Southwest Florida~ my weekend adventure

I know, I know...I am such a slacker lately! Sometimes life just gets in the way of blogging. But this month I've signed up for (NaBloPoMo or something like that) which means I've committed to making a post every day for a month. I may not always have much to say, but I promise to do my best to fullfill my obligation.



So, we begin.....



Weekend before last, my friend Lj came to town and decided she wanted to go caching on the west coast. Sounded good to me, so after a little finagling (?) I managed to free myself of my 3 year old, 18 year old and 40-something-year-old for a girl's weekend!



Our first stop was the Skunkape Research Center in Ochopee. I wanted to buy a blowgun, but decided I'd get one on the way back. We ended up coming back very late, so I never did get my blowgun.



We really started caching in Naples, which held that dirtiest, most difficult cache of the weekend in Sugden Swamp. It was fun, but man! No trails... solid vines and bushes (which included poison ivy-oh joy!). It rained, too. I had on shorts. And my Crocs. Lj had on shorts, too. It was rough. But we succeeded in finding a lovely ammo can in the swamp! When we emerged from our little adventure, we had torn shirts, cut up legs, dirt plastered on our clothes and bodies, and were soaking wet from rain and sweat. Normal appearance for hardcore geocachers! We then cached our way up to Bonita Springs.



Now, Bonita Springs is pretty. nice landscape, well planned out roads, but something was odd about it. It didn't take long for it to hit me...this place, this entire city, was built all at once on the same day by the same guy. I swear it! Everything looks the same. Nothing is old. I saw no houses since everything was gated communities. The strip malls were identical. I'm not kidding! This place is a Stepford community!!!!! It is bizarre. Pretty, but freaky at the same time. strange....ok, on with the story...



It was getting late in the evening, so I told Lj I thought we'd best check in at the hotel, get cleaned up, and go out some more. She said ok, so we then used the gps to locate this place. Lj had Priceline.commed it. It was the Hyatt Regency Resort and Spa. I really hadn't thought about what to expect. We turned down the road and we could see waaaaay down at the end of it was this big, tall building. Getting closer, we realized it was our hotel. OMG! I mean SHIT! This place was huge and well...tall!

We found a parking spot, grabbed our bags and headed toward the front of the Hyatt. With each step I felt less and less worthy. EVERYONE we saw was dressed so nice! There were women in floor length ballgowns! Serious!!!! We were dirty, smelly, bloody and just plain pretty scummy looking. I wanted to melt into the wallpaper. The young guy checking us in asked if we wznted complimentary champagne. Lj said no, but hell yeah, I wanted a glass! I daintily carried my glass of bubbly into the elevator and tried to look elegant as people got in behind us and creeped as far away from us as they could. *sigh*



Our room was most excellent! Fancy-schmancy with robes, bath gels, soap, shampoo, conditioner, bath salts, eye makeup remover, qtips, cotton balls, and even a shoe horn! I mean, hell, is that classy or what? hehehehe!!!! It was so FUN! We cleaned up a little, then decided to go grab some more caches. Got back around 10pm and I took a long hot bath. It was nice and quiet. No baby banging on the door. No phone ringing. Just peace and quiet. Oh, I could go on and on, but I won't. Suffice it to say that I highly recommend this place. Oh, and Lj pricelinned it for only $75! WooHooo!!! I know I'll be back!
The next day we met up with a couple of friends, Suhzon & Corky, in Ft. Myers. (Needless to say, we cached our way there, too). We headed over to Cape Coral. A nice place, but one thing I don't get is why all their fire hydrants are painted lavendar. Odd. Anyway, we got quite a few caches, but one of the most memorable times involved a cache we couldn't find. It took us to a neighborhoos that had one whole block empty with warning signs about nesting eagles.

This is a pretty good shot of one of the eagles in a far pine tree.

This is the tree he was in.

While Sue and I were busy looking at the eagles, Corky and Lj were busy looking for the cache.

I think finding the eagles was a much better deal! There were two - the one pictured above and another one sitting on a nest. How cool is that?!?

I think I've bored you enough tonight, so I'll tell more about the west coast later...

BTW, I discovered that Lj HATES Starbucks! Nobody hates Starbucks! i have decided she has underdeveloped tastebuds.