Naples

Last Friday, Jan 14-Monday Jan 17th I went to Naples, FL for a long weekend.  I went for many reasons but the big ones were to run the Naples News Half Marathon with Mark, to see Mark, Sue and Mark's dad Jim (which is where we stayed) and to see my Godfather Brent and see his house and hang with him for a day.  So needless to say, lots of really good reasons to go to Florida in January.  Oh yeah, and because Florida is the only state without snow and here in Buffalo it's always snowing, everyday, sometimes multiple times in a day.  I didn't take my shorts off the whole trip!  It was awesome.  

I flew in early Friday morning and Brent picked me up at the airport.  One slight miss-hap getting off the plane.  A person on our plane couldn't wait 3 hours to smoke and was caught smoking in the bathroom on the plane.  So a man in a haz-mat suit had to check out the plane and the police and eventually the FBI had to have a fun visit with this man.  Federal offense.  Dumb idea.  Anyway.  Other than that the flight was great.  I highly recommend Jet Blue to fly with.  Brent and I headed to his house, I met his friend Jim and then we headed to the beach.  And oh was the beach beautiful.  White sand, lots of shells to pick, beautiful (but cold) water. 

Back of Brent's house

Barefoot Beach (Gulf of Mexico)

Shells

Barefoot Beach

Beautiful

We did a little more sightseeing and then headed to Jim's house.  Where I met this pretty lady.  Trudy.  Trudy and I became good friends over the few days I was there.  She's a sweetie.

Trudy

Saturday Mark and I went running, in shorts, and then went and picked up our packets and did a little sightseeing. After lunch we hit the beach.

Beach with Condos in the distance

More condos in a pass

Beach

Pelican

Sunday was the race.  Mark and I ran together, both with colds but we made it.  It was funny to see all the natives there with jackets and long sleeves and even some gloves and hats.  Mark and I had on sleeveless shirts and shorts.  Funny!  The race was very well run, there were about 2,000 runners and the course weaves though the "high rent district" of Naples.  Some major money where we ran.  Beautiful homes.  We even had a priest bless us, twice, on the race course.  A very nice race and one we hope to do again and hopefully feel better.  The rest of the day we just relaxed at the beach. 

Monday, Mark and I went running on the beach.  Past some beautiful beach homes.

And picked some shells.  It rained pretty much the rest of the day so we did a little shopping and hit the Naples Pier.  This pier has been rebuilt year after year when it gets knocked out from a hurricane.  We also saw some people wind surfing since there were actually waves.  Cool stuff!

Wind Surfing

Naples Pier

Naples Pier

And a great way to end the trip.  A rainbow over the lake outside Jim's house.  (On the left is a key lime tree.  Awesome key lime pie was made as well!)