Our Final Week at Royal Coachman

   I can't believe another week has gone by already...our last week here!  It has certainly been a great one!  On Monday, the 24th, we left for Englewood beach at 10:00 to meet Rhonda at 11:00.  It was another beautiful day and so nice to catch up with each others lives.  We also spent some time looking for sharks teeth but only found about 40 or so.  We left about 4:15, but made plans to get together  again for dinner with her and Kevin before we leave.  We picked up shuffleboard equipment in the office and played after supper.  It's kind of odd here that the sports equip. is locked in the office after 5:00, so you can't play shuffleboard or mini golf in the evening unless you sign it out just before they close.  But in the busy season you have to return it by 5:00, so you can't play in the evening unless you have your own equipment.  Weird, huh?!?  Anyway, we each won a game that evening. 
   On Tuesday we had made plans with Stephanie and Tom to take an air boat ride on the Myakka River in Myakka State Park.  They ended up not able to go because of helping Tom's brother do some work at their new beach house.  We decided on the 11:30 boat ride, so we played a game of shuffleboard before we left.  I won.  We returned the equip. and left for our Myakka river adventure.  We embarked at 11:15 and spotted some alligators right away resting on the edge of the water.

This is the airboat, Gator Gal that we rode in.

Just getting a little sun.  Wonder if they get
a sunburn just like us!!

  Capt Bob gave us a lot of interesting info including this tidbit...the length of an alligator in feet is equal to the distance in inches from the end of his nose to his eyes.

There's Capt Bob.  He was great.  He had
a wonderful dry sense of humor!

We saw lots of alligators and birds including wood storks, ibis, herons, egrets and buzzards.  Unfortunately, the spoonbills don't come until the winter months.

Woody the woodstork

Blue herons are so neat!!

This is a white heron.

We watched this blue heron dive
for his lunch.

Got it!!

This osprey flew down close to the water...

...and grabbed his lunch.

We also learned that Spanish moss is neither Spanish nor moss, but an air plant that absolutely does not kill trees by feeding on them. 

Even though this tree is dead according to
our guide it wasn't caused by the Spanish Moss.

It was a nice hour long ride that only cost $12.98 per person with a $2 off coupon.  It cost $6 per person to get in to the state park.  We visited the gift shop and drove around the park hoping to see other wildlife, but were unsuccessful except for the bird watch area. 

John thought this gator must have smelled
my perfume and wanted to meet me!

 

This guy posed real nicely for us.  He was a long one!!

 

Pretty pond flowers off the
bridge of the bird watch area.

 

What a nice view of the Myakka River inlet.

 

This unusual gnarley tree was next to the
  bird watch area.

 

Another nice view from the bird watch parking area!

We left about 3:00, picked up shuffleboard equip. at the office and then I dropped John off at Harvey and I went shopping.  I still need a carved bird for my new room at home.  I got home just in time for The Voice, and, yes, I finally found a bird!!  We had supper, John did laundry while I watched The Voice, and then at 10:00 we decided to play shuffleboard (there are lights on the courts in case you were wondering!) We played 3 games.  I won 2, John won 1, so now we are 4-2.
    We played 1 game again Wednesday morning with John winning it.  So now it's 4-3 me in the lead and we HAD to take the equip. back to the office again.  Sooo we decided to go to Cook's Sporting Goods near Port Charlotte and get our own darn shuffleboard equipment!! Are we nuts?!?!  Then 
on to the Englewood/Manasota beach area to almost exactly halfway between the 2 beaches at Blind Pass Park.  What a nice beach with large piles of shells (for hidden shark teeth), small rolling waves, and clear water.  There weren't a lot of people and it's great for John to walk!  We were there for about 4 hours and found lots of sharks teeth, neat shells and some sea glass.  When we got back John waxed the new pucks and I fashioned a sprinkler for the resin beads you spread on the courts to make them slick out of a Crystal Light iced tea container. We grilled for supper and then Steph and Tom came over to play games.  We introduced them to Pass the Pigs and they taught us a new card game called Nine Innings, similar to our Nine Hole Golf.  It was a fun evening!

