A Week in Sanibel

We arrived and got all set up in a nice spot at Periwinkle Park.  It is a mobile home park with 84 sites set aside for RVers. The park is nice, the site is fine, utilities work. Those are the pros. The cons are NO visitors, no dogs, no cable, no wifi, no pool!  It is the only park on the island and thank goodness our time was spent at the cottages because I wouldn’t choose this park otherwise. 

We went to my brother’s condo for the first time. His son and daughter in law were still in town and another nephew had picked up his son in Fort Lauderdale and the 8 of us went to Bimini Bait Shack for dinner out on the deck. 

Saturday was a terrible travel day for those flying from the Midwest with the Cincinnati airport shut down from flooding. The Montana people arrived, the driving ones came in and eventually all the planes arrived safely.  The Southwest plane out of Cincinnati was the Lone Star painted like the Texas flag.  They knew Aunt Donna was praying for them and they would arrive safely … and they did. 

!

Sunday we all gathered in the pool.  Nice shot of my back in black! And pregnant Amy looking sharp in her animal print. 

I

Attending my sister in the pool. She has dementia and had to be monitored at all times. 

Later they ordered pizza but after an hour and a half wait we chose to go home and eat. They said the pizza arrived 5 minutes after we left.  

Monday we went to the John “Ding” Darling wildlife preserve and took a 1.5 hour tram tour and saw gopher turtles, an iguana, spoonbill roseates, tree crabs, jumping mullets and mangroves. We came home to eat the spaghetti and meatballs I had made that were still waiting!  

Tuesday was the big group dinner!  We were going to swim a bit before but we were all packed and ready to go when the heavens opened up.  By the time it stopped we had to dress to go to dinner at Nervous Nellie’s.  We had a whole room to ourselves on Estero Island overlooking the bay. Afterwards we took photos, watched dolphins and manatees in the bay, and returned for the kids to crab hunt on the beach.  

One night we went to Pop Strokes, a Tiger Woods miniature golf course and it was beautiful.  I chose to help pregnant Amy with the kids in the playground.  Ted and Ed tied with a score of 40!  All the kids got free ice cream!  No wonder Ed offered to buy!

We spent our last day at the RV and left early enough to help dress Karen for dinner.  We had invited her and Ron and my brother Dan and Sue.  There was some mixup and Vicki and Ed did not realize they were also invited.  Or maybe they just wanted to hang with the young folks!

We left Thursday morning a few hours after six of the fellows left for a 5 am fishing expedition.  They caught about 80 fish including a 150# shark!  They had a video of it before they cut it loose.  The plan was to take it to a restaurant that cooks your fish and sells you a plate with sides for $10 and kids ate off the children’s menu for free.

While they were all doing that, we traveled to the other coast to Daytona Beach.  We waited for Kristin to arrive and went to dinner.  Larry was coming separately and they stayed in the Hampton Inn.  Neighbors  from Ohio who moved to The Villages came the next day but it poured rain.  We stayed in because of the rain until we decided to make a break for it to go have a late lunch.  The sun was shining when we came out.

Kristin and Larry came over in the evening.  We discussed maybe taking a fall cruise to celebrate his 50th birthday and my 76th since my 75th was a small dinner due to the covid restrictions.