Sanibel and the Friends we Met

On my recent trip to Sanibel Island with Traci and Moira, we had the opportunity to meet up with several of my blogging friends.  It's always fun to get a chance to visit or do a little shelling together.

The first person we ran into was Pam from over at iloveshelling.  I know that a lot of you are familiar with Pam and her husband Clark.  We were having dinner at The Fish House one night and who should walk in through the door but Pam.  Traci has been out with Pam on one of her shellabration excursions and we were all excited to get to sit and chat with her about Sanibel and Cayo Costa....

Next up was Becky and Tobias from over at The Shell King.  They are quickly becoming dear friends to me and when they joined us for dinner at The Island Cow, the 5 of us barely stopped talking long enough to eat.  I have never met 2 people who are more enthusiastic about shelling and sharing their passion.  They entertained us with tales about the Florida festivals they attend and their love of Key West.  If you're not already following their blog, I highly suggest you do so.

After dinner we decided to stretch our legs with a walk along the beach.  Unfortunately the no-see-ums were brutal again and we had to cut our walk short.  But since it had been raining earlier, we were treated to a beautiful rainbow.  It doesn't get much better than that!

And finally, we had the chance to go exploring one morning with Capt. Brian from over at Captain Brian on the Water.  Brian runs shelling and boating excursions and for me, no trip to Sanibel would be complete without some time on the boat with Brian. 

We saw some dolphins and had a lovely ride on calm waters after finding some olives, an angels wing, a gaudy natica and Traci made the spectacular find of a maculated baby ear.  Brian worked his magic and found Moira her coveted Kings Crown shell!   It was a good day!

On our last night on the island I was sitting and digging in the water at low tide, and who should come strolling down the beach with her blue shelling bucket and pig tails, but none other than Pam again.  She snapped this picture of me and then ended up walking the beach with me for awhile and introduced me to Clark who insisted on sharing a few of his shells with me.

(photo courtesy of I love shelling.  Do not reproduce without permission)

So the next time you're on Sanibel, just keep your eyes open.  You never know who you may run into while you're down there. 

I have one more Sanibel Island post coming up next week about the off island beaches we visited.  Stay tuned!

Bar Keepers Friend

I recently won a cool basket of Bar Keepers Friend products.  Has anyone heard of this product or used it?  I've heard of it and just assumed it was a product to be used on, ahem, bars.   As in alcohol, shots of whisky and loud music...  Apparently I spent too much of my younger years rockin' and rollin'.  So when I looked them up I discovered that it's actually a product to be used in the home, and it's particularly good at removing baked on food and tea stains as well as for removing rust. 

Well Erin over at The Pyrex Collective 2 was having this contest and I thought, what the heck.  Let me enter and see if I win.  After all, I have Pyrex products and frankly, they can use some help.  What do you think?  That's a little baked on yuckiness, don't you agree?

Part of the contest was to write a haiku about your Pyrex product and submit it.  So here's what I wrote....

My beautiful dish
Made of Pyrex white and red
Sits stained and dirty.

And I won!  I can't wait to get my basket of Bar Keepers Friend and go to work on my Pyrex dishes.  They will probably look so beautiful after I get them clean.

Sanibel with The Girls - Hinkle!

This year I had the pleasure of hanging out on Sanibel Island with 2 of my best girlfriends.  Meet Moira and Traci.  We've been trying for 3 years to schedule a trip together and this year the planets finally aligned so we could do it.

Our trip started out with a bang when I saw a celebrity at the airport.  While they were herding us through security at O'Hare, I got routed to one line and Moira to another.  My line was moving much quicker and as I went through the sensors, I glanced to my right and saw actress Melissa McCarthy going through the sensors right next to me. 

I love Melissa McCarthy - I think she is hysterically funny.  Since I didn't have to remove my shoes I got through the gate first and threw my back pack on the ground, and fumbled through it for my cell phone where I managed to snap a quick photo of her while she was pulling on her gym shoes.  Before I could blink she was walking right towards me....  OMG - what do I do, what do I do?  So I just smiled and said, "Hello Melissa."  She looked right at me and smiled back at me with that big beautiful smile of hers and said hello right back.  Then I gushed, "Thank you for doing what you do.  I just love how you make me laugh."  And just a nice as can be she said, "Well thank you very much."  Then she made a bee line towards the golf cart that was waiting to whisk her away to her plane and away from the crazy lady -me.   I don't care - it was exciting to see her and she was sweet as can be and Moira was all mad because she missed it all since she was stuck in the slow ass security line taking off her shoes and getting frisked.  LOL!!

Traci had already arrived on the island 2 days earlier, so she picked us up at the Ft. Myers airport and we headed over to Sun Harvest for ice cream and various bottles of juice.  I can't believe that in all the years I've been going to Florida, that I've never been to Sun Harvest.  Who else has stopped there?

Next we made a quick stop at Bunche Beach to check out the low tide.  We found hundreds of King Crowns, but all of them had critters living in them.  Moira was determined to find a Kings Crown on this trip.  It's been on her wish list for a long time.  We gave up after an hour and headed over to Sanibel where the first order of business was stopping at Schnappers for dinner.  Look at us - we are so happy to finally be on Sanibel together!

