Boring Vacation Narrative - Day Two, Part Deux...

When I last left you, Robert, Darald and I were down at the end of Naples Pier. We stayed out there for about 20 minutes or so, before we began to meander back, mainly because it was getting crowded out there. As we wandered back, we stopped to admire a fisherman's catch...he had about half a dozen mackerel. One of them had wiggled away from the others, and was flopping his way toward the edge of the dock - a real get-away artist, that one! I'd never seen mackerel before; they are very pretty fish! And, they were of a size that would have made a fine meal.

We walked on, getting a giggle out of a "screened in" baby stroller. It had two dogs in it. Sure beats trying to keep dog leashes from weaving around people in small places! And, I'm sure it prevented a whole bunch of folks from overstimulating the dogs and risking a nip or two should a stupid human get too cocky, or be one of those lawsuit happy folks who'd love to claim that the dog 'bit' them. We walked on.

As we got closer to where Barb and Pat were sitting, we noticed we'd lost Darald. A quick glance told us he was chatting with another fisherman on the pier. When he rejoined us, he showed us a picture of a two foot shark the guy had just caught. It's a lot farther out than people swim right there, but you know...that's almost too close for comfort!

Barb and Pat had gotten ice cream cones at the small snack area on the pier. We decided to join them. Mmmmm...chocolate!

Of course, I had to take a couple more pictures. This is a shot of the pier from the area where we were eating our ice cream.



And, of course I was interested in that shark, so I just took a shot of the water and the lovely sand ripples just below the surface. Would have been extra cool if by some chance that little shark would have been in the picture! Shucks, no such luck!



In spite of our hats, Barb and Pat were both worn out from the heat. So, with a lot of regret, Robert and I agreed it was time to head back to the air conditioned van.

After we all piled in, I decided that we had enough time to drive over to Marco Island, which is just south of Naples. If you want to see "exclusive" and "rich", Marco Island is the place to go. High rise condos, many with starting prices of $750K...and that doesn't include the association fees, nor the boat. The whole place is set up to make it simple for homeowners to boat right up their private canals and dock near their back door. And the boats...wow! Many of 'em are as big as my house!

Barb was almost speechless. Robert made up for her speechlessness with his vocal amazement. We got a kick out of listening to them. We'd sounded much the same way when we first drove around Marco Island!

I glanced at my watch and saw that it was close to six. I decided to head back toward Naples as it occurred to me that we hadn't eaten anything since Alice's and there was the horrid thought of having to drive back through all those damn stop lights again.

I drove till the twilight was at the point where I'm not comfortable driving in unfamiliar surroundings. So Darald and I swapped places and he took over. (He and I were the only ones who'd ever driven in FL, so we didn't ask for volunteers from the others.) It was right around 8:30 when Barb decided she'd cooled off enough to want some supper. And, what sounded good to her? Pizza.

Do you think you can find a pizza place in an unfamiliar city when you want one? Of course not!

Finally, Robert, ever the groceryman, said, "Well, we could get frozen pizza..."
Duh! We have a house, we have an oven. But, do we have pizza pans? Nobody knew. We'd figure out something, even if it meant buying a cheap pizza pan and donating it to the cause.

Now to find a grocery store. Finally, I spotted a Publix store. We pulled in, got out of the van and went inside. This store was a few steps up from the Wynn-Dixie in the bad part of town; this one was in an area that businesses closed their doors at 9, and they had security people with guns to enforce the closing time.

But, in spite of that, we found that the young people there were the most customer friendly young people in a retail establishment that I've seen in a long time. They didn't care that we were white and they were something else, they really put themselves out there for us. That reminds me, I need to write a letter to that store manager and congratulate him on a fine staff. Now, lest those of you who read this think I'm stating this as a racial remark, nothing could be further from the truth. These were the kind of young people who give me hope that this world can be successful, because there are still kids out there with values, kids who are trying to better themselves from the lives that the cards may have dealt to them.

