For TT

The Hope Professor sent me this yesterday. Add a palm tree and it could be Port Charlotte.

Take A Walk

Please note all the bright colors in today's blog posting. This is intended to cheer up my northern readers (that's pretty much all of you) who are suffering through cold and ice and totally intolerable conditions. None of these photos were taken from the seat of a bicycle. Today I decided to take a walk, instead.
Why a walk? Well, TT is walking to combat restlessness and cabin fever, GZMooHoo is walking to establish some walking fitness for something he has planned for later this year. Both of them are doing this in spite of the wretched weather conditions where they live. And the Fatcyclist has taken up running. This all must mean something.... Besides, I hate to be left out of anything. (It is the middle child in me, I think.)
I planned a two mile walk, a distance I know I can handle -- fully expecting it to be a crushing bore. Walking does have the advantage of needing very little gear, but it is sooooo slow. I took my camera with me, just in case I ran across something bloggable. (As I proved yesterday, I have very low standards in that regard.)
It turned out to be not so bad. Wind isn't much of an issue when I'm moving at 3 miles per hour, a bonus. I probably should have worn a hat, or cap, or at least sunscreen. The same dogs that bark at me on my bike, bark when I walk by -- just longer. I may need to get a walking stick if I do much more of this. Or pepper spray. I see gear potential, already. Photo one? It is red, and it fits in with the "Road Ends" theme from a while back. Photo two? OSLO likes brightly colored houses. It's funny that I haven't ever noticed this one on my bike .... Photo three? It's a rose, guys. In January. Two miles. 75 degrees.

Supper in Punta Gorda

The route to the Riviera Restaurant is tricky. Past the gated community trailer park -- surely only in Florida -- then through an even older trailer community on some of the most desirable lots in the county. Sailboat property.
The whole place has an old island feel to it, much like the old Miller's Marina on Gasparilla Island.
It should be named the Oyster Shack, I think. Except you often need reservations to eat there. It is, as you can see, right on the water. In this case, a waterway linking the harbor with inland waterways. Mangrove territory.
TOPWLH had the king crab legs, I had shrimp. There was key lime pie on the menu, but I've had about all the key lime pie I want for a while. It was a little past sunset by the time we got back. A new place to eat is a blog worthy event in my life. Pathetic, isn't it?

Ride Report

Florida has returned to being Florida, at least for the time being. It was 67 degrees when I left the house, with a north wind that shifted to the west occasionally. A sea breeze, I imagine.
Blue sky, a few clouds. Really about perfect for a bike ride. The Myakka River is west of here, and I finally rode all the way there today. No man made obstacles between the spot in the photo (above) and Texas.
The view from the other side of the bridge, above. The view from the next bridge, below.
My bicycle computer was flaky today -- so I plotted it out on Map My Ride to see how far I'd ridden. Not quite 15.5 miles, round trip. Good enough for January.

Key Lime Pie

I hope an hour on the bike burned most of this off. Key lime pie is still one of my favorites -- right up there with strawberry-rhubarb.

Punta Gorda

Who says there are no hills here? Okay, maybe a bridge isn't technically a hill, but it is 1.25 miles long, and it has a hump in the middle. I'm calling this a hill. It is better known as the Peace River Bridge, connecting Port Charlotte to Punta Gorda. This was taken from the Punta Gorda side, near the banyan tree in Gilchrest Park.

That isn't my bicycle, I was on my road bike. There was a craft fair in progress when I passed through the linear park along the river. There were a lot of people on bicycles out and about today -- including a middle aged guy on an orange comfort bike with Lamborghini written on the down tube. Sadly, I did not get a picture of that. I took the photo below because I was amused by the Wisconsin Ice Cream tent. They probably did fairly well. It was an ice cream kind of day.
I haven't ridden my bicycle to Punta Gorda in a number of years. I freely admit to being intimidated by the amount of traffic on the bridge. I'm not so good with heights, either. So I thought I'd visit a couple of places that most of you would recognize while I was there. Since I won't be going back any time soon. Fishermen's Village -- below. And a couple more bicyclists. It really was one of the nicest days in the history of days. Notice the short sleeves and shorts worn by the tourists/snow birds.
TT and I visited this spot while he was here last year -- though I can't find a blog post with a photo to prove it. This completes my photo tour of Punta Gorda.
I saved my favorite photo from today's ride for last. I was near the center of the bridge, looking north-west towards Charlotte Harbor. Mid 70's, light wind and plenty of sun.
It was a really nice ride, though I am not sure that the view from the other side is worth the trip across the bridge. Two trips, really. One each way. But I'm glad I did it, and can put in my log as well as my blog. Another goal achieved.

