Beautiful Day in Port Charlotte!

   It was a bit chilly this morning when we woke up, but by 10:00 it was warm and sunny, about 65.  It's supposed to get in the mid 70's today so we're going to go to the beach again.  But we decided to try Blind Pass Beach just a few miles from Manasota.  After breakfast we took a short walk with Kylie down past the site where friends of Bonnie and Ken are parked.  Noella must have been watching for us because she came out right away to greet us by name.  We gave each other a hug and we both said we felt like we already knew each other because of Bonnie and Ken.  Ernie came out soon after and we all talked for about 45 minutes.  They were so nice to talk to!  When we came back to Harvey there was a blue heron, I think, in the moat out back.

 


This bird is very tall and exquisite!

 

  It sure was pretty!  We left for the beach about 10:45 and had to drive through Englewood Beach.  There was lots of traffic and pedestrian activity there.

I think this is the Myakka River we crossed into Engelwood

This is a metal sculpture of a conch shell in the middle of Engelwood

  When we got to Blind Pass Park at 11:30 it was packed!!  It took John over 15 minutes just to find a parking spot.  The beach was so full, too.

It was actually hard to find a spot to sit

  It might have had something to do with Presidents Day.  We picked out a spot close to the water so John didn't have as far to go to bring the shovels full of shells to me.  He sat down to relax a bit and realized he forgot his tablet with the book on it that he was reading.  He was pretty bummed!!  He scooped up shells for me and went for a loooong walk.  I talked with Arlena for about a half hour while she was checking on the house.  We really appreciate that she offered to do that for us!  Without his book John wasn't interested in staying too long and it was getting cool anyway because of the stiff breeze, so we left about 3:00.  We stopped at Publix on the way home to pick up some groceries including steaks for tonight.  YUM!  When we got back John sat outside to read and I started to get supper started by making salads and readying the fresh green beans then I joined John.  It got a little chilly when the sun started to go down, so I went in.  I started cooking the beans and John fired up the grill.  When he went back out there was a wood stork checking out what was going on around our campsite. 

He was getting pretty bold...

...and a little too close to the grill!!

Not a real attractive bird, is he?!?

Our neighbor told us to be very careful not to leave any open food outside our rig because this bird WILL steal it.  He also cautioned us to never feed it or leave our door open because the bird will come in!!  Wouldn't Kylie be surprised!!!  After our yummy supper we returned a call to Joyce Hershey, a dear friend from back home, watched some TV, and were in bed by 10:30.