In the Meantime.... How's Eldo Doing?

Eldo is doing well...It's 2 1/2 months since quadruple bypass surgery..Eldy is driving, walking 30 minutes a day, and just recently got back on his bike.  He is also back to playing golf twice a week. He has very little discomfort of any kind. No chest pains or "pulls" as he describes it--a pulling sensation as if gravity were tugging his chest down to the floor, which is what he had felt for the first month and more after surgery. He is having a lot of trouble sleeping, that's his only complaint right now. He is just really really restless when it's time to go to sleep and sometimes he can't fall asleep. We don't think it's related to any medications he's taking...(Plavix and Lipitor, blood pressure medicine and a vitamin.) He still has numbness along his right leg where they took an artery from the leg to do one of the bypasses. The numbness might never go away, the dr. said, but he can live with that. His biggest complaint is his chest hairs growing back in prickly. :-) (Eldy is a hairy guy, it's just not on the top of his head!) If that's his biggest complaint, he's made it almost back to where he was. He still tires easily, and the simplest activities remind him that he still has a long way to go as far as stamina goes.

What have Sparky and Eldo been up to lately?  A trip to Coquina Beach on Anna Maria Island one Sunday....What did we see and do? A great blue heron high up in the pines preening....

A little girl peeking out from a changing station at the beach, watching the passers-by on the boardwalk.....

We took a beautiful walk along the boardwalk.....Eldo is still trying to keep up his walking, so we walked the boardwalk, which is a lovely, shaded with Australian pines, long walk parallel to the beach...

We saw a circus performer wannabe.....set up a cord between two trees and then practice over and over to try and keep his balance. Sparky went over and talked to him. He wasn't really aiming for the circus, he just wanted to achieve this goal of being able to walk a tightrope.

We've been going to Anna Maria Island's Gulf Gate Cafe for Sunday breakfasts now and then....We love the vibe out there....

After breakfast at the restaurant, we drive over to the city pier to see what the fishermen are catching...

Eldy celebrated his 68th birthday this month....He's got a new lease on life....Doctors have told him several times it's a miracle he didn't experience a heart attack before they fixed him, with the "widow maker" 90% blocked. We may be doing a little traveling soon to celebrate... We celebrated his birthday dinner at one of the nicest restaurants in Sarasota, in our opinion...healthy, fresh food cooked by a wonderful chef...Paul Mattison, at Mattison's City Grille, in downtown Sarasota. The food is presented beautifully...This salad looks ordinary, but the tomatoes had the most wonderful flavor...white balsamic vinagrette dressing...yum!

Sparky's dinner....Extra rare steak, of course! Eldy had a wonderful meatloaf dinner...

And for dessert.....Mango cheesecake for Eldy....

We are truly blessed to live in such a beautiful area and for Eldy to be on his way to being healthier.....Although Sparky complains a LOT about the heat, (and HOW! laughs E.), she loves her subbing job and as long as we can get away some times in the summer, she'll try to not complain as much. :-)

Bye for now......

A Walk on the Wild Side

Wild weather, that is.....We decided to go to the beach, Coquina Beach on Anna Maria Island on a day where there was a rip current warning, the winds were blowing at 20-25 m.p.h., and the temperature was 57 degrees? Why, you ask? Just because we can...and because Sparky loves watching the waves, and taking a walk on the big, beautiful promenade shaded with Australian pines on a brisk day. We don't have too many of those here in Florida, you know.....

It was wonderful! The terns and gulls were out facing into the northerly winds, all in one direction... Sparky was watching their feathers make them all look like they were having a bad hair day, and along come these two birds who look like they are chatting together.

As she watches, one flies off to the water, and lands on the shoulders of another one standing in the water!

Sparky is thinking, "Hm-m-m-mm..some hanky panky about to happen?" Nope, he just stayed on that bird's back for about five minutes. Every once in awhile, the bottom bird would look up as if to say, "WELL? Are you gonna take off or not?"

Or, maybe...."He ain't heavy, he's my brother...."  (Groan, says E.)

"I'm workin' on it, I'm workin' on it!"

Coquina Beach is adding some great new stuff to the picnic areas...More places to sit and rest....Some nice brickwork under your feet....

Little informational kiosks....Sparky learned all about "WRACK" today on her walk down the boardwalk from these informational signs. She did not know that wrack was seaweed and seagrass debris mixed with dead red and brown algae. The wrack also has sea beans, dune plant seed, crumbled sea shells and other stuff, some undesirable like plastics. Heavily maintained cleanup of beaches with mechanical equipment does away with the wrack, a vital part of the ocean ecosystem. The kiosk sign encourages people to pick up the human debris like plastics themselves, to help keep the wrack in the ecosystem, which provides fuel for migratory birds, like the dunlin sandpiper. The things you can learn at Coquina Beach!

