Touch of Class

As you have probably figured out by now, we head north a couple of times a year.  Summertime being one of them.  We know we better show up for the youngest grandson’s birthday or our heads will be on the end of a stake.  But, before we leave, we have to put the Touch of Class to bed.  If you remember, we had a lift installed early this year so we could save the $70 per month bottom cleaning.  Gary assured me we would see the savings in no time once the lift was installed…….hmmmmmm, I think he just wanted the boat to look manlier

Oooooh, Manly!

And you have to admit, it does looks pretty manly .  Anyway, before we leave, we have a rather long list of things we have to do to the boat to get it ready in case there is a hurricane.  Because it is so HOT here during the summer, we don’t take it out too much during the summer months because it IS so hot.

So the first thing we do, as I am I sure you all do with a boat or car that you are planning on storing for a while, is change the oil.  Then we also pump the head, put in more chemical, fill the boat with fuel and fuel additives.  We clean and roll up the bimini cover and put on the cockpit cover, vacuum out the bilge, plug-in a humidifier, bring in all cushions and electronics and we spray the cockpit cover with a solution of 50/50 water and vinegar (this keeps the canvas from molding).  Once this is all done we lower the antenna and outriggers (keeps the boat from being a lightning rod  ).

Less lightening attraction

We attach straps from the lift to the dock (this keeps the boat from swaying in a strong wind) and then, last but not least, we attach some lines from the boat to the dock (this is just in case the tide gets super high during a hurricane and the boat floats off the lift, it won’t go far).  So here it is all done

All ready for bad weather

And of course by “We”, I mean Gary, LOL.

You can also see that we found a cover for our radar.  What kind of cover is that because I want one too you say?  It is a spare wheel cover.  $16.93 at Wal-Mart.  One must be more frugal now that one is retired .

After we got the boat all ready and the condo all ready, we were off.  We had good roads and good weather for our trip.  That always makes it a plus.  When we arrived, first thing on the list was changing the sheets

Smokey, such a helper

Always good to have a little help with that job.  Then of course we had to check out Sunnyside.  We saw this interesting boat at the gas dock

What kind of boat is this? Looks old.

I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like it, kinda cool though.  And the water was pretty high

High water

I heard some dike or damn broke.  That will keep the No Wake around for a while 

Then we had the 2^nd Grandson’s birthday to attend

Presents…..for me?

Not quite as outrageous as previous years but still a good haul .

Gary manned the grill

I like mine medium

Then the gifts were open.  Yikes!  This kid has either been drinking too much Gatorade or he is into lipstick

Cute kid????

By the looks of this kid, the cake must be ready

Cake! Cake

And it sure was!

Happy Birthday to You!

And delicious too.  Plus they had a campfire

Watch the flames there guy.

Only one child got burned making s’mores, just glad it wasn’t one of ours .  Then for the adult males that wanted to blow off a little testosterone, there was the game of who could chop the most wood

Swing that ax!

or should I say who could just hit the log with the ax and not cut off their leg?  Kind of like Pin the Tail on the Donkey.  The party lasted well into the night and we even had a few drinks by the campfire after the kids crashed in bed.

Over the 4^th we went up to BearTrax

BearTrax Store

to help them out for the week.  They won’t let me work the till cause I am too slow but when the grocery order comes in I get to help stock the shelves!  I know, stocking shelves?  I’m retired remember?  It doesn’t take much to keep me amused  .

Before we left, Gary decided to ride our son’s Harley Davidson FatBoy up to BearTrax.  He’d get a little ride in and as payment for borrowing the bike, he said he would detail out the Harley.  Well the bike didn’t have a windshield on it and then it started to rain when we were almost there.  If you’ve ever ridden a bike without a windshield in the rain, I can tell you it is not much fun.

Chaps?

You can see Gary put on some chaps for the ride…..no wait…..that’s a wet crotch from riding in the rain.  Poor Gary.  The front of him was entirely wet.  What a Dad!

Gary got right to work on the bike, and I must say, it needed some TLC 

Luckily, my brother, owning a few motorcycles of his own, had a bike lift.  It lifted the bike off the ground and just at the right level so you could sit on a rolling chair and do the cleaning and waxing.  That helped save an old back.  Gary put quite a few hours into cleaning and polishing but once he was finished 

Wowzer!  The bike looked like brand new.  Huh, maybe after all that work he might just KEEP the bike.

While we were up there, someone placed what looked like a brand new tent by the county trash containers.  We called our daughter to see if she’d be interested in it and she was.  We decided to put it up to make sure there was not damage or had any missing parts.

So how many people does it take to put up a tent?  Apparently 4 and we could have used an extra set of hands.  Tents used to be so easy to put up, this one….man!  It literally takes 4 people to put this thing up.  Ok, maybe it’s 4 OLD people and it would probably only take 2 young people but it was pretty complicated with no directions.  But it was a nice big tent and there was only one part that was broken that my brother fixed lickity split.  He just walked into his hardware store and got the parts.  It’s good to have a brother who owns a hardware/tackle/bait/grocery/gas station ;).

