Suburban Extended Stay of Fort Myers

Today was a super nice day.

Had an easy morning, followed by a fun boat ride with Frank and his friend Jeff, to a restaurant. It was so cool to just put around the water and "park" the boat at the restaurant, to have some yummy fish.

Then we went back to Jeff's house and the three of us went out on kayaks around the mangroves for several hours. During one part we went through very narrow water ...

Just a quick entry to point out where I flew into...

Looong 10 hour flight from Germany. Then the bags took a while to come out, and the immigrations people were *******s. But I made it through, no problems, after they asked me loots and lots of questions... dumbasses.

Anywho, then I met Frank, my CS host who was nice enough to pick me up and take me to his house, where we are now... in a small, small town on an island, called Matlacha.

... with Claire at Olive Garden; took Agnes and Cliff for a ride to Captiva Island so they could see the Bubble Room Restaurant; swam in the Gulf and beautiful swimming pools at our RV Park and at their Condo, had a great dinner of barbecued ribs prepared by Claire on our last night here; and were lucky enough to see dolphins playing in the Gulf and a most amazing sunset over the water! Whew! packed a lot into a week, didn't we?

... the place. At first he was nice when I was being checked in (although he had no idea what he was doing). But when I needed some maintenance done on my room (which wasn't even clean, it was filthy, dirty bathroom and unchanged sheets) he wasn't willing to help me. I had barely any water coming out of the shower and he seemed to not care that my room was dirty. He said he ...

We got up early today and drove to Sanibel Island. For those who haven't been there, Sanibel & Captiva Islands on the Gulf of Mexico have some of the nicest beaches around, and Sanibel is known for fantastic shelling.

While walking over the inland waterway to get to Bowman Beach, the girls spotted a manatee and watched it amble under the foot bridge we were on and swim off into the distance. The tide was ...

We ate breakfast at the hotel restaurant, Courtney's, then checked out. We drove to one of the public beach access areas and headed out to do some more shelling. We found more treasures! The girls went out at first in just shorts, but that didn't last long. There were signs on the roads to watch out for gopher tortoises...but we didn't see any!

We then drove on to Lake City to stay at the same Comfor Suites...still very nice!

... I had a half-dozen oysters on the half shell and a grilled grouper sandwich. It was tasty.

Katie and I went back out to the beach at low tide and found some real treasures. Sarah was still not feeling great, so she watched cartoon network.

We had planned on going back out early for the next low tide (it was at 5:30a.m.), but it was storming. Which was actually a great thing because it meant the shelling even at high tide was going to be good.

... amber jack, snapper and snook. Not only are men and women using fishing rods, they are also using cast nets for mullet. We went out for a couple of long kayak rides and checked out the houses and wild areas along the waterway. At least 3 times, mullet, that leap a few feet into the air for reasons unknown to most, almost landed on us. They flew out of the water on a diagonal trajectory and ...

... a loser. LOOOOOOOSER!" The cheering went on for the others, and we'd brought many different bowling styles to the lanes. Cory, in his tight blue suit, grew serious when it was his turn and performed calisthenics before bowling. He straightened his arms to the side and rotated them in little circles, then did a couple of deep-knee bends and toe touches. I bowled a straight, ungraceful ball, but, each time the ball left my hand, I swung my right ...

... 10 - Don't puke on your date. On our way to the beach, with every bump that Patti's car took, I felt myself coming closer and closer to needing to puke. We arrived at the beach with a wiffleball and bat, ready for a friendly night game of baseball. Patti pitched to me. She hadn't played a lot of baseball before, but what she lacks as a pitcher she makes up for in hustle. She's a hustler. I swatted a triple off of her, and she chased me all the way to third base ...