Finally! Warmer Weather

Even though the mornings are cool, the temperatures are starting to go up and its nice and warm by mid-morning. So this is how our week has gone:  

Sunday we bundled up (I thought it was cold, John thought it just cool) and rode our bikes around a few of the RV/Retirement Resorts. Then we watched the Chiefs win their AFC division on their way to the Super Bowl.

Monday we played pickleball, did the laundry and grocery shopped.

Tuesday we tried to play pickleball in Fort Myers Beach city park but it was busy so we rode bikes up to Wa-Ke-Hatchie Park and played pickleball. We also met some folks from MO.  Our neighbors two doors down invited us to join them for deep friend banana peppers.  They were very tasty and we got to meet and visit with more folks in the park.

Wednesday John played golf with David and Lanny while Mickey and I went shopping and planned our dinner.

Thursday Rick and Libet invited us, along with two other couples, for a boat ride out to Gasperillo Island.  It was a 1-1/2 hour ride but the weather was so nice and I loved the scenery.  Boca Grande, the small village on the island, was so charming.  We all enjoyed the walk and the food.

Friday (today) we got the kayak out and tooled around the mangroves behind our park.

Getting lots of sun and enjoying the warm weather!

Pickleball Pointers

We are exhausted!  We spent the last three days attending a Level Up Pickleball Clinic in Punta Gorda.  It was a 45 minute drive each day and the lessons were to start at noon and run to 5 or 5:30 with water and snack breaks.  So we packed a lunch and arrived early enough to eat and prepare ourselves for the lessons.  Our friends, Mickey and David attended also.

Tuesday, our first day, was cloudy and started out warm but cooled off as the afternoon wore on.  The lessons were fun and instructive, led by a world class pro and three other ranked pickleballers.  We would start off with a drill and then a game of sorts using only the skill we had just learned.  They taught 4 different skills that first day - dinking, volley, movement, and third-shot drop.

Wednesday’s forcast was for rain starting in early afternoon so the camp started at 10 AM and the rain started at 12:30. We worked on service and service return, and lots of strategy as well as reinforcing the volley and drop shots.  Once the rain started we did get to review the videos of our beginning skills with the pros pointing out what we needed to work on.

Thursday we started at 10 am again to make up for time lost the previous day. We worked on different ways to volley, court positioning, lobbing and over head shots.  By 2 pm John and I were really starting to drag and the youngsters were just getting started showing us some trick shots they thought we might enjoy.  We begged off, practiced some basics and watched the others having fun. We played some skills games as well.  By 4 pm I could barely move and they wanted to take a video of me to show my improvements.  I’m afraid I played worse than when I started on Tuesday!

Thankfully the weather will be cold and windy for the weekend so we have an excuse to rest and recover.

Keeping Busy

We’ve had some very warm days this past week until today.  It’s cloudy, windy and only 66 degrees! 

We have enjoyed some beautiful sunrises (can’t see the setting sun from here) and Pam loves the wild things that pass by.  A Blue Heron, named Elvis, walked along the breakwater one day while a Snowy egret fished in the shallow water in front of our RV.  Then along came Flipper.  We understand that this dolphin is a frequent visitor along here and is a real show off who loves an audience. We were also told to watch for a female and her offspring who like to fish around here.

We continue to play pickleball at the city park and  we rode our bikes over to a county park with nice looking pickleball courts but haven’t tried to play there yet.  We played Pickleball with our friends on their courts, John has played golf, I went shopping for some court shoes and we have dined out about every other day.  Pam is still running some and the bikes have been ridden most days.

Sorry, folks, this is about as exciting as life gets here.

Settling in to Island Life

Happy New Year!   Our snowbird friends are starting to arrive.  Rick and Libet were here already so we have enjoyed dining with them a couple of times.  Dave and Mickey headed down a few days earlier than planned as did Katy and Lanny so we had a nice New Year’s Eve dinner and a short video chat with our other friends we left behind in Missouri.

We have been playing Pickleball at the Fort Myers Beach park.  Only 3 courts striped over a full basketball court and lots of people playing.  The traffic is still backed up all day but the weather has warmed up.  Pam has been trying to do some running and we both are walking around a lot.  The Trico Fish market is only 1/2 mile from us so we have been getting some fresh shrimp often!

Today we moved the RV from site 7 to site ‘E’, about 50 yards, but we are now on the point overlooking Hurricane Bay and across from the entertainment provided by the Nauti-Parrot Restaurant and bar.  They have live music every afternoon and evening.