March 2-6, 2015

Monday, March 2^nd

 

We said goodbye to the Hausers who began their way back north. They are going to spend a few days in St. Augustine first, then head to Charlotte, NC to see their granddaughter compete in a gymnastics event.

 

 

Cordell and Jim managed to take care of the bottle of Evan Williams that Jim brought.

 

 

We enjoyed a nice sunset again tonight.

 

 

I took a late walk by myself around the neighborhood.
 

 

Cordell didn’t even miss me while I was gone!

 

 

 

Tuesday, March 3^rd

 

We met up with our local friend, Brian, this morning and spent the day geocaching in the Lehigh Acres area.

 

 

Each time we are with Brian, I try to pick his brain, much like the rookie baseball players do when they are around the major league guys. Brian is much more experienced and he is happy to share his knowledge with us.

 

 

 

 

We were especially grateful that Brian was willing to climb on an uninstalled manhole to retrieve a cache that was placed out of our reaches.
 

 

 

 

 

 

When I think of Florida, I envision palm trees, oranges, fresh vegetables, beaches, etc. However, there are areas are very involved in raising cattle. Here in 1521, Juan Ponce de Leon first introduced cattle to North America. Florida ranks 12^th in the nation in the number of beef cattle and is home to four of the United States’ 10 largest cow-calf operations. These lands used for cattle production provide important “green space” for wildlife and native plant habitat, aquifer recharge and carbon recovery.

 

 

After we finished our day of geocaching, we went back to Brian’s house and he prepared a delicious stir fry dinner for us.  Life is good!

 

 

Wednesday, March 4^th

 

Today, we drove about an hour and a half to Sarasota where we attended the Baltimore Orioles home opening game for the Spring Season. The Detroit Tigers were our opponents.

 

 

It felt more like summer this afternoon and the stadium posted a heat advisory reminding fans to stay hydrated. Probably the biggest cheer of the day came when the PA announcer gave the current weather report for temperatures in Baltimore, Detroit and Sarasota.

 

 

 

I left my seat for while during the game and spent some time in the Fan Shop so I could cool off in the air conditioning.

 

 

We were planning on going to Wednesday evening service at the church in Bonita Springs. Cordell figured we would have about 20 minutes to shower and change into some fresh clothes after we got back to the condo. However, slow traffic nixed that time schedule and we had to go straight to the church just as we were—shorts, Oriole shirts and sunburns.

 

Thursday, March 5^th

 

Every morning, We give thanks to God for placing us in this warm climate during the winter months; but even more so on this day when we hear about all the snow that is falling in Maryland and Virginia. We thought of our family and friends and prayed for their comfort and safety. We enjoyed a warm, calm morning here.

 

 

 

We went to Caloosahatchee Creeks Preserve East to look for two geocaches that were placed there. Both of them were puzzles that had to be solved.

 

 

I deciphered one that was described in a long paragraph with nothing but the words “arf” and “bark”. I looked at it briefly last year and gave up quickly. This year, I finally figured that the two words were dots and dashes for the Morse code.

 

 

Kathy solved another one when she was here, but we never had the time to take her to find the physical cache.
 

 

 

 

 

 

After we located those two caches, we realized that there was also a regular cache in the vicinity. It involved a lot more walking that we were prepared for. But, we couldn’t resist the challenge and so we walked to about the farthest point from our car as possible. We drained our one water bottle and wished we had brought another one.

 

 

At one point, the trail took us through a large area of ferns and I felt like I was on the movie set for Jurassic Park.

 

 

We ate our lunch at Cracker Barrel today.

 

 

My cousin, Kathy, sent us a picture of the snow accumulating in her backyard in Vienna, Virginia.
 

 

 

 

 

We had a FaceTime call with Andy and we saw the snow in his backyard at home. It is pretty, for sure, but for us at our age; it is prettier to look at it from Florida.

 

 

Friday, March 6^th

 

Today was my birthday—Happy Sue Day!! I was able to anything and everything I wished.

 

I wanted to have a birthday meal at the Olive Garden, so we decided to eat it at lunch time. I already knew what I was going to order the Tour of Italy, which is made up of chicken Parmesan, fettuccini alfredo and lasagna. It was just as tasty as I had imagined and I wasn’t able to eat all of it.

 

 

 

 

 

Later, we returned to John Yarbrough Ten Mile Linear Park which is a popular area for bicyclists. The distance is painted every quarter mail on the trail.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

We went there to avenge a geocache that we had not been able to find on our previous visit. Plus, we needed some exercise and this was a fun way to get it. Brian had given us some very useful information. It was a mile roundtrip hike for us.

 

 

 

 

Back at the condo, I rested while reading and might have even dozed for a second or two.

 

 

Around 5:00 p.m. we left and drove to the Lee County Fair. This is the largest county fair I have ever been to and I think it might be as big as the Maryland State Fair. I have never seen so many rides and games in one place.
 

 

 

It is hard to imagine going to a fair in the winter season.
 

 

There were too many activities going on at the same time. We first stopped in the Civic Center to listen to some gospel singing. We left before it was over and went to watch the 4H club in a horse speed event.
 

 

We were told that most of these horses were for pleasure riding. We stayed to watch the barrel racing. The most inexperienced riders raced in walk/trot mode only. I was certain that Janelle would have been able to compete in that one. There were some horses that didn’t finish because they “broke the pattern” while navigating around the three barrels and one horse absolutely refused to circle them at all.
 

 

 

The other group of youth was able to gallop throughout the event. We left our seats at the top of the tiny grandstand and watched a few of these riders from the end of the ring.
 

 

The only ride I ever go on at a fair is the Ferris Wheel. There were two of them here and I chose the one that looked like it might be the taller. It cost $11.00 for both us to take one ride!
 

 

 

 

 

When we left around 9:00 p.m., I was surprised at the number of people still arriving. Of course, they all must surely have been much younger than we are. Besides, the Fair stayed open until 2:00 a.m. tonight and with the purchase of a $25.00 bracelet, people were allow unlimited rides from 9:00 p.m. until closing.