After the week of the 4^th was over, we headed back down to the cities and got ready for our Anniversary Alaskan Cruise!

We had one final boat trip before we left up north.  This one was going to be to Naples Maria.  We have never been there before so I was excited to see the place, especially the boat and homes.  Naples is kind of a high end city so I expected jaw dropping homes and boats.

We started out early as it was going to be about a 3 hours ride, one of our longer ones and for quite a bit of the trip we had to travel out in the Gulf.  We’ve been out in the Gulf before, but always on our conditions.  Today we had to go no matter what the weather.  The seas were only supposed to be 2 feet.  By the time we hit the Gulf, the waves seemed a tad bigger than 2 feet.

Bumpy ride

We traveled about 8 miles from shore.  Supposedly this was a smother rider than in closer.  You could have fooled me ;).  You can see from the picture above how small the sky line looked.  Hopefully the boat doesn’t break down, I’d hate to have to swim that far 😦 .

Luckily, Gary had just gotten the auto pilot fixed, thanks to one of our friends in the boat club (he loves tinkering on electronics).  The boat travels so much better when you can use the auto pilot, you’re not constantly correcting the wheel every time you hit a wave.   The auto pilot is way easier on the Captain’s arms too.

When we got to the section where we had to turn into, Gordon Pass, the tide was coming out.  With the waves as high as they were and the narrowness of the pass, it made for quite the ride getting in.

Big waves in the pass

Here is what it looked like when we left, 2 days later

Smooth as glass

A much better way to travel.

Once we got into Gordon pass and took a left, we started heading toward the marina.  The houses were amazing!  This house belongs to Danielle Steele I am told

Pretty in Pink

Home made of large flat stones

Exterior of home

Oooooh, Pretty!

Of course there weren’t many ugly homes along the way ;).

Nice big Lounger

This was by someone’s pool.  You could have 5 or 6 people lounging on this baby!

And see this building?  That thing is almost bigger than my condo building!  Just think of the boat it could house!  Mam oh man.

Yes….that is a place to put a boat

It is a place to put your boat, on a lift.  I’d love to see the inside of the house if this is just for the boat.

As we neared the marina, I saw this boat….

This boat has a garage!

Two girls are talking one of the “toys” out of the “garage” of the boat.  The only toy we could pull out of our “garage” would be maybe a rubber ducky :).  Besides, I thought the guys would enjoy the nice shot of the posterior…….I mean the transom of the boat.

When we finally arrived at the maria, they put us in an 80 foot slip

Little boat in Big slip

We wook so widdle .

There was wind and current but once we go between the two big boats on either side of us, the wind dropped to nothing as did the current making for a smooth landing.

The marina offered a gas dock, inside storage for boats, condo’s and it looked like performed some maintenance work.  These slips are all owned by individual owners.  When the owners take their boats north to get out of Hurricane waters, they rent out their slips.  I wonder who got our dockage money, the owner or the marina?????  We could never have gotten into this place during season, it would have been packed.

It was pretty hot, so as soon as we got all tied up and made sure the air was on, we headed for the pool.  We had to pass by this boat to get to the pool.  Watch your head!  In order for you to judge the size of the anchor, I had Gary stand next to it.

Size of anchor compared to Gary’s head

That’s some spicy meatball…I mean, anchor.  Pretty dang big and so shiny!

The pool had a bar area (minus the booze)

Bar at pool

but great for shade.

Pool

It had lots of nice shade in the afternoon.  Good for white skinned Colleen.  They were painting the condo buildings and had scaffolding all around the building.  The pool was located really, really close to the condo building.  So close that they dropped a bucket from the second floor and it landed in the pool area.  Luckily it was almost empty and no one got hit in the head.  But wait a minute….we could of gotten free dockage!  Darn.

The first night of all our boat trips we always have hors d’oeuvres.  Here is the place they let us use

Big Bar with fridge

A pool table

And they actually let you play pool.

Tables to eat at

Lounge tables

TV room

And the bathrooms were really nice.  (I tried to take pictures but the girls kept screaming and running around).

We even got Birthday cake

Birthday Cake – Yum!

The next morning we walked to breakfast.  On our way we saw some pretty notable boats.  Check out the out drives on this one

1600 horse

In case you can’t read them, they are 400 HP a piece.  If you do the math that’s 1600 HP.  Come on!  Do you really need to go that fast?  what ever happened to taking time to smell the roses?  And you can’t see very well but this boat is kind of a pumped up pontoon boat.  It has an open bow and a huge swim platform.  I bet it had a huge price too.

Now this boat HAD to have pod drives.

Tight docking

Or else it is a lot of back and forth, back and forth, back and forth to get into this very tight slip.  And the slip is at a dead-end too which makes it even harder to maneuver.

On the second night, the boat next to us had their lights on.  Look at this cool window

Cool window in sport fisherman boat

I guess I am not sure if they had cabin lights on or if the window itself had lights.  Either way, pretty cool.

