Update Nov. 28 - Dec. 6

Today, we are meeting Karen and Craig, Dawn's friends, for an early lunch at B.J.'s Restaurant & Brewhouse out on Alico Road by the airport. I have five of their watches I got in running condition for them. Most were just batteries, but one was a stem and crown replacement on a lady Movado watch which ran me $40 all by itself to have my buddy down the street at Prestige Jewelers obtain the parts and install them. I'm doing very little watch repair work for people these days, because it's generally a PITA. I'm trying to train all my relatives to simply tell people that I'm retired! But these are good friends, and I know how hard it is to obtain reliable and honest watch repair, especially around this part of the country. Looking forward to trying the new restaurant and catching up with Karen and Craig.

A mixed bag this week, due in good part to a couple days of torrential rain that pre-empted our usual Friday outing to the Farmer's Market. But still we managed to get out and have some fun.

Monday Nov. 30 -- Beach Day

A nice day today, so we spent most of it at Fort Myer's Beach. We had lunch at the Sunset Beach Tropical Grill, the new bar that replaced the aging "Top 'O Mast" bar near the city pier. We each had the basic burger, mine with sweet potato fries, and Dawn had potato salad. Burgers were delicious. We spent the afternoon on the beach in a couple of rented chaise lounge chairs. I had a nice swim in the ocean.

While we were relaxing, our maintenance man, Mike, was busy powerwashing all of the white fences in the back yards of all three tenants. They were covered in mold, and in bad need of a washing. Before we left for the beach, Mike also took a look at our leaky toilet (since last season) and promised a brand new unit this week. The fence looks AWESOME now, and we no longer have to look at a green, slimy fence while we have our morning coffee out on the lanai!

Before

After

Tuesday Nov. 1 -- New Toilet, Shell Factory

This Morning, Mike returned to the apartment with a brand new toilet, and installed it in about a half hour. Yeah! No more leaky toilet going off every half hour to refill the tank! That only took a year!

Meanwhile, I was online and finished a cruise reservation for sis-in-law Julie and I about Royal Caribbean's "Navigator of the Seas" for a nine-day Eastern Caribbean cruise departing Jan. 9. We depart from Fort Lauderdale, and will take in San Juan Puerto Rico, Labadee Haiti, St. Kitts, and St. Marteen. Plus have 3 whole days at sea. I also made Julie's flight reservations with Frontier Airlines. She'll be coming in Jan. 7 and flying back out on the 18th,

Dawn and I were looking for something to do, so we went to the "Shell Factory." This is one of the few, if only, attractions in North Fort Myers, and I had never been and wanted to see it. They advertise quite a bit, and supposedly do a big business in seashells, both wholesale and retail. They advertise the biggest gift shop in Southwest Florida, along with a couple of "museums" on the premises, and also a nature trail with supposedly "over 200 critters," and a display of stuffed animals shot and killed from around the world.





OK, I'll try not to grind this thing into the ground, but in a word, it was terrible. The whole thing was rather sad and depressing. Everywhere we looked, we saw major signs of neglect. Planking on the walkways was rotten. Railings and stairs needed painting. All the animals in the stuffed menagerie (not our favorite thing anyway) looked like they hadn't been dusted in years.The "museums" were little more than a glass display case or two containing a few artifacts. The "nature trail" required a separate $12 admission, and we passed on that. The fudge in the fudge shop looked like it had been sitting there since the Obama inaugural ball (the first one!). There was virtually NO ONE in the gift shop (yes it was huge) to even keep things tidy. The boxes of shells for sale had many damaged shells in them, and looked like they hadn't been restocked in months. I think the problem is that kids just aren't interested in this type of entertainment any more. They want roller coasters and waterslides, while mom and dad want 12 different restaurants to choose from. So anyway we left feeling rather depressed, and our general advice is that if you're ever in the North Fort Myers area, skip the Shell Factory, and keep on driving!

Saturday Dec. 5 -- Matlacha and Pine Island

Today, we took a drive to Matlacha (pronounced Mat La SHAY), and to the north end of Pine Island at Bokeelia. Matlacha was little more than a fishing village back in the 1920s, and it's been preserved like this so people can see what life was like back then and what much of Southwest Florida looked like. The buildings are now gift shops, galleries, and restaurants, but the original "flavor" of the town is preserved. We had lunch at a place called "Bert's" and I had a sandwich of blackened "Twin Tail," a member of the red snapper family, and it was delicious. Dawn had fish and chips. One of the galleries we visited was the "Leona Lovegrove Gallery and Gardens" which kind of famous around these parts. It's kind of recycled meets psychedelic. Bright neon colors and media as varied as canvas, bottles, and old travel trailers.



After that, we drove over to Pine Island and drove the length of that to see all the tree/plant nurseries, and ended our journey at Bokeelia, where the road literally ends and you look out onto Charlotte Harbor  and beyond it the Gulf of Mexico. A beautiful Saturday drive.



That's all for now. Just made a grocery run following a nice lunch with Karen and Craig. Relaxing in the apartment.

Bruce and Dawn