Leap Day

February 29 used to be called Sadie Hawkins Day, I think. Now it seems to be called Leap Day. Once every four years, more or less, there is an extra day in the year, and for absolutely no good reason, it occurs in February. Maybe the vote on that was held in New Zealand or Australia. Personally, I'd rather see it show up in June. (The photo is only marginally related to this post -- it's a date palm tree.  Today's subject is about the date, so.....)

On the last day of the month there are two things I like to do. One is to check out a New Zealand blog and see what the blogging theme is for theme day on the 1st -- electricity is the topic for tomorrow (?), and the other is to look back over my exercise log to see how I've done. I tried something new early this month -- I wrote down a list of (mostly exercise related) goals. I like goals, but I don't usually put them in writing. I thought I'd share a few. 

1. Ride long.
2. Ride lots.
3. Walk lots.
4. Don't fall down.
5. Stadium.

 I checked them all off, too.  Well, all of them that I shared, anyway.  I think I'll try writing up another list for March, and see how that goes.

Sky Watching

After TT and PW returned from watching the Twins practice in Ft. Myers yesterday, they offered to fix dinner for us all (again). Pan roasted fish, pan roasted sweet and white potatoes, a mixed zucchini/carrot/onion stir fry and brussels sprouts. An excellent meal, and firmly in the camp of "veggies are my friends."

Sunset is about 6:30 here now, and we managed to catch a nice one last night just as we were getting ready to leave the house for an evening walk.

We walked over to Sunrise Park and watched the backwash of the sunset over the tennis courts for a while.  The clouds eventually produced quite a bit of rain, but not until later.

This morning our house guests left on a road trip to spend some time with TT's high school tennis coach.  JB and I had an appointment with a floor tile repair person about the time they headed out.  It seems to be an ongoing issue.  As soon as he left I assembled the necessary stuff and headed out for a bike ride, hoping to get in some miles before the heat of the day hit us full blast.

The high temperature this afternoon is predicted to be in the upper 80's, and the dew point was already almost 70 when I left.  There were several people walking around Ollie's Pond when I got there.  Two different groups were carrying white plastic bags, with what looked like pine cones in them.  As I watched, two of the people decided they needed a little sit down in the shade.  Michigan is beginning to call my name, but I'm not quite ready to exchange heat stroke for frost bite.  Not just yet.

Oscar

The Oscar for best photographer goes to TT, shown here taking a photo, appropriately.

Would you believe that the statue on top of the column behind TT and PW is the original Oscar?  No?  Well, okay.

We had a nice dinner at the Crab House in Punta Gorda.  TT and PW had lunch there with PW's friends earlier this week.  So in an odd twist, the guests introduced the hosts to a new restaurant.  We spent some time discussing Oscar picks, but none of us had seen enough of the nominated movies to have strongly held opinions.  The televised festivities have begun.

Saturday Post

We Skyped with OSLO and the COTU yesterday, and they got a chance to say hi to their Uncle TT and meet PW. It was a nice chat, and reminded me of how much I miss hanging out with the Michigan crew.

OSLO carried her computer out onto her front porch so I could see the the newly fallen and currently falling snow. Meanwhile, Florida continues to feel like Florida. The days are slipping on by -- TT and PW are proving to be very pleasant company.

Slog is a Four Letter Word

I felt a real kinship to this guy today. SSW at 16, gusting to 20 is all that the Weather Channel would admit to, but I'm skeptical. 

Maybe it was slightly tired legs that made me so slow, but I'm claiming it was the wind.

There's only one ride from here, really.  The fact that it lies mostly to the south and west made it work okay today.  Como Bridge and Olllie's Pond are right in the middle of it, almost always.

You might remember that I mentioned pine cones a couple of posts ago. (Arty shot of bicycle shadow -- or maybe I was just too lazy to get off my bike to take the photo.)

They really are all over the place along the walking path around Ollie's Pond. It was a pretty decent ride until the last three miles when I made the final turn for the house and there was just no place left to hide from the wind.  The house is south of that last bridge crossing, and there's really no other route that works.  One of the blogs I read regularly is Jill Outside, who just finished a 100 mile "run" in Alaska.  She refers to it both as a suffer fest and a slog fest.  It helps to know that I'm not the only one who appreciates the art of the slog.

