To catch up a bit:
On Thursday, I did, indeed, take a little nap. By then it was past raining, exactly, but continued to sprinkle the rest of the daylight hours till nearly Sunset Celebration. I did go out to stock up on pop, but I was still so full from lunch that I didn't have dinner. Instead, I got some ice cream at the homemade place on Duval, where the chick there slipped me a foreign coin with my change (which I didn't notice, of course, until later). I also did a little geocaching, since there were several new ones placed since my last visit, and a couple of them were nearby.
Then I went to Sunset Celebration, which was a little less interesting than I had found it in the past, maybe because the rain/not rain kept some of the coo-coos away. The guy with the trained cats was there, though. And he announced that his old cat, almost 20, had "rejoined the universe six months ago....so many stars to visit!". I thought that was a very sweet way to put it. Later, after it was full dark, I went down to take a night swim. The pool area is not illuninated but the pool is, and I had the whole place to myself for an entire hour! It was so nice floating back and forth, with palm trees and the building surrounding me. Heaven!
On Friday, I awoke to a grey sky. Really? AGAIN? I putzed around the hotel a bit, then went down to check out, but leave my bag until it was closer to time to go back to the ferry. I was kind of stuck with my sun hat, since I couldn't check that with my bag, and I felt a little stupid with it, since it was clearly not sunny. It was, however, really good for the constant sprinkle that lasted most of the day. I first walked down to get a couple of geocaches by the Coast Guard ship that is permanently docked there. I didn't tour it because I didn't want to spend the necessary $10. The ship was the USCGC Ingham, which took part in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, and was the most decorated vessel of its time (received 35 awards and has the only confirmed kill, for a Coast Guard ship, of a U-boat in WWII). It was also part of the Mariel Boatlift which helped hundreds of Cubans to reach the US in 1980.
I used my foreign coin as swag for one of the caches, so that worked out OK. I then walked down to one near the cemetery, called Flying Pigs (really cute). It is at the cache owner's home, so I was prepared to meet him, but I guess he wasn't around. Very interesting place, though, with lots of statuary and artwork around. Then I walked around to the gate of the cemetery for another cache, and to go inside to look around. They actually have maps available to the graves of prominent KW citizens, so I walked around there for probably an hour. The Jewish cemetery corner was interesting, since it had no flowers, only small stones on the gravesites. These are left in remembrance when someone visits, and it was cool to see, though I wondered if anyone left stones on the ones whom no one visited just so that they didn't look left out. As a whole, the cemetery was fascinating. So many styles of grave markers and coverings. One was covered in pots of cactus. Another had coreopsis growing in the enclosure. Some had shelters built over them, some were above ground, and others below. Really, I could have stayed there a lot longer, looking at everything. It was so, so hot, though, in spite of the sprinkling, and I wasn't sure if I was just wet from walking around all day, or from being completely sweat-soaked.
But it was getting toward midafternoon, it was semi-sunny and hot, and I had had nothing to eat, so I headed back toward the hotel. Sort of by accident, I ended up down at El Meson de Pepe's, the Cuban place I liked so much last time. I had a Ropa Vieja sandwich and fries, which was enough to keep me full through dinnertime again. I was debating between two sandwiches and asked the server which one was less food. She looked at me skeptically and said, "In Cuba, there is no such thing as less food". So, ropa vieja it was, served with two different sauces. The red one was especially good. Going to have to find out more about that.
Then I picked up a couple of drinks and snacks for the boat, picked up my bag, and went back to the ferry terminal. It seems that Friday was the beginning of bike week, an annual poker run from KW to Miami. The taxi driver told me that by Sunday, KW would be back to normal, but on Friday and Sat, Duval St was full of booths of all sorts of biker stuff, jewelry, clothes, souvenir stuff, and bikers - lots and lots of bikers, None of them seemed to be staying at the Westin, though. :)
The trip back was fine, though it rained a good bit of the time, and was still sprinkling when we reached Ft Myers. And it rained steadily all the way to Bradenton, though Cathy said it didn't rain here yesterday at all. (Of course not.)
Today, I spent most of the afternoon with Cathy, and Mark's granddaughter Hailey. We went to see Cathy and Mark's "vacation home" and went swimming there. Really great pool, and I had a good time. It has been awhile since I have swum laps in an outdoor pool and it was really nice. We also worked on getting Hailey to swim underwater. She's a smart little cookie, and she caught on fast.
Now I am recombobulating the condo, packing up, and getting ready to head north tomorrow. Not sure if I will be able to meet up with HJ or not, but I will try. I need to check the rest area map and see if there is anywhere near Atlanta that I can leave the travel bug I am carrying that wants to go back there. I would hate to get all the way back home with it. I didn't want to leave it in KW, since it wants to go to Atlanta.
It's been an imperfect trip with lots of aggravations, but I managed to salvage quite a few good times from it after all. I hope the drive back will be smooth. I need to stay on my timeline and get back before midnight because I have to be at work at 7:00 on Monday morning. But I think this might be my last week with Skeeterette, so there's that.
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