This rather unusual boat showed up at the gas dock the next morning

Looks like a race car

I have no idea what kind of a ride people go for in that boat, but it is definitely a fair weather boat and one that’s in need of a little wax.

We could only stay 3 days as we had to get our little tails back to the condo to load up for the ride home.  So we headed out early on the third day.  Not far from the marina, this helicopter was flying very low

Spraying for bugs?

back and forth, back and forth.  I don’t know if he was admiring our boat or spraying for bugs 

The Gulf was a little calmer than it was when we came there but we heard it was like glass for those that left the following day, lucky them

Then when we were almost to the miserable mile, we saw a Navigator

Aaaaaah, a Navigator

Even after 3 years, I still miss that boat 

Another fine boat trip and another great marina.  We’ll have to see what kind of adventures we can get into up in the northern country.  TTFN.

This time, one of the couples from the boat club, and a long time friend of ours, asked us if we wanted to take a few day boat trip.  They were heading back up north and wanted just one more ride.  We were like….”Sure!” .  Even though it is technically “out of season”, Fort Myers Beach was having some kind of festival so all the marinas near by were packed.  We decided to go to Tween Waters again, which is located on Captiva Island.

As I’ve said before, each trip holds it own adventures.  If you remember from our last trip, BearTrax South had been pulled from it’s location.  Guess what?  It’s BACK!

BearTrax South

BearTrax South was up for sale so I am thinking someone bought it.  They have it turned around so the balcony is not facing the ICW.  Maybe someone is actually living in it now?????

The winds were supposed to be pretty brisk the first couple of days but it was supposed to lay down by the time we left on Saturday.  We were able to tuck in behind our friends as they plowed thru the waves on the way to the maria.  We only had one mishap.  We hit a fairly large wake from a passing boat and one of our fans went flying off the counter and crashed to the floor.  It wasn’t damaged too bad, nothing the Captain and a little super glue can’t take care of 

We did see this single sailor double masted sail boat.

Wooden Double Masted Sail Boat

Gary was drooling.  Me?  Not so much.

In no time at all we were at the marina and tied up to the dock.

Pretty Albin

At this marina, they give you some coupons you can use in their ship’s store, some of the restaurants and BOGO frozen drink by the pools.  They resort built an additional pool that is supposed to be a “quiet” pool, hoping the keep the noisy, splashing kids out.  And it was.  There weren’t many people there at all so we spent most of the day at the pool.  I even went!  I wore my long sleeve 50 SPF swim shirt that has almost a turtle neck collar.  I got some weird looks from people but I didn’t care.  No sunburn here 

We went back to our boat to get ready for dinner after a fun filled afternoon.  When Gary and I got back to the boat, there were a few “lovebugs”

Mating Love Bugs

flying around (this is how they fly, the guy drags the wife around, or maybe the wife drags the husband around, your choice 😉 ).  After a few minutes, there were several hundred of them flying around the boat and landing on the floor of the boat.  We ran into the cabin and closed the door.   We hung out in cabin till our friends were ready to leave for dinner.  We tip toed off the boat dodging the bugs.  We were hoping the bugs would be all gone by the time we got back from dinner.

We went to a nice restaurant on the grounds that night.  In the restaurant they have what are called “crab races”.  There is a big round table set up by the bar.  It is covered in felt so it almost looks like a pool table.  In the middle are 25 or 30 small hermit crabs all contained by a large see thru cover that is sitting on top of them.  The guy who puts on the show, and I mean show, has a string that he pulls to release the crabs.  The whole thing is quite noisy but entertaining.  They have two sets of races, one for the kids and one for the adults.  For the kids show, each kid gets a kazoo.  You all remember what a kazoo is don’t you?

Kazoo

The kids get to blow the kazoos and the guy tells jokes and squirts the parents if they are not paying attention when he is talking.  He runs three races and pays out a couple dollars to the winners plus a GOLDEN kazoo for the first place winner.  The adult races are very similar but with more raunchy jokes.  We left after the kids races were over and headed back to our boat for a few after dinner cocktails.  Luckily the lovebugs were gone.  Remember the shad flies, May flies or what ever else you want to call them on the river?  Those flying worms with wings and long antenna?   These bugs are the same thing but not as gross.  The swarm in, hang around for a little bit and then are gone.  Thank goodness for small favors.

The next day we got up early so we could find a good spot in the shade at the pool.  Yesterday’s spot was not exactly ideal.  Today we were the first people to show up at the pool, so we were able to grab the best place to sit (we had checked them out yesterday).  While I held down the chairs in the shade, the rest of them went for a swim in the ocean.   While I waited, I noticed they had some different looking lizards there.

Curly Tailed Lizard

See their curly tail?  Guess what they are called?  You guessed it…..Curly Tail Lizards!  See their long pointy toes?  And when they stop they do push ups!  I’m glad I don’t have to do push ups every time I stop.  You can’t really see in this little picture but this one is two different shades of green.  Cute little bugger, although you still don’t want to leave your bag on the ground for them to jump into.

