Florida Trip - Friday, 25 February 2011

We are down to our last few days in the condo before starting the trek home. The weather has been awesome and we both have tanned enough that we’ll stand out in crowd at home and I’ll miss the summer-like atmosphere. All we need now is decent weather from Pennsylvania to Ottawa!

Our plan is to head across Alligator Alley and then North through Ft Lauderdale and Daytona with a few stops along the way. St Augustine will be a definite stop…we really loved that area which has so much history and perhaps we’ll spend a day seeing some of the sights we missed last time. Boynton Beach is also a stop as we’ve seen a few rentals on the internet that look interesting, perhaps for next year.

Cape Coral has been a wonderful place for a holiday and we’ve finally managed to become familiar enough with the area that we can travel around without the GPS. It’s a nice community that would be easy to bet involved with and although it’s got lots of people, it still has a small town feel. The down side of this area is that we find the beaches are just far enough away and so crowded that preparing to spend the day almost feels like work. The hotels, condos, and private homes (mansions) have really taken the majority of the shore properties which has resulted in virtually no access to the ocean for miles and miles. If you are fortunate enough to find a parking spot, you’ve still got to find a beach access point. I’m still amazed by the sheer numbers of people who go to the beach….mapping out their territory for the day.

I think we’ve been spoiled by the vastness of the beach at Daytona and South Padre Island. The shoreline in both place are 50x that of Ft Myers and area so the same numbers of people can make it look more packed. I can’t imagine what it’s going to look like at Ft Myers in another week or so when Spring Break starts! Ft Myers is one of the top 10 places to spend school break and I guess it’s like Daytona in its hay-day.

We also plan a stop around Virginia Beach although I suspect it will be much colder than here but the stop is for wine, not beaching. We’d brought back some Williamsburg wine that we really like last fall and want to get a bit more. We had originally thought we’d get a case each of the red and white wines until we calculated the ‘import’ tax in Ontario! Needless to say, our entitled two bottles each will have to suffice.

I have been a wretch at taking photos and have lots of theories why I haven’t but I guess it simply boils down to laziness for the most part. It always seemed to be too much effort to find and drive to any wildlife areas and frankly, this area is so populated that anything else didn’t motivate me. I’m hoping to get a new camera this year and hopefully, that will spur me to get back at it.

I miss Gillian dreadfully and anxious to get down to Halifax to see Ty and Tori. These wonderful Grandchildren draw us home and we are both a bit surprised at how much we miss them.

Until next time, love and hugs to all. xx