Can Florida be any cooler?

We got up and out of Tallahassee as quick as we could, if you consider we are retired and don’t like to follow a schedule.  Still, the lure of warmer weather and a heated pool had me wanting to be in Port Charlotte by mid-afternoon.  We almost made it.  Driving a distance that the GPS said was 5 hours and that turned out to be more like 7 hrs, we arrived after 4pm.

Marlene poured the cold drinks and we sat by the pool, catching up on our winter holidays so far and waiting for a huge rainstorm to hit.  The bbq steaks they served were almost as big as the storm.  At one point, Marlene and I went inside so we could hear each other speak.  The thunder and rain were so loud!

The guys sat outside, in a puddle, chatting away, lighting and thunder all around them.  That didn’t seem to bother them at all.

I went for a wee swim the next day, but mostly we enjoyed the conversation and tried to stay warm as the temperature continued to drop over the next days.

 

We left Port Charlotte to drive south to Naples/Marco Island.  Again, the cold temperatures made it unlikely we would enjoy sitting poolside.  When we visited my brother and family in Marco the next morning, I made sure I had on plenty of warm clothes.  At one point we thought we might just keep driving towards Miami that day, but after a bit of shopping, the sun started to warm up, so we managed a few hours poolside (although we did not swim).

We went to bed very early, with visions of warmer temperatures in our heads.