After lounging around we decided to have lunch there and get one of those BYOB frozen drinks.  Gary ordered a burger and I ordered a $4.00 PB&J, with no crust mind you.  We also ordered two Pina Colada’s with a rum floater.  So the food comes, along with our drinks and the bill.  I was expecting a couple of nice fresh pieces of bread with my PB&J.  Here is what I got

Uncrustables

I had seen these in the store when the kids were little but never got them.  It was still slightly frozen in the middle.  I did get a bag of potato chips with it so……$4.00, I guess not too bad.  The drinks were $10 A PIECE and were served in solo cups.  They didn’t charge us the $2.50 for the rum floater (Wheeeee!  We got something free!), but they were really good!  Our friends just ordered the drinks and they were charged for the rum floater.  I guess the waitress just liked us better hahaha.

We got a nap in before dinner and then the maria/hotel had a van that they used to shuttle people into town.  We were going to go to a Mexican restaurant there.  Here is what the inside looked like

Dollars stapled everywhere

Isn’t it illegal to deface the American dollar?  Just look at all the criminal activity that went on in here.  I was wondering how many we could rip off the wall and use to pay for our dinner.  Whoops, I guess that would make me a criminal too.  I guess we’ll just have to pay the old fashioned way.  With a credit card.

Anywho, the dinner was very good.  See all these happy faces

Mexican restaurant, happy patrons

We decided to take a little walk when we were done eating.  The friends we were with knew the island better than we did.  The walked us down to a place called Mucky Duck

Road to Mucky Duck

I saw an interesting garden Gnome

Mr. Toad and his toad pad

This thing was pretty big to be a Gnome, I’d say maybe 3 feet.  Those poles behind it had interesting little metal weird birds on the ends.  The whole thing was really cool.

We made our way down to the Mucky Duck restaurant.  People come here to watch the sun set.  The restaurant is right on the beach

Beach by Muchy Duck

Gary and I took a selfie while the sun was setting

Lovely Couple

then it was

Going

Going

Gone

Such a lovely way to end the evening.

We left for home on Saturday.  The winds were just whipping again in the morning but we checked a few of our apps and found out the winds were going to die down at 11.   So we helped our friends shove off (they had a bigger boat than we did and could take the waves a little easier than us) and we hung around till closer to 11 and sure enough, the winds died down so we were able to wander back in pretty calm seas.

Another fun boating trip with our friends.  We’ll have to wait for a few more weeks for our next boating adventure.  All the way to Fort Myers!  Stay tuned 

A friend of ours down here asked us if we wanted to go on the Craft Beer Trolley.  How it works is you buy a ticket for $20 each, you get a groovy pretzel necklace, a passport and a wrist band.  Once you have that, you’re able to visit 10 different bars on the tour, by trolley, and get a sample of craft beer PLUS an appetizer sample at each place.  We were stoked and could hardly wait to go.  Unfortunately for our friend, she ended up not being able to make it    We were sad because after all, it was her idea.

It was a lovely night, not too hot, a little bit of a breeze, just perfect for checking out a bunch of bars.  We were excited because most of them we’d never been in before.

Our first stop, after we got on the trolley, was at Dixie Roadhouse.  This is a strictly country Western bar.  I was told that this place was usually packed and everyone who came either did or watched the line dancing that went on.  We arrived there a little after 7.   The only people dancing were this older couple

Line Dancing at Dixie Roadhouse You go kids!

and the only other people in the bar were the ones that just got off the trolley.  So much for  a packed place. Here we received our first inkling of what we would be getting.  We received about a 4 oz little glass of some kind of craft beer and a small piece of a soft pretzel dipped in cheese.  I told Gary “By the time we are done tonight we’ll have drank a full glass of beer and eaten one large pretzel”.   Oh boy!

Gary went and bought us a large glass of beer to get the ball rolling.

Colleen in Dixie Roadhouse

Here is a picture of me wearing that lovely pretzel necklace.  I guess if we are starving when we get done we can eat this too.  Man!  I look like I am at the last place and have had a big beer at each one….jeez!

So after we downed our big beer and our samples, we were off to the next place.  Now at this stop, there were 5 bars all within walking distance so we just walked over to the next bar which was called Rackem.  This place was mostly a billiards place but they recently revamped it and turned it into more of a bar.  They were having Drag Queen and King Bingo going on so that place was packed and quite lively.  We grabbed our 4 oz craft beer and our teriyaki chicken over rice and sat at the outside bar.

Gary and Colleen at Rack Em

After we finished that, we walked over to Big Blue Brewery.  We have been at Big Blue a few times in the past so this was nothing new.  They did serve all the Trolley people outside.

Big Blue Bar

Here you could get your 4 oz craft beer (which they serve a lot of here, not the 4 oz but the craft beer ), a free little quiche or for $1 you could get a burger.  We both choose the free quiche.  Kind of soso on the quiche.  Don’t think I would order it as a meal.

