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.