First report from Florida 2017

Hello everyone. Hope this blog entry finds all of you well and in good spirits. I'm sitting in the lanai sipping coffee and a strawberry banana smoothie. I'm nursing a sore back which cropped up suddenly on Monday night. One of the things I hate about getting older is that aches and pains of this type spring up out of nowhere. Part of the process I guess.

Well, it appears the honeymoon is over as far as unseasonably warm temps for my friends and family up North. According to the news, Madison got socked with high winds and temps are going to drop by half the next coming days and into the next week. You knew it was coming, right? Now's the time when I feel the $$$ spent to come down here is money well spent!

(Sister) Dawn and I are having a good time down here. Although I would say the overall "vibe" is more subdued than in past years. But time is still passing quickly. On December 9, I will have been here a month already. The years go by, as one writer puts it, like passing fence posts on a highway going 70 miles an hour.

Recent events, in no particular order:

We got an order of cheese yesterday from Decatur Dairy in Brodhead, Wis. They shipped the cheese on November 29 we got it December 4 via UPS Ground service. A little soft because the ice packs had melted, but otherwise no worse for the wear. But I do think Decatur Dairy needs to up their game on the shipping. I wanted some good cheese for the holidays as we have nothing down here but a few national brands like Sargento, Kraft, etc. So I called up Decatur dairy and ordered a pound each of Havarti, Swiss, and cheddar. With shipping came to $39, totally worth it. I went out to a kitchen supply store last Friday and bought one of those fancy cheese slicers with the marble slab and the wire guillotine that slices the cheese so nicely. We have sampled the goods, and they are wonderful. Tonight I'm making French onion soup with broiled Swiss cheese over the top. And will probably have something to go with it like maybe some fresh fruit, which is starting to come in season down here and, like in years past, it is wonderful. Though I am staying away from the Naval oranges which have been affected the past few years by an insect blight. As in the couple years past, we are not shipping any fruit north because the California Naval oranges you guys find in the supermarket up there are better than anything we have down here. Kind of ironic.

On Saturday, Dawn and I spent the afternoon on Sanibel and Captiva islands. We had a really nice time, and it was almost like a mini vacation for Dawn, who has pretty much kept her nose to the grindstone these past six months. We started with a visit to the Bailey Matthews Shell Museum, which we have been to before. It's always interesting to go back about once a year see the new exhibits which there were several. We also attended an interesting lecture by one of the biologists there. We always seem to find something new in the museum we didn't catch before. So that was $14 per person well spent. After that we did a drive through the Ding Darling nature conservancy, which is always fun. This is so peaceful, so much different than cruising around the busy streets of Fort Myers. We saw many white pelicans, Egrets, and even some Roseate Spoonbills which are an interesting bird. They are pink in color, and have spoon shaped bills as their name implies. We did not see any alligators this time around, but were sure they were lurking about.

After that, we went to Bowman Beach and walked along the ocean's edge looking at shells and the beautiful ocean. We both got bit up good by sand fleas which are very prevalent along the beaches down here. Bites are similar to mosquito, but some people are particularly allergic to them. They can only jump as high as about 20 cm (8 inches) so if you walk barefoot on the beach as I did, you tend to get a lot of bites on your feet and ankles. They're itching like crazy right now, but that will go away in couple days. Throwing that out to let you know that walking along the beaches down here is oftentimes not all fun and games, or romantic! They are especially bad early in the morning, at dusk, and right after a rainstorm.

