Another Day With Old Friends and New Friends

  Neither one of us slept very well last night...not sure why.  We got up about 8:00, had some breakfast and got ready to head to Manasota Beach with Bonnie and Ken, Melissa and Chuck, and Ernie and Noella.  We got an early start because we will have to leave the beach by 4:00.  We are having supper with Norma and Dana next door.  So we left at 9:05 for the 45 minute drive to the beach.  Well.........about 15 minutes into the drive on I-75 we hit a traffic jam.  It took us 25 minutes to go 1 mile!!  It was along a stretch where construction is going on, but once through it, we didn't see anything that would have caused the back up.  Oh, well, the beach is our final destination, so we can't complain too much.  We finally arrived at 11:05.  It was a perfect day for the beach...high 70's/low80's and a slight breeze.  The rest of the gang was already there, of course.  It was good to see everyone again.  That was the first we have seen Ernie and Noella since last winter.  And, of course, we forgot to take pictures again.  I'll soon lose my blogger wings!  I went on my sharks tooth hunt almost immediately and never sat down again until John brought my chair down to the water about 3 hrs. later.  I am sooo addicted!!  We ended up with about 60 or 70 of them.  John got the prize for the 2 nicest ones.

Pretty good, huh?!?  It is so much fun
looking for these darned things!!

  I finally joined the group and decided to be social at about 3:15.  We all chatted for about a half hour and then I had to go back down to the water to look for "that last good tooth" before we had to leave at 4:00.  Our trip home was a lot shorter having no traffic hang ups at all.  We cleaned up and started supper.  We don't have a picnic table on our site, so the 4 of us ate over at Norma and Dana's table.  We came over to Harvey for dessert and to chat and get to know each a bit better.

Norma, Bailey and Dana in their beautiful 5th wheel.

  They all full timers who met while they were both members of the St Joe's Drum and Bugle Corp.  Brought back memories of all the years our family attended those competitions in Hershey, Lancaster and Allentown.  We had a great time sharing stories.  They are very nice people!  And they have a great Golden Retriever dog named, Bailey.  They left about 9:00 because they both still work and had to get to bed.  I stayed up to watch, "The Voice", just about the best show on TV!!  John read his book.  I was so tired that I went right to bed after the show, so did John although he read a bit more before going to sleep.