Love Me Fender

  Week 28 Jan. 19-25 Monday Today we went for a walk, to a pizza place, for lunch, where I had the best pizza I've ever had. It was a seafood pizza with scallops, shrimp, and crab. I wouldn't have ever considered putting seafood on a pizza. Then we went to the 6 mile cypress slough. There's a 2 mile boardwalk around this bog. There's all kinds of vegetation and supposedly wildlife. We didn't see any alligators in alligator river, nor otters in the otter pond. We did see a couple of young racoons, turtle and birds. It's still a bit chilly and windy. We stayed on the boat the rest of the day and watched the college football championship game. Tuesday It's finally back to regular temperatures today. We drove 2.5 hours to Fort Lauderdale to go to the temple. We drove for 5 miles through a panther wildlife preserve. Both sides of the highway were lined with very tall barbed wire fences. They had signs that said beware, Panther crossing next 5 miles. We did init...

  Week 27 Jan. 12-18, 2026 Monday We went first thing this morning to the Ford Edison winter homes and museum. Thomas Edison has well over 1,000 patents!!! Edison also built a lab to try to make rubber from various plants.  They imported 2500 species to try to find latex to make rubber in the US. There's a beautiful botanical garden there as a result, at his estate in Ft. Myers. Henry Ford came to visit his friend Thomas Edison, and loved it so much he built a home next door.  The estates are right on the water and quite lovely.  We enjoyed seeing the historical properties and the museum.   We walked to have lunch and took an uber to a boat parts store and then walked home from there.  We go the canvas dodgers resown and the back bench seat back fixed at an upholstery shop.  They all look nice. We learned that this area is the lightning capitol of America. Tuesday We spent the morning on the boat catching up on stuff. We got the scooters down and ...

  Week 26 Jan. 5-11, 2026 Monday We have done about 5,000 miles of this 6,000 mile journey! So hard to believe! We took a walk on Venice beach this morning. Sooo many conch shells. Each beach seems to have a type of shell that is more abundant at that beach. We left the marina to travel 19.5 nautical miles to Don Pedro island anchorage. There wasn't really anything to do here, so we just hung out on the boat. It was a great anchorage. There was less slapping and moving than at our marina the nights before. It was very calm. Tuesday Ed spent time this morning trying to find a solution to our anchor chain problem. He's been working on it for days, but finally got it solved this morning. We can't just go buy a chain. We need a specific width and length. Furthermore a special rigger with skills needs to splice the rope to the chain. It’s a process. Ed had called all over. We even thought we could rent a car and drive back up to Clearwater. Today he ordered one and it will t...