Some Bicycle Content

TT, PW (Pengilly Woman) and I moseyed on over to Sunrise Park this morning, before they left to spend a few days in Punta Gorda with a good friend of PW. I expected a pleasant stroll, but got (really, ridiculously) excited by the sight of a line of bicycles rolling down Edgewater at a good clip. You'd have thought it was the TdF from my reaction. "Look, look. Bicycles. Bicycles." Accompanied by pointing. Embarrassing for me to admit, but true. Apparently I am a bike geek.  I thought I had that under control.

Speaking of PW, here's a photo from yesterday's walk around Ollie's Pond. Turns out she knows the model pose, too.  No coaching required. This (below) is TT's photo, used with permission.  As we were looking through the photos, TT apologized for forgetting to give us an unsightly bulge alert.  BDE was there with us in spirit.  PW encouraged me to use the photo  -- she liked the wisp of hair in my face.  I liked that she looks like she was having fun.

Back to bicycle content.  As of today's ride, I have ridden over 700 miles since we arrived in Florida in mid December.  I'm pretty sure that so far, all those miles and more than two months into our stay here, I have yet to shift my bicycle.  Apparently, I'm one of those hipster single speeders, and just never realized it.  Ah, the joys of bike geekery.

Blue Skies

As promised, I have new subject matter. Our guests arrived safely last night, bringing a little bit of Minnesota chill with them. It was still "only" in the 60's this morning when we ambled over to Sunrise Park.

Low key walking broke out after lunch.  It's always fun to see the old familiar places through new eyes.  I, for example, never appreciated the abundance of perfect pine cones available around the edges of Ollie's Pond, until today. In addition they are planning a gourmet dinner for us tonight -- white asparagus, wild rice, feta fish -- who doesn't love guests who cook?

Anyone for Tacos?

At home we go out for Mexican food pretty often.   Since Tres Lobos went out of business, we've been going to El Rancho, usually with the Grandkids.  We've looked for a similar restaurant here, but there just isn't one.  A few weeks ago we found a place over near the mall called Tijuana Flats.

Hot is the new cool.

Give heat a chance.

The Hot Bar has multiple choices of hot sauce with different levels of heat. Sissy Sauce, Middle Weight, Tear Jerker and Death Wish.

My personal favorite.  The tacos are quite tasty, too.

Cursing the Wind

I spent some of yesterday's ride hurling curses into the wind. In multiple languages. It was an act of desperation, and quite futile, naturally. It feels as though this entire month has been one windy day after another after another, and I was quite fed up with it.

It may have worked on some cosmic level, to my great surprise. Today the wind was more or less as forecast -- 5 to 10 mph from the SSW. So I took the same ride as yesterday, only backwards. I even stopped at the same spot to take a second photo of these 'flowers.'  On first glance it looks like a purple flowering shrub.

Up close, the flowers are the little white things, and the purple things are leaves.  I wonder if they are related to poinsettias?

This particular ride has a very rural feeling to it, at least in the area along Como St.  This intersection comes pretty close to being the half way point of the ride, though I tend to consider Ollie's Pond to be the turn around spot, and it's another mile into the ride.

We're looking forward to guests arriving this weekend -- and not just because it will provide some fresh fodder for the blog.  It's been a pretty quiet stretch down here since OSLO and the COTU headed home in early January, so a little excitement will be a welcome change.

Florida Trees

My camera doesn't come out of my pocket too often these days -- sometimes I wonder why I bother to carry it.  Today I found a scene that I wanted to add to my personal scrapbook here -- a rope swing hanging from a tree draped in Spanish moss.

After two days of really nasty wind, today I finally got outside.  It was both a walk day and a bike day, since it had been a while since I'd done either. No epic adventures to report from either activity, though.

Ollie's Pond Park has a walking path -- TT and I walked around it twice one day a year or so ago. The wildlife there was quiet today -- subdued by the cold, perhaps.  The freeze warnings have expired, the cold air is supposed to be in retreat, and tomorrow -- well, we'll see.  Today was nice enough.

