March 15th -19th – Family Fun!

Wow—we have really been busy since my cousin Kurt and his wife, Ruthie arrived on Sunday afternoon. They live in Bentonville, VA, near Front Royal. Ruthie had enough of the winter weather so they took us up on our offer to visit with us here in Fort Myers. We don’t get to see each other nearly enough, so I was looking forward to a spending a week together.

 

 

 

On Sunday, Kurt and Ruthie went to church with us. He leads the music at his church at home and having a strong singer next to me during the praise part of the service is really nice

 

 

 

 

We all enjoyed eating lunch outside on our lanai, but Kurt and Ruthie had an extra appreciation for it. We knew that our family and friends at home were expecting a snow storm to begin later in the evening, but it seemed to have arrived earlier than predicted. Looks like Kurt and Ruthie got out of town in the nick of time

 

 

Later, we took a walk in our development. There was an open house and we all checked it out. It was a single family detached home. The owners were showing the house so all of their furnishings were still in the house. It was priced at $499,000.00, a tad too expensive for me. The homeowners are moving back north to be closer to family.

 

 

On Monday, we went to Sanibel Island and took a 4 mile guided tour of the J.N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge which is world famous for its birding. It is home to 250 species of birds, more than 50 reptile and amphibian species, and 30 types of mammals. This was the third time we have taken this tour and we always enjoy it very much.

 

 

 

 

 

It was mostly cloudy and another tornado watch was issued for the island. However, there was never any rain fall today as there had been during our last visit there with the Hausers and there was also a tornado watch.

 

We found some extra time to look for a couple of caches before leaving the island. We stopped on the causeway after crossing the bridge and looked for a high difficulty rated cache. Kurt and Ruthie were just learning how to geocache and this was an excellent experience for them. Kurt was the first one to spot the cache. However, it was a challenge to figure out how to retrieve the log from the cache. Cordell and I had seen similar caches, so we immediately knew what to do; but it still was fun and we enjoy seeing the creativity the cache owners have.

 

 

 

 

Mr. Alligator made another appearance swimming in the lake behind our condo.

 

 

On Tuesday, Cordell and Kurt played golf.

 

 

 

Ruthie and I went to the swimming pool.

 

 

The days are getting longer now and we had another pretty sunset tonight.

 

 

On Wednesday, we had a full day of nothing but fun. We drove over to Estero Island, which many people refer to as Fort Myers Beach, where we had scheduled a dolphin adventure. Traffic going to Estero Island usually is heavy and can take up to 2 hours to get there from our condo. We left early and did not have the normal delays so we had time to walk around the old beach area while waiting for our boat tour.

 

 

 

This was the third time we have taken a tour with Captain Dwight. He had gone into business for himself this past year, so we had to do a search on the internet to find him. He is very personable, extremely knowledgeable and keeps us entertained.

 

 

The previous tours were on a boat that could accommodate up to 12 people. There were only 6 passengers on the tour today and it was much more intimate.

 

 

 

 

Captain Dwight did locate some pods of dolphins as he has every time we have been with him. We sat idle at times and just watched the dolphins up close. However, the most exciting part for us is when he entices the dolphins to play in the wake from the boat’s engines.  This definitely was the highlight of our trip.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cordell and Kurt got unusual patterns of sunburn on their faces which provided Ruthie and me with a few laughs!

 

 

 

We had a nice lunch at one of the outdoor restaurants in the old beach area. What began as a fairly chilly morning turned out to be a nice sunny warm afternoon.

 

 

 

 

On our way back to the condo, we stopped to look for a few more caches. Kurt found one that was cleverly hidden. Some of the larger caches contain small trade items. We were surprised to find a stone we had made with our photo inside one of the caches. Obviously, someone had picked it out of another cache and dropped it into this one.

 

 

 

Back at the condo some of our group took naps while others of us enjoyed chatting out on the lanai.

 

We went out to eat dinner at my favorite restaurant, Skip One and were delighted that it wasn’t crowded. We didn’t have to wait to be seated and our meals were served quickly.

 

After dinner, we played a round of miniature golf. The course was a bit crowded. It seems that there are some families and younger people here during spring break. It is nice to be playing outside at 9:30 p.m.