Today is our last day here in Fort Myers. The ten days has gone by in a whirlwind! Tomorrow we drive away to the northeast side of Florida in the Daytona Beach area (we’ll be at the Harris Village RV Park in Ormand Beach, Florida). We’ll be there for a week.

We went to Church today at the Bonita Springs Ward. This was a very nice (and small) ward. There were a number of visitors there along with us. We enjoyed the meetings as well as the drive back home along the beach roads.

We’ve spent a fair amount of time at the beaches … with the best times at the beaches on Sanibel and Captiva Islands. Yesterday afternoon we spent a couple of hours at the beach on Captiva where we experienced a magnificent sunset. I set up my ham radio equipment and played radio for about an hour. I did make one contact in New Jersey but otherwise wasn’t able to get through the pileups because I could only operate at low power from a battery I carted to the beach.

On Friday we drove up to Sarasota to the Ringling Estate (from the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus). We spent several hours on the Ringling estate and found we didn’t have nearly enough time. Anyone going should allow one day just for the art gallery! After that we drove up to Clearwater to meet with AJ and Skip Starkey, some dear friends from our days in Chardon. Skip and I served together as counselors under Bishop RIch McClellan. We moved to Utah and Skip became bishop of that ward for 7 1/2 years. We had a great time talking about what’s happened since then and reliving memories from back then. We got home just about 10 pm after a delightful day.

We’ve had a good time here in southwest Florida. Nina has been able to collect a number of sea shells, but probably hasn’t been able to spend nearly enough time at the beach of collecting shells. I’ve found that I really like the Florida area, although I think Sarasota is a better location overall. The big draw for Fort Myers is Sanibel and Captiva islands.

We haven’t had time to do some of the things we’d thought we would do, such as drive down to Key West and go to the Fort Lauderdale Temple. That just means we’ll have to come back!

I’ve put together a photo gallery from the past few days.

Below is a photo gallery from today … Christmas Day … in Fort Myers. We went over to Sanibel Island this morning and then to Fort Myers Beach in the afternoon. The morning went very well. The afternoon didn’t go as planned … not at all. The traffic was horrendous. Parking almost non-existent. Further, it seemed like everyone in southwest Florida goes to the beach on Christmas Day!

Spending Christmas on a beach has been Nina’s long-held wish that came to fruition today. Further, we’re on Sanibel Island, the epitome of seashells!

We’re definitely not alone in being on the beach. As somewhat evidenced by the photo, there are a couple-hundred people here as well. Some, like me, are sitting in chaIrs enjoying the breeze and the partly sunny skies. Most, however, are lined up along the water’s edge looking for the perfect (or at least passible) shell. As the tide receedes, more and more shells are exposed. Because of how the island is situated in the Gulf of Mexico and the very shallow waters extended a couple of miles out into the gulf from the shoreline, it is a mecca for seashells. Nina has collected a shoebox full of shells in the past week. This is our third trip to the Sanibel beaches specifically for seashells (the fourth trip overall) and each trip has yielded a lot of shells and each day the types of shells has been different than the previous day.

We’ll be on this beach for another half hour before going back to the motor home for lunch, seashell sorting, and recuperating. Then we’re headed to the beach at Fort Myers Island. That’s more of a beach-bum beach, not so much for sea shells, but for just hanging around on a beach. I plan to take my ham radio equipment with me and see if I can make a few Christmas Day contaacts. The water is too cold for swimming or even doing more than getting the ankles wet, but hey, we’re on the beach! I’ll probably post something from there later today.

We have found that we really like the lifestyle here in southwest Florida. The RV Park has great facilities. The price is excellent. The beaches are close, lots of great shopping, and very nice weather. It doesn’t have the sameness-everywhere feel of Arizona, and definitely doesn’t have the summer heat! It’s made the short-list of places to live when we get back from our mission.

Merry Christmas! Life is good!

For the third day in a row we’re on the beach as sunset approaches. It’s warmer tonight than it was last night and less breezy. Nina’s working on her seashell collection and will have close to a shoebox full by the time we leave!

Today was housecleaning and laundry day. The park has a nice laundromat and the three batches of clothes went through quickly. Further, there was an iron and ironing board set up, so we were able to iron my shirts so they’ll look a bit better when I wear them. The water must be a somewhat warmer as Nina is out almost up too her knees! The family just to my right are speaking German, and it’s fun to hear them talk about very mundane things.

