If you don't know me well you may not realize that I absolutely LOVE to plan vacations. It's almost as much fun to plan as it is to go. I scour the internet, looking for the perfect spot to suit my agenda for the trip. It becomes an obsession until I make my decision. I've taken our family to Maine to stay in an old house on the Penobscot Bay. We've stayed on the Little Glenn Lake in Michigan. Dude ranch in Colorado. Private island off the coast of Georgia. (I don't think Jamaica and Hawaii count, as my good friend planned those...we just tagged along.) Some have been better than others, but all have had their highlights.
For this trip we had some criteria: we only had Thursday at 4:00 p.m. until Tuesday night; we didn't want a city this time--we craved quiet, restful, calm; a beach would be wonderful; if I'm going to the beach, I want my cabin to be ON THE BEACH (not one house in, not across a street. I want to go out my door and be on the beach); warm. Do you get the feel for what I was looking for?
There is a wonderful website (and they're not even paying me to say this!): www.vrbo.com People list their vacation homes for rent. We have used them several times and always had a good experience. So I typed in my dates and beachfront (being sure to say I wanted something small. We didn't need a "sleeps 20" type house!) One of the choices caught my eye and that was the one we eventually booked--North Captiva Island, Florida.
There is Captiva Island which is beautiful but touristy. Then there is a separate island called NORTH Captiva. Getting there involved us taking two planes from Omaha to Fort Myers. An overnight stay in a hotel, then a taxi ride for an hour to Pine Island Marina, where we caught the ferry to the island. No cars allowed on the island. Golf carts were as wild as it got.
We had to order our groceries ahead of time on the mainland and pick them up on the way because the island has no grocery. There are four restaurants, a boat marina, a shirt/ice cream shop, and a convenience store. That's it. One day we lunched at Barnacle Phil's. Our tab was $53!!! Prices on the island were a bit high. Our little one room (plus bathroom) cottage was right on the beach, bay side.
I hate to bore you but we slept late, read a lot, walked on all the beaches, picked up shells, played games, and ate. We loved every single minute of it. There was no wi fi in our cottage to Loy's dismay (I personally enjoyed that fact!) He did drive our golf cart over to one of the restaurant's parking lots twice to get on their wireless.
We had a friendly lizard in our cottage, about 3 inches long. We named him "Lenny" and he was our friend until one day I wanted to brush my teeth and he was right there. I told Loy, "You've got to get rid of 'that lizard.'" Loy went in and grabbed his tail. Then he came walking out with just the tail, still moving!! Lenny had ditched the tail.
We saw ten dolphins playing in the water one day. Two turtles. Some impressive bird (I thought it was an eagle--do they live that far south?) The guest book talked about seeing manatees, but we didn't get a glimpse of any of those. And one nasty looking roach-y bug out on the trail.
We drove to Sunset Beach every evening to watch the sunset. I don't know if I have EVER sat and watched a sunset before. We would sit on a stretch of beach probably 300 feet long. One evening two old ladies were walking along the beach talking and shelling and watching the sunset. They meandered in front of us and chose that exact moment to stop and take pictures!! All that beach and right in front of us!! One finally looked around and then realized what they were doing. We all had a laugh over that. It was a fun ritual. Very relaxing.
It was hard to leave such a beautiful place. We felt refreshed and relaxed and ready to retire! We felt like we were really trying our wings.
The problem with our whole rationale behind this trip is that now it is over. While we were gone it was sort of like other vacations we had taken before without Luke. Just a momentary separation.
"Can't you just picture Luke sleeping on this little couch?"
"Wouldn't Luke love to be buried in this white sand?"
"What would Luke think of swimming in the ocean?"
"Luke would think this shell is so cool!"
Now that we're home it feels like loss again. I still think our plan was sound. Maybe I just didn't prepare myself enough for coming home.
On the bright side...tomorrow (Thursday) Luke joins us for a two sleep visit!! YAY!! I talked with him on Sunday and he said, "I want to take a nap but I can't because I'm talking to you." Oh. Since when does he want to take a nap??? In four years I can probably count on one hand the number of times he napped!! I said, "Do you want me to hang up?" He admitted that he would rather stay on the phone with me. I'll take whatever consolation I can!
We're thinking North Captiva Island may be our new fall break tradition. We saw these two birds and thought they represented us...hanging in there together.
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