Then we walked down to the Back Streets where we ran into the Pirates!

Pirates outside of Back Streets

We ended up following them around for the rest of the night.  I had only been at Back Street one other time and that was to pick up a pizza when we first moved here.   We haven’t been back so I guess it wasn’t that good.

At Back Streets we got our 4 oz craft beer and a coconut shrimp, which was pretty tasty but they smoke in this bar so I don’t think we’ll be back (nothing more judgmental than an ex-smoker 😉 ).  We moved on to our last last stop before we found the trolley, that was the  Remixx.  At Remixx we got our 4 oz of craft beer and a piece of banana bread.

We hopped on the trolley…the disco trolley Woo Hoo!

Disco Trolly

and went to our next stop the Tiki Hut

Tiki Hut

We have been here several times.  They have good music here and they are usually packed.  They had us Trolley people off to one side where we got our 4 oz of craft beer and a sloppy joe.  By this time the craft beers were tasting like ear wax to me.  Yes!  I know what ear wax tastes like, I’m sure you do too so don’t judge  Gary had been drinking most of my 4 oz’s after I had taken a sip of them.  He even got to eat some of the sample foods cause you know I am the picky one 

Our next stop was the Money bar.

Money Bar

We have also been to this place several times.  They have a really good and cheap sitting at the bar menu and a good but more expensive, all around menu.  There we got our 4 oz of beer and a cheese stick.  We only had three spots left.    The next spot was the Rockade.  It was tucked in behind the Ace Hardware that we go to all the time.  We didn’t even know it was there.  By the time we got there, it was getting pretty dark.  Rockade was kind of a smaller bar.  There we received our 4 oz of craft beer and a pot sticker.  We gobbled that up and chugged our 4 ozs of beer and headed back for the Trolley. We had to wait quite a while for the trolley to pick us up.  There were 4 trolleys that passed before one decided to stop and pick us up.  While we waited there was quite a group that was gathering.  The pirates were there plus a group of about 6 or 8 people.  The girls in the big group were getting kind of obnoxious, walking in the street, swearing up a blue streak etc, etc.  Come on girls, at 4 oz a crack you must be really cheap drunks!

The trolley finally arrived and took us to our next stop, Big Storm Brewery.

Big Storm Brewery

This is a fairly new spot.  Here we received our 4 oz of beer and tuna on a cracker.  Yum.  I didn’t even bother to take that appitizer.  We left there pretty quickly but not quick enough.  We got stuck with the 6 or 8 people with the drunk girls.  We had to wait a while for the trolley again and two of the girls were fighting with each other.  Gary and I kept backing up in case knives were drawn.  It sounded like they were all on vacation together and the husband of one of them was telling his wife to knock it off and quit being a female dog.  He practically pushed her over to the other girl who was doing the sloppy, “I’m sooooo sorry!”, huggy, kissy,  “I didn’t mean to hit you in the face”, huggy, kissy, “Really…..I’m soooo sorry!”  Well the girls finally made up by the time the trolley arrived.

The last place on the tour was called Ralph’s Place.

Ralph’s Place

Most of the Trolley went in one door, I decided to go in the other.  I had to cross in front of the band in order to get back to the others.  The music was so loud it was pulsating on my back.  Holy Crap!  Where are my ear plugs when I need them?  I don’t know why they have a martini glass on their sign.  It certain isn’t any place I’d go to drink martini’s.  The music would probably crack the glasses.  Here we received our 4 oz of craft beer and a macaroni hot dish.  Also, yum.  I’m glad I had dinner before I left home 

So at the end of the night, we had our passport all punched

Passport

I was sober enough to drive us home and we made it home by about 10.  It was fun to go into some of the bars that I had never been into before.  I am not a big craft beer fan but it was a good time anyway.  Apparently the South Cape has a bunch of these Trolley bar rides.  We’ll have to check out another one, maybe just one without craft beer .

UPDATE< UPDATE< UPDATE

My brother found out that the spider  is a Spinyback Orbweaver Spider.  Good going Google!

Our next boat trip was to Tween Waters Marina.  Tween Waters is located on Captiva Island.  The trip there was not bad, not to windy, not much traffic, just the way I like it.  The marina is about a 1 ½ hour drive from our place.    As we were traveling along, we did pass several of these boats

Catamaran

They are called catamarans.  They have 2 separate hulls, almost like a pontoon boat, if you know what those are.  We looked at these when we were looking for our retirement boat.  The Admiral didn’t particularly care for them so…..

We were passed by about 5 of them.  They must have been having a convention or something and were all heading back home.

As we neared the marina, I caught a picture of this bird

Mama and her babies

See the two or three little babies in it.  Ahhhhh….cute!  We also passed this boat

Great Harbor

This is a 37 Great Harbor.  We fell in love with this boat the first time we saw it at a boat show on the East coast many, many moons ago.  Big heavy duty railings, full size fridge, nice boat.  But now after traveling and living on boats, I find I prefer a boat that can get up and go if need be and most of these boats have small engines.  Good on fuel economy but not so much in the speed department.  Kind of a no go show boat ;).

