I have now been on my first tour of my life. I think, in general, that I am still not a Tour Person, although I did enjoy it. And, as my friend Gill commented - if I didn't go somewhere on a tour, then I simply wouldn't go there at all. There is truth to that.
It started Sunday the 4th. Friends that my cousin Marty often joins for these tours were on vacation in Disney World. He flew into Orlando on Saturday, where they picked him up and drove to Lake City to spend the night. Sunday I drove to Lake City to meet them for breakfast. Then Bernie and Lynda headed to the airport to drop off their rental car, and Marty and I headed for St. Amelia Island.
Marty and I had only met one time previously, when he came to Florida for my 50th birthday/family gathering. For most of my life, it was my mother who kept track of all the family and what was going on. After she passed, Marty and I started emailing each other, especially since I lost Bob (Marty is a widower, so understands). And yet we were instantly quite comfortable with each other; we seem to be on the same wavelength.
We got to the hotel a little before 1; check in time was 4. We pulled into a parking spot to pull out our information on the area to see where we could kill a couple of hours. Then serendipity hit. I looked up, and right in front of the car was a chain link fence with a pond behind it, and a sign that said "Egan's greenway" and a path off to the side. Marty is an avid birder and naturalist - we immediately piled out of the car and went for a walk, stopping to identify plants and birds. He, of course, knew things like "that's a yellow rumped warbler" whereas my bird identification skills are more "little birds, wading birds, duckie birds."
And I should have kept notes because I've sort of forgotten everything we did on the tour itself. We had a lecture and then a bus tour by a lovely eccentric (dressed all in purple, with matching glasses and tablet) historian and social activist of the "chain yourself to a tree" variety - he and others like him have kept Amelia Island's charm from being destroyed by developers. When we stopped for a nature break by an ocean boardwalk, I spotted a gopher tortoise - a common sight for me, but one that Marty can now check off of his life list). There was a lecture on marine life and shells. We went on a boat tour to discuss something of the history of the area and the shrimping industry and a lot of how the boat owner's wife was related to everyone who has ever been in the shrimping industry (to the point that when we disembarked I checked to make sure she didn't have 6 fingers). Unfortunately, as I spend a lot of time outdoors, I didn't think to either wear a hat, wear sunscreen, or at least go to the back of the boat - and got the worst sunburn/windburn that I can ever remember. I'm still peeling and my face feels like sandpaper (lots of moisturizer being used).
We did have Tuesday afternoon after lunch off. I asked Marty if there was anything that he wanted to go back and look at, but he said "would I sound like a broken record if I said I wanted to go back out on the greenway?" We spotted an alligator (another on the life list). There are broad, well maintained pathways through the greenway, but also some intriguing twisty paths off to the side - so of course we had to go exploring those. And managed to get completely lost. I finally got out my phone and google maps and figured out which direction the hotel should be (Marty had a compass app that helped) and after a couple of hours we got back in time for dinner.
This is getting long; I think I'll break it into two parts. And I didn't take any pictures the first two days - oops. But here's one of Marty and me.
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