Farewell, warmth!

Tuesday morning arrived and we decided to go grab coffee at the local Starbucks. Big mistake. One old guy yelled at me for "blocking the way" instead of simply saying, "excuse me." Jerk. It was a small, crowded store and there wasn't a good place to queue to receive your drink. He just annoyed me with his poor attitude. He's old and retired, why the rush?

We headed back for "home" and completed another long run/ rollerblade session. Even the old people in the community seemed a little grumpier than the day before...this is something we cannot explain. You're retired in SW Florida. Smile! Ugh.

After giving up on humanity, we drove back out to the citrus farm to get more produce. Seemingly I'd promised many friends some fresh fruit and needed a bit more of a supply. They also got a new batch of our favorite oranges, sugar belles, so we wanted to grab a quarter bushel of those, too. (Note: Jackson won't share any of the sugar belles. Sorry.) As we were checking out of the citrus farm the cashier casually mentions that a gator has joined the fun today and points across the parking lot. "Be careful, now. He's not plastic," she said. We didn't believe her so we wandered over. Sure enough there is was just sunning itself. Agh! It had ZERO interest in us and never so much as moved while we stood there taking photos. (Note: I agree that perhaps Darwinism missed its mark with that one.)

Mr. Gator

Tanning his leather

"I have an awesome idea: GO POSE NEXT TO A LIVE GATOR!"

Our fruit haul

We ran back by the condo to grab Susie for lunch and an afternoon at the beach. We went back to the Cove for the shrimp nachos. (They were phenomenal if you're wondering.) Susie and I took a long walk down to the end of the beach while Jackson played in the cold water. We enjoy looking at the real estate there and were shocked to find that the home we were sunning in front of was on the market for a mere $68 MILLION dollars. Yep. Let that sink in. Our favorite one on the block was a more modest $10 MILLION dollars. Insane. Insane.

Yours for $68 Million

Yours for $10 Million

The view from the yard, though, is tough to beat

Once we'd had enough of the sun and sand we headed for home. We stopped in at what must be the world's most expensive grocery store because a box of mac-n-cheese cost us over $5! What?!?! Is it packaged with gold?! Anyway, we got shrimp and crab cakes both of which were delicious. (Note: the mac-n-cheese was good, but no gold was found in its preparation.) Jackson got brave and jumped in the unheated pool which he immediately regretted. Seemingly a day of sun hadn't warmed it as he'd suspected.

We watched the Hoosiers lose to Wisconsin (boo!) before calling it a night. Sigh. Tom Crean continues to break my sports heart.

Wednesday morning we were lazy bums. We didn't run or rollerblade. We were bums. Jackson finally got me out to grab lunch one more time at Tropical Smoothie before hitting the beach for the final time this trip.

Ahh one final day

It was a gorgeous and sunny day. We played in the water some (I always stayed out longer than Jackson because he's a bit of a weenie when it comes to cold water!) and just tried to soak in the warmth. I left a little earlier than Jackson to grab coffees to go from Bad Ass while he said his goodbyes to the beach. Once I'd grabbed him again we were off to pack and head for the airport.

We got to the airport almost two hours early because we just didn't know how traffic would be that time of the day. Sigh. I don't know how "normal" travelers do that. The sitting and waiting is such a bore! We eventually boarded, though, and made our way to Indy. We came home to snow and cold. This makes us question our life choices. Again. (Will we ever cease questioning our life choices?!) I think beach bumming should be a career and that we'd be fit quite well for it.

Tax season will begin in full force now and continue through late April. Our lives will be pretty much consumed with work, more work and marathon/half-marathon training. The level of envy felt by our blog readers should drastically diminish as I'm finally knocking on a low vacation time balance. (Note: my vacation time renews on July 1st so we are already planning our getaway to Cape Cod for the Independence Day holiday weekend! If anyone has suggestions for things to do in the Boston/Hyannis/Newport, RI area in the summer time, do let us know!)