When we go to Mumbai, we’ll have two very long airplane flights. I’ve tried to book seats on planes with 120v power to the seats. I’ll be calling Delta to verify and make sure they know that I’ll be using a CPAP machine and find out what kind of power will be available. My new CPAP machine is set up with an attached humidifier and a heated hose to the face mask. I can remove the humidifier, but the hose end won’t fit as the plug for the power to heat the hose is in the way. I have a battery pack, but running it with the humidifier and heated hose depletes the battery in just about an hour. I think if it’s just running the pressure part, the battery should last much longer. But, I needed a non-heated hose!

I spent over an hour calling various pharmacies and medical supply places and no one had CPAP supplies! One place, called “My Sleep Apnea”, kept going to a fax answering machine when I called, so Nina suggested that I just drive over there and see what might be available. That sounded like an idea, so I drove there to find that the place was shuttered and the the building for lease. Obviously, that wasn’t going to work!

As I drove out of their parking lot, I saw a very small “Medical Oxygen” sign over one of the doors of a longish building next door. I parked, went in, and sure enough they had CPAP supplies and accessories. $20 later I had the hose I need. The battery pack is being charged and I’ll use the machine tonight on the battery. Hopefully that works long enough to get a few hours of sleep, even if other power isn’t available on the airplane. It would be so very nice to be able to get eight hours of sleep over the course of the 30-hour total elapsed time from Atlanta, Georgia to Mumbai, India.

We’ve not yet made any hard plans for Christmas Eve other than going over to Sanibel and Captiva in the morning to see what shells might be washed up. Nina’s going to whack off the bottom part of the legs on a pair of her pants so she can wear her swim suit with the pants over and get much further out into the water. This sea shelling is serious stuff!

We’ll spend most of the day on Christmas Day here on the Fort Myer beaches. Friday we’ll go up to Sarasota to do some circus research. Saturday we’ll drive over to Fort Lauderdale and do a session at the temple. During the week (Tuesday through Thursday) the temple only offers sessions at 6:00 and 7:30 pm. On Fridays and Saturdays sessions during the day are available.

Where do we go on Monday? Maybe we can come to a decision tonight.

Life is great!

ps: BYU played Memphis in a bowl game yesterday somewhere here in Florida. BYU lost in double overtime. In Church on Sunday the Bishop announced that there were free tickets available to anyone interested in watching “the biggest pillow football fight in Florida”. There were no takers….

Sunset was at 5:40 pm. Last night’s sunset was a bit of a bummer as the clouds were so thick. Today was much nicer (although more humid!), so we parked ourselves on the beach about 5:30 pm to watch the sunset. I took more than 50 pictures, but a few are worth enough to put into a photo gallery:

We’re settled in at the Siesta Bay RV Park in Fort Myers, Florida just a couple of miles from the causeway to Sanibel and Captiva Islands. We arrived Friday afternoon, picked up a rental car, and got checked in. We did some shopping on Saturday and some wandering around in the car on Sanibel and Captiva Islands. We did go down to the beach for a little while and sat on the sand.

The water is actually quite chilly. Neither of us will be spending any time in the ocean any deeper than up to our ankles! The weather is very nice here. Today the high was about 81º with 63% humidity. I have been sweating! Definitely not used to this amount of humidity. I’m sure it won’t take too long to acclimate, though.

We went to Church at the Fort Myers Ward this morning and attended the full block. This was our eighth Sunday on the Roland and Nina Great American Road Trip and the most diverse Ward that we’ve attended. They had two speakers, a musical number by the Primary, and one by the Relief Society as their Christmas program. We’ll find a different Ward next Sunday to keep up the tradition of being somewhere new every Sunday.

After Church and lunch we drove down through the Fort Myers beaches and stopped at sunset on the beach to see what, if any, sunset might be visible. The clouds were heavy and thus we had a very dull and dark sunset. However, it was quite delightful to sit on the beach as it got dark. Nina did find a few seashells!

We left Ninety Six, South Carolina this morning headed south as Nina’s sister and her husband left heading north. I think we’re going in the better direction! We drove straight south on non-Interstate roads past, as Nina says, “… a billion pine trees!” Along with passing the worlds largest wood pulp factory, a very impressive sight from the highway in Jessup, Georgia. The weather is a delightful (at least to us northerners) 60º here in Jacksonville and will be about 5º higher in Ft. Myers when we get there tomorrow afternoon.

