Touch of Class

Always an adventure to check out the people and the bikes at Bike Night.  Here are some bikes we thought were interesting

First a bike for the little bikers 

Then there is the newest thing in electric bikes  I think Gary will be turning in the old pedal bike for this ;).

Then there is the BooYa! bike  

And one for when you’re taking that last bike ride  

See that hose coming off the bike into the coffin?  That’s his fuel line.  I guess you wouldn’t get too far without the coffin :).

Hopefully not too soon 🙂

Then look at this low rider 

Oh!  Look!  Jesus came to the bike rally too

WWJD

Then there is the Steve McQueen bike like in The Great Escape

And the person who either is very imaginative  

or drinks too much 

This one was pretty unique…..and for sale 

The Copper Chopper :).

Here is one for my big brother  a Royal Infield, don’t see too many of these around any more.

Of course the way the people dressed, that is always the best  Can’t buy the flag anymore but you can sure buy the shirt.  Gary and I always feel out of place in our “beachy” attire surrounded by all that leather.  I think next year we’ll have to wear black.

The had the Cape Coral Swat team on hand 

just in case those old Q-tips get out of hand LOL.

Of course the best part of walking the Bike Night, is the drink at the end

Cheers!

Anyone recognize this boat.  Some friends of ours were on the east coast and saw 4 or 5 of these streaming towards them

Looks military

We saw this guy pull in to our favorite breakfast place

Recognize it?  How about now?

A little closer

Yup, that is a Rolls Royce at 

Times are really tough in the Cape.

We have some lovely candles for sale.

We have the unusual “29”

Happy Birthday To You!

We also have “92” 

Can’t forget the “62” 

or the ever popular “26” 

Of course “65” is always a big year 

Do I have anyone interested in buying these slightly used candles?

Ok, Ok…..I only have 2 candles.  A “2” and a “9”.  Any takers?

My sister decided to visit us to celebrate a very momentous birthday.  I won’t embarrass her by saying how old she is but….she is REALLY old 😉 and of course I am the “baby”, so everyone is older than me.

I decided to go all out for her.  I bought her a Happy Birthday banner for her room

Don’t look too close….

Happy BirthBAY????? So much for quality control.  I guess when you only pay $1.98, you can’t expect perfection.

She brought us a bunch of “Thank You” gifts.  Chocolates for me, Nut-Goodies for Gary and all the ingredients for Toll House Chocolate Chip cookies.  She brought all the ingredients for the cookies in a Ziploc bags……in her suitcase.  And I mean all the ingredients…including the two sticks of real butter and EGGS!  She knows I don’t eat REAL butter and usually eat Eggbeaters so she figured she better come prepared.  You wonder what those people at the airport thought when they scanned her luggage.  And the fact that they didn’t break the eggs, that was the biggest surprise.  Kuddos to those luggage handlers and to my sister for knowing just how to pack them so they wouldn’t break.

So the first day we made cookies

Yummy

Nothing better than warm Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies.  That night we took her to one of our favorite restaurants here, Nervous Nellies.  The food was great and lots of interesting things to look at out on their deck where we sat.  When the bill came, she insisted on paying for dinner.  So let me get this straight, it is HER birthday visit, she comes bearing gifts, all the ingredients for home made cookies, you go out to dinner and SHE pays.  And what have you done for her so far?  Oh yah!  You bought her a $1.98 banner that says Happy BirthBay!  Way to go little sis.  You sure know how to show a person a good time.  Man, I better step up my game or she’ll never come to visit again.

The next day we took her shopping, at her request, and we went to the Shell Factory.  If you have never been but want to pick up some mementos of your visit, this is a great place to go.  She is not much of a shopper (I can see we are cut from the same cloth 😉 ), so she finished that up pretty quickly.  We bought her some Subway for lunch (oooooh, you big spender).  That night we went to a restaurant in downtown Fort Myers called

We met an old friend of both of ours.  I worked with him at NCL back in the day.  He was one of our Actuaries.

