When you are NOT on top of the food chain

I don't know what kind of wine would go with you!

Tuesday Nov 14^th

I went with André to Camping World at Fort Myers. He was returning a small cabinet that they bought the last time we were there. He seems confident that he can built one that will be stronger and to the exact dimensions.  I don’t want to judge but, it sounds like work to me… I might help him… someone has to hold his beer while he does the work!

We have PVC chairs, they are heavy and not easy to store when on the road so I bought 2 aluminium chairs.  I will have to return one; I think I can build one better…. NOT! One of the chairs has an imperfection (that is my excuse for more trips to Camping World :-)).    

Something old, something new, something blue...

On our way back, we stopped at a tool store. You can get bargains on all kind of tools. André needs to replace the batteries for his drill, but the last time he did that, he ended up buying a new drill… it was cheaper than buying a new battery! I had picked a few items, but the service was so bad… I left them there. There were 2 cashiers and they were both busy with returns. The return process seems to be out of whack… for example, one man was in front of us, and all he wanted to do was exchange his multi meter with the exact same one because it was not working. The cashier wasted about 10 minutes dealing with him, and then I changed to the other line… to find out that someone else was returning something! grrrrrr

In the afternoon, my wife and I went to the beach. I was surprise for a Tuesday by the number of beach goers. Doesn’t anyone work anymore? It’s a long beach so we found a spot to claim our own!

I didn't know that some mermaid could have feet!

The waves were gentle, the birds were singing, the sun was shining, the biggest noise was the page turning from my book.    

Our spot in paradise





One small step for man kind... one giant leap for retiree!

Opposite thumb... must be humain!



The umbrella $20... the view priceless!

Coming back, I took a shower and showed up for happy hour all cleaned and without salt. This is when I think I became a victim… but I’ll talk more about that in few paragraphs.

By the time we had nothing else to be happy about… We returned to our home and had left over for supper. We ended the day by watching two episodes of  “The closer”.

 

Wednesday Nov 15^th

In the morning, I installed the bike rack on the truck and we went biking in Naples. This is such a good way to visit a town. Christiane will surely agree with me that one very good thing about Florida… there is NO hill!

Caro can you memorize this phone number?? Whouhahaha

I tried to take a picture of this mural... but that lady kept popping up!

After 2 hours, she still smilling!

However, there were not many streets with a bike path. The streets were narrow at times and you ended up riding on the sidewalk. We had to be careful because there were a lot of small lizards warming themselves on the sidewalk.

Scene you don't see in Ottawa... Double park golf cart!

After so much exercise, we thought we were entitled to stop at Tin City for Ice Cream. I had a 5 dollar bill out and I could see a small jar for tips. I was about to give her the changes as tips… When she told me that the total was $12, I re-opened my wallet, got a fortune out, and didn’t leave any tip.  

Cold cash!

On this journey, we have been seeing all kind of signs: Do not feed the alligator… Do not feed the pelican… but there should be one saying do not feed the no see ums and the ants!

We both have no see ums bites and maybe there is a new kind of ants: no see ants! I am suffering a lot from those bites. On one foot, I may have something like 100 bites… well could be 15, but it is like a fire and the only thing I can use to extinguish it is my nails… It’s a fight to the end… and I’m losing! You should not be scratching insect bites… so to make sure I stop, I might have to get my finger nails pulled! I bought two types of insect bites relief and applied one brand to one leg and the other brand to the other leg to compare their effectiveness. I also tried a third product that Jo has.  It helps when you apply it but after few minutes nothing works anymore… I ended up putting one product over the next just for the feel-good-for-a -few-minutes layer.

Last night, I had a really bad night; I kept having to fight the good and the bad… the bad Richard was yelling at me: “Yes Richard scratch a little you will see it sooooo good” and the good Richard was murmuring really low to me.   “No Richard, don’t scratch, it will heal faster”

My wife’s bites don’t seem to have the same effect on her. For one thing, she has a fraction of the bites I have. By that I am deducting that she is tougher than I am. I don’t mean her will of not scratching… I mean her meat is tougher… when the biters have a choice between a nice softer bite and a tough one; they seem to go for the “good stuff”. If it were not for the dilemma of should I scratch or not, there would be a hahaha at the end of this statement!

Calamine's art!