Beach, Beer, and a Best Friend

Sunday brought me to Fort Myers/Cape Coral. My best friend from high school, Casey, lives there and was going to take me on a tour for the day. It was so awesome to see him, I have missed him so much!

We first went to this place called The Shell Factory. It is this fun little tourist trap place that had a bunch of different things to do. It was a little run down, but that is all a part of its charm. When you walk in you cross a boardwalk where you can see TONS of turtles swimming in the water and sunbathing with koi fish. From there you walk to a small pavilion with picnic tables and a carousel on the right. There were a few other carnival-like rides as well. There is a mini-golf course that was not yet open but looked like it would be fun for families. A little further to the right was the entrance to a nature park where you could see all kinds of different animals.

We skipped all of those things and headed for the gift shop. It was an enormous shop that was filled with gaudy baubles made out of shells from the beach, personalized souvenirs that the kids would break within a week, and fun little toys and trinkets for the little ones. There was also a church sculpture made entirely out of shells that was really neat. (I wish I had taken a photo, but I didn't, so here is one from the net)

Photo Credit: https://townietourist.com/blog/the-shell-factory-is-so-much-more

We wandered around the store for a while, looking at all of the things that kids would be begging their parents for. I myself found many different things that I would have bugged my parents to buy when I was younger such as necklaces with shark teeth, shells with designs carved into the back of them, stuffed animals, and little bracelets with names or phrases on them. 

After leaving the Shell Factory we headed down to Bonita Springs. Sadly we had to put the top up on the convertible on the way down because it began to rain. We drove around Bonita and looked at the nice houses along the ocean. We ended in Fort Myers Beach. There was a gorgeous pier that had just reopened so we took a walk up the pier and watched all of the people who were fishing while egrets and pelicans were on standby, waiting for a tasty morsel to be dropped. The air was warm, the water was a gorgeous blue/green that you just don't see in New England, there was live music coming from a bar on the shore...It was so relaxing and peaceful. 

 

We decided that it was time for some food and beer so we wandered over to a street that had restaurants and shops. We found a place called House of Brewz/Bury Me, Brewing/Zushi Zushi (it was all of those combined into one place). We had flights of delicious craft beer, some tasty crab rangoon, and amazing coconut shrimp. The place was small and they weren't able to have many customers in there at one time due to social distancing practices. It was a pretty good atmosphere overall. 

 

After we had our fill we wandered down the street and went into a couple of the shops. One of them had all of these gorgeous geodes that were expensive but so pretty. There were toys for kids, jewelry, pyrite rocks (those were my jam when I was a kid!), and some other pricy sculptures and figurines made out of shells and rare stones. It was a neat little place and whatever candle or incense they were burning smelled amazing. We walked down to the end of the street and looked out over the water, then turned back and went to a place called the Yucatan Bar & Grill. Drink time! Both cocktails were delicious, but the Strawberry Swirl was the winner. It was like a frozen smoothie with Dragon Berry vodka. Delish!

After that we headed back to Casey's place, talked, had margaritas, and enjoyed a warm evening out on his balcony. It was wonderful. I am really looking forward to moving down here so he and I can enjoy a lot more time together!

On the way home from Ft. Myers, I was on I-75 Northbound and there was a black pickup truck in front of me swerving all over the place. After watching him drift into the middle lane and then swerve back, drift to the shoulder and swerve back, and almost hit two cars passing him, I called Florida Highway Patrol. I gave the dispatcher the make and model of the car, the license plate number, the mile marker number, and our approximate speed so they could get someone ahead of us to stop him. She said they would get troopers out there right away. I stayed behind him, watching for troopers to come out of the median. Nothing. Still swerving, this time the guy almost hits a semi. I call dispatch again, let them know that he almost took out a truck, what mile marker we were at now, and to please hurry because he was going to hurt someone. She said she was working on getting troopers. I stayed behind him in case I needed to be a witness when he crashed. We went 37 miles....37....no troopers. Never saw a single police officer. Finally the guy made his exit from the highway and that was that. I hope that he safely made it to his destination without hurting himself or anyone else. I was disappointed by the lack of response from FHP but it is a busy holiday weekend so maybe they were tied up with other drunks. 

Today was a low-key day, went to Wesley Chapel to visit my friend Savannah and her little munchkin. Had lunch at Chuy's, this awesome Mexican restaurant in town, hung out at Sav's house for the afternoon, did a little photoshoot with her and the kiddo. Then I came down to check in to my AirBnb, took off for dinner at World of Beer, and that brings me to now, typing up this post that probably no one will even seen because Facebook has deemed that this blog is spam and has blocked the link from being posted. Oh Facebook. 

Tomorrow will be much less exciting during the day as I have to work, but am planning on heading over to Clearwater and Saint Pete for some photos opps (if the clouds clear a bit).