Ate lunch at Ted Peter's Smoked Fish. Busy place serving fish that have been smoked between 4 to 6 hours. We had Smoked Mullet and Mahi Mahi, and Smoked Salmon Spread. Not cheap, and a bit disappointing given the hype and consequent expectations.
We all had smoked fish of one sort or another. A bit too "woody" for me.
Visited the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg. Museum has a large collection of Dali's work, and also that of Alfredo Lam. Found out quite a bit about Dali and how complex his paintings were. The tour guided talked in some detail about several of his large paintings.
One of the painting the tour guide described in some detail. Dali's ability to blend many symbols and themes together was interesting. But is it Art? Many seem to think so.
Stay for most of the week is at House Mango Grove located in Cape Coral.
12/30/08 Tuesday. Visited ECHO farm, a facility that supports farming in developing countries. Learned about various agricultural methods from this intern, who was well-spoken and knowledgeable. Some plants of note are the Chaya which contains cyanide, Morimba tree with many uses, Neem tree with its medicinal qualities, and Amaranth which is a grain with a high protein content banned at one time by the conquistadors as they thought it was sacrilegious.
Wanted to join Manatee tour but they moved the time. Went to the Manatee Park and saw a few manatees taking advantage of the warm waters around the power plant.
Lunch at Sonic Burger. We see their ads in local New York TV stations, but I'm told the closest one to us is in Philadelphia. Food is brought out by employees on roller skates.
Visited with Pastor Al & Miss Ruth in Shell Point. Toured the facility and grounds. Rated the “only 5 star” community in Lee County. Had buffet dinner at the Crystal Dining Room. All in all a nice visit.
At Pastor Al & Miss Ruth's place in Shell Point.
12/31/08 Wednesday. Sanibel Island. Joe & Jessica rented a couple of bikes and rode around the island. We took a more leisurely approach: we drove. Walked a bit on the Bailey Tract, drove through the Ding Darling National Park, walked on Bowman's Beach, and crossed the bridge into Captiva Island. Ran into Joe & Jessica multiple times. More birds this time, but not as many as we saw on an earlier visit.
Joe & Jessica embarking on their bike ride around the island.
Took Tarpon Bay eco-tour. A 30-minute talk about animals in a touch-tank, followed by a 90 or so minute boat ride. Quite well-attended by about 40 people. Birds and manatee sightings.
Rib City in Cape Coral for dinner. I had the St. Louis ribs. Better experience than our last visit. Had ribs saved for Kuau and Ellie.
Picked up Ellie & Kuau at RSW at about 10 pm. Uneventful New Year's eve. Joe and Jessica did say we managed to pack a lot in in three days.
All six of us in the home we rented for the week.
1/1/09. Woke up early to take Joe & Jessica to TPA for their flight to Boston. A 260 mile roundtrip.
Lunch at Rumrunner's Restaurant. Slow. Food was okay to good. I had the seafood salad croissant, a better description would be tuna salad.
Went back to Manatee Park so Ellie & Kuau could see the manatees. We debated whether one could really see these footprints caused by the humps as the animals surface.
Dinner was frozen pizza and other junk food from Publix.
1/2/09. Got to jog about 4 miles in the morning. Anne went to Curves and also swam.
Lunch on Sanibel Island. Ellie, Kuau and Anne then went on a 2-hour kayak trip while I walked for about 3 miles, stopping at Island Coffee to have a cup of coffee and a piece of cake.
Start of the kayak trip.
Dinner at University Grill. About a 30 minute wait, large dining room was quite full.
1/3/09. Took Ellie & Kuau to Fort Myers Beach to meet up with their friends. Traffic in town was horrendous, we actually took a long detour on the way back. Nice ocean front condominium that must have cost a small fortune at the peak of the real estate boom.
Had a quick sandwich before we rented a boat for 4 hours from Fish-Tale Marina. It's a small Grady White (17') which either went at a few miles per hour or 20 plus when it got on plane. We basically went back and forth the Bay, with Ellie & Kuau joining us for the last hour.
At the helm of the small rental boat. Ellie & Kuau joined us for an hour.
Dinner at Iguana Mia. I have eaten at one of the several in the area quite a few times already.
1/4/09. Checking out of the house was straightforward. Paid about $50 in electricity.
Went to Village Church in Shell Point for morning service. Met up with Pastor Al & Miss Ruth. We had lunch at La Teresita, a Cuban restaurant in Tampa, before we dropped off Ellie and Kuau at the Jet Blue terminal. Anne & I went to Clearwater Beach to watch the sunset, and then had dinner at Joe's Crab Shack in Clearwater. We topped off the meal by sharing a "Crappy Apple Crumble". Let's hope I can control my diet for the next several weeks!
Staying at La Quinta TPA tonight. We could hear the planes' takeoff rolls as I type this; let's hope the either change the runway or cease operations later this evening!
1/5/09. Woke up at 4:30 am to get to the airport in time for a 7:05 am flight. Turns out the airport is so close that we were at the gate in 25 minutes; couldn’t have slept for another 30 minutes. Anyway, flight was full (no upgrades) but uneventful.
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