From The Nest: A few More Florida Photos

One night when we were walking along the beach the Captain made this sign for me in the sand....

Here is the Ritz Carlton resort as you look up from the beach...our room was in the South Tower on the right hand side of this photo with the balcony looking right out at the Gulf...the Captain would sit out there each morning after his walk and read the newspaper and do his cross word puzzle before we would go down to the beach. You can look out at such a wide expanse of the Gulf from the balcony seeing boats and dolphins, the ever present para sailing crew, kids on wave runners, gulls and pelicans soaring by...lots to see and enjoy each day.

There was always something going on down on the beach and these colorful structures set off the boundaries of a party the first night we were there....about 200 people from some company were having a barbecue on the beach and these were all around the edge. Quite fun and colorful!

This is the pontoon boat that we chartered one day...the Ritz packed us up a wonderful lunch of turkey and ham sandwiches, fruit and brownies with drinks and off we went over to Bonita Beach and spent the day poking around Estero Bay looking for manatees and dolphins. It was gorgeous, warm and sunny, with a nice breeze along the ocean and we motored over to Lover's key where we had a picnic and walked along the beach in between all the old cypress trees that had been knocked over by various storms.

All along Lover's Key are these great old Cypress trees that almost look like sculptures they are so interesting to look at. We also saw 2 manta rays jumping up out of the water right near the channel that comes in next to beach from the Gulf and they were both about 3 feet in length...scary.

Each morning when we would come down to the beach, the cabana guys would bring out the lounge chairs...you can see here the enormous stack of them that the hotel has. They would set up your chair, table and the most important blue canvas flag to enable you to signal them that it was time for pina coladas. They also had the beautiful Ritz Carlton blue umbrellas available for anyone who wanted one. Then they wrapped a huge white terry towel on the lounge chair, another towel under where your feet would go and one for under your head. When I say that the service was impeccable, I mean it was perfection....each detail was so wonderful that you always felt taken care of. The Ritz is just the best...