2023 Winds Down

 The grandson and I took a walk around the neighborhood this evening, fresh air and exercise are good for us.  He’s moving into a dorm next week for the semester, working on his adulting skills.  Wow, time sure does slip away.

Alligator Alley

 I didn’t know if I should title this Everglades, Sawgrass, Big Cypress Natural Preserve, Alligator Alley or Road Trip.  It was a good day, back and forth across the southern tip of Florida on the “new” and then the “old” Alligator Alley.  Also known as I-75 and Highway 41.  With friends.  I learned some stuff — I can now identify sawgrass and cypress trees, for example. Birds and alligators galore. I stood on the beginning (or end) of the Florida National Scenic Trail, and hiked a short bit of it.  Fair warning, that end of it is incredibly swampy.  Beautiful stuff to see though.  Hard to express in words, so I’ll switch to photos.  Also inadequate, of course.  Starting with the pre-departure donut stop.

Three people, seven donuts.  Sounds about right.

Amazing stuff.

Goal

 Chasing numbers.  I’ve done it for years, perhaps as motivation, or a way to keep track.  Eventually it’s just what I do.  Today I finished up my biking goal for this year with a short ride to Spring Lake Park and Kiwanis Park.  This year’s rides began and ended at the front door of the Florida house, but covered many miles in Michigan and a few in Minnesota.  2,023 miles in 2023.  Good enough.

I haven’t decided what I hope to do in 2024, it always requires some thought.  As it should.

Photo Tuesday

 Yesterday I crossed the 2,000 mile mark for the year on my bicycles.  My neighbors and I went to supper at Perkins later for free pie Monday.  It’s a thing.  Today I added more miles to my Florida bike — it’s approaching its own milestone of 20,000 miles.  There’s a lot of history with that bike.  And I now need just 7 miles to reach my goal for this year.  I wore 4 layers today when I left — all my cold weather specific gear is in Michigan, so I had to improvise.  I was mostly warm enough, no small feat given that it was 47 degrees last night and will be tonight again.  I believe I mentioned weird weather.  Not terribly unusual, truthfully, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen it this cool for this long here.

Unusual Weather

 It’s been several days in a row of weird weather here as I try to finish up the miles for my biking goal for the year.  Two days with wind gusts over 25 mph while I was out on my bike cut my rides short.  So I’m still 33 miles from finishing— but with over a week left of my stay here this month, it’s still possible to get there.  (2023 miles is this year’s goal.  Yes, last year’s was 2022.). Yesterday was both windy and rainy, so I didn’t even try.  My phone blasted a tornado warning around 3a.m. this morning .  Local weather guy says Port Charlotte had winds of 51 mph overnight and a 3.1 foot storm surge.  High tide was about 4:45 this morning, my first look at the water was about 7:00 a.m.  Shortly after sunrise I stepped out of my lanai to capture these images.  Here’s how our back yards looked then.  My dock is under water, and the lake is over the seawall in the back yards.

It’s been interesting.

Semi Nomadic Grandmother

 The title of this post is my grandson’s most recent description of me.  He has a point.  I’m on my second trip to my place in Florida this “season”, as it’s referred to here.  I’ll be returning north around Christmas for a while, but northern winters hold very little charm for me anymore.  Some photos:

Clouds can really enhance a sunset.

A pelican on my neighbor’s dock.

A map showing the earliest sunset times across the US.  Note that we have passed that date, and sunsets are now getting later.  Yay.

Watching the sun set from my neighbor’s dock.

Another view of the pelican.

Waiting for the Home Depot Man

 Winter arrived swiftly over the weekend.  I don’t like it.  Today I had an appointment to meet the windows guy from Home Depot at the granddaughter’s house to get an estimate for some work that needs to be done on her windows.  The care and maintenance of a 100 year old house is daunting. I guess it’s easier than rebuilding after hurricanes.  I don’t work and I have some experience in this sort of thing (see comment about hurricane repairs), so I volunteered to be point person on this one.  But…snow.  Enough fell overnight to require shoveling the front walk and steps.  Fortunately we had purchased a couple of snow shovels at Home Depot on Sunday, and had stored them in the garage.  My exercise for the day.

Pre-move in photos.

 I’m just going to do a photo dump here.  All of these were taken yesterday.  There were some electrical issues, and outlets were replaced.  All seems fine in that area now.  Next up is getting the door locks to all operate off one key.  And getting the garage door opened.  Plenty of time.  Moving date is probably a month off yet.

It must be Thanksgiving

 Sunday was a travel day, always hard.  Monday the Granddaughter got the keys to her new house, there will be photos eventually, probably.  Today I will travel to Spring Lake to have the traditional meal with the blended family of my daughter— a tradition that goes back a few years now.  I will be bringing pumpkin bread, chocolate pie, and the family recipe cranberry sauce.  Not everything about getting older is a bad thing.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

New Viewpoint

 My next door neighbors have a new 50 foot dock.  A couple of times this week we have watched the sunset from the end of it.  We’re veterans at watching sunsets from various vantage points in our back yards, but this is a new point of view.  Literally.

This is a congregation of ibis.  Yes, that’s one of the names for it, among many others, according to Google.

Here’s the sunset last night from the end of their new dock.  One benefit is fewer mosquitoes, no small thing.

A few things for the blog.

 I got this photo in a text from my cousin.  It’s a house they are building on Yellow River.

Also, I am in Florida for a week, doing inventory, prior to longer trips starting next month.

And for those of you who knew him, my neighbor and friend Bob (in Holland) passed away on November 2.  He is greatly missed.

Bowerman’s

 For the first time in my memory, Bowerman’s will be open on a limited basis for the entire winter.

Well, it seems like summer is definitely done.

 A Halloween storm changed the landscape.

Captain Sundae closes

 Fear not, it’s the end of the season closing, not a permanent closure.  Still, it used to happen later in the fall — I was surprised to hear that October 4th was their last day of business for this year.  The Grandson and I reacted to the news as one would expect….

Fall Biking

 There’s not many signs of fall here yet — the tourists are gone, the sun sets early, it gets cool overnight and a few trees are showing some signs of fall color.  My granddaughter is working on the house buying process, the appraisal is the next big step towards making the purchase final.  I am acting as an advisor, mostly.   Today my advice wasn’t needed (well, later it was, but I didn’t know that until— you know— later.)  Biking broke out…. A ride to the PSPS expanded a bit to include a visit to the old bridge over the Pigeon River.  I rode with a friend.

Fun was had.

Offer Accepted

 House hunting with the Granddaughter has been interesting.  One house slipped away—the seller got a better offer.  She made an offer on another house this week, it was accepted.  Inspection is Monday, other hoops need to be jumped through.  In the meantime, here’s some screenshots from the listing.  Credit to Zillow, I think.