We’ll be staying in Ft. Myers for about ten days. We haven’t settled on where we’ll go after that, but it’ll be somewhere here in the Florida area. We’ve got a car reserved, which will be important as the map for the RV park in Ft. Myers looks to be wall-to-wall RV’s. We’ll want to be somewhere else quite often.

Marsha and Billy have a nice home on a cove on the Greenwood Reservoir. Every day except one was clear and sunny while we were there, as evidenced by the previous post. So, one picture of a cloudy day on the reservoir is warranted, for sure. It’d be nice to have a place on a large reservoir like this one, but perhaps a bit further south where the lake would be useable for more of the year.

We had a very nice time in South Carolina. I was able to get some repair work done on the motor home, the laundry got done, we got the next hepatitis B shot in the three-shot series, my shirts were run through a shirt laundry … and we’ve left behind a pair of pants.

I took my shirts and a pair of pants that needed extra attention to the laundry where they had assured me everything would be ready by the next afternoon. While Nina and I (being chauffeured by Nina’s sister) went to Clinton, SC to get the hepatitis B shot, Billy stopped by to pick up the laundry. The shirts were done … actually quite nicely done … but the pants were no where to be found. They eventually found them at a different facility and not finished. So, we’ll pick it up when we come back in January on our way to to the airport and the trip to Mumbai.

Getting the Hepatitis B shot was also an adventure in bureaucracy (as well as being somewhat expensive). State health agencies are one place where immunizations are readily available. I was able to make an appointment for Wednesday afternoon to get the shot at the Laurens County Health Department (Greenwood didn’t have any appointment times available). Nina’s appointment was for 2:45pm and mine was at 3:00pm. The whole process took over ninety minutes. I’ve never seen so much paperwork in my life for something as simple as an immunization. Further, the computer systems were very slow and at one point completely lost all of the information. The woman helping us was clearly frustrated but was also very cordial and pleasant with us. I was very impressed with her composure while working through something that must be a constant problem with the computer system.

With all that, two of the three shots are finished. The last one is due in April after we get to Hawaii. Hopefully it won’t be as complicated as this one was!

Finally, on Tuesday evening we went to the Greenwood Choral Christmas concert. This all-volunteer choir put on a delightful ninety-minute performance that spanned the spectrum from chants to madrigals to modern classical compositions. We came away infused with the Christmas Spirit! Merry Christmas!

We’ve been here at Nina’s sister’s place for several days … it’s sometimes hard to count time! We left Daryl’s on Wednesday, December 10th, stopped in New Castle, Deleware to get a new 2meter antenna for my ham radio (which lasted not quite two days … see below), and drove to Bracey, Virginia where we stopped for the night at a campground on Lake Gaston. That was a very nice campground and looked like it would be a lot of fun to visit on a vacation.

The next day we drove the rest of the way to Ninety-six, South Carolina and parked our RV in Nina’s sister’s driveway. They have a nice home on one of Lake Greenwood’s inlets. We’ve been here a couple of times before and always enjoy our visits with Marsha and Billy. They are both retired and manage to stay quite busy. The weather is delightful … 60º days and low 40º nights.

The arrival was a bit eventful, however. I didn’t check the address exactly and we drove down the wrong driveway. The home owner had a garden with a fence covered with netting with a wire cable going across the driveway up into a tree on the opposite side to hold up the fencing. The ham radio antenna snagged on the cable, pulled it down the tree (and the antenna snapped off in the process). When the cable went across the top of the motor home, it literally sawed the refrigerator vent off the roof. That then necessitated me climbing up on the roof to guide the cable back across the motor home as Nina backed it out of the driveway. By that time, Billy had run over on foot to guide us back to the right driveway.

A local RV shop (Jody’s RV) in Greenwood had the necessary part. Yesterday I spent the afternoon on the roof replacing the vent and patching up other places where the roof is leaking. The roof is 15 years old and probably needs to be replaced, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon.

We went to Church today at the Greenville Ward for a very nice Sacrament Meeting. The Ward is very friendly and we felt very welcome for the time we were there. Tomorrow we’ll drive to Ashville to visit the Biltmore House which has been beautifully decorated for the holidays followed by a visit to a world-class gingerbread house competition / display. It’s feeling rather festive!

Life is very comfortable!