The place inside was pretty cool   and reminded us of Minnesota with the skiers on the ski lift and the dead animals on the wall.  Here people have giant dead fish on their walls, none of those cute furry animals.  We had a nice visit with our old friend and a great dinner, we even had left overs

The next day was her official Birthday.   I had to get my game going on to make sure she had a good and memoriable Birthday.   I started the day by making her a birthday cake…from scratch….Ok, out of the box but I had to add the eggs, oil and water, that is kind of like from scratch.

It’s the first cake I’ve made in 4 years, since we owned the house.  Guess I’ll try out this rubber pan that came with the condo 

 This container was an old Tupperware mixing bowl that belonged to Gary’s mom.  They don’t make them like this anymore and it worked like a charm.

Then being the good sister that I am, I even let her lick the beaters,

 What a nice sister.

I made her a marble cake  Looks pretty good.  Lets hope the pan doesn’t melt.

Waala!

Yummy bundt cake

Ok, Ok.  Don’t look too closely.  Yes, that cake is half eaten.  I forgot to take a picture of it when it was done.  Boat ride time called and I was in a hurry :).  I didn’t have any kind of a cake pan holder but this collapsible bowl does the trick

We took her for a boat ride so she could see the houses on the canals. 

She has skin like mine, so big hats are a must :).  We drove over to some canals with really expensive houses.  If you’re going to look at houses on the canals, might as well look at the really cool ones.  We saw this pontoon boat with 3, count em, 3 motors on the back 

We saw this other house with the really neat fountain the water was coming out of the pile of rocks.  Pretty cool.  We also saw another house that was getting a landscaping make over.  They were planting these palm trees   I don’t think I have ever seen these kind of palms with a trunk that looked like that.

Then we saw this palm  which is called a Travelers Palm and is actually not a palm at all but related to the bird of paradise plant. Pretty cool though.  It was the first one we have seen down here.

By the time we were done canal cruising, the wind had picked up a little and so had the traffic.  My sister decided to jump into the co-pilot seat to keep from getting wet from the spray 

When we got home it was time for her favorite alcoholic drink….Brandy Alexanders with ice cream   I added the finishing touch with the cherry. They were really good.  Oh!  See those flowers in the back ground?  She received a beautiful flower arrangement  Ok, they weren’t from me :(.  You don’t expect me to think of everything do you?  They came from her family, what nice kids 

That night we went to Lobster Lady for her favorite meal.  The dinner didn’t start out so well though.  We arrived at 5 and they asked us if we had called in seating, we admitted we didn’t, so they asked us if we wanted to sit outside.  Ok, but there was one little problem.  It was raining out.  They agreed to keep us under their overhang and away from the dripping water.  Good, we’ll take it.  The waitress came over and took our drink orders and then brought back warm rolls and a maple flavored butter.  Man, those looked super yummy.  But no silverware or plates to put the rolls on.  Think that’s going to stop us from eating warm, fresh rolls?  Heck no!  We grabbed the rolls and started dunking them into the butter, making sure there was no double dipping going on of course.  We placed our meal orders, big sis ordered some stone crabs, Gary and I ordered a meal that contained bacon.  After a long wait, the waitress came back and said they burned the bacon so it would be a little longer.  Huh, hope the rest of meal isn’t ready and getting cold while they cook more bacon.  Luckily, when the meal arrived everything was still warm and not over cooked.  My sister dug into her crab.  A little too robustly though, she ended up cutting a couple of fingers in the process.  Poor Happy Birthday Girl :(, but the food was real good. They offered her a complementary desert as it was her birthday but she turned it down as my delicious cake was waiting for us at home.  We were there a couple of hours but it gave us a chance to chat and enjoy the meal.  By the time we left there were a lot of people standing outside waiting for a table.  I guess it is a popular spot to go.  We’ll have to come back again.

When we got home I cut her a big piece of cake, put some cool whip on it and she drizzled some chocolate sauce over it.  Can’t forget the birthday candles

Happy Birthday To You!

And I even sang!  She probably wished I left out the singing part but I had to give her the full effect Birthday experience didn’t I?

We dropped her off at the airport pretty early, like 4:30 A.M.  We were sorry to see her go, we hoped she had a good time.  I think the cat was glad to have his room back.

My Bed, go away!