From there we drove across the "Blind Pass Bridge" to Captiva. It is the smaller of the two islands, and while Sanibel Island is expensive, the real estate prices on Captiva would blow your mind! To give you an idea, most of the estates for sale on Capitva are offered by real estate companies with names like Christies and Sothebys. If you even have to ask how much the properties are, you can't afford them. Anyway the very end of Captiva is the business district which is mostly restaurants and a few galleries. Our fave restaurant here is a place called the Bubble Room, which we try and visit at least once while we're down here, preferably before the busy season begins in  January. The ambience here is very eclectic, sort of like Ella's Deli used to be with many antiques and collectibles and so forth mounted on the walls in such quantity as to be almost disorienting. Anyway we arrived around 5 o'clock got right in, ordered beverages. For the main course Dawn ordered something called the "Tiny Bubble," which is your choice of an appetizer, a salad, and choice of dessert. You also get a bread basket which contains sticky buns and garlic toast. All in all, a not so tiny amount of food! But it was nothing compared to what I ordered. I was hungry for some red meat so ordered the "Tarzan" portion of the roasted prime rib, which is served bone-in, and weighs in at 40 ounces, give or take. It arrived at our table, cooked to medium-rare perfection, hanging over the edge of the platter like a scene from the opening reel of the Flintstones cartoon series, except it didn't quite tip over the table as it did Fred's car at the drive-in. First thing was I asked for a separate plate, and trimmed out the bone and the obvious fat. What remained was a hunk of beef the size of a mitten and nearly 3 inches thick. I sliced off pieces like carving a roast, dipped them in au jus, and savored every tasty bite. Took home about half the mitten, and had them wrap the bone (with plenty of beef still attached) for soup, which I am making for tonight. We each then ordered a piece of dessert, which the Bubble Room makes from scratch on premises. Dawn got the red velvet cake with cream cheese icing, while I had them wrap a slice of their signature "orange crunch" cake to go. The cake is four layers of yellow cake interspersed with layers of a streusel made with toasted almonds, butter, brown sugar, and cinammon. Then the whole cake is draped in frosting made of cream cheese, orange juice, and powdered sugar. We left with a "to-go bag" weighing about five pounds. We got back to the condo about 8 p.m., both of us tired from being out in the sun all day, capped by a monster of a meal.

Sunday, we just sort of hung out, but I did manage to make it to Planet Fitness for a good 1:20 workout, shower and shave. We did our weekly grocery run at the Walmart Neighborhood Market for meals for the upcoming week, and lunch items for Dawn to take to work.

Last night (Monday) Dawn and I had dinner at P.F. Changs in the Gulf Coast Shopping Center, just south of here about five miles in Estero. I call this shopping center the Bermuda Triangle because once you get in, you almost can't get out because it is so large and confusing. I know where P.F. Changs is and we found it with no problem. (Niece) Kris, if you have made it this far, you're going to love this story. I had an e-coupon for a free appetizer which expired on Tuesday night, so that's one of the reasons we chose this restaurant. We ordered the chicken lettuce wraps which are normally $9.50, which got knocked off our bill. In addition, I had accrued enough "Chang loyalty points" to entitle myself to a free entrée. I ordered the Kung Pao shrimp, which got taken off the bill as well. Dawn ordered the sweet-and-sour chicken, which she declared delicious. And then, here's the kicker: Our order took so long, that the manager came over to our table, apologized, and offered us each a free dessert. We each ordered from the "mini desserts" menu, Dawn the butterscotch pudding and me cheesecake with blueberry topping. Those are normally $2.99 each. The upshot was that when we received our bill, it was a grand total $7.76. What an amazing meal (we couldn't have eaten at McDonalds for that) but certainly we had to work for it. (The place was noisy as hell, and oh yes we were flanked on one side by an unruly child doing cartwheels on the seat bench and nearly poking her sister's eye out with a wooden skewer stick.) But anyway, the bill would have normally been around $34, so we saved $26 and change. And, yes, we did tip on the pre-coupon amount, leaving our server $7.00.


Well, I've rambled on long enough. It sounds like all we've been doing here is eating, but yes we have done other stuff, though not anything particularly noteworthy. I've been doing some reading, hanging out at the condo pool, biking to the weekly farmer's market, and playing Scrabble and cribbage with Dawn in the evenings after "Wheel" and "Jeapordy" are over. And, oh yes, we are planning an overnight getaway to Key West early in the new year by way of the Key West Express ferry out of Fort Myers.

'Til next time, "stay thirsty my friends," as the Dos Equis spokesman says. To my friends and family back in cheeseland, throw an extra blanket on the bed.

Bruce