Como Waterway

Minnesota and Florida bear very little resemblance to one another, especially in February.  This afternoon I found myself standing on a bridge over something called the Como Waterway.  So I took a couple of photos.  This one is looking north towards Highway 776.

The one below is looking south towards Edgewater. I was about 2 miles from where I took the other photo of the Como Waterway two days ago.

It was another ride spent battling the wind.  The wind won, more or less.  Still, I was outside for a couple of hours, got some good exercise, and had some fun.  But I am seriously thinking of changing the name of the Auckland rule (If you don't ride in the wind, you don't ride), to the Florida rule.

Benches with a View

Jimi's post yesterday included a very rustic bench, in a very rustic setting. It inspired me to go look for unusual benches. I knew exactly where to find them.

These are all located in the linear park on the north (Port Charlotte) side of the Peace River.  As a bonus, hunting them down added at least another half mile to my total miles walked today.

Bike Day

After yesterday's all day rain I was looking forward to a bike ride today.  It looked ominous when I left, and still looked threatening at the turn around spot, below.  I took this while standing on the Como Waterway bridge, looking west in the general direction of the Gulf of Mexico.

Biking here is much more challenging that it is at home -- this just isn't a very bicycle friendly area.  But standing on this bridge, looking out over the Myakka River backwaters, it certain seems worth it.  I pushed hard all the way back to the house against a rising wind, but it never did rain.  My legs  are tired, but it's the good kind of tired.  Tomorrow we walk.

Super Bowl is football, right?

First the weather report. The wind has just been ridiculous this month.  Day after day of winds gusting up to around 25 mph.  Finally today it let up.  Combine light winds with the fact that today is Super Bowl Sunday, and it seemed like a good chance to check an item off my bicycling wish list for this trip.  It was overcast and 77 when I left, 80 by the time I got back.

Traffic is lighter on Sunday here, as a rule, making some routes more pleasant to ride -- including the one to the ball park.  I'd been close, within about a mile, a couple of times last month, but didn't go the whole way because I didn't want to deal with one especially bad intersection near the stadium.  Today that spot was nearly empty of traffic.  Once beyond that intersection I tried a back street that looked promising on the map and was quite pleased when it led me directly to an open back gate behind the practice fields.  Fortuitously, since when I arrived at the front end of the main parking lot it was roped off, being used as additional parking for the fair going on across the road. Here's the map-my-ride version.

I got back in time for the dolphin show (no, not those Dolphins), and Skyping with OSLO and the COTU.   TJ is now as tall as his sister, btw.  All in all a very satisfactory day.  And with an animal photo as a bonus.

Elk -- Animals 3.0

My email this morning had a message from The Professor, who had attached this photo of an elk, taken outside of her daughter's office, in Montana in 2008.  (Her daughter works in Yellowstone National Park, I believe.)  She'd checked my blog, and had an entry in this month's theme category that she wanted to share.

(Photo credit to Lynne Hendrix) 

Animals in Fisherman's Village

I thought I'd get some extra blogging material out of the January theme day subject.

I do miss those smiling faces.  All these were taken about January 2nd or 3rd, the day before they headed home.

Theme Day -- Animals

The topic is animals.  A Florida cougar would have been a good choice, but I settled instead for what I saw while I was out and about today.  And no, I don't know what kind of bird that dark one is, before anyone asks.

 The last couple of days have been extremely windy -- winds gusting around 25 mph.  Today it finally let up a bit, and I got out for a bike ride.  February miles.  Satisfying.

 Lawn ornaments and mail box stands in the form of animals count, right? 

 I stopped at the usual places, Ollie's Pond and Kiwanis' Park.  The photo below was taken at Ollie's Pond.  On previous rides I've seen more wildlife -- several turtles, the occasional snake even.  Alligators and dolphins have occasionally cruised past the back of our house as well.  But for today, this was all I could find.

My injuries are healing slowly, and don't seem to be life threatening.  I'm surprised at how stiff and sore I still am, though.  My Granddaughter, bless her heart, told me that I'm not allowed to hurt myself for blogging material.  I assured her that I did understand that.