Our latest boat trip with the club was supposed to be at Palm Island.  The person in charge of the trip made reservations for 10 boat back in October.  On Thursday at noon, the day before we were schedule to go, they received a call from Palm Island.  They only had room for 5 boats.  What!  Who the heck do you tell they can’t come?  So they called around and found Tween Waters Marina could take all of us.  Gary and I were very happy as we had heard of this place but never been there before.

We left a little early so we could stop at the Boat House for breakfast.  We inched our way up to their dock.  I was able to grab one of the pilings and tried to pull the boat in closer, but no go.  Too shallow :(.  But look!  That big SeaRay is pulling out.  If they can make it in, so can we.  We waited patiently for them to move their boat and inched our way in. Success! Breakfast and bloodies, coming right up.

After we finished our breakfast we continued our way to Tween Waters.  Tween Waters is located on Captive Island, so, not too far away.  While we were traveling thru the “miserable mile”, we saw this really cool boat

Low profile boat

I was too slow on the draw to get a better picture, but I have seen this boat a few times before so keep your eyes posted.  I might get a better picture eventually.  It is a cool boat though.  This time it was filled with a bunch of old people so I don’t expect they’d be doing any racing today ;).

We passed by BearTrax South again.

Looks like they have added a few new mannequins.  See the girl climbing the rope?  Always entertaining to pass by.

When we got close to the marina, I saw this huge mansion with a dock in front.  Must be good fishing there because the pelicans filled his dock.

Was there a pelican convention I didn’t know about?  Hate to have to clean that dock, if you get my drift ;).

The little inlet by the marina was a great place to do some kayaking.  You could even rent them there. And those two boats rafted together.  You can’t tell very well but see the bigger one?  It is made out of wood and there is a huge hole in the side. Whew, it’s lucky it is still afloat.   That’s too bad that people can leave their crap boats where ever they want.

Lets look at some pretty pictures of the maria/resort.   Look at that pretty pool.  Under the big white tent they had a kiddy pool.

They also had 2 hot tubs.   Recognize the guy with the cold chain?  That is our very own Captain.  The guy on the far right wasn’t part of the boat club.  I don’t think he appreciated me taking a picture of him in the hot tub.  Don’t worry guy, I won’t blackmail ya ;).  There was also a restaurant and a coffee shop by the pool area.  They even had people come around and take your food and drink orders. But the drinks can get expense.  A pina colada was $13, ouch!  And that didn’t even include the tip.  We only know how much the drinks cost because the marina gave us a coupon book when we checked in, buy one get one free, so we just had to have one. But us retired people can’t afford those expensive drinks.  I’ll tell you, there were plenty there that must of fainted dead away when they finally got their tab.

When we got back to the docks after our little tour, there was a fisherman there who was cleaning his fish  Let me just say, he had some

admirers They were all hoping for a little something to drop into the water.  And they weren’t disappointed

Our slip was pretty close to the main dock area

See that little shack there?  That held a bench with a table and some chairs.  A perfect place to sit in the shade and read.  It was also the place we went to have our pot luck dinner.  Looks like some serious conversation is going on there.  Either that or they are all three sheets to the wind and are trying not to face plant on the table. Hee, Hee.

We had  a great time there and enjoyed the full moon at night.  All nice an cozy.  Can’t wait to come back.

So we bought this kitty bed for Smokey.  He of course just walks up to it, sniffs it and walks away.  The grand kids, on the other hand, loved it!

So, it it a kitty bed or a kiddy bed?

Of course we had to take them for a ride on the new boat.  First you have to do a show and tell

Show me the boat Papa

Then we got to go for a ride

Go Fast!

For some of us, it was our very first ride ever!

I’m strapped in and can’t move!

Poor little guy, I think the life jacket will fit better next year.  But hey, seeing as he’s there, might as well give him a better view

I can see lots better up here

Mom and dad were having a good time too.

Aaaaaah!

On the second boat ride, Mema and the little one stayed home.  We had a great time sitting in the shade

Too sunny for me

and Gary got a new Co-Pilot,  Stay between the red and green markers, Papa.

New Co-pilot

Now mommy can do what she likes the most

Chillin on the ToC

When we weren’t boating, we went shopping at Tin City in Naples.  The rides were the best

Ride em Cowboy!

