Meeting Pam from Nomadic Newfies

Yesterday Chablis and I had a real treat - we finally got to meet fellow blogger Pam from over at Nomadic Newfies. 

We've been following each other's blogs and chatting for awhile.  For the past several months we've been trying, and having the hardest time, scheduling a day to meet.  Tinkerbell must have waved her magic wand because yesterday our schedules miraculously cleared and we met for lunch and a hike.  Finally!!

Since we live a little over an hour away from each other, we picked a spot about half way for both of us and had lunch first.  Over pizza and pasta the three of us chatted non-stop about hiking, photography and camping.  Chablis and Pam discovered they have a mutual love of Gatlinburg and had plenty to talk about.  Since I've never been there I had to sit and take notes of all the places I'd now like to see there.  Note to self - add Gatlinburg to my bucket list.

After lunch we decided to drive to the Ryerson Conservation Area and do a little hiking.  Ryerson Woods is noted in Lake County history because the first European of the area settled there.  In the 1920's several families bought the property and built weekend retreats, and then eventually donated 257 acres to the Lake Country Forest Preserves.  Today it's a spectacular preserve that supports a wide variety of state endangered species.

We strapped on our hiking boots and took off down a gorgeous woodland trail.  Well manicured and lush, it was also teeming with killer mosquitoes.  We doused ourselves liberally with bug spray, twice, and those little suckers were not deterred.   It must have been all the Italian spices that attracted them to us.  At any rate, we only lasted a couple of blocks before we turned tail and made a beeline for the open meadow.

We walked past some of the old buildings on the property and found another trail that led more around the perimeter of the forest.  It was much less buggy and we were able to walk and snap some photos while we talked. 

Pam is well versed in a wide variety of native flowers and she pointed out all the different varieties and impressed us with her knowledge.  You really need to go check out her blog because she takes fantastic close up photos of flowers on her many hikes.  Here's a link to one of my favorite recent posts.

Unfortunately we picked the hottest day of the year to meet up - it was about 95 degrees in the shade and dripping with humidity.  After an hour of hiking and dodging the relentless  mosquitoes we decided to call it quits and retreat to our air conditioned cars.  We really had a great visit though and promised to meet up again this autumn and give it another try when the colors start changing.  I'm looking forward to joining Pam again and I'm really happy we finally got the chance to spend the afternoon together.

Stop by and check out her blog, Nomadic Newfies.  I think you'll enjoy meeting her.  She did a post about our meet and greet here.

Sanibel Island, Day 5

Oh my goodness – how can this possibly be our last full day already? 

First thing this morning we had made plans to meet Pam from http://www.iloveshelling.com/blog/  at lighthouse beach.  If you aren't familiar with her blog - go check it out.  We pulled into the lot....

 where you want to be sure you pay for parking.  They monitor those lots pretty closely, so just pay the fee.   Pam was already there waiting for us.  She is just as nice and sweet in person as she is on her blog.  The first thing I did was buy one of her blue iloveshelling tee shirts.  The color is gorgeous and the tee-shirt is as soft and comfortable as can be.  Guess what just became my new, favorite tee shirt??  She took us down to the beach and immediately started finding teeny, tiny wentletraps.  I tried and tried, but I couldn’t find a single one and she kept saying “here’s one, here’s one.”  She has the eye for wentletraps, that's for sure.

We strolled up the beach but the shell selection wasn’t that great.  We found a couple of small sea urchins and a few murex, but other than that, it was slim pickins’.  That was ok though, I just enjoyed talking to Pam and telling her all about geocaching and phooning.  We even had her pose with us for a phooning picture.

That's Pam bringing up the rear and I see more phooning in her future!

After Pam left, we sat on the beach for a while and admired the view of the lighthouse....

and the beach and Ft. Myers in the distance........

And we posed next to some nice uprooted trees....

We then decided to go to Pinocchio’s to get ice cream for lunch.  I always get the Dirty Sand Dollar flavor – YUM!! 

We spent the rest of the afternoon on our beach and then headed off to The Lazy Flamingo for dinner.

Afterwards we stopped and did a couple more geocaches...

 did a little last minute souvenir shopping and took one last phooning photo.... 

Then we high-tailed it down to the beach to watch our final sunset.  I have to say we were not disappointed.

 Then back up to the condo to start packing and crack the window open for one last night of the surf lulling us to sleep.  Come back tomorrow to see which blogger friend I met on the beach while out snapping pictures on our last morning!