Wow - I can't believe I've done 43 AVA walks already - they are just the coolest thing to do when you're traveling. Yesterday I did one of the two walks in Naples. But before I talk about that, I have to mention how much I'm loving my new I-phone on this trip. I used the Weather Channel app multiple times on the way down here, I used the Walmart app to find the Walmarts for our overnight stops, I used the Around Me app to find a bar one night (we ended up at a kind of cheesy Hooters, but that wasn't the fault of the app!), and I know I used it other times too. I know it's a little "pricey" and indulgent to have the I-phone, but BOY is it fun!
Anyway - on Thursday we were just kind of hanging out because we spent the ENTIRE morning with the guy from Direct TV, so hadn't made afternoon plans - so I decided to go to my Dog Park Finder app and see if there were any dog parks within a reasonable distance. And - SO COOL! - sure enough, there was a really nice park barely a mile away - and I never EVER would have known about it without the app. I used the map app a number of times - to find the specific starting point for my AVA walk, to find the nearest Best Buy and Radio Shack (more "technology" trouble-don't ask!) and to pinpoint the locations for the FGCU campus (Florida Gulf Coast University). And REALLY cool - this afternoon Theresa called me and we used FaceTime to see our friends back up in Holland - hanging out at the bar (big surprise!), and I was able to show them our camp site, and the palm trees, and I even made the cat and dog say hi to them. Technology can make me insane (like today-when the DirectTV satellite blew over in the wind and I haven't been able to get the signal back since - GGGRRRR!), but at other times technology is just GREAT!
So - anyhow - we did take Brandi to the dog park on Thursday afternoon and she had a great time chasing all her new friends all over the park. It was really cute - and when we get back from that she is completely, TOTALLY exhausted and basically sleeps all the rest of the day.
And then yesterday we went down to Naples, which is only about 20 miles, and I got to do my first AVA walk of this trip. Dave rode his bike while Brandi and I did the walk, but unfortunately he didn't end up totally thrilled with the ride - but he always realizes that some AVA walks give him good biking opportunities, and some not so much... I enjoyed the walk overall... probably 50% of it was walking along Gulf Shore Drive, which is basically a chance to ooh and aah at the multi-, multi-million dollar mansions along the edge of the coast. I don't mind walking past all of them, but honestly once you've seen one of these incredible mansions you've kind of seen them all - just great big, expensive, beautiful homes that I can't even begin to identify with. But the second half of the walk took me out to the pier (which I couldn't actually go out onto because I had the dog with me but at least could stand at the end of it and look up and down the beach, which was nice), past the Palm Cottage, the oldest home in Naples (built in 1895), over to the City Docks area and then through a few blocks of the very-nice downtown shopping area. It probably wasn't my absolute favorite AVA walk, but it was just SO nice to be back out on one of them that I ended up having a great day. And it helps that the weather was picture perfect too!
Today I spent a lot of the day trying to get the Direct TV picture back (failed so far!) but we left about 4:30 to head over to the afore-mentioned FGCU campus for two basketball games - the men played first, followed by the women. What a beautiful campus - we found out the college is only 13 years old, so everything is really pretty and new. The campus is slightly outside of town, to the east of I-75, and appears to be pretty large - the student body is apparently around 14,000 or so. The games were played in the Alico Arena, which was quite nice (honestly, not as nice as Hope's arena, but frankly we haven't found any college arenas as nice as Hope's!). We bought general admission tickets and then, after the men's game, we moved to better seats for the women's game. Well, apparently we actually moved into reserved seats so this nice older staff guy pointed that out to us and we got to talking to him and he ended up having us just move one row backwards to his brother-in-law's seats! All the people around us were really friendly and Dave had a great time critiquing all the shots and sharing comments with the other guys - it was pretty fun. There was one girl who made eight 3-point shots during the game-unreal! (I think they were announcing that she had just broken the school record for 3-pointers as we were walking out.) There are a few more home games between now and when we leave Pine Island on January 13, so I'm sure we'll come back for at least another one or two games. I love it that we find these local games to go to while we're on the road - it just adds another dimension to our travels - and it's big time fun for us! That's it for now....
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