches.

After lunch, we drove to Sanibel Island. We noticed lots of people riding rental bikes along very nicely developed bike trails. On our way back we made a brief stop along the causeway between Sanibel Island and Fort Meyers. There are areas where you can park your car right at the water’s edge. It was very windy and quite chilly.

I was surprised at the number of seashells on shore here—more than I’ve ever seen on the beaches in North Carolina. This is all seashells with hardly any sand visible along the water's edge.

We ate dinner at  restaurant named Red's. We arrived in time for the early bird dinners and they only cost us $10.00 each. Needless to say the place was packed---again it was mostly all old people!

January 25, 2012

I wonder if we will get tired of just being lazy. We took a walk around the area this morning—checked out the local CVS and picked up a few things. All the developments--housing and commercial--have very nice landscaping. I saw some plants today that I didn’t recognize.

And I also saw something that I did recognize. Apparently, hiking trails in the mountains aren’t the only place we find snakes!!

Cordell is seriously considering bringing one of these back home with him…...

...…the plant shown at the top left—not the Porsche!!!

                                                                                                  .

We had the swimming pool all to ourselves again today. Maybe we’ll try a beach tomorrow, but it is so nice to relax in the sun just steps from our suite.

This was Cordell's view for most of the afteroon---that is when he wasn't napping!!!

We prepared a nice dinner in our suite tonight. We had tortellini, salad, bread and wine while listening to music by Frank Sinatra. My son and his wife gave us a Sinatra Live Vegas CD set that Cordell downloaded to his iPad. I suppose this is the way seniors go clubbing!

January 24, 2012

We have settled very nicely into our suite here at the extended stay hotel. This is probably the best situation for us because we are not confined to one room, we have a “full” kitchen so we can cook as much as we want, we have complimentary breakfast and yet we have weekly maid service. And did I mention there is a heated swimming pool that we don’t have to clean?

We did take advantage of the hotel breakfast this morning since they have a waffle maker. There are lots of other food choices so we can eat there often and be plenty satisfied.

We spent the most part of this morning paying our bills on-line, catching up on our e-mail, checking out geocaching sites on-line and sending cards. After lunch, we did some shopping and took an unplanned trip back to Bonita Springs.

Sadly, last night after we had settled into our suite, I discovered that I could not find my “blankey”.  It is not only young children who cling to their favorite blankets. I have a super lightweight one that I have used for years and it goes on all my trips. Cordell suggested that we go back to the hotel we left yesterday and see if the maid had found it. When it wasn’t there, I resigned myself to the fact that it probably got tossed out because it is pretty ratty looking as most favorite blankeys are.

After dinner tonight, I looked around our suite and was elated when I found my blankey on the shelf of the table beside my bed!!! So now I am a "happy camper" once again.

Newt Gringrich made a whistle stop in Fort Meyers today not far from our hotel. I seriously considered going just to say I had seen him, but too much of our time was spent looking for the lost blankey. It was probably the better way to spend my time!!!

We have no plans right now for what we might do tomorrow. This is a wonderfully relaxing time.

January 23, 2012

We hear that the weather back home was a bit icy this morning and some openings were delayed. It was quite the opposite here in Fort Myers---84 degree this afternoon. We are expecting cooler temps to arrive on Friday---high 70s through Sunday and then back in the 80s.

We have moved into an extended stay hotel and have a very nice 2 room suite with a full kitchen. We will be here for a month. It sure is nice to get all our clothes and other stuff unpacked.

After we got settled in today, we did a little grocery shopping, washed some clothes and then relaxed around the swiming pool for a while.

Now, we are looking forward to doing some other things around this area.