A Great Day Except for 1 Thing!!

We had such a busy fun-filled day until Ken tried to balance his camera on his bike seat to take a picture of the 4 of us in front of a mural in Venice. Unfortunately, it fell off and landed on the closed lens, but now it won't open. Another camera probably bit the dust!!!! 

We began the day by having a delicious omelette breakfast that we made. Then we packed our beach and bike bags, Ken loaded our bikes and we were ready for today's adventures!  We left at 9:30 and met Ernie and Noela at Caspersen Beach where we started riding the Venetian Intracoastal Waterway Trail.  We did stop near the beginning of our ride to feed peanuts to the Florida Scrub Jays.  What fun.  This was the 1st time Ernie and Noela got to experience this adventure!  We headed on passing gopher turtles and ending up at the Upper Crust to enjoy another delicious scone with Devenshire cream. It was soooo good!  Back on the trail and more fun feeding the Scrub Jays again.  

I love the coloring of the Florida Scrub Jays!

They are so tame!

We were so glad the Scrub Jays were around today.  We
tried to feed them peanuts before when we were with Ernie
and Noela and I'm not sure they believed our "tale"!  Now
they are believers!!!!

The tunnels the gopher turtles dug are huge.  They can go
for 10 to 30 feet! 

Tell me these don't look tempting???  They were even warm!

Do we look happy or what?????

The weather was not too great today!  It was supposed to be sunny starting around 11, but the sun only came out at 4.  Before that it was misty and in the upper 60's.  The fog and mist was so heavy that it felt like a light drizzle at times.  After the 11 mile ride we went to Sharky's to have a late lunch.  The setting is very nice, but I am not overly impressed with the menu or the food.  I find it rather pricey and only average food!  We left there around 3:30 and walked around Maxine Barritt Park 2 times for a total of 1 1/2 miles.  On that trail we saw 2 alligators, anhingas, blue herons, a snake, and a raccoon in a tree.  The sun had come out and it felt so much warmer!

This was a good sized raccoon and he seemed pretty calm
around us!

Not a bad sized alligator!!!!

Ernie and Noela enjoying the view
in the park.  They are looking towards
the Gulf!

The anhinga is drying his/her wings!

This is a photo of the Maxine Barritt Park.  It was only
built about 3 or 4 years ago and it is gorgeous!

The 2nd alligator we saw while walking around the park!

This snake was along the trail too!  Definitely not one of
my favorite critters!

Ken decided he had to try and find a camera.  Imagine my cameraman without one?  Picture taking is part of his everyday activities.  We decided to go to Costco about 10 miles away and Ernie and Noela were happy to go with us. We did get a prescription Ken needed and some groceries, but they did not have a camera that Ken was happy with.  We were back to Sharky's parking lot by 6:30.  We said our good-byes after a wonderful day.  We always have a good time with Ernie and Noela.  

Ken and I stopped at Wal-Mart to do more camera hunting, but again, we were unsuccessful.  Ken really wanted to buy the same camera (he really liked his last one) but it appears it may be a discontinued model.  Wal-Mart had one on display and it was on clearance, but of course they were sold out!  We were back to Waldo by 7:30, a rather long day!  We watched The Voice and spent so much time trying to get photos from his phone onto the computer so I could put them in this blog.   After much trial and error, we got them onto the computer, but I am not sure we know how we actually did it.  It would take a lot to repeat the procedure!