January 29 - February 10. Myakka River Motorcoach Resort - Port Charlotte, FL
It's amazing how fast the time goes when you're having fun! We've now been at the Myakka River location for 3 weeks.
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| Entrance to the resort |
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| The resort clubhouse |
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| Our coach looks right at home here amongst the palms |
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| It's Florida ... of course there are gators! |
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| Two ponds within the property and both have gators! |
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| Beautiful sunset at the resort from the dock thatextends 100 yards into the Myakka River |
After our last posting, we had several days of rain. In fact, rain that was heavy enough we wondered if it was time to buy a boat instead of a motorhome. We took advantage of those days to get some shopping done and Jan got her first "on the road haircut". Haircuts will be interesting since each one will be at a different salon and with a different stylist and with short hair, it will need trimming every few weeks. When we mentioned heavy rain to friends and family in other parts of the country, they were less than sympathetic. Most of them were suffering through the worst winter weather in many years including snow, ice, and power outages. Our "stick house" also lost power for several days. A huge "Thank You" to our neighbors, Lois and Gene, for helping us out during the power outage. They drained water from the plumbing lines and emptied our freezer since the food had thawed during the outage.
We had a day when we met friends from our Wellness Center, Sue and Nick for lunch. They had been to Naples, FL and were working their way back up to the Tampa area before heading home. Good lunch, great friends and we had such a nice visit with them and then had a chance to give them a tour of our coach while they were in our area.
Any of you who know Bob, know that he likes to keep his cars clean. Neighbors have seen him in the driveway washing and waxing the cars on a regular basis. Guess what? The coach is like a very BIG car and he feels the same way about it, but it's a much bigger job. At one point, he washed the sides of the coach in the driveway at home and it took him nearly a full day. Luckily, here in the resort, there's a mobile coach washing group that will wash your coach for you. They have a team (3-5) of people who don't seem to mind climbing up to the roof and washing the whole vehicle. Actually pretty fascinating to watch! They also offer a polishing service, which we thought was a good idea since we hadn't polished it since it was built. So now our coach is now bright and shiny. Looks better than brand new!
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| Almost done ... just applying the final touches... |
We've joined the water aerobics classes that are held on Monday and Wednesday mornings. We were missing our workouts at the Wellness Center back home and wanted something more than walks through the resort. The classes are about an hour long with a great instructor. It's a nice workout with exercises suitable for everyone and a wonderful way to get the day started. Jan has taken time to sit in on craft classes at the clubhouse. One craft was card embroidery (also called Prick and Stitch) where she created a cute Valentine. It's a fun craft to do and nothing she'd ever seen or attempted before. Bob got to attend a Photography class conducted by one of the other people here in the resort who's done a lot of photography while traveling (including a trip to Alaska). Each Friday afternoon, there's a Meet & Greet at the clubhouse for people to get together and get to know each other. We have people in the resort from lots of different states and a few from Canada. Some travel full-time in their coaches and others are part-timers ranging from days to weeks or months on the road. We get to hear about where they're from, what they've seen on their travels, and their experiences with their coaches. We swap campground recommendations. Thursday evenings we play Card Bingo with varying amounts of success. The fun part is just getting together with neighbors and visiting.
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| Fisherman casting his net at Port Charlotte Beach |
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| Sea gulls flying in formation.....really clear water ! |
We've done several beach excursions. We spent one day visiting Sanibel and Captiva and had really neat dinner at Doc Ford's Rum Bar & Grill in Sanibel. The seafood has been spectacular. We've been to the beach in Port Charlotte a couple of times since it's only a 15 minute ride in the car. On one day we caught the boats coming back in from the Charlotte Harbor Regatta. On another day, we drove to Stump Pass Beach State Park which is about 40 minutes from the coach. Each beach has slightly different shells so we've had a pick up few along the way. Can't put into words how nice it is to be walking in the surf, enjoying the sun and sand and trying to comprehend that it's February.
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| Jan with a few of the boats |
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| What a colorful event! |
We also had two more trips to Sarasota. One for a visit to LensCrafters. Yup....Jan's glasses didn't need adjustment this time... they broke and will be replaced thanks to the protection plan we'd bought at purchase time.
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| Stump Pass Beach |
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| Lunch in Sarasota with Roy and Kathie |
The second trip was to meet great friends and former neighbors from home, Kathie and Roy, for lunch. They have a condo in Bradenton and were checking on it before they headed on to San Francisco for Roy's business. With everyone's busy schedules, we hadn't visited with them since early last fall. Couldn't pass up the opportunity to have lunch with them. They have two children that are similar in age to our two so we always have a lot to catch up on when we get together. We found a wonderful restaurant where we could eat outdoors and the food was great, too! The hours just melted away.
