New Year's Eve

Only photos and good memories remain.

One of my favorite photos from this year, worth looking at again.  

I took a bike ride this morning so didn't have a lot of energy left for entertaining the boy, but the walk around Ollie's Pond is always worth the effort.  We did run into a strange group of people there, though.  Twice.  Four or five of them, with three of them carrying putters.  Golf putters.  Who leaves their house to walk around Ollie's Pond and do some bird watching and decides that they need to take their putter with them?  I almost stopped one of them and asked on their second trip around the pond, but thought better of it.  There are enough strange people in my life as it is.  Happy New Year, family!

The Air is Thick

Sometimes the weather is the thing that stands out about a day.  This was one of those days.  My error really, I know that mid day sun and high humidity make me feel "off."  So while my young visitor was fine, I was really dragging during our visit to Fisherman's Village today.  And there are just way, way too many people in southwest Florida right now, though TJ pointed out that since I am one of the extra people who is here during winter, I probably shouldn't complain about that.

A quick stop at the chocolate shop.  It's a tradition.  The Grands really like their truffles.  

Fisherman's Village is changing.  One of those changes is a little beach along the water's edge.

Back to the house to recover before a walk around the park on the other side of Edgewater.  It too is changing.  We think maybe hiking paths are going in.  For sure pickle ball courts are now an option on the tennis courts.  We ate supper at Chick-filet thanks to our daughter's Christmas gift cards before taking another walk.  TJ is planning to spend some time in the hot tub, I'm pretty much done for the day.  Here's hoping tomorrow that there is a little more oxygen in the air.

On a totally unrelated note, here are the berries currently in my refrigerator.  Driscoll's for the raspberries and blackberries, but the Pixie Blues are sort of local.  Grown in Plant City, Florida.  The home of the annual Strawberry Festival.  They're not Blue Crop, but they're not bad at all.

A guest from the north.

Yesterday was, as my Granddaughter says, a Day.  One of those where things don't go according to plan, but all you can do is carry on.  My Grandson was due to arrive at the Punta Gorda airport at 6 pm, so about 2:30 I was leaving the Publix, loading the rental car with some of his favorite foods.  For the third time in three weeks, the car refused to start, and nothing changed its mind this time.  Eventually I called Avis, who after much discussion, sent roadside assistance my way.  He eventually got the car to start but couldn't tell why it wouldn't and recommended that I take it to Avis and trade it for a different car.  The local Avis was closed (early closing on weekends) so the closest Avis was the Punta Gorda airport.  By this time my Grandson's plane was in the air, and I needed dependable transportation, so that's what I did.  It all worked out eventually, and TJ's plane arrived about a half hour late.

It was pouring rain on the drive back to the house, but the boy was hungry.  We stopped for food at Olympia before heading home.  The rain moved through overnight and today is sunny, warm and too humid.  Our first excursion today was to Sam's Club -- no good reason, except it was near the mall, and we find trips to Sam's Club to be entertaining.  He found one of his favorite Sam's Club foods -- mini tacos -- and we then moved on to the mall.  Sbarro's is a favorite of both of the Grands, and it's high on his wish list when he's here.

( I need to improve my picture taking, I can't seem to get him and his food into the same photo.)  My dafter has requested some "warm pictures" so I will try to add a few more of those to the blog.

A lot of food oriented activity today, this one was taken on a quick trip to Walgreens and Winn Dixie.  At least I got his whole head in the picture.  And it's definitely a "warm picture."

Coming up on the end of another decade..

There's some disagreement about when decades begin and end and I really don't care.  The new decade may begin January 1, 2020 or maybe not until 2021.  I have some photos from 2010 on this computer which makes it easy to go with the 2020 crowd.  So a little glance backwards seems to be in order.

This was a banner year for Florida visitors -- the photo above was taken on a fairly chilly day on Gasparilla Island.  February 10, 2010 is what it says on the file.

 The Tampa Rays were playing someone on this (also chilly) day at the Port Charlotte Stadium.  Spring Training.  He and I and later Sharon saw a fair number of games and practices together here and in Ft. Myers at the Twins Stadium there.  The file says March 4, 2010.

These two made the trip that year, too.  If memory serves they saw quite a few Spring Training games.  It was on his bucket list long before he got sick.  March 14, 2010 is the date on the file.

March 21, 2010.  Apparently lots of snow, and lots of beach, though it's a little hard to tell if that's beach or sand sitting on ice that is in the process of melting.  I suspect the latter.  The beginning of the decade had some nice moments.

Amazon sells almost everything...

Remember my lament about not having a bicycle stand for my Florida bike?  There's plenty of room for my bike next to the front door, and it's out of everyone's way, including people coming in through that door.  We do have freshly painted walls though, and I didn't want tire or handlebar or pedal marks on them, nor did I want my bike to fall over because it wasn't secure.  So I looked on Amazon, and sure enough, they had a floor stand just like the ones I have at home.  I ordered one and it came today.  Just one day later than promised.  I've put three or four of these together before, so assembly was pretty easy.

