The last 2 weeks of my snowbird adventure alternated between dragging along and flying by, depending on what the weather was doing. Rain was definitely a bummer, because it always seems like borderline hurricane conditions when it rains along the coast with high winds, slashing horizontal sheets of water, and flash floods. Consequently, I didn't get to ride my bike as much as I'd hoped. But on one of our plein air painting days when the forecast for rain was only 50%, I took a chance and rode my bike to the meetup site at one of the beaches. (That goofy thing on top of my head is my bike helmet.) I discovered another painter (who also rode her bike) lived very close to my condo. Had I known that, we could have painted more often together.
My last week in Florida, the painters met up at Eden State Park. It has an old plantation house on the property which I tried to paint along with the azaleas which were coming into bloom around the property. At the conclusion of each meetup, we always gathered to give a 2-minute description of our "goals." My main goal was always to finish my sketch before I got too cold sitting on the ground. Luckily, the park restroom had hot-air hand dryers we used to warm up.
The woman who organized our outings was a professional painter. She was hosting her own show in March. One day when I was at the local coffee shop, I saw her setting up in the gallery next door. I was amazed at the size of her paintings on display. Obviously, she didn't paint that large when we went on our beach outings.
We had a rush of snowbird activities our last 2 weeks, since over half of us were heading back home the end of February (only some people from Canada, North Dakota, and Minnesota were staying). I went to bingo again, but didn't win. Bingo will never be a game I gravitate to. It seems incredibly boring to me.
Every Saturday morning, a ton of snowbirds got together to play shuffleboard. It cost $2 and the money went to the winners of the different matches. I never got involved in this game even though they offered to let me practice during the week with the "good" equipment.
We had another hot dog picnic our last Saturday. It was hysterical watching the guys cook, because the hot dogs kept sliding off the grill and onto the deck (5-second rule!).
After exercise on Monday (and in between rain storms), a group of women went out for pizza. Bronzini's pizza had a lunch special - a slice of pizza and a soda. But the "slice" of pizza was a quarter of a large-size. Needless to say, I didn't need dinner that night.
On my last trip to Walmart, I saw this robot cruising the aisles. I'm not sure if it was trying to clean the floors or scan bar codes for pricing (it was as big as a shopping cart). Even though I love robots, it creeped me out a bit, because I felt like it was following me around. It didn't talk to me, but that blue-green light on the front kept blinking.
While I satisfied my snowbird goal of getting outside when my St Louis friends were housebound with snow and ice, I would never consider moving to Florida full time. The corrosive properties of all the salt in the air were making my bike start to rust and I was tired of my clothes always feeling damp from the high humidity and fog. But I'll miss having nice flat hiking trails right out my front door, along with a Mexican restaurant at the trailhead. Though if I want Mexican, all I have to do is walk down to Mia Ranchito's (which incidentally was my first stop after getting home).
