Going a little slower, but still going!
Well, friends and family, we have spent a lovely winter season once again in Fort Myers, Floridia. Although this season the weather was a disappointment; December was promising to be a warm winter with fine breezes, warm daytime and cool nights, but January and February did not reciprocate as it turned cold, sometimes in the 40’s at night and 50’s for the daytime temperatures with fierce winds. Puts the kabash on going to beach, or even the pool; no outdoor eating and very little outdoor activity. I know, I know – we should have been up North – but we weren’t, we drove over 1200 miles to be in the warmth. Okay – enough complaints about weather as it did warm up towards the end, beautiful beach days and sunsets.
Winter Season is actually the only time to go to Florida to whilst away the time, despite the temperatures. Fridays is dance and party at LaOlas, our favorite place to listen to Johnnie Walker (yes his real name, Iowa Hall of Famer for his extreme skill on the guitar) and our friend Kit sing and play all afternoon; then heading to a near by eatery to cap the day off. Discovered taking the trolley (35 cents one way for seniors) over to the beach was the way to go to avoid driving in traffic, then paying $20-30 for parking. Why we never did this all the years past is beyond me. Going to the many beaches, riding a CAT boat through the mangos. Taco Tuesday is the favorite place to get authentic tacos for a buck 75! Then there is the Tiki Hut, Rusty’s, Doc Fords (usually boat there), The Snug, Nervous Nellies – just to name a few. No wonder Ty and I gained weight!
At BlueWay we have met so many wonderful people who like us just want to have fun. Seems every year the group expands, many of us doing different activities together. What gives me most pleasure with all these people is their enthusiasm to engage in the theme pool parties; their imagination to invent new activities (we had our own Olympics), take part in the many activities like Euchre and art projects; the comradery when sorrow hits (beloved family members pass on or beloved pets die); many a night huddled by the warmth of the propane heaters playing games and just their genuine kindness. What is so miraculous is that the political views (and believe me we are all over the board on this one) was left behind when we all traveled south to winter and blended as one. I do remember one evening very early on, the talk drifted towards politics and just as like that the group was silent broken by a fart or burp, don’t remember which, and politics was never spoken again.
Pleased that my sister Sue and niece Colleen came down for Christmas week while it was still warm. My sister is older than I and does not travel much anymore, made the effort this year and I know she enjoyed herself as much as I reuniting with her. Colleen, the niece, I think had a good time too, although, she now has taken on the responsibility of watching out for Mom; we’ve all been there and it can be stressful and challenging however, I am grateful she did this so Sue could travel and spend time with me. Christmas Day we all went to Cape Coral (next town over) to spend the day with my brother Will and his bride, Pam AND their family. Haven’t had a family Christmas since we hit the road – it was wonderful.
Of course, not all is merry all the time. If you will recall, Ty’s best friend and our “landlord in FL” John Hill, passed away in November of 2025. We got together with Sandy, John’s wife, a few times, the first are awkward not having cheery John with us. We talked through our sadness and made peace with our knowledge of how long we had known and loved John. And we celebrated Sandy’s birthday with a bucket of mango margarittas!
Didn’t do much “sightseeing” this year, must be slowing down. Ty did travel back to Colorado in March for 10 days to snowshoe however, the lack of snow forced him to just hike. Son-in-law, Scotty, met him for a lot of those 10 days, as well as Amy (and Chet) so he wasn’t bored. I had plans to do more remodeling in Wanda, but ran out of time. I too went to CO the last 4 days Ty was gone to spend with Amy. That was a GREAT visit. It has not been just the two of us in many years and I didn’t realize how much catching up we did. That was a treasure.
Our biggest excursion was to visit the LeAnderson on Don Pedroe Island. That is where we park our car, load up our bikes and ferry over. Because this is such a secluded island it is very restful! Michele and I completed a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle in 2 days, took many many walks on the beach looking for shark’s teeth, and a guided nature walk on the island. Take aways from that is the island has 3 names: originally it is known as Knight Island, over the years for reasons not known it became known as Don Pedroe and the locals (and the ferry boat) refer to it as Pine Island because the only resort that is built on it is called Pine Island Resort.
Time is up in Paradise and it is time to pack up and head to Colorado. Traveling for 4 days straight, averaging 8 hours a day is excruciating. I made one basket, 2 crochet beanies. Ty did most of the driving, I take over when he is sleepy and he takes a nap. 150 miles from Boulder, 4:30 pm on a Sunday night, at the last “town” before the stretch where there are no services (about 80 miles) the tire monitor for Wanda starts to sing. It is loud and piercing telling us that one of our tires is losing air and heating up fast. Managed to pull of highway in a no service stop and discover a big chuck of tire missing from the rear driver side. We are eternally grateful to Norm, camp host at East Portal last summer, for insisting we install tire monitors on the rig before we left. If it wasn’t for that monitor who knows what would have happened. Anyway, one and half hours later AAA comes out (the town was 19 miles away but it is Sunday and dinnertime) to change tire. Whew, back on the road and the tire monitors starts to wail again – this time a different tire! We pull into a Love’s station and hear that a tire is leaking air. Turns out when Ty put the tire monitor from the bad tire onto the tire that lost its monitor awhile back that he didn’t tighten it down enough resulting to just a gush of air. When we stopped it was down to 35 pounds from normal 80. Well, that made a 13-hour day for us when we finally pulled into the Boulder Fairgrounds in Longmont. All part of the Great Adventure!
Good to be home – we missed the sunsets over the mountains and the hikes, our family, my Chet, our friends. And we really are looking forward to camp hosting again this year in Estes Park East Portal. If you get this far, I hope you give us a shout out and if you are tenting or in a small rig camp with us. If you are in a rig greater than 22 feet, you can camp at Mary’s Lake, the sister camp to East Portal, and we can even give you a discount!
Till next season!
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