So we ended up eating Black Margate, snapper, and spiny lobster at the sunday bbq. Quite delicious if i must say so myself. There was also rice and cheesy fried potatoes which i can't turn down. Then we just hung out , it was a good old time. Yesterday was tons of office time, though our lunch break to einsteins was good. We had combo coupons so got a sandwich and chips and a drink for pretty cheap. Today went to manatee park briefly, and then about half an hour away to ten mile creek I think, and got to go [View Full Entry]

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Today I saw manatees! Made it out to mote by 9, finished loading everything into our work truck and then Jen(program coordinator) and I took off to Fort Myers. We picked up Dee another employee along the way and then set up shop at Manatee Park, right outside a power plant. There were lots of tourists and it was exciting knowing I would shortly be seeing my study subject. We got to go behind the fence and walk basically up to the edge of the water for our photos. There were tons of manatees, both adults and calves and we basically [View Full Entry]

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Thurs Jul 9, 2009 Dad and I woke up at 4:30 to get me to the airport on time. Even so, I nearly missed my flight. My pocket knife was still in my purse, unbeknownst to me, and so I set off the security. In the end, I had to pay some ungodly figure to mail the thing home and made it to the gate just as the attendant began paging me. However, I made it to Cincinnatti without further mishap and met up with my cousin, Jess Claudio. It was good to catch up with her: she had driven down [View Full Entry]

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I completed my journey on June 25th, with 18 days of riding covering 1325 miles. Sorry for the delayed post, but I was busy and wanted to get a map made to include. I did not go direct from Peoria to Ft. Myers, as there was the forementioned break in TN, and I actually met Jeff and Jenny north of Gainesville on their way home. Since Peoria to Ft. Myers direct is 1280, I actually accomplished more than the distance I initially thought I'd be covering, though I zig zagged all over and did not restrict myself to the quickest route. [View Full Entry]

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Here are more family shots with the little guy [View Full Entry]

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We have enjoyed great weather during the past few weeks and have been lucky to have had access to some excellent beaches. The anchorage just north of Marco Island reminded us of a long weekend at Sauble (in the summer of course!) - but instead of cars on the beach, here it was boats - literally - rammed up at full throttle. A TowBoat US lurked nearby to pull off those who proved to have been overzealous. At dusk all the weekend warriors raced for home leaving us to enjoy the beautiful sunset, the dolphins cruising by and pelicans crashing into [View Full Entry]

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February 6, Friday Up late again awaiting warmer temps. We finally started off for Sarasota and a visit to Kay at Quest Outfitters. We stopped for brunch at Nellie's restaurant about 30 miles south of the 3 River Motel. Continued on along Route 19 and 19A near the coast. Sadly, we could not see much of the gulf, so eventually near Ozona, we turned east, caught the main road again ( 19 ) and then crossed the bay on the toll bridge, our only choice. We stayed on the interstate I 75 to a mall, dropped off Deb, and continued to [View Full Entry]

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Here are some photos of Donato during our holiday visits to Fort Myers [View Full Entry]

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Non, je n'ai pas fait un crochet par l'Italie pendant mes vacances, je suis bien allée à Naples en Floride. Les Américains ne sont pas très originaux pour les noms de ville et nous avons également en Floride "Saint Petersburg", "Hollywood" et "Venice", comme quoi, on peut voyager très loin sans faire beaucoup de kilomètres. Nous sommes donc arrivés sur le golfe du Mexique, à Naples, pour découvrir finalement qu'on ne voit pas de grande différence entre un golfe et un un océan, à part des plages de sable fin immenses. Puis nous sommes allés à Fort Myers, une ville un [View Full Entry]

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Merry Christmas to all our friends! What an odd Christmas this has been~~not bad at all, just odd. Our original decision to stay down here was based on the distance we needed to travel from the end of our November project to our January project. We hadn’t intended to fly home at all, but plane tickets came up that made it possible, and we were able to leave our bus at Shocco Springs for a while, so off we went! I can’t imagine how hard it would have been to get through December if we hadn’t seen the kids. Wow. We [View Full Entry]

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