Again, purchases were made, and we made our way home. I'd bought microwavable frozen 'za, so it wasn't long before we were all munching happily away.

We ended up in Pat's "room" just visiting. Rather, we girls were visiting while the boys were watching a little of the basketball game in the family room. But, Darald just can't stand that - one of the downsides to him is that he has this notion that since he's a *man* he has to come and watch over "the little women" and make sure he guides us to the correct and proper ways of thinking. You'd think the boy would have learned something by now. LOL

So, I was telling Barb and Pat about something that concerned Monie's estate that I'd waited to talk about in person, and of course, he had to chime in and preach to me/us about it. And then it digressed into him attempting to sway the ladies into his way of thinking.

Do you know how some buzzwords can really set you off? Well, one of mine is "gals". And another is when a spouse calls the other one "Mother" or "Dad" and they're not using it in context of a child.

"Well, Mother, you gals shouldn't have to worry about (the estate thing.) Kathy, you and Barbie and Patty did all you could....blah blah blah...."

And then he made the mistake. He said that "it's a man's world out there and you GALS have done an amazing job in spite of it."

I said, "Watch it Darald....you'd better watch it....watch your mouth...better not say it...." but of course...since it's a "man's world" he began belittling the female race and expecially made some put down remarks about Barb. If Robert ever did that to me in public, I'd be tanning his hide.

I was loud enough that Robert even got up from the basketball game and came in to make sure I wasn't going to need bail money while on vacation. LOL

(And, I was tickled to bits to hear from Pat the next morning that Barb did not do what Darald wanted when we received our inheritance - he wanted her to put it all in *his* accounts. She didn't. She bucked him and put it in investments and opened her own accounts.) Yay Barb!

By this time it was bedtime. Barb fussed about those pajamas a couple more times, and I fussed right back at her to take them back the next day. Gods knows we had about four Wal-Marts within a five mile radius of our place. We pulled Pat's hide-a-bed out, and then turned in.

Robert decided to give me the bed he'd slept in. He usually doesn't move around as much as I do once he gets to sleep. Besides, he figured that maybe his additional weight would weigh the thing down a little better.

It was like a slumber party from the standpoint of not wanting to be overheard as we debriefed the day.

"Kath, this bed's not so bad..." and then he started rocking it back and forth. Squeak, SQUEAK, squeak SQUEAK!

"Robert, shut UP! You do that very long and the whole damn neighborhood will think we're DOING IT!"

And then we got the giggles, which turned into the kind of laughs that about kill you because they're really belly laughs you're trying to suppress.

After we settled down, we talked about the possibility of renting a car. We decided to see if Darald woke up by 8 o'clock. If he didn't, well, we'd pointed out a Hertz agency on the way home and mentioned we might rent a car so if some of us were interested in different things, we wouldn't feel as though we were stuck.

We also talked about that whole Hwy. 41 route we kept finding ourselves on. When Robert was a mystery shopper many years ago, he traveled 33 states; Interstate highways don't terrify him. I'm not crazy about them, but once I've been on them, I'm fine. Except for Chicago.

"I really want to drive over to I-75 and just look at it," Robert said. "I doubt seriously that there are six lanes of traffic on each side like Darald seems to think."

"There can't be. I'm guessing there are that many lanes on I-75 through Atlanta. If you stop and think about it, that's what Barb keeps talking about - how horrible driving through Atlanta was. I'll just bet that Darald doesn't want to go on the interstate because he thinks that Barb will pitch a fit."

So, we conspired to get a look at I-75 at our first opportunity.

We griped about the little stresses of the journey thus far...like Barb's constant repeat of the pajamas, for example. Any time a group of people travel together, people do things that get under each other's skins. I'm sure they had as many gripes about us as we did about them. But, they can put that on their own blogs! LOL

And, that concludes Day Two. I'll try to update you on the first two days at my new job a little later tonight, but for now, I want to go get some household stuff done.
More later!