Our Gang (part of)

Meetin' up on the back roads in Arcadia for a late breakfast at Wheeler's (est.1948).
For their steak & eggs, coffee - and a little of that sweet, creamy "peanut-butter pie".

                                                (Scot-Irish, German-Anglo, Italian-American)

a rare grey day

When the light is flat it always compliments the monotones.  I've always admired this mural which depicts Sarasota's lower Main Street from the early 1940's.  Today being a rainy, drizzly day, it seemed to just jump out.

Sarasota mural by the Brazilian artist, Eduardo Kobra. (2011)

Guana Tolomato Matanzas Estuarine Preserve

We dropped our Sandy off in early morning at the Mayo Clinic (Jacksonville) - while Knuckles and I headed out south, along the eastern Atlantic coast, to hopefully find something unique and a little different.  Just south of Ponte Verdra we found the 'GTM' Preserve.

At the entrance, the gatehouse was closed and appeared abandoned - and with no cash on hand, and with no way to leave the recommended 3 dollars in their drop-box envelope - we drove through.


Knuckles tracking the estuary's bird life to a favorite roosting spot

On a short path, Knuckles and I found the overgrown site of the then, Spanish Governor's "Grant's Villa Plantation" (1768). Early enslaved Africans had been used to clear this plantation land of 1,450 acres, to plant indigo seeds. There they processed the plants into a profitable blue indigo dye.  After 250 years, nothing much left, but a historical marker and thick palmetto.

Hot and humid, Knuckles quickly headed back to the brackish saltwater beach. I quickly followed, and was stuck by numerous cacti spines - and this warning sign.

We spotted one other sole visitor, who was out wading and fishing, but who seemed to have little concern. Finally we got a text from my wife Sandy, that her scheduled biopsy procedure at Mayo was complete.  And, by 12:00 noon, all three of us were done, a little sore - and soon, all heading, driving back home.