Stephanie and Tom

   
   Thursday we decided to hang around the CG.  We went to Anita's again for breakfast and then...you guessed it...we headed to the shuffleboard courts to try out our new gear. 

Our own equipment will make us play better now, right?

We really do enjoy playing!  We no more than started a game until a large group of CG residents came to play.  They invited us to play with them.  It was fun!!  We had plans to meet Rhonda and Kevin in Port Charlotte for supper so we went back to Harvey to get ready.  We met them at an Italian restaurant called Bella Napoli.  They had a regular pizza and John and I had a Sicilian pizza.  Both were very good!!  We would go back there again.

What a great meal with good friends!!

  Rhonda told me that she had recently found out that an acquaintance of hers was from Manheim, my hometown.  Here it was Billy Stout, a guy that lived just 2 houses away from me when I was growing up.  Small world, huh?!?  We didn't get back until 10:00, but we went right down to the courts to play more shuffleboard.   We played 2 games each winning one.  It's now 5-4 in case you wondered.  We love our new equipment.  Having our own is nice! 
   Friday we went back to Blind Pass Park beach.  I talked to Mom and she had a setback.  She will be going for some pulmonary testing on Monday.  Dad had an abscessed tooth pulled.  Maybe that was some of his fever issues, but he is still so cold all the time.  Not sure what that is.   It was a delightful day and we didn't leave the beach until almost 6pm!  We found lots of shells and sharks teeth, too.

How pretty is that?!?!?

  We had leftover pizza for supper and then hit the shuffleboard court.  John won 2 and I won 1.  Match play is now tied at 6-6!!  Guess the bully will be on Saturday since we're leaving on Sunday.
   Have I mentioned how gorgeous the weather has been since we have been here.  It's been in the low to mid 80's, very little humidity, and usually a nice breeze.  We have had 2 "sun showers" that only lasted 10 or 15 minutes.  Today (Saturday) is one of the few days with a bit of humidity, but the shuffleboard bully must be played regardless!!  We decided on the best of 3 games to make it fair.  It was very windy blowing from one end of the court to the other.  (It gives us an excuse for missed shots :)  John murderized me the first game and was winning the 2nd, but I managed to pull that one out.  What helped was one round when John had minus 20 and I scored 23 pts.  WHEW!!  The 3rd game was close, but I again pulled it out and won the championship.  It was a hard fought battle, but we had so much fun playing all week.

This might have been the championship shot...
...or not.

 

But I was victorious!!

 

Ok...I'll try to stay humble.

  Then we went for a bike ride on the Legacy Trail.  It's a 10 mile trail that runs all the way from Venice up to southern Sarasota.  We only rode about 2 miles.  What was nice was that there was a bike lane all the way from our CG to the trail!  When we got back we watched the Penn St/Purdue game and started to put things away in preparation for our departure on Sunday.  Then we had the rest of our pizza and went to Scoops in Venice for ice cream.  It was yummy!!  We stopped at Steph and Tom's to say our good-byes.  Hopefully, we will get to spend more time with them in the future (unless they end up moving to Arizona permanently).  We watched some more football and then went to bed
   Sunday we got up early and were out of the CG by 8:20.  We had an appt in St Cloud, FL at 11:30 to have Harvey weighed.  It was about a 3 hr trip and we had to stop for gas.  It was pretty interesting having Harvey weighed.  This fairly young couple who work for RV Safety simply have 4 flat scales in the back of their pick up truck.  They place one under each wheel and you drive up on them.  This all takes place on a small road behind a gas station and takes only 20 minutes.  They went over the results with us and we will get a hard copy in the mail.  Luckily all our results were good.  It cost $60.00.  It was worth it for peace of mind!  We arrived at King's Bay at 4:15 and were assigned to site D10.  It's an end spot, so it's big and very shaded.  Lyn, Jack, Josephine, and Tom will be arriving on Tuesday, the day before we leave to come home.  We had supper and watched football.  John went to bed at 10:00...he was beat...and I worked on the blog.  Hopefully, I'll get to bed before midnight.  We plan on going to Fernandina Beach tomorrow, just over the Georgia/Florida line.  I look for "baby ear" shells there.

Another Great Week at Royal Coachman!!

