A dedication to the New England (and nearby) areas—travel, food, lifestyle.
Well, this will be the final Florida post before we venture back to New England daytrips and jaunts. Our last night in Naples we visited the Botanical Garden for the annual light show. It was better than we hoped for, a beautiful exhibit that needs to be experienced to be fully appreciate. There were a lot of mosquitos, although as usual they really only bothered the girls and not me.
It was our final beach day, and there was no parking at Lowdermilk Beach, our first choice, so we went to Clam Pass Beach instead. It wasn’t my mother’s first choice as there was an $8 parking fee, but it was well worth it, and I now have a new favorite beach in Naples. It was very crowded, but the water was beautiful, the food for lunch was great, and the ride over on the tram was very efficient. Many people were walking to the beach on the boardwalk (I’m guessing maybe a kilometer?), but I can’t recommend this as there were spiders and spiderwebs EVERY where. Look up, look right, look left, the whole ride out to the beach was through a maze of webs covered with spiders. I was grateful for the roof on the tram ride.
We hiked the short boardwalk through the Fakahatchee Strand. My kids had done this hike before and were not as captivated on the second trip through as they had been in the past. It was also not a very handicap-friendly walk, at least not the first quarter mile or so which was on rocks and sand before reaching the boardwalk!
We took a daytrip to Sanibel where the water and shells were beautiful, although the traffic made the trip almost not worth taking. It will be a long time before I venture back here!
We enjoyed the boardwalk, nature walk at the Collier County Park, in North Naples, FL.
Ok, not in the New England area, but it is January, and we just returned from vacationing in Florida, so the next several weeks will feature some sites we visited while on vacation. So, take a break from the dreary and gray New England skies for some warm locations. Here are some sunset pictures taken at Vanderbilt Beach in Naples, FL.
On our way back home from Florida, we spent one night with family in Charlotte, NC, and a second night in Strasburg, PA. The small Pennsylvania towns of Strasburg and Gap are our favorite towns to drive through and enjoy the beautiful countryside with rolling colorful farms, both Amish and commercial. We love sharing the road with the buggies, and were too tired to get an early start to our day, so we were pleasantly surprised to see the beautiful farms despite the late hour (thanks to some great clouds)!
This week we are heading out of town for the holidays. This will allow for some sights that are not local to New England, but rather the warm south!! Here are a few photos from our trip down, from Jersey City/NYC and Wilmington, North Carolina!!
This weekend’s post is dedicated to the local town (traveling) carnivals. This carnival was in Hull, MA, but they pop up all summer in towns all around us. Nothing says summer quite like an evening carnival!
To say the water was breathtaking is an understatement. It was beyond words, just magical. And the company was superb, as this cruise was a reunion for our China Travel group, from my daughter’s adoption 14 years ago! The trip brought such joy!