We also passed this boat

Funny place to park

High and dry.  Probably left over from Irma.

So we made it in and got tied up,

All ready to Party!

luckily they didn’t have us back in the weeds like we were last time we were here.  This will be a good thing when we try to leave in a few days.  Winds are going to be 20 MPH with 30 MPH gusts!

Whew! It’s windy!

The first night we have our pot luck on the dock.  There was this large boat tied up there.

Big Burger (and not the kind you eat)

What the heck is that white thing in the window?  (This is where my zoom lens comes in handy)

Fluffy!

Oh!  A stuffed tiger.  Haha, ya never know what people will put on their boats.

But wait a minute, there is something else weird here

Hmmmmm….

Anyone see what it is?

Running light

There by the roof line….

Yup, they have the red running light on the starboard side.  It should be on the port.  What????  Finally Gary can’t stand it any longer and goes over to the owner to tell him about his lights

You say what?

What’s wrong with my lights?  Oh, well there is an electrician on board because we are having trouble with our electronics.  Huh? I’m thinking.  No wonder he is confused.  He doesn’t know if he is from California 

Or Tennessee 

Then the guy says, well it doesn’t really matter if the lights are on the wrong side because they don’t go out much at night and if they do, they turn off the lights and just have a guy out on the bow with a flash light so the other boats can see them.  Holy crap!  I hope we aren’t out in the water the same time this guys is, day or night!

Every morning, early in the morning, the fishermen are getting their boats ready to take people from the resort out fishing.  There is this bird that is helping himself to the bait.

Thanks for the snack buddy

He knows how to get a free lunch….or breakfast as the case may be.  Then when the fishermen come back and clean the fish, the pelicans get a free meal too.  It’s pretty funny to see all the pelican swarm into the marina just before the fishermen start coming back.  You’d think they had done this a time or two .

We had some mimosas and bloodies in the morning.  Breakfast of Champions ;).  A few of us were discussing this boat

Anchored Houseboat

Wondering what that thing was on the back was.  Looks like an out board motor.  Then the discussion was…is it a get home motor or the main propulsion?

I think it is the main propulsion….what do you think?

Later that afternoon we saw a boat we recognized

Hey! That boat looks familiar

It’s Front Page from White Bear Lake

That night we went out to dinner at one of the restaurants at the resort.  It was starting to get pretty windy so we wanted to take a look at the beach

Resort beach

Lookin a little rough out there.  Good thing we are tucked behind a bigger boat.  They’ll take the brunt of the waves tonight and make for good sleeping for Gary and I.

When I went to check out, I found a white Smokey!

Aaaaah

Friendly too!  So cute….I miss my kitty 

We started our trek home and the winds were everything the weather apps had predicted.  The waves were hitting the bow, shooting up the windshield and pouring off the canvas

Batten down the hatches!

A friend of ours took a picture of the boat in one of the calmer areas of the ride home

Touch of Class beating down the waves

We made it as far as the “miserable mile” and noticed

What’s Missing?

This is where BearTrax south used to be anchored.

Beartrax II

The hurricane must have been too much for it.

Well, we made it home, a little salty, but in one piece.  We’ll take off our gear, wash the boat and wait for the next adventure.

Our friends asked us if we wanted to go to the Boat and Car show at Cape Harbor again this year.  Of course we are always on board with looking at boats and cars, besides, you can get beer there ;), so off to Cape Harbor.

When we get there we take a look around.  Huh…..are we sure the boat show is today?  There is like….only 3 boats here……and one of them is a Carver!  Well we’re here, we might as well check them out.  That way we can still get our beer when we’re done.

Electric Boat

This boat can run on electricity.  You can kind of see the solar panels on the roof.

Hybrid boat

Good for down in Florida, not so good in Minnesota.  You could be half way to Prescott and run out of power and not be able to get going again for days ;).

This is the Carver boat

Carver

They certainly have made this boat more futuristic looking.  See the way they can extend the canvas so the people in the back have some shade?

Roll out shade

That is definitely a plus down here.  Unless you are still a sun worshiper, then you probably wouldn’t use this at all.  Fry baby, Fry!

Both of these boats had a very impressive price tag.  There were much too expense for us to even look inside of.  We were afraid that if we broke something we’d have to buy it.  OUCH!

As there weren’t many boats in the “boat show”, we decided to walk the docks to see the other boats that people owned.

Galeon boat

This boat, I’m told, is very similar to a friend of ours who just bought one last year.  The boats are made in some foreign country, Poland I think, so it was shipped to the east coast of Florida.  They came down to Fort Myers last year, picked it up and took it back to Minnesota.  I bet that was a lot of fun.

Look!  It has a steering wheel for when you’re backing up!  Haha, J/K.  It’s to open the hatch where apparently there are crew’s quarters down there.  Must be pretty cozy.

