March 1 - 9

March 1^st

 

We visited the site of the largest Mysore fig tree in the U.S. Planted in 1896, it has grown to a height of over 93 feet, a crown spread of over 130’ and a circumference of about 40’. This tree has withstood many storms and severe weather over the years.

 

 

 

 

Even though the figs are not real good for eating, a lengthy process has been developed for making jelly which has a very nice color, texture and a taste which many people find very good. If I find this jelly available for purchase, I will bring a jar home.

 

 

March 2^nd

 

Today, we drove to Sarasota to attend the home opening game for the Baltimore Orioles spring training season. The Atlanta Braves were the visiting team.

 

 

 

There is always a big cheer from the crowd when the public address announcer gives the air temperatures for the three cities. Today in Baltimore: 40°; Atlanta: 45°; and Sarasota: 74°. I was on the big screen during one of the inning changes when they were searching for the fan of the game.

 

 

My granddaughters and I especially like to see Manny Machado and Chris Davis play.

 

 

 

We realize that it is training, but we would have like to have seen a more successful game for the O’s. Chris Davis did hit a home run which provided just about the only excitement for the game.

 

 

March 5^th

 

Our friends, Barb and Jim, left yesterday to spend a week on Marco Island. Today, Cordell and I returned to a site for a special challenge geocache. In order to qualify, a cacher must have logged at least 3,000 finds. We had not reached that number last year, but we this year we had 3,341 finds. We were anxious to meet this challenge. On February 6^th,   we were disappointed when we were there and could not access the area due to a lot of water that had not drained from the record rain fall the occurred in January. Today, we could walk on the terrain without getting our shoes covered in water. As often happens, the paper log inside the geocache was soaking wet. Sometimes, we will put a wet log on the hood of our car and dry it. But, the car was only warm today. So, I found an alternate way to dry a wet log when I attached it to the end of my hiking stick and held it very close to the tail pipe while the engine was idling.

 

 

 

March 6^th—Sue’s Birthday

 

I decided to celebrate my birthday by spending a restful day reading and finished with a rainbow trout dinner at the Cracker Barrel.

 

 

There was a geocache placed on the porch at the restaurant. We looked the area over briefly before we went in to be served and did not find the cache. As we were leaving, Cordell gave it a more thorough search and finally found the container. There are similar caches placed at other Cracker Barrels across the U.S. and they are called “Off Your Rocker”.

 

 

 

March 7th

 

 

We were thankful when we woke up and saw beautiful Florida weather today. The resident alligator made another appearance.

 

 

We were very excited because our son, Andy, daughter-in-law, Corinne and granddaughter, Janelle arrived this afternoon to spend a week with us. Their previous flight in February was cancelled when the D.C. area received record snow fall.

 

 

I certainly had missed seeing Janelle.

 

 

 

 

It did not take them long to get acclimated to this region and weather.

 

 

 

March 8^th

 

We made our first trip to the nearby tomato field where we selected some large tomatoes.

 

 

And we had another nice sunset to end the day.

 

 

March 9^th

 

The alligator greeted us early this morning before we ate our breakfast.

 

 

We made a trip to the Naples Zoo which is always a nice and enjoyable thing to do and we usually visit there at least one time each year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We like the style of this zoo because the animals are housed outside.

 

 

 

Each time Janelle goes there, she is able to get the ibises to eat from her hand.