Up in the morning, oh, yes, it's sunny again. Listen to the mourning doves in the back yard and the pool pump start up around 8:30. Breakfast and then coffee and book out the back for a while. An hour or so later, "are we doing anything today?" Questions The Man. Reply, either "nope, this is good" or "yeah, let's see where some roads will take us today" ie. Road Trip.
If there is no road trip planned it's a series of reading sessions followed by a pool session, then more reading. Lunch in there somewhere and a snooze by the pool. Another reading session then POOF it's dinner time. Phew, that was a day.
Road trips are pretty unscripted. Map, check; water bottles, check; wallets, check (yup, forgotten one time); sunglasses and sunscreen, check. Okay we're good to go.
We do have a list of things that we want to see. There is a 'his' list that doesn't include boats or water things and a 'me' list that does. Other than that it's pretty much where the road takes us.
On Saturday we ventured off to the town of Arcadia and the area around it. On the news recently there had been a lot of mention of this town due to the hard freeze that was forecast. Figured I wanted to find out why. Off we drove. From the "urbanized" side of Port Charlotte we drove to the "farmland" side. Really a whole lot of nothing and it reminded me of the flat land of New Mexico driving through it. As it's January everything is pretty much brown, it's dormant state, it will come back in a month or so when there is a little bit more rain. (We've only had an hour of rain since we got here 9 days ago).
A few miles out of town we started to see the huge groves of grapefruit. Tons and tons of them. Branches were loaded down with them! (Yes, I was too chicken to stop and grab one) Then we passed the Peace River Citrus company plant and there were dozens of semi trailers heaped with oranges ready to go into the plant. Very neat! The smell from that was so lovely.
Arcadia is a "working town" to best describe it. There is a main street of sorts and the usual stores but you could tell it was very, well, working. I think this is where the grove workers live as it is completely surrounded by groves.
We then followed the road to Punta Gorda for lunch and had a lovely meal overlooking part of Charlotte Harbor.
After lunch I wanted to check out some of the big condos and homes along the waterfront towards the Gulf. Winding our way round some streets (courts end at a canal, boulevards are longer and courts enter on to them and streets are main roads...I got it figured now) we found our way to Ponce de Leon park. This is a man made beach area with some sand, a wildlife refuge/rescue place and some areas for fishing. Being the water person I promptly walked into the water and started to look for shells. Only oyster shells here. The water doesn't get big waves to bring in the pretty shells. Not to say oyster shells aren't pretty, that would make them feel bad. They just aren't as interesting.
Wild life seen: huge pelican flying past us up the nearby canal, white egret (stork looking bird with a crested feather top on it's head), trout jumping in the canal (fishermen all around trying to get it) and the usual little lizard/gecko guys we see here. These little folk are awesome at keeping the bug level down and are very curious.
The beach was somewhere we decided we'd come back to. People were there reading and just hanging out. There were even huge swinging chairs to sit in and enjoy the sunsets. Very nice.
During lunch we had been looking at some real estate magazines just to compare what prices would get you at home compared to here. Very interesting. Some are so out of what we're used to and some are so cheap. Is it the area? We headed to one area mentioned, Burnt Store road. Guess there was a store that burnt and in true fashion it became the name of the road as everyone referred to it as that. Anyway our travels took us there only to find Tern Bay. This, I'm sure, was to be one of the most luxurious, gated communities in the area. Though due to the economy even the gate house didn't have power. There were a few very nice houses, with pools in one area and in another area a type of quad-plex that would be veery nice for the snowbird type person. Unfortunately there were only two of them built and the rest of the land was left to nature. Very, very weird to be there. All the homes seemed to be occupied though mostly by locals and the luxury part of the place was really not evident.
Tired we headed home, though I have found out that we didn't drive far enough to the harbour area where the really fancy homes are. Alas, another road trip.
You may (or not) wondering what kind of house I've taken on for my time here. So, here are some pictures....
The beloved Equinox outfront.
Front garden with pelican statue and palm tree.
Kitchen and dining area.
Sun room, note TV in top left hand corner, they are everywhere! You can see the pool area outside the windows.
Living room area which continues to the left of the picture.
There are no pictures of the second bedroom because it was being occupied by a napping Man. There is a second bathroom too, and a two car garage (didn't think you needed a picture of that).
Did you count the ceiling fans? There are a total of 7 in the house and 1 in the Tiki bar (pictures of that to come). There is AC too but the fans make a huge difference!
So this gives you a taste of some of my lifestyle at the moment. Pretty sweet I think!
Snowbird research report:
Found grapefruit spoons at Bed, Bath and Beyond. Who knew. That quest is over. Store very crowded. We were youngest ones there. Seems people go shopping just to go shopping. No need to get anything. It's an activity.
Also note, older ladies driving very, very large Lincoln Continentals should be given a very wide berth when they are parking. It's just safer for everyone, and all vehicles, involved.
She did park the car successfully after a few back up and retries but I give her credit for going for it. You can just tell it's not her usual set of wheels.
And finally, Twinkies, the totally bad for you junk food.... they suck. Really gross. Hostess Ho-Ho's though are pretty good. Hey, just telling you!
Cheers from the Gulf Coast.
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