Look at this poor little plant.  Ya know you do have to water these things once in a while……

No body loves me 😦

This boat was tied to the transient dock.  I liked the little picture of the smiling hook on the side.

Not For Sale

Then after we walked around for a while looking at boats, we found out that the car show was the next day!  This whole thing was kind of a bust.  We did get to stop for beer so maybe not a total loss 

Oh well.  It got us out of the house and into the sunshine.  There is always next years.

Easter came and went.  Smokey helped me package up the goodies for the kids

Thanks Smoke, you’re always such a help

If he’s not helping me, he’s meditating on Gary’s lap 

Sometimes he is a pain in the patupi.  When we are watching TV, he likes to sit on the TV stand.  Right in the middle of the TV.  We have the “closed Caption” on because someone is a little hard of hearing and we don’t want to blast out the neighbors.  So when Smokey sits in the middle of the TV, he blocks the words.  Darn cat!  So we fixed the problem by doing this

Evil cat eyes

He was still able to squeeze his little furry butt up there but at least he is more off to one side.  Look!  He’s giving us the evil eye!  You don’t scare me mister, lets not forget who’s in charge of the can opener ;).

One day I was out in the yard watering our new garden curbing,  We had our back yard all landscaped and decided this was something we couldn’t live without.

New Curbing

Apparently you have to keep it wet till it cures.  That’s what I was told and I can follow directions.

Anyway, I saw this really weird bug

Crappy close up picture

I at first thought it was some kind of spider carrying something on it’s back.  Now I don’t know.  Colorful little bugger but definitely weird.  If anyone knows what it is, please let me know 😉

So while we are enjoying our nice sunny weather down here, people up north are enjoying an especially LONG winter season.

Southern Minnesota

Northern Minnesota

And here is us

Southern Florida

It is so cold up north even the dogs need jackets!

Woof!

You poor people….I will pray for a quick end to your suffering….although I hear another storm is on the way so better batten down the hatches! 

About half way thru the vacation it was time for the oldest grandson to get his stitches out.  He was fighting villains in his sleep and fell out of his bed.  Brave Hero.  After consulting with the boy’s pediatrician, Mom decided she could take out the stitches all by herself, or with some help

Hold him down while I cut these out!

Not too much screaming ;).  When it was all done,

Hugs for a brave boy.

The next day was the littlest ones appointment to get his cast off.  He got a broken leg from a fall.  Mom wasn’t going to attempt this one on her own and she didn’t like it when Gary took out his circular saw to help, so off to the pediatrician to see if the cast was ready to come off

So that’s what’s inside that thing

Huh? Was that on my leg?

They cut the cast off, took an X-ray and decided he was good to go.  So it was off to a well deserved swim in the pool

My first swim in the pool!

While they were here we had plenty of boat rides.

Here is a picture of the youngest one from last year

I’m strapped in and can’t move!

Here he is this year.

I’m a big boy now!

Quite the growth spurt huh ;)?

Go faster!

We even saw some dolphins! 

Plenty of Pool time

Peek, who’s under there?

Don’t get that leg wet!

Look at me! Look at me!

And a final dinner out 

Super Heroes scaling Mt. Styrofoam

I think everyone had a good time, I know we did.

Well, let’s see…..what else did we do to make sure the kiddos were entertained.  One day we went to the IMGA History and Science Center.  It was a place for kids, lots to see and lots to touch and experience

Sunken Ship

Stow away 😉

Mr. Frog….Riiibbbbiiiit

He looks fake doesn’t he?

Colorful lizard

Look at the size of those ears!  Man, I bet he can hear a pin drop from a mile away.

Handsome man and his boys

Let’s pet them…Heck no!

This was where you could pet and feed the baby stingrays.

We won’t bite

They were having none of that, thank you very much!

Then we went to a room that had a bunch of fun things the kids could do to see how motion worked

How does this work?

Skeet ball in a museum

What kind of fossils can we see?

Who remembers what this is?

Did you ever think you’d see a phone booth in a museum?  Now I really feel old :(.

Virtual game

With this game, if they used their hands, they could light fires, throw spears etc.  The last time I tried one of these I nearly fell on the floor, and I was sitting in a chair!  So I passed on this thing.

Our Grandson….reporting from the moon!

I’m pretty but I bite!

Another day we went to Fisherman’s Village.  We have been here several times buy car and by boat.  This time we saw an alligator, and it had Crocs on!

Cute little guy ;).

We also found this painted rock 

This is kind of a “thing” down here.  People/kids paint rocks and then on the back side they put a Facebook/Rocking Punta Gorga.  People who find the rocks, like me, go to that Facebook page, post a picture of the rock and tell where we found it.  I was even able to find the family that painted it and let them know I found their rock.  Then the next day while we were at another park, I put the rock down

Who will find it next?

for someone else to find.  Too bad someone on Facebook pointed out that you don’t want to put the rocks on the ground because dogs pee on them…..whoops ;).  But I bet it is something fun to do with your kids or by yourself ;).