Having put that much effort into the bike stand, I felt the need to actually use my bike today.  The dew point was either 65 or 75, depending on the source, and the temperature in the 80's.  I haven't been here long enough to be comfortable in that so it was a short ride.  A brisk south wind actually helped keep me from overheating overly much. 

Cloud cover tonight is thick, so here's a photo from last night's sunset.  The clouds add some drama to the picture, otherwise it's a pretty peaceful view.   Mosquitoes and no-see-ums were out in force though, and long pants are required for sitting by the water after sunset.

This is from yesterday, or maybe Sunday, afternoon.  It wasn't a serious crew, or so I suspected from the number of brown beer bottles that were visible when they stopped for a rest.  On the other hand, they seemed to be having fun. Today I made some progress on decorating my table top tree, but I'll save that for next time.

Formation flying

We're settling in to a routine of sorts, though I still can't find things in my kitchen.  Apparently I don't have a big frying pan with a cover -- how is that possible?  OSLO gave me a gift card to Bed, Bath and Beyond for Christmas, so that might be how I solve that issue.  Speaking of OSLO, she called to let me know that she and her SO arrived safely back in Michigan last night.  She sounded happy to be home.

Yesterday I went to a Celebration of Live gathering for one of our neighbors who died the first week of December.  She's lived across the street from us for maybe 7 or 8 years and has kept an eye on the house for us while we're in Michigan during most of that time.  She was a sweet lady, 72 years old, and she'll be missed.  Most of the neighbors that I know showed up at the park along the Peace River in Punta Gorda to pay their respects.  It was a cool and sunny, windy day along the water -- a fitting way to say good-bye, I guess.

Sunset here is about 5:37 pm (sunrise about 7:10 am.)   I walked next door to watch it with our neighbors -- their view is better than ours this time of year, and they're dedicated sunset watchers.  It was a clear night and the sunset was not spectacular, but my next door neighbor caught this flock of ibis over our little lake -- so that's the photo contribution for the day.  Photo cred to PR.

Cloudy, windy with scattered showers--

It takes a while to get into a routine here, even after all these years.  And of course every year is different.

The bike (an object of art, obviously) got moved to a spot near the front door.  It's not in anybody's way, though I wish I had one of my bike stands here.  No ride today. And I need to pump my tires.  I did take a walk around the neighborhood and did some shopping, so not a totally idle day.

The table in the corner has a small tree on it, it needs a few decorations, but it's a start.  Or at least an attempt at a start.

The sun is setting in a direction that is more south than it is west, but I'm not in charge of that.

Visitors move on.

OSLO and her SO left here around noon today, headed to the southern tip of the state for a few days before heading back to the frozen tundra.  We enjoyed having them here for a few days as we settled in, and I think they had some fun, too.  They spent yesterday afternoon roaming around Gasparilla Island -- quite literally, they rented a golf cart and zoomed around the place like the natives do.  OSLO said it was a blast.  She and I took a walk this morning before she spent some time just soaking in our view from our porch/lanai.

Meanwhile, things seem pretty quiet here now.

Traveling is hard.

It’s early Sunday morning as I write this, after a not very good night’s sleep. Pretty typical for the first night in Florida, so not unexpected.  Traveling is hard.  Yesterday was a long day for some of us, and even the younger ones (OSLO and BB), went to bed early last night.  On a positive note, it’s Florida, and we have plenty of time to recover.  Funny story.  Our daughter told us that last year, when her children helped us with our trips back and forth to Florida, they told her that helping the grandparents travel was a real thing.  And now she understands what they meant.  OSLO and BB will be with us here for a couple of days then heading even further south before heading home at the end of the week.

And then the sun came up.....

Okay, then.

Late Fall slips into early Winter

I didn't want to let too much time go by before I posted to this blog again, following the November marathon postings.  We've finally finished up the last of the holiday leftovers -- okay, maybe there's still some turkey left, but it's past its "best if used by" date.  I usually spend the last day of any given month updating my bike log, but with only 6 rides in November, it didn't take long.  It's good to take a break from biking, but I still need some exercise -- preferably outdoors.  It feels awfully cold to me out there, though it's above freezing during the day and most of the snow has melted here along the lake.  I've been walking some -- mostly staying in the neighborhood.  The last several days I've been walking in the morning and again in the early evening.  Of course it's dark by 6, with sunset a bit after 5.  Several of the houses have holiday lights up, which makes it cheerier than it would be otherwise.  Here's a photo I took a couple of nights ago while I was out wandering around.  (I do wear my long, off white winter coat, hoping to be more visible.  Not many cars up here, though.)

More later.

Looking Backward

As I mentioned in my Thanksgiving post, OSLO's significant other lost his father early on Thanksgiving Day this year.  At the time I couldn't find any photos, but today I looked a little harder and found this one from 2009, also on aThanksgiving Day.  This is Bob and his SO Helga, taken at our house on Pine Creek Bay.

I wanted to put this here for OSLO's family, primarily.  He'd been part of their lives for the last 10 years, and they were all very fond of him.  He'd been quite ill for quite a while, but you're never really ready for these losses when they happen.  He was a good guy.  He will be missed.