  On Monday morning, Oct 17th, we decided on Venice for our beach fix.  After a delicious breakfast that John cooked we left the CG at 10:00 and headed to Beall's Outlet for a new beach bag.  

These beautiful large flowers are outside one
of the double wides coming into the CG.  Does
anyone know what they are??

Mom called and she sounded much better, but she told me that Dad was having some left side pain, fever and no appetite.  We'll have to keep tabs on him!  Somehow, we missed the Bealls in Venice and ended up all the way down to the one near Manasota!  Oh, well, we're retired....what does it matter, except for losing beach time!  So going into Venice beach from the south our GPS took us to Granada Ave into an area we had never been to before when we went with Bonnie and Ken.  It was very serene and there weren't any waves at all.  Just small ripples that hit the shore.  Because there were no shark teeth or shells I was able to just relax and read my Julie Andrews autobiography down by the water.  I really enjoyed it and it was a great beach for John to walk!

Doesn't get much more peaceful than this!

 

I think this might be an Anhinga looking
for it's next meal.

 

When I looked out across the water all I could
think of was "from sea to shining sea"

 

It was so much fun watching this seagull pick up the fish...

 

..."almost have it down".

 

Look close and you can see the fish's tail
sticking out of the seagull's mouth.

 

He threw it back up and...

 

...started the process all over again!

 

WOW!  Love the sun glistened water!!

  We left at 4:00.  After showers and supper I finished last week's blog post while watching The Voice and John did laundry.  I chatted with Heather, Cooper, and Jack.  Yes, Jack...he baby talked to me!  We watched some football and then went to bed.
   Tuesday, we spent the day in Venice.  Basically, I shopped, while John did some reading on his Kindle.  The one stop we made together was The Upper Crust Bake Shop.  It was highly recommended by Bonnie and Ken for their famous scones and Devonshire cream.  We weren't disappointed...they were delicious! 

It's a cute little Cafe' with...

 

...delicious baked goods.  John had an orange/
cranberry scone.  Mine was cinnamon/toffee.

We got back to Harvey about 5:00 and sat outside for a while. 

Couldn't help but notice this cloud on our trip back
to the CG.  Looks like an alligator.  See it's opened
mouth on the left.

Stephanie and Tom stopped by on their bikes and chatted for a bit.  We made plans with them to go to Sonny's Bar-B-Q on Friday evening.  Then we went to BrewBurgers for supper.  Watched The Voice when we got back and then played 5 Crowns.  John won again!!
   On Wednesday morning I made banana pancakes and then we took off for MacDill Air Force base in Tampa.  John wanted to get a couple more hats and we wanted to visit the Px and commissary.  We had "lupper" at the food court and headed home about 3:00.  BUT...I had John stop at a  "jackpot" mall near Sarasota.  There was a Marshall's, Ross, and TJ Maxx/HomeGoods!!  I still need a bird for my living room back home.  As a bonus there was a Nordstrom Rack store.  I recently found shoes called, "FitFlops"  that feel real good on my troublesome feet.  Michele had bought some there at King of Prussia when I was with her a few months ago, so I knew they sold them there.  I found 3 pair!!  We watched the Presidential Debate that evening...again, no comment...and went to bed.
   Thursday, I woke to the smell of breakfast.  Yes, my wonderful husband cooked again.  I talked with Dad.  He's feeling better, just tired and no energy.  Arlena called to make arrangements for some babysitting when we get back home.  Then I called my friend, Rhonda, who used to live in York and is now in Cape Coral, Florida.  We made plans to go to the beach on Monday.  John set up a table in the screen house outside, so I could work with the dremmel on some of my pins.  It was gorgeous outside, mid 70's, no humidity, and a slight breeze. I worked on them all afternoon and again after supper.  John watched TV, read, played games on his tablet, and napped.  Later that evening we played 5 Crowns-I finally won- and then Pass the Pigs.  John won that one.
   Friday morning my phone rang while I was still sleeping.  It scared me  because of Mom and Dad.  But, it was a fellow "Frogette", Jane, asking me if I could pick her up for "Trivia" tonight.  We had quite a laugh when I informed her that I would have to leave right away and still be very late because I was in Florida.  She forgot that I was here.   We went to Nokomis Beach today.  It's only about 10 minutes from here and very nice!  And it has shark teeth and shells!!  The weather was wonderful again...low 80's and a breeze and no humidity.  It was nearly perfect for a day at the beach! 