This space ship is not as much fun as the bull

On the last day we went to the Yacht Club beach south which is very closest to the condo.  The water was a little cold but the playground equipment was the best!

Wheeeeee!

Mommy at 2 years Old

Older than 2 years but same girl 😉

A good time and a good visit.  Lots of “first”.  Bye Bye time came much too soon

Bye Bye

See you soon!

Our daughter, her husband and their two young boys came for visit us in late February.  We had a grand time.  The first exciting thing we did was go buy a papaya.  One of the people at the condo planted a papaya tree and one of the other people tried a piece of the fruit from the tree.  When they cut it open, they said it smelled like urine.  So of course I was curious and had to see for myself.  So we bought our own papaya

Fresh Ripe Papaya

Hmmm.  Looks pretty good.  I had to google it to see what to do with this.  So it said to cut off the end, scoop out the seeds, then cut off the sides.  Sounded simple enough but didn’t quite work so well so I just treated it like a cantaloupe.  Cut it in half,

Seeds

scooped out the seeds, which by the way looked super nasty.  Almost like alien pods or something….euw!  Then I cut off the skin and cut up the fruit

All cut up and ready to eat

There, that doesn’t look so bad does it?  Ha!  The only one who liked it was the baby.  And what does he know?  He eats baby food!  So most of that went in the trash.  On a side note though, it didn’t smell like urine :).

We had to do a little swimming in the pool while they were here

Water’s a little cool

First swim of the year

Then we went to the Naples Zoo.  I sang “Mama’s taking us to the zoo tomorrow” by Peter Paul and Mary all the way there.  The kids were glad when we arrived and I could quit singing ;).  The zoo claimed to be 43 acres but it seem quite small and easily walkable.  We must have come right after lunch because most of the animals were way back in a corner taking a siesta.  The first animals we saw were a couple of parrots

Ark! Polly want a cracker

Too bad we just missed the boat ride (it was lunch time for the Captains).  The boats/pontoons go around all the islands so you can see all the monkeys.  We did happen to catch this guy though.

Monkey hanging out

He and his buddy were swinging from the ropes.  Then we saw this big ol alligator

Big Al after a Big lunch

He was a big boy.

Unfortunately most of the animals were in a cage within a cage so it was hard for the kids to see them and even harder for me to take pictures :(.  Here are some of the shots I did get

Money in a cage

Big honkin turtle

Zebras lining up for food

If you can’t tell, these are zebras.  They look like it is lunch time and they are waiting for their feeder to get off his butt, turn off his phone and give them their lunch!

Zebra keeper talking on phone

The feeder on the other hand is trying to ignore those zebra eyes and finish his conversation.

Now these guys were just walking around the paths

Weird duck with pretty face

Such a cool face.  Then there was these two

Are you my mother?

Mother had a bunch of dark colored ducks and then this yellow one.  Hmmmmmmm.

We did see some cool giraffes.  I thought this one was fake

Fake giraffe

He didn’t move and his skin/fur looked too smooth.  Finally he moved.  Whoops, guess he’s real.  Then have you ever seen a close up of their antlers or what ever you call them?

Giraffe antlers

Interesting huh?  I keep saying, it doesn’t take much to amuse the feeble ;).

They even had camel rides there

Camel ride

Too bad the boys were a little too young for that.  Maybe next year.

So after a long day at the zoo, we were all tuckered out and headed back to the condo

All tuckered out

So we have belonged to BoatUS for 25 years.  Living up in Minnesota, we really didn’t need their towing package cause if you break down on the river, there is always someone there to give you a tow.  But with the traveling we did with the big boat, we had to have towing insurance.  Luckily, we never had to tow the Navigator but, our luck finally ran out.

Gary decided to take the boat out for a little ride.  I stayed home as I was doing some paper work for the condo.  He called me after he had been out for a few hours.  Apparently he blew the salt water cooling hose that went to the turbo after cooler. (That’s for you guys who love the technical terms 🙂 )

Ouch!

He was driving along when he heard this really noisy boat behind him.  Guess what?  There was no boat behind him, it was ours!  Holy Crap!  Back off the throttle and turn off the engine.  A quick look under the hatch and the problem was diagnosed pretty quickly, at lease if you’re as knowledgeable as Captain Gary.  If I was out there, I would still be scratchin my head and shouting “Help Mr. Wizard!”.

