Last Days in Venice

On Thursday, we left for the pickleball courts at 8 am.  The pickleball courts were full but the tennis courts that were marked off for pickleball were empty so we were still able to play.  After a fun hour and a half of playing pickleball, we rode back to the campground, got on our bikes and rode into Venice on The Legacy Trail.  

We went back to the Upper Crust Bakery and this time I had a scone all to myself.  Chuck got a muffin this time and he said it was very good too.  We didn't want to cross the same busy bridge into Venice on our bikes, so we rode further out the canal to the next bridge and then rode back to the campground which added another couple of miles to our ride.  We were all very hot and tired when we got back so we rested until 3 pm and then loaded our beach gear and rode over to Nokomis Beach again.  The sharks teeth are much more difficult to find this year but the views and the surroundings are still beautiful.  

North Jetty at Nokomis Beach

We stayed at the beach long enough to enjoy the sunset.

Then, we drove back to the campground, ate dinner and got back together for games with the men winning Spades and Pinochle.  Well, that was frustrating!

On Friday morning, we left for the pickleball courts by 8 am and still had to play on the tennis courts but that was ok.  Just means you have to chase the balls a little further!  :)  After we returned to the campground, we packed lunches and went back to Nokomis Beach to enjoy the beach for a few hours.  This was the last trip to the beach for Chuck and I.  :(

We returned to the campground in time to get ready and go to Barb and Ray's for a social hour of fun and getting to meet new people.  Ken and Bonnie had met Barb and Ray a few years ago and had visited them at their home in Maine too.  They were such fun and we met a lot of other nice people from the campground too.  Now we're really sad to be leaving!  :(

Barb and Ray sharing a Maine treat:  Moxie!

We ate so many delicious appetizers that the social hour became our dinner too!  We headed back to our camper around 7 and played a couple of games before calling it an "early" evening around 9 pm.

On Saturday morning, we drove over to the park to play pickleball around 8 am again only to find that all of the pickleball and tennis courts were full!  We've got to stop spreading the word about how much fun pickleball is to play.  We found one other nearby park but the courts were full there too so we decided to try playing at the pickleball court at the campground again.  The surrounding grass and the court was completely dry today so we didn't have to worry about slipping and falling today.  After we all got adjusted to the lighting and after Ken got re-fueled on a protein bar, we had probably our best day of pickleball!  The weather was perfect and all of us played some of our best winning at least one game or two!  

Because this was our last day, we had decided that we would just enjoy a lot of the recreational activities the campground has to offer.  We first stopped at a crafts fair in the recreation center and looked at some of the beautiful photographs of one of the campground's residents.  Then, we walked over to the office to get clubs so we could play putt-putt.  Bonnie's first shot went just a little further then she intended but Chuck came to her rescue and retrieved her ball out of the ditch.  

Ken and Bonnie held on to Chuck to keep him
from going into the ditch too!

Unfortunately, it was not one of our better days for putt-putt so the guys won both games fairly "handily." 

Then, we walked over to the shuffleboard courts to play a few games of shuffleboard.  The weather was perfect today for being outside.  We played 3 or 4 games before going back to the campers to get ready to go out for lupper!  

Ken and Bonnie took us to a place we had not been before:  Pop's Sunset Grill.  

Because we were early, we had perfect seats right on the water.

A young blue heron sat on a nearby post hoping for a treat!

How about that?  I taught him to sit on my head!  :)

Ain't he pretty!  :)

All of our "luppers" were delicious and the setting made it just perfect!  

We returned to the campground and played Up the River (7 Up) and Pinochle at our place with the men winning Up the River and the women winning Pinochle.  We took a little break, went to McDonalds to get some sundaes, and then returned to Ken & Bonnie's to finish our evening playing 5 Crowns, SkipBo, and Ken's least favorite game of all, Sequence Dice.  The women won all three of these games but we were all so sad this was our last evening together.