Happy Birthday Chuck

It is Chuck's birthday today. I took him out for breakfast and presented him the stroller with no wheels for the beach. To be fair to the girls, I have also put in a few pictures from the past.

Happy Birthday-Gretchen

March is a big month in our family for Birthdays and today-9 March- is Gretchen’s 35th! Now that does make me feel old.

Happy Birthday Gretchen!

Happy Birthday-Heather

2 March was Heather’s birthday. The big 27! We said last November that if we keep this up we were going to start a tradition of posting a birthday wish to our girls on the blog. Heather failed to note my offer of a bribe to ensure pictures that she would approve of, so here are a few that we like.

Sorry we are late, but the snowbirds kept us busy.

Happy Birthday-Heather.

Leaving Bonita Springs

The time has come to move on and leave behind the snowbird lifestyle. We have enjoyed our time here and plan to return next season for a repeat performance. This last week has been filled with those things we have come to think of as snowbird activities. Bike rides to lunch destinations with 30 or more bikes, various activities in and around the park and the most enjoyable- getting to know those we share the park with.

This last week we engaged in our first Canadian horseshoe tournament followed by a gathering to replay the game and enjoy good food and company. We visited with friends from Ohio from another park at an English Pub. We went out to dinner with two other couples from park and then strolled across the street for some shelling on the beach followed by sunset. So now we have more shells in the motorhome, which will help remind us of our stay here.

Today, on our last day in the park, we gathered to enjoy a crab dinner followed by some music in the club house. Tomorrow we return to our more transient lifestyle and sightseeing mode.

Life as a snowbird

We have been over three weeks in Bonita Springs and in a resort that almost anyone would describe as a snowbird park. In two and a half years of travel this is the longest that we have ever stayed in this type of park and we are beginning to see some of the attraction and pitfalls of such a winter lifestyle. The attractions are fairly straight forward. The people are very friendly and there are lots of activities taking place every week. We have gone on park bike rides, lunches out, several dinners in, including the most recent Hawaiian dinner. We have had fun participating in a scavenger hunt, even if we did poorly in the results. No blame will be placed her(e) on whose fault it was. We have enjoyed conversations and cocktails with our neighbors and just loafing around.

This is where the pitfalls may lie. It is just too comfortable to spend time hanging around the park. We started this adventure to get out there and see this country and it seems that we will have to balance that goal with the pleasures of getting to know better those who chose to spend much of their time in one place.

We did visit Sanibel Island and the “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge, which we toured on our bikes. This was a pleasant and healthy way to see the Mangrove forests and many waterfowl that live or visit the area. The island itself it highly congested with auto traffic, but fortunately has an extensive bike trail system that lets you get around the island to visit the lighthouse built in the late 1800’s and other sites like the expensive houses that dot the island that is considered to be a very exclusive residential area.

While we are really not beach people, we did spend an hour or so on one of the top rated shelling beaches located on the west side of the island. We were clearly there at the wrong time as we did not recover any shells.

And finally, we had dinner at the Naples Yacht Club, when we got a surprise invitation from friends who were visiting from Cleveland, Dick and June Feldtz, who have reciprocity with the club as members of a club in Cleveland. It was a great meal in a wonderful nautical setting and great to catch up with old friends.