Another day, Gary and Mark went out fishing, hopefully to bring home dinner, and Jenny and the kids and I went to Lakes Park.  This was a very cool park!  They have a mile and ½ little train ride that you could go on

Watch for cars

Chilly Train ride

A very nice play ground

Fun playground equipment

You could rent some small boats and paddle around the lake

Little boats you can rent

Although we did see this baby alligator on the shore

Big Bad Alligator

which makes taking those little boats out not very high on my to-do list ;).  They even had 6 passenger bike tram thingies you could rent.  Those looked like more work but much safer, unless you run somebody over ;).

You can tell by these pictures that they must have lost a lot of trees in the hurricane

Wind blown trees

They had several little islands in this lake and most of the trees looked like this.  Blown over so you see the roots.

This park also had great trails and plenty of spots to picnic.  All in all, it was a really good park.  I’ll think we’ll go back there again next year and bring the big boys ;).  Speaking of big boys, the great white hunters didn’t catch anything.  So much for providing for the women and children.

While they visiting, the little one decided he can’t live without being right by his Mama.  He cries “Mama, Mama, Mama” until he can see her again.  On the way home from the park we stopped and picked up lunch.  Jenny went in and I stayed out in the car with the two boys.  The little guy instantly started his chant “Mama, Mama, Mama”

Crying for Mama

I chimed in

WHAAAAAAAA!

And so did big brother

I WANT MY MAMA!

We had fun, although anyone passing by was wondering what the heck we were doing in the car ;).

After these fun filled days and and many hours in the pool, I think Mom was done :0

Night, night……..

Isn’t that what vacation is for?  To catch up on your sleep? LOL.

Our first visitor, our son, was able to rent this sweet ride!

2018 Volvo

He was able to save up his pennies for a First Class air fare, so he did what everyone does in First Class.  He drank as much as he could because it was FREE!  Well not really…..but you know what I mean  , so I was his DD for the ride home.  He was able to talk the people at the car rental place into a free upgrade.  He does work there after all, and he ended up with a 2018 Volvo XC90, ooooh, what a sweet ride!  When we left the parking lot of the car rental place, Pat had to compare their workers with his workers at the MSP airport.  The people at SWF failed miserably.  They didn’t even ask for any ID from either of us when we took the car off the lot.  That’s a Boozo Nono!  Bad move Chickie!  Anyway, this car could practically drive itself!  When I got a little to close to the solid white line, it pushed the car back over into the lane!  I freaked out when that happened until Pat told me of the little driving feature and all the other whistles and bells the car had.  I don’t know, too much help for me, I kind of like swaying in and out of lanes while I drive.  Makes it more interesting ;).

The next group arrived the following day.

All ready for fun and sunshine!

It included the two walking wounded

One with a broken leg

One with stitches in his chin

And a mom that was ready to relax

The first day we just hung out at the pool

Just chillin by the pool

I get to swim!

And caught our own……CRABS!  Yes!  I said crabs!  And not just any old crabs, they were BLUE crabs!  I was impressed.  Just think of the money we can save on food now!  We’ll just eat Blue Crabs for the rest of our life ;).

So how did we catch these crabs?  First we bought a crab trap at Wal-Mart, then we bought some chicken livers, then Gary put the livers in the trap and thru it out in the canal.  The next day he pulled it up

What did we get?

and their were two crabs in there,

OOOOOOh, two of them.

big enough to eat!  If you look real close you can actually see the blue color on their legs.

Crab number one

crab number 2

Into the pot they went

This is tough work, drinking beer and cooking crab.

a few minutes later

All cooked

they were all ready to eat.  A few minutes after that

All eaten! Yum!

all gone!  And very tastee!  We threw the crab pot in again for another round.  Two days later there were 2 more in it but they were really small, we didn’t even keep them.  So much for the savings on the grocery bill 

The last day of our son’s visit, he and Gary rented a couple of Harleys for the day

Filler up!

Not much to look at but for $70 for the bike and $20 for insurance, not a bad price for a day of bike riding.  Gary had scouted out a route beforehand to make sure they didn’t end up on a freeway and to make sure they had something to look at.  They drove to Everglades City and back.  They did see some alligators on the road, some were very close and scared the crap out of our Pat LOL.  Gary had to pick some bugs out of his teeth, unfortunately the bikes didn’t come with windshields.  Oh well, you can’t expect much for $70 :).

While they were on the bike trip, we went to 4 Mile Eco Park which was just down the street from us.  It was a good start to their vacation because most of the trail was tree covered which kept everyone in the shade.  They did have a few docks that went out in the river.  See this picture

Alligator or log? You decide.

Is this an alligator or not?  Sure looks like one to me.

The crew had a wonderful day

Smiles everyone. Smiles!

When we finished our walk, we were able to look at the war memorials that they had set up in the parking lot

All in all everyone had a fun day.