Spring Break

Well we just finished our last spring break we are ever going to have. After changing our minds many times, we decided we were going to go down to Naples, Florida to stay at Mimi's house while they were away golfing in Orlando. We had been wanting to do this all along, but after we found out the price of renting a car, we started to have second thoughts. At this point we were just leaning towards going home to Hillsboro and just spend some time relaxing from the craziness that is finding a job. Then one day I received a call from my high school friends Ed and Amanda, who had been wanting to take a vacation, and found out through my mom that we were wanting to go down to Florida. This was a win win situation, because ed would be driving down, so we would have a car, and we would have a place for him to stay. So we booked our flights and hoped for nice weather. We also got a nice surprise when another high school friend, Ben decided to fly down half way through the week, since his school had off for an extended St. Patrick's Day weekend.

Because of flight prices, we would be spending Friday to Friday in Naples. Ed, anxious to get to the beach started his 18 hour drive at 2:30 AM! Due to our late flight, and Ed's early start, we ended up in Fort Meyers at the same time, and he was able to pick us up and drive us to the house. After getting settled in Friday, and seeing Mimi and Papa off Saturday morning, we decided to go to Naples beach. The water was nice and clear, but pretty cold. There also weren't a whole lot of shells, though Naples beach isn't really known for that. The pier wasn't as busy as it normally is either.

First Day at the Naples Beach

The second day, Lisa wanted to go to a popular flea market in Fort Meyers that sold a wide variety of new items. We had gotten directions from Mimi before they left, and made our way there. As we took our exit, we saw a sign that said Flea market next right. So we took the right and pulled into the parking lot of the flea market. As we pulled in, it didn't look like we had expected, everything was out in the open, and the things that were inside, the building looked like it was thrown together with large sheets of tin. Lisa, the only person who had been there before, thought that this wasn't what she remembered, but Mimi said that it had changed some, so we headed in. Whenever we walked into the grounds, we quickly noticed that all of the items were used, and everything was poorly put together and organized. We couldn't imagine Mimi shopping here, and quickly decided to leave. Ed had mentioned after we left that some of the vendors were pointing at us and whispering and talking quietly to each other. We had decided to go to Sanibel Island that day as well since we were in the area, and headed that direction. Not a mile down the road and there was a huge indoor flea market. We couldn't believe that we went to the wrong one! So we stopped and shopped a bit, but bought nothing. They had lots of neat things though, and we could see why it's popular. Sanibel was a little disappointing, since it is famous as being a really great beach. It is kind of out of the way, and it is expensive to go across the toll bridge and park. The water wasn't very clear so we had a difficult time finding shells. We also realized once we got there that we had forgotten the cooler with our lunch on the counter at the house, so after a few hours we were hungry and ready to leave.

Us at Sanibel Island

The next day we wanted to find some shells, so we went to Tigertail Beach. This was definitely our favorite beach on the trip, and returned 2 more times throughout the week. You could park all day for a flat fee, there was bathrooms available, fewer seagulls (important to Lisa), and with the combination of the sand bar and clear water, we could easily find shells. The area where we went you had to walk across an inlet to get to the real beach bordering the gulf. This kept the beach relatively empty, keeping away people who didn't want to walk through the water. We were able to relax and find lots of cool shells. After our first trip here, Ed became an overnight shell expert and wanted to get to the beach at the crack of dawn to get all the good shells before they were gone.

Walking Across the Inlet at Tigertail Beach

Looking for Shells at Tigertail

On Tuesday, we went on a gator hunt. We drove to a couple natural preserves near the everglades in hope to seeing some alligators. The first one we went to was free, but quickly found out why. As we entered the reserve, there was no visitor center to be seen, and all we could see were trailers with barbed wire fencing surrounding them, and on one fence somebody had spray painted "Crack heads keep out or 911." As you can expect we were a little hesitant to continue. we drove on, and found out that the reserve was actually just an 11 mile dirt road through some forest area. Although it was a sketchy surrounding, we actually saw a fair number of gators, a few were quite large as well. After we left, we decided to go to another park in the area that looked a little more legitimate. This park was actually quite disappointing though, all the marshy areas were dried up because it was the dry season, and we didn't see a single alligator. We were surprised on Friday morning though, when there was a small gator in the pond behind the house.

Gator!!!

Over the next 3 days, Ben arrived, and we spent lots of time at the beach relaxing and trying not to get burnt. At the end of the week we had quite the collection of shells for Ed to take back with him.

Naples Pier

Beach Bums

We couldn't have asked for a better week to go. The weather was perfect, 80 degrees and sunny every single day, and the beach was a great place to relax and get away from the busyness of school.