Sand Sculpture

Wesley Chapel, Florida (high 77, low 56)

We’ve been enjoying the cool weather, and saving money not having to run the air conditioning.  We love sleeping under the blankets with these cool night time temperatures.  We’ve had no rain, but it’s been cloudy most of the week, which is why the day time temperature stayed so cool.  It looks like it will be sunny today, which is a good thing.  After all, this is the sunshine state.

Tuesday, I had a follow up with the ophthalmologist as a follow up after my laser iridectomy  on both eyes earlier in the year.  All appeared to be fine,  however on Thursday, I started seeing light flashes out of my right eye. The doctor  wanted me to come in and have it checked out.   Evidently the vitreous gel in the eye can pull away from the back wall of the eye, and cause floaters or light flashes. It  happens frequently as we age, but the laser surgery makes me more susceptible. He didn’t see any tears in the retina.    He said if it gets really bad with the light flashes bombarding me, then to come back.  No restrictions on what I can or can’t do.  So, I guess we can still go to the Keys. 

 

We went over to Treasure Island Beach yesterday to go see the sand sculpting contest that was underway.   They have these often but we had never gone to see one in all the years we lived in this area.

It was pretty cool.  There were booths there selling their wares, as well as some food vendors.  They are having live music with quite a few different bands.  We decided to get there early and miss some of the people, so we didn’t get to see any bands.  We would have enjoyed listening to some music, but didn’t feel like battling the traffic home.  I had to laugh at Al yesterday, when he complained “why do they have these things so late?”   Okay, Al, you’re really showing your age now!  

One thing I had never seen on the beach is an ATM machine.  You can see the Gulf of Mexico behind the truck. 

The sand sculpting contest continues until Sunday when a winner will be announced.  The contestants came from as far as Holland.

Here are a few of their un-finished works.

 

We should have waited until Sunday, because they were not complete yet.

I thought the expression on this face was amazing.

 

We plan on leaving next week for the Keys.  We had reservations for 3 weeks starting this Sunday, but decided to cut it back to two weeks.  Mom had been having some health issues and I wasn’t sure we’d be able to go at all.  

The plan at this moment is to leave after Thanksgiving, either Friday or Saturday.  Our reservation in the Keys starts Sunday, the 25th.   It’s about 400 miles, so that’s a two day trip for us. 

We don’t really like being on the road on a holiday week-end, but we’re thinking traffic shouldn’t be too bad on Saturday.   Friday hopefully everyone will be doing their Black Friday shopping and staying off the interstate. 

We usually stay a night or two at Midway campground in the Everglades,  and that’s the plan this time as well.  We’re wondering if we will be able to get a site.  It’s first come, first serve, and we’re not sure if it will be extra busy during the Thanksgiving week-end.   There is no where to call and see how busy they are.

Can’t wait to get out of town.   Hitch-itch has set in!