700

Note to self: Just because the high wind advisory has been cancelled doesn't mean that biking should break out. It's the off season, and although I claim to have coined the phrase "The Auckland Rule" (If you don't ride in the wind, you don't ride) and I even brag at times about being a hard core biker, the truth is that I'm currently taking some time off from serious biking. So windy and cold may be bikeable at home, but not so much here in Florida. The deal is though, that it wasn't windy and cold -- it was windy and almost warm. About 70. So I was tempted to head out into the wind and see where I ended up.
This is the intersection where I made the turn back towards the house. About 7 miles into the ride, with another 8 to go. I found some long, lonely stretches of road to ride. My favorite kind.
There are some pretty isolated spots out near the Myakka River backwaters, where I took these photos. I was not alone however. My wildlife sighting for the day.
And as a bonus, it was moving even slower than I was. I think it had a headwind.

699 Posts

The cold snap finally snapped here, after the longest cold spell since they started keeping records, according to the weather channel. As predicted, yesterday afternoon the thermometer hit 71, and I took a bike ride in short sleeves and shorts for the first time all year. Signs that this is a semi-tropical climate were all around -- including the house in the photo below where the occupants tried to save their ornamental plantings by wrapping them in bedsheets and the like. We'll see how it goes. A lot of yard plantings look pretty dead to me. There are also a few dead fish floating by the dock now and then. Sanibel Island's beaches were apparently littered with them -- the gulf waters got pretty cold, as you might expect, from two weeks of at or near record low temperatures for this part of the country. I heard a report that the temperature gauge off the Venice pier recorded the lowest temperature it has ever recorded since it was installed. (They neglected to mention when that was.) Anyway, it's over, and the weather guy on TV tonight actually stated that we would never see anything like that again in our lifetimes. That seems like a reckless statement to me. But still.....
We've mostly been hunkering down -- thankful that this house has central heat, and the power stayed on. I've taken a few short bike rides, but without the proper gear it seemed like waiting it out was the best plan. The high point of the week was probably my chat with the FBI -- though I was glad to have the tile guy come and repair the tile floor in the front entryway. So the week wasn't a complete washout. TOPWLH and I celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary last Sunday, quietly -- as is our usual custom. His birthday is this coming Sunday. The wife of my Mother's only brother died this week -- a sad event, though Sue had lived a long, and I think a happy life. Her funeral is Monday at the Yellow Lake Lutheran Church near Webster, Wisconsin. I will not be at the funeral, but I'm guessing that it will likely be a celebration of her life to mark her passing, much like Aunt Louise's funeral a couple of years ago. There are very few leaves left on the family tree from that generation -- I am now among the oldest members of my family. A sobering thought. Anita still looks good, though -- so I guess I won't wallow in that one too much. My next post here will be number 700. I'll try to find something interesting to blog about.

Frosty

Frost. I've never seen this before here.
This was the only day of the string of 10 cold days that we've seen frost on the dock and the grass. More humidity, perhaps.
There were no more 'hurricane days' though -- schools were closed here Monday to relieve the pressure on the power grids, but were open today. There is no provision for snow days in the calendar, so they used up one of their hurricane days. 70's by Thursday, they say.

A New House in the Neighborhood

New photos of the house that I just received from Lynne, taken today. (Photos courtesy of LH.)
Taken from the Boyd's driveway.
Taken from the association deck.
The view from the back porch, looking west.
The view from the Master Bedroom.

Not Real Warm

A Photo for OSLO and the COTU

I rode my bicycle to the beach today. It was cold, by Florida standards. But I am from Michigan, and a long time before that I lived in Minnesota, so I was just fine. The wind was brisk, as you can see from the flag in the photo below. I am not fond of wind.
This house is near the beach. I took the picture because of the purple truck -- it looks just right for my granddaughter. I also know that OSLO gets a charge out of the brightly colored houses around here. This one looks kind of coral in the photo, but it looks pretty orange in real life.

Girl Fishing

These photos were taken on New Year's Eve. The girl COTU seemed to find the bait to be interesting. She has never been the squeamish type when it comes to bugs, worms and such.

She really, really wanted to catch a fish, but it was not to be. One of the locals advised us that the best bait to use in this waterway is shrimp. She had worms. Maybe that was it.
Our visitors are gone now ... and without them here for entertainment, there may be biking breaking out soon. My temperature cut-off at home is about 40 degrees, but I don't have the right gear for that here. So I consider the 50's to be tolerable with what I have. It didn't hit 50 here today. However, it did not snow.