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Published: June 18th 2007
Nokomis Beach
Down at the beach watching the sunset An early departure and an 8 hour flight later Claire, Mark (Claire's boyfriend) and I (the 3rd wheel) arrived in Sanford, Florida - to a sweltering heat of about 30C. We learnt straight away not to be nice to customs as obviously a friendly kiwi smile and hello automatically qualifies you to be declined entrance to the USA until you have had your luggage scanned. Once outside, and in the hire car I had to strip off because it was so damn hot, the air conditioning took a while to kick in. It felt funny being back in America and strange also of not being surrounded by all these busy narrow roads and old buildings, but instead being on a busy freeway being passed by huge SUV's and driving past small towns of take away outlets every 5 minutes!
Two hours later, we arrived at Nokomis Beach in Sarasota. Mark's parents have a house here (big thanks to them for letting us stay), that has it's own salt water pool, spa and a jetty out the back on the canal. Unfortunately to mine and Mark's utmost disappointment the jetski hadn't been fixed so no fun for us on that!
The pool
The salt water pool that was semi warm, was so refreshing to dip into after sunbathing for 10mins and getting all sweaty! The first 3 days saw us being lazy and sunbathing by the pool on our floating lounges, sipping cocktails (we even brought the little umbrellas to go in them!), drinking beers, reading our books and listening to music - pure bliss. Usually when I'm on holiday I can't sit still for a few house, I have to be up and out doing stuff, but this was just so relaxing. I think I realised that I really needed it, as even though I've been travelling for the last 4 months, it still isn't a holiday. You still have to get up early, walk around all day, queue in lines etc, so it isn't relaxing at all!!
Of course Claire and I managed to get some shopping in, but as the average age of Nokomis Beach is around 65-70 years of age, it mainly had old people's shops and loads of baby clothing outlets (for the grand children you see). Oh and just about everyone that works at Walmart and places like that are above 50, and they don't know what customer service is at all - they're only there, because apparently if they work so many hours a week
The lounge
And yes that is a friggin huge big screen TV! And they had 2 of them! they get their benefit - or something like that!
Mark and I went for a walk the first morning we were there down the beach. The houses are absolutely amazing, some of them are multi million dollar mansions. Some have the houses built across the road and then on the beach front, a small guest house - lifestyles of the rich and famous I tell ya! The beach in front of the houses is mostly private beach, so you don't get hooligans on their motorbikes or lots of people swimming down that end, so it was kinda cool to have this white sand beach mainly to yourself. We even spent one evening down there on deck chairs watching the sun go down - was absolutely glorious - it's the kind of place I could retire to in my old age. Mark and I also managed to venture out in the kayaks they have - but these ones you can adjust so they have pedals and a rudder. So him and I went for a bit of a cruise up the canal out the back and looked at more houses, the pelicans and all the other wildlife around there, but
to be honest it was quite hot and sticky so we only lasted about 45mins.
But on the fateful Wednesday, we had decided to go to the Mote Aquarium in Sarasota, but after some lunch we decided to go and see a Ocean's 13 instead at the movies. Just about in the door of the movies and Claire misses the curb and face plants it into the road. I must admit she was very brave as she was understandably in extreme pain, and we did end up taking her to the A&E - at some very nice hospital. The staff there were so lovely, and they even had an old lady and a young girl who are volunteers who come around and chat to all the patients. Charlie who was the med that looked after Claire was really funny and just cracked jokes the whole time, and they even brought the X Ray machine to her! Thank god for travel insurance is all I can say!
The guy who used to own the house, Bill, came by and took Mark and I out Tarpin fishing. These are massive fish that swim in pods and dive in and out
The jetty 2
The other side of the jetty looking up the intercoastal canal of the water like dolphins. You have to keep an eye out for them and see where the water is disturbed and then the chase is on. You have to creep up on them so Bill has an electric outboard motor at the front of his boat that is really quiet so we can get in close. We used live crabs for bait, and we even named one Bruce Die-Hard, as he only had one pincer on one side and Mark and smashed him into the side of the boat a few times and on top of the water whilst trying to cast. In the end I was given the rod and made a glorious cast right into the pod of Tarpins - you shoud have seen Bill's mouth drop - he was very impressed. I told him in a Southern accent "My-Daa-Dee-tort-me-howta-fesh" - well it's true! Unfortunately we didn't catch one, but if we had, then there would have been a good hour and a half struggle to be had, and in th end you let them go. I did however catch a small Gillet (I think that's what they are called), but we let him go too.
Friday, with our holiday drawing to an end, we cruised back up to Orlando and went to the Pirate Adventure Dinner. It was really great, and would highly recommend anyone going to Orlando to check it out. They have big fight scenes, acrobatics and loads of crowd involvement - poor Mark who was terrified of being chosen, got picked on twice and even had to go up on stage - maybe he will think again about upgrading his ticket next time which pretty much means you are guaranteed to be involved in the show. Claire and I got to be treasure hunters! The whole audience was seperated into different coloured areas and you had your own pirate, so when yours was fighting etc you had to shout and cheer really loud and boo the other coloured pirates - was lots of fun, especially with a couple of what they called beers inside you (was more like watered down beer and soda - yuck)!!! After that we headed over to TGIF's as that was the closest bar and had a few ultimate cocktails. Claire wasn't up for partying so we packed her in the car and headed to Howl at the
The beach
Our own private beach (well not entirely our own) Moon that the bartender had recommended. THis place was awesome! They have two huge grand pianos up the front and there is a band of like 6 guys who all take turns, and they sing covers etc. They also have the Wheel of Destiny which is for anyone turning 21 and people on Hen/Stag nights. Luckily the girl whose 21st it was only had to funnel a beer (like a yardy but only one can through a big funnel and tube), as the wheel had dares of things like strip tease etc. Anyone who loves live music and covers/sing alongs should check out this place - oh and they also have 24oz beers - which is like 2x the normal beer in one bottle. They went down very nicely thank you!
Up early the next morning, poor Mark was worse for wear, and even though we had drunk the same, I could sense his eyes burning into me because of how bright and chirpy I was. I finally got my first taste of IHOP (international house of pancakes - yum!!), and then we hit Florida Mall. I managed to spend $50 and got so much stuff - America rocks
for shopping I tell you. After that it was off to the airport and our holiday was over...... back to London..... back to work.... back to miserable weather...... back to black boogies.......
But it really was a great week away - managed to get a bit of a tan, so can't complain too much! And of course came back with some great shopping too! Well no more trips planned now until August when Claire and I go on our 3 week tour around Europe on Contiki - so if anyone has suggestions of places to visit within certain cities please let me know!
Hope you are all well and yes the eyelashes are just about back to normal! Hallelujah!
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Bonny
non-member comment
pathetic!
I hope you threw your fish back in the sea!!! Pathetic... Green with envy over here - where it is 6 degrees!! luv Bon