These birds were sitting on this spot ALL DAY. 
They barely moved when someone got close to them.

 

You can see how breezy it was.  His feathers
are all ruffled!

 

Honestly, most of the birds just stood there
like this all day.

 

He is apparently bored with the whole thing.
Nighty Night zzzzz

We came back about 4:00 so we could get ready for our trip to Sonny's with Stephanie and Tom.  Dustin and Ellie called John on our way there.   It was Stephanie and Tom's first time at Sonny's and they enjoyed it.  They came back to Harvey for a while afterward and we just chatted.  We invited them to take an air boat ride up the Myakka River with us on Tuesday. They left around 10:00.  It was a fun evening...nice people! 
   On Saturday I didn't get out of bed until 10:00!  (I was watching Pit Bulls and Parolees).  I'm so glad we don't have a TV in our bedroom at home!!  It IS fun while we're travelling, though!  It was just a bit cooler outside this morning, so I decided to head outside with the pins I had put together on Thursday and paint them.  It was absolutely gorgeous outside under the roof of the screen house!  John went walking.  By the time John got back I had finished my pins, so we headed down to the mini golf course here in the CG.  I beat John by 1 point!  Yea!!  It was so much fun...at least for me! 

Steady..don't over think it!



Come on, come on...go in, go in.



Yea!!!!  I did it!

What an adorable bear carved from a pine tree stump.

And "behind" the scene.

Then we headed back to Harvey to get ready for the Octoberfest the CG was hosting.  They provided everything...bratwurst, sauerkraut, hot German potato salad, regular potato salad, coleslaw, German choc cake, beer, and soda.  It was very good except for the German potato salad.  It was a bit too sour for us.

There were about 100 people there.  Some were
to the left by the pool.  That's me in the middle
with the yellow shirt on talking with the nice couple
across from us.

 After supper we played shuffleboard.  We waxed the pucks before we played.  I won 74 to 40. 

How's my form??

When we got back to Harvey I polished a bunch of shells with mineral oil that I wanted to use in the mason jar lamp that Lyn and Jack made for me.

All done.  Now I have to find a cute shade!

Then we watched the Penn St/Ohio St football game.  Wow...what a nail biter.  We couldn't believe that Penn St pulled it out!!

   Sunday morning Cooper called me just after I had gotten awake.  We chatted for about 20 minutes.  John cooked breakfast and then he challenged me to another shuffleboard match.  He waxed the pucks again while I got dressed.  The outcome was different this time.  I WHIPPED Johnny Boy 82 to 6!!  The poor guy couldn't stay out of the minus 10 space.  I consoled him by agreeing to go back to Nokomis Beach because it's such a good walking beach.  We were there from 12-4:30.  It was a pretty good shark teeth and shell day again, too.  And another gorgeous day! 

A lovely beach!

 

 

I know, I know...I can't help it...gotta
have my shark tooth fix!

 

Look how the sun makes the water glisten. 
I love that!!

 

We watched these two pigeons for at least 15 minutes
doing a "courting thing"  I guess this is foreplay.

 

This is just before he jumped on her back.  I didn't
think it was proper to photograph the rest!!

 

More glistening water with sailboats and birds.

 

We did all right today.  John found the conch shells
during his walk way up the beach.

Dustin sent us a text showing us what Ellie wants for Christmas this year. 

Her 2 front teeth (and maybe a tongue depressor :)

John grilled a delicious tenderloin steak for supper.  then I called Mom to check on her and Dad.  She sounded awful again.  Her cold and cough came back today.  Dad isn't feeling too good either.  Still tired and so cold all the time.  Can't seem to get warm.  Wonder what that's all about??   Then Bonnie called to check in.  They are still out West, currently in Utah with Ernie and Noella, their friends from Canada.  They are having such a good time visiting Nat'l Parks.  We watched football the rest of the evening and I worked on the blog after John went to bed.  We'll catch up again next Sunday, the day we leave here and start our trip back North. Hope you all had a great week, too!!