And, they've added some cool bike racks....

There were not very many people out on the beach today at all...Some were still grilling in the picnic areas....This hammock wasn't in use...Maybe they were afraid the wind would topple them out!

Some people were on the quieter side of the beach and just enjoying the beautiful brisk day.....

The red flag was out and blowing hard..."STAY OUT OF THE WATER".....Most did, but a few crazy ones were out in the surf...Umbrellas blew away, the sand was whirling around...

Sparky saw a BIG bird fly overhead and land in the pines above her. Too bad the iPhone zoom just can't pull in the same detail as a regular camera, at least not yet, anyway! A yellow crowned night heron!

We thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon at Coquina Beach on Anna Maria Island....Even though it's high season, and you can't find a parking space anywhere or travel anywhere without traffic bogging you down, or find a nice quiet spot at the beach, today you could! As we left for the day, Sparky couldn't help but enjoy the antics of one last bird having a bath in a rain puddle in the parking lot.....

Until next time......

1000 and Running....

Sarasota, FL      High:  77      Low:  63

Four days ago Sparky hit a record--she has written ONE THOUSAND posts! Every single day we've been on the road since we started June 18th, 2012. Can't believe it! Thought I'd run out of things to say and be dwindling down to a couple of days a week, if that. Thought for sure when we spent four months in one place, I'd run out of things to say...but I haven't yet.. Still gonna try to keep going with the blog until we come off the road, whenever that might be. There are quiet days and not so quiet days, but it's important to keep the memories alive of every day we have together, so I will keep on writing....Even if some days are a little boring now and then. Even if writing a blog when you don't really have much to say but want to keep things interesting is a little hard now and then...

What's coming up?  A visit to Mote Aquarium, the circus, a folk and acoustic music festival at Oscar Scherer State Park, a blues fest in downtown Sarasota, and lots lots more. Today, we were going to try and get to Mote Aquarium, but because it was raining and the weather quite cool, everybody and their brothers were out driving around, looking like they were headed to the Mote.  The traffic was so backlogged so far back into Armand Circle, that we gave up going to the Mote today. Instead, we kept driving towards Anna Maria Island and Coquina Beach. Coquina Beach is a fabulous beach with squishy soft white sand and just a beautiful view of the Gulf of Mexico. This happens to be a sand barrier to protect against erosion.

The park around at the beach is long and has a really wide sidewalk/walking path that seems to run for miles along the beach.

Despite the gray day and off and on rain showers, we saw families out having fun despite the bad weather....

You can park a big RV in the spacious parking lots for the day, but you can't spend the night.

Sparky loves seeing what's at the beach in all kinds of weather, but not being a sunbather, she'd rather go when it's cloudy. There were TONS of birds at the beach, waiting to see what the weather was going to do.

"I'm tellin' ya, I think it's gonna rain."

There were a couple of different kinds of terns today. Sparky knows that some of these are a lesser tern, and some of them are a least tern,  and the black ones with the orange beaks she has no clue, but it was still cool to see so many of them resting on the beach.

"I know it's here somewhere!" says the one bird with the beak down.

Sparky loves the crested feathers that make these birds look like they are having a bad hair day! She thinks the one bird on the right might have a broken wing? Royal terns?

"Honey, can't you do something about your hair? You look like Alfalfa!"

Eldy actually said that to Sparky one morning...  :-) It's the spiky hairdo look, dear. It's supposed to look that way!

And then there is this type of shorebird....The two of them were standing off to one side away from the crowd and looked like they were trying to decide whether to join the group or not...

"I don't know about you, but I'M LEAVING!"

What else did we see? A beautiful Great Blue heron cleaning his feathers....

Such a beautiful, graceful bird....Although they are so very common here in Florida and elsewhere, they are still beautiful to see....

To some, a gray rainy day is ugly, to us, it's beautiful...Florida really needs the rain..They are about 6" below normal for this time of year. We were glad to see and hear the rain come today.....

And the piece de resistance at the end of the day?  DESSERT! How about this salty caramel vanilla cake with buttercream icing, caramel mousse and little crunchies that made it taste a little like caramel butter brickle? (Longhorn Steakhouse, for a limited time only) Which is probably a good thing! Yum!

Bye for now.......