Day 12, Our Last Day In Naples/Marco Island

Today is our last day here.  We will leave very early tomorrow as we will be driving for about 11 hours or so.  We will not even get out of Florida tomorrow. We will spend the night in Pensacola.  We will reach Houston Saturday night after another long day of driving.

Yesterday, Mama took Dad to his conference, so she had the car all day.  She did laundry, but then she left for a while and did some shopping. After she came back from that, she stayed with us for a few hours and headed to the beach.  Yep, she broke down and spent the $8 to pay for parking. She realized that she had been in Florida for over a week and still had not seen the ocean.  Dad heard that the shells on Marco Island were unreal if you arrive between 6 a.m.and 7 a.m.  Well, the public beaches do not open until 8 a.m. and she didn't want to wait around for an hour and half after dropping him off, so she went in the afternoon.  She was surprised that she found a lot of shells yesterday and that was at 3 p.m.   Here are some beach photos from yesterday.

Mama decided to go to another beach this morning, so she had to wait around for 1.5 hours for the parking area to open up.  She thought it was going to be really nice because they have a cafe on the beach, however, when she reached the beach near the parking lot, this is what she saw.

There shouldn't be trees in the ocean.  She ended up walking about a mile to the ocean.  She found out later, that if she had made a right turn instead of a left, she would have ended up on a barge that is supposed to have a lot of birds and is a hidden gem.  She finally ended up at the ocean and was rewarded with shells.

There were several shells that still had animals in them, so she couldn't take them.  Mama has never found such large shells as she did there.  This is her favorite.

 Here are other shells from yesterday and today and also other photos from today.

We are all resting up this afternoon for our travels tomorrow.  Mama bought food yesterday for the trip.  She bought breakfast sandwiches for breakfast, lunch meat and chips for lunch and for dinner they will have a pork roast and mashed potatoes.  Dinner will be heated quickly in the microwave.  We know from past experience that it's important to have easy foods on travel days. Travel days are not bad, but we only stop for rest areas and gas stations.  There will be no sightseeing until we get to Houston.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Wishes He Could Play On The Beach