By the time Gary was done figuring out what was wrong, the waves from the other boats had pushed him to the channel’s edge.  He threw out the anchor

Muddy bottom

(I guess it was pretty muddy), and he called BoatUS for a tow.  They said it would take a little bit as they were pretty busy.  Then he called me to let me know he’d be limping home.

BoatUS arrived and started hooking up the boat for a tow.  The guy told Gary that when he got the call and heard Gary’s BoatUS member number, which is a 6 didget code, he figured Gary was going to be about 80 years old.  He said it was only old guys who had the 6 diget numbers and Gary looked too young.  Of course Gary’s chest puffed out after hearing that. Then the guy continued to say he rearely got a call from someone with a 5 diget code.  Gary should have told him the people with the 5 and 6 didget codes are the more experienced boaters and rarely need a tow ;).  Turns out Gary has been a member since 1992.  After they were underway, Gary took this shot while he was being towed

  Of course the courteous people down here in Florida, they see someone being towed, lights flashing and they still maintain their speed and come closer so they can see what’s going on and waking the crap out of them.  Thanks you guys!  Anyway, Gary gives me a heads up when they are coming down the canal to our house so I can document the situation

I think I see them!

Oooooo! There’s the tow boat!

There’s our boat with Captain Gary on the bow

Here they come, slow….slow…..

Colleen! Grab the tow line!

Whew!  The guy got the boat right in the slip, smooth sailing.  When we were all tied up, the BoatUS guy handed us the bill.  How much did we owe of that $410 bill….nothing!  Good to have that unlimited towing insurance ;).

We took another boat trip to Legacy Harbor with the boat club over Valentine’s day.  The trip to Legacy was a big trip for us.  It is located in Fort Myers 😉 so about an hour’s drive.

When we left, the sky looked kind of funny 

Such an unusual sky….oh!  It’s just clouds ;).  We don’t see those too often down here.

Aside from the cloudy day, it was a great run to the marina, nice weather, not many peope out, just great.  We were the first ones that arrive at the marina, which is pretty unusual for us as we are unusually the last people to arrive.  We have the no go show boat.

As we pulled into the harbor, we saw this boat

Where did I put that plug?

Hopefully no one was living on it when it went down.

After we arrived and got all tied in, we decided to take a little harbor walk and check out the boats, one of our favorite past times.  We saw our favorite bird down here

Caw! Caw!

I think he will have to replace Hank the Herring that we used to see all the time when we lived on the Navigator.  Hmmmm, what should we name him?   How about Flappy, cause he is always drying his wings like that.  HI Flappy!

We saw this cool looking boat.    Gary says it is 50 feet long and no more than 6 or 7 feet wide.  Too much wood and too narrow for me.  We even saw a few Navigators there.  Of course the didn’t compare to ours ;).  This is a pretty swanky marina so there were lots of boats to ooh and aah over.

Well, little by little, the other boats in our group arrived.  There were 8 in all.  The first day we had our “meeting”, the Captains were suppose to read a Valentine to their Admirals.  Here is what Gary’s looked like

Coconut Valentine

This coconut was in our “furnace” room when we bought the condo. Gary thought up the verse and then used a drumel to put the words on the coconut.

They were giving a prize for first place

  Guess who won?

Lover Boy

Yup, Gary did.  He got down on one knee and read it to me.  There wasn’t a dry eye in the crowd.  What a romantic!♥

We had our “heavy” hors d’oeuvres that night.   As you can see, everyone had coats on, it was a little chilly that night.  Of course the best part of going to Legacy Harbour is the donuts at Bennetts in the morning.

All lined up to eat donuts

Yummy!

It was a fun 3 days but reality sets in and I have to get back home to do taxes for AARP by 1, so it is off we go.  It is quite a bit windier today on the way home.  We just tuck in behind a big boat and let him cut the waves for us

Smooth sailing behind this big boy

You can see the splash when we hit a wave Gary will have to give the boat a big bath when we get home.

Well, that’s it for this little boat trip, TTFN!