Time to say Goodbye to paradise, once again!

Where is the good in goodbye?  ~Meredith Willson

Hubby and I spent some more time on our patio today, we even let Lily join us (on a short leash, just in case there are big birds or gators back there!) for a time...and believe it or not, she found her some sticks! I don't know what it is but she loves it at the beach, and now here!! She just chews them up into little bits!

The funniest thing happened while we were out there! We have 3 resident anole (lizards) that live in the bird of paradise bush out back, Wilbur, a dark male, Jeanette, a blonde, and Sally, the baby. Jeanette was peeking at us over a leaf of the bush, and I tried to focus on her, but the auto focus wouldn't do it! This is out of focus, but you can see her head and the outline of her body through the leaf!! 

It would have been a GREAT picture if my camera would have cooperated! When I finally did get it back in control, I caught her peeking out of the end of the same leaf!

We finished up a few things around the house and began the preparation for leaving : (   ...oh, I redid the den to accommodate our new picture!

We decided to head to Sanibel for dinner at Gramma Dots and then to check out the beaches one more time, though the timing was not going to be good since low tide is at 10:00 and we were going for an early dinner....but we had to check it out!! After a wonderful dinner of fish and chips, we headed to the lighthouse beach, it looked like Coca Cola! Very dark and had lots of grass, and the wind was making if very rough, so we headed over to Gulfside City park.  It was much calmer there but the tide was pretty high, there was very little beach!  We stayed for a couple of hours and got to see some dolphin...I actually snapped one picture...and got him!!

We saw this one alone, and 2 or 3 other groups of at least 2. What a wonderful way to say goodbye!! We also ran across this live...or was...Pen Shell!! We had never seen one with the animal still in it!! Most of them are full of sand or shells and the animal is long gone!! I don't think this guy is going to make it, because his shell is so badly broken.

We decided to leave when the $ ran out on the meter, though I think staying may have paid off pretty well because the tide was obviously dropping pretty rapidly, and I could tell that there might be something out there, but we had a lot to do to get ready to leave for the 2 day trek home tomorrow!! We found very little to nothing early on, but walking back to leave I found 2 beautiful small lightning whelks with deep color so I grabbed them up!! I was also looking for partial whelks for 'angel bodies' to make for my grandbaby girls, ...that didn't pan out either, maybe next time!

Once again it is time to say goodbye to this wonderful place! It has been a great week, and we feel like we have accomplished a lot. We made our new home in paradise a little more 'homey' and got to check out our new neighborhood by exploring new beaches, restaurants, and stores.  I'm slowly learning my way around Ft. Myers, but wouldn't do it without my GPS!! ...at least not yet! Thanks for tagging along with us on our adventures, we are heading back up north, maybe I will have things to post from there soon!

::Hugs::

Cheri