February 18th

Wednesday, February 18^th

 

This morning, I ate a fresh tomato with my breakfast. They are beautiful vegetables/fruits-- meaty without any hard cores and very sweet. I have not found any at home that are this nice. I sure am going to miss these after we return to Maryland.

 

 

All of us went to late morning Ash Wednesday service at Hope Lutheran Church. Winter Associate Pastor Tom Ramsey delivered a message in the persona of the disciple, Peter. At one point, he spoke about when Peter was recognized in the courtyard during the time of Jesus’s trial. Peter had a Galilean accent that gave him away. Pastor Ramsey compared that to the north Florida accent and the south Florida accent. (I identified with this because there is a distinct difference in the accents of people in southern Maryland). We all had a good laugh when the Pastor followed up by stating that the south Florida accent sounds a lot like New York.

 

We all were anxious to take a drive to the Fort Myers Beach Library where there was an interesting geocache called Hiding In The Stacks. We knew that Barb would especially like this cache since she worked in a library during her college days and she was thrilled with this experience.

 

 

 

The cache adventure began with looking for a certain word placed on a statute outside the building. The sculpture, Statute to a Hero, depicts a boy facing a flagpole. He is saluting the flag and in his free hand, he holds a folded flag, the traditional memorial for deceased service personnel. This piece of art conveys a message of continuing dedication to our country and undying gratitude to the military heroes who have fought and perished in the services, to preserve our freedom.

 

 

Next we had to go inside the library and find a dollhouse. Once we were at the dollhouse, we had to observe a certain object and write that name down.

 

 

Then, we were directed to the third floor where there was a timeline of the history of Estero Island posted on the wall. We were required to locate a certain word and look around the area for an object that looked like that word.

 

 

There happened to be two objects alike and it took a bit of careful searching before I located the information we needed. This was a stage where previous geocachers have had problems and needed extra help, so I felt good that I had figured this out by myself.

 

 

At this point, we arranged the words we had collected in an order that gave us the title of a book. Then, we went back to the second floor, searched the electronic card file and verified that a book with that title was part of the library inventory.

 

 

Barb knew the section where the book was supposed to be shelved and sure enough we found it fairly quickly.

 

 

 

 

However, the cache was not in that book, but we had information that it was located within arm’s reach---but whose arms—my short ones or Cordell’s longer ones? So here the four of us were looking at books all around the area. Finally, I found the cache in a fake book that was shelved right below were the original book was placed.

 

 

 

 

This is beautiful library has a lunch café and bookstore on the third floor. Sand sculptures are place near the elevator.

 

 

And the elevator had windows through which we observed underwater scenes and we rode it.

 

 

It took us a full hour to complete this cache puzzle, but we thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. We stopped in a local café for lunch.

 

 

We saw a boat for sale in the café parking lot and upon seeing the name of it, we felt like it would be an appropriate one for us to own.

 

 

Before coming back to the condo, we stopped at Estero Aquatic Bay Preserve. We had previously found a geocache along the boardwalk and thought that Jim and Barb would enjoy searching for it.

 

 

 

 

 

I have seen many references to alligators around here, but this is the first time I have seen it on a porta potty.