Ft. Myers, FL

It's amazing how fast this week has gone, and we basically haven't done much of anything!

Our campground is located on Pine Island on the outskirts of Ft. Myers. Now when we arrived, initially we couldn't find the KOA campground where we had our reservation. So we pulled into a parking lot and called. Well, it turns out that the campground was sold a month earlier and is no longer a KOA. It's now the Pine Island Resort, and we had actually passed them trying to find the KOA. They not only did not have our reservation but didn't have our deposit either! But they had space (there's only 3 other rigs here), and after showing them our reservation confirmation, we were able to work out getting a space at the confirmed price, and they were going to contact KOA to get the deposit. Guess this is all just part of the adventure, right?

After we got everything hooked up and somewhat settled with the office, we drove down the road to find a bite to eat and ended up at Hogfish Grill, a funky little place right on the canal waterfront. They have some very fun, creative artwork on the walls,and it must be Christmas year round cause they had several decorations up around the restaurant. Out at the bar in back, it's all fun fishing and seafood decor. We just had sandwiches, but the food was very good and planned to go back again before we leave.

Sunday was spent doing household chores...vacuuming, emptying tanks, laundry, etc. But Monday I got to spend time with one of my favorite people. Linda is the person I wrote about in an earlier post who I've known since 4th grade and who lived next door. We were on the swim team together, we went on trips to Grant's Farm, there were sleepovers, and so much more. Some people even mistook us for sisters! I visited her parents when I was in St. Louis, but she's lived in Tampa for about 15 years now. It's been about 5 years since we last saw each other, but she was off work Monday so drove down here, and we met at a place called The Shell Factory (http://www.shellfactory.com/llfactory.com/ ). She hadn't been there in several years but said it was a fun place to walk around. The restaurant wasn't open, and we didn't go to the nature park, but just enjoyed shopping, chatting, and catching up. In fact we'd be in the middle of an aisle looking at something, and one of us would be sharing an event in our life, and just stop right there and chat. The store is huge, and we thought we covered the entire place until we went back to have a fun picture taken and found a whole Christmas section that we hadn't seen! Now an explanation of the "fun" picture. In this store for some reason there's a stuffed musk oxen against a snowy backdrop. We had passed it earlier in the day and wondered about it. When we left the store and headed to the parking lot, we both said we wanted a picture of us with a tropical background and stopped someone to take our picture against the miniature golf palm trees. Then Linda said we should have taken our picture with the "buffalo" (that's what we thought it was initially), and I said that we could still go back in and do that. We thought it would be a hoot, so that's what we did! We're such silly girls! We ate lunch at Applebee's and just enjoyed spending more time together.

Tuesday and Wednesday were spent relaxing mostly in the RV though I did go to the pool for a bit on Wed. There are no beaches here on Pine Island, and Russ hasn't really felt like venturing out. The nearest beach is about 45 minutes away, and it seems kind of silly to drive that far to stay for 15 or 20 minutes, then turn around and come back. So Russ has been busy working on some financial paperwork and getting everything balanced in the computer. As you can see, Jo has been relaxing, too, which she does most of the time! She likes to sit in the front window to get some sun and keep an eye on the world. I know we've had pictures of the dogs on the blog so thought maybe you'd like to see Jo, too.

My Aunt Joan and her husband, Leroy, live here in Ft. Myers, so we went over to their house Thursday for a visit. Aunt Joan and I had not seen each other in over 30 years, she'd never met Russ, and I had never met Leroy! She was my mom's youngest sister, and when we arrived, she gave me copies of some photos from when they were kids that she'd thought I'd like to have. There was even one of their whole family that I had never seen before. After a tour of the house, we sat outside getting acquainted and reconnecting, then it was off to lunch at Matanzas Inn Restaurant at Ft. Myers Beach right on the water. We had a great visit and hopefully it won't be another 30 years (that would mean Joan would have to live to at least 105!)

Friday and Saturday were spent with more relaxing, going to the pool again, watching football, and me watching some of the Sweet Adelines International Competition webcast being held in Calgary this year. I have friends competing in quartets and choruses so have been trying to catch their performances. The quartet of one of my friends actually took 9th place out of 48 worldwide competitors!! Congrats to Shimmer! And congrats to my friends in Harborlites who took 1st place in the chorus competition out of 34 worldwide competitors!!

Tomorrow we leave for Orlando to get our awning fixed Monday morning, and then it's on to Titusville, which is near Cape Canaveral. Originally the shuttle launch was scheduled for Oct. 20, but it was moved to the 23rd...the day we were scheduled to leave. But we called and extended our stay till the 29th so that should hopefully give them enough time to get that thing launched! So until then!