Schnappers is my island tradition and I got my usual order of chicken wings and french fries.  We were greeted with a smile by Ju at the counter....

It was Moira's first experience at Schnappers and I think she will be back!

 

We drove down to the condo and after dinner we had gift time.  Moira had 2 huge baskets shipped down for us, filled with all kinds of beach toys, insect repellent, shelling tools, photo albums and stickers. 

 



She also designed tee shirts for each of us to commemorate our big trip.  We nicknamed it Hinkle 2014.  "Hinkle" refers to a little joke we have between the three of us due to the fact that FB auto corrected something by mistake once.  Silly, I know, but sometimes it's fun to have a crazy little joke just between you and your girl friends, isn't it?

 

Traci had been on a massive shelling adventure for 6 weeks up and down the east coast, and she made each of us a special container filled with unusual mini's.  Sweet!

Our mutual friend Della, from over at Del's Shells got in on the fun and sent us each a hand crafted bookmark.  Aren't they pretty?  Thanks Della!!   xo  And I brought stuff for us to make olive bracelets and silver charm ankle bracelets, but I forgot to take a photo - ooops!

By then it was getting close to sunset, so we scooted out to the beach for a little shelling and sunset watching....

There were a lot of shells on the beach, but we really had to pick through them to find some good ones.  Check out the sunset tho....

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By the time the sun set we had hurried back to the condo.  The no-see-ums were out in force and I got attacked like never before.  We had liberally sprayed ourselves down with bug spray, but those little suckers were out for blood.  I had literally hundreds of bites on my arms, legs and back.  We couldn't get back to the condo fast enough.

 

Traci brought along 2 cases of shells from her recent trips and set up shelling stations on the balcony and in the kitchen to start sorting, bleaching and cleaning them all.   She had more shells than I think I've ever seen in one spot before.  Traci had a great variety of shells and it was fun to go through them and see how different they were from the Sanibel shells.



 

I have another post coming up with some of the beaches we visited and the fellow bloggers we got to meet.  Lots of fun to come!

Riding The Hurricane

No visit to Kentucky Lake is complete unless you make a stop at Kentucky Shores Family Fun Center.  They have been doing a lot of upgrades and improvements over the past couple of years and this is quickly becoming a destination fun stop for families.

This year they've added a new attraction called The Hurricane.  It's a 100 ft. high ride of fun!  I've been watching them as they assembled it and I announced that as soon as it was completed, I'd be going for a ride.  We had a bunch of family visiting us for Fourth of July weekend, so I suckered   gently persuaded Chablis and my daughter in law, Nicki, to go along for the ride.....

While Chablis and Nicki were getting strapped up, I made sure to inquire about the safety and appropriate testing of the ride.  All systems were a go!  After all, I didn't want to be the first one on it. 

Nicki looks pretty happy and excited, don't you think?  And she hadn't even had any wine yet that day.

Louie was nervously pacing back and forth in the spectator area.  He wasn't too happy about my choice of fun, but he didn't try to stop me either.  He was probably worried about something going wrong and he'd be stuck doing laundry and cooking and house cleaning.

They suited me up and had a quick discussion about the proper fit of the gear on my tiny frame....

And they decided to play it safe and put me in the child's size for a tighter fit.  I liked the way they were thinking.  I have to say, they checked and double checked all straps, cords, safety harnesses and wires.  At no time was I worried or scared.  I felt they had everything completely under control.

 All hooked up and ready to go!  This was about the time my husband started turning green.

Chablis having second thoughts????

And off we went to the loading area.  We climbed up onto the platform where the guys again went over all the directions and explained exactly what was going to happen.  First, get pulled up 100 ft. into the air.  Second, one of us, Nicki, gets to pull the rip cord and release us.  Third, plummet towards the ground, and then swing back and forth, all while screaming our heads off.  Sounds like fun, right?  

They double and triple checked all wires and harnesses...

We gave a thumbs up.  Note that we are all still smiling....

They rolled back the steps and platform and made sure we were steady...

And we began the long, slow climb upwards....

We hung in mid-air for a brief second or two and then Nicki yanked on the rip cord and we plummeted towards the ground.  I will not repeat what we were all screaming....

Do I look like Superman?  I have no idea what I was doing with my arm but apparently I fly much better that way.

Up and down, and back and forth, spinning and swinging.  It was wild!

Seriously, what is with my arm?

All too soon the ride was over and it was fantastic!  Loved it!!  We all gave it a 2 thumbs up and I would definitely do it again.  Great fun!

If you're in Northwestern Kentucky near Kentucky Lake, stop by and join in the fun at Kentucky Shores Family Fun Center.    Stop by their FB page and follow them.  Right now they have a special where all fans can print out a coupon for a free round of mini-golf.  They also have a contest going on because they're looking for ideas for new attractions.  The prize is an $ 80.00 combo pass for the park.  How cool does that sound?