Final Day in Paradise

Saturday March 31

I awake, have some breakfast, and immediately clean the rest of the condo, for Heather is coming over at 10 a.m. to do the walkthrough. The vacuuming is done (as best I can), so I concentrate on the two crappers, the kitchen, and washing the hard floors with the "Swifter," which as I've mentioned before I think is a pretty worthless device, or at the very least poorly designed (unless I'm using it wrong).

Heather arrives about 10:15, and we talk for a while about possible plans for next winter. She urges me to contact her if I believe I will be returning to Ft. Myers. At the very least, she can tell me areas that are "good" and areas to avoid. She does her walk-thru and says she is satisfied, but something tells me the cat hair is an issue (and it turns out that I do pay a cleaning fee that is deducted from my $500 security deposit). I thank Heather for the extra day, and tell her I hope to be on the road by 7 a.m. tomorrow (Sunday) and she says that's fine.

I don't have my bike any more, and I don't really want to drive anywhere, with today being Saturday. So I finish packing, leaving out only what I need to change clothes and eat a little breakfast tomorrow. I spend the rest of the day reading, surfing the Internet, and spending time out by the condo pool. For lunch and dinner, I try to clean up as many of the groceries as I can to minimize toting food in the two mini coolers I brought down here.

I reflect on my time down here, and I think it was time well spent. The winter back home was unseasonably mild this year, but I was still biking, swimming, walking around in shorts and T-shirts, and eating fresh strawberries while the folks back home were in long pants and jackets. I enjoyed Southwest Florida, and I think a person could certainly do worse in picking an area to spend the winter. Yes, Ft. Myers has its areas of blight, but what big city doesn't? If you want the creature comforts of a larger city, you have to take a little blight on the side.

The dating game didn't yield Ms. Right. I think the chances of finding a Florida gal who would spend at least the summers in Wisconsin is even less likely than finding a Wisconsin gal to spend winters down here. But the experience was still worthwhile. The condo here was nice. And even though I got very little use of that second bedroom, I think it's good to have the extra space, especially if traveling with the kitties (to have a place to put the litter boxes).

Evening comes, and I'm pretty much all set to go. I set the alarm for 5 a.m., the first and only time I have set my little travel alarm since I have been here.

Bruce