Maria's 40th Birthday - Sanibel, Florida

Dave and I had the opportunity to take a trip together, and why not to celebrate my completion of 40 trips around the sun?!  We had a companion airline ticket to use up before it expired, so we decided to take off to Sanibel Island in Florida for a few days.  Thanks to my mom and dad for watching the kids!!

I don't have a day by day journal but these are my pictures!  

our little AirBnB with private access to the beach!

the ONLY alligator we saw was about 2 feet long and swam in a little pond near the Over Easy Cafe

ahhh yes. 

so many shells. wow.

kayaking in the bay!

storm rolling in ...so gorgeous...we saw a water funnel forming

a gopher tortoise crossed our path on the way back from the beach

oh yes. we did it like locals. We went SHELLING

then we needed chips and guac

Sanibel's historic lighthouse

the great Mississippi on the way home!

Costa Rica 2021 - June 13-17, 2021

Sunday, June 13, 2021

First sight of Costa Rica from the air

After arrival and a transport from Four Seasons staff, we drove into the huge complex and got the sense for how remote it was and how far away from any town was.  This peninsula has a feel of an independence of its own.

After checking in, we are greeted by this gorgeous reception area with a welcoming staircase, bar, seating area, pools, access to two beaches, and so much more. We are shown to our room now...building 3 and room 3210.

view from our hotel room

First walk down to one of the beaches

First evening's dinner was hosted by HFC.  (Home Franchise Concepts)...full buffet with multiple local salads and local flavors, meats, breads, desserts, etc....very delicious.  It was fun to meet other franchise owners and hear about their businesses.  The night got rained out and we had to move to a shelter and continued conversation with others.  We felt pretty tired from all the travel and went to bed.
 
Mon, June 14, 2021

The Four Seasons has plenty of land and activities, so we chose to rent some complimentary electric bikes and explored some miles of trails around here.  We went up and down some pretty strenuous hills and wondered if the heavy electronic bikes were actually assisting us or not.  We saw some gorgeous views!!  The heat and humidity is REAL.  The hair did not stay down long.

We landed at a place for some refreshing water and called for a ride back to the Four Seasons. 

Our driver Lenin was happy and conversational and took us up to a place with a view from the golf course where you could see both beaches (bay side and Pacific side)

As we walked back to our room to shower up someone offered us a chocolate latte mousse thing! yes please. :)

our room is one of those

hanging on the beach and this guy came to visit

Happy 18 years to us!!!

I love this pic....our footprints together. Walkin' together for 18 yrs and we'll go another 18!

We heard from someone about this staircase that "goes up to show some great views"...and decided to try it out.  It just kept going up and up and up and up and up.....and further and further and we ended up at another beach with BLACK sand.  It was very cool.

mama and baby monkey, hard to see but proof we saw one!

I just love the composition of black and white! Especially at a beach when you expect to see tan and blue.

The walk was much longer and steeper than we had anticipated.  We did see a monkey, which was cool.  The whole path was an hour and 40 minutes there and back, and the last half was in the rain.  I took off my slippery flip flops and walked barefoot for better footing.  

Our anniversary dinner was a welcome experience.  After showering (I feel like we are always showering, so much sweat and salt water to wash off!), we went to Pesce for dinner (a restaurant at the resort).  The bread had a creamy tomato dipping sauce, and our mozzarella, tomato, basil appetizer was delicious.

I got sioux vid chicken and asparagus, Dave got a pasta with a carbonara sauce.

Dessert was phenomenal - dry ice smoking around a creamy tiramisu and the cannoli had pistachio and nuts and it was served with orange cream gelato and lime.

a quick late night (very dark) walk on the beach revealed innumerable hermit crabs busy at their business. We found a crab and a hermit crab having a little chat.  We had to turn on our flashlights to walk so we didn't step on any of them!

Tues, June 15, 2021

started the day with a berry power smoothie, eggs and veggies...this was an early morning because we had to meet on the beach at 7:55am to take off for our snorkeling catamaran trip.  We got up at 6am and had breakfast by 6:45am.

there's the two boats!

getting settled on the boat

after an hour's ride we anchored at Playa Matapalito and snorkeled for an hour!  Less coral than expected but lots of fish!

lunch was served on the boat...BBQ chicken, beans, rice, fruit, cookies!

this is a mix of black and white sand...when the waves come up and go down, this is what you see

an "infused rum" tasting....what do you want to flavor your rum? Coffee? Lime? Cardamom? Vanilla? 

Cool plants we see when we walk to our hotel room

the obligatory covid testing station that HFC had set up for us.  Time slot was between 2-4 pm and we got there around 3.  A little uncomfortable...but quick and easy enough.  

Back to our hotel for some rest...the sun/wind can wear ya out.  We did a little souvenir shopping.  Still figuring out what do for dinner tonight.

We have planned a nature tour tomorrow at 10am.

Wednesday, June 16th, 2021

the beach sand varied so much, at some point we walked along the beach and saw this speckled look. So pretty.  Oh I remember now...we walked to the staircase again before breakfast to see how far UP we could get in the trees to hopefully catch a glimpse of more monkeys.  We only saw a squirrel type creature.  What always amazes me is the amount of hermit crabs!  We had to be so careful not to step on any.  They had congregated towards fallen fruit on the beach.

Best breakfast view ever...

So this nature walk we went on was hosted by the nature center on the peninsula.  A van from the resort took us down there - about a 10 minute drive. We had a private tour guide to show us some things about what was around us.  He was very clear to say that this was the dry forest, not the rain forest.  He pointed out a few trees, some bright orange crabs, mangrove trees that grow in the backwater swampy regions.

Apparently it is rare to see spider monkeys in the area, and we spotted two when we arrived at the end of our tour and saw some swinging through the trees.  The tour guide was giggly and giddy and said all his coworkers were going to be jealous!  I got some video too.

back at the resort...this place is lush, gorgeous, has some neat plant around every corner, and was a joy to walk through.

We were SO HOT so we dipped in the cold pool and sat in the shade with some chips, guac, salsa and pico.

Some ominous thunder and lightning moved in and we sat on the beach and watched it roll in.  We took cover in our room when the rain let loose.

On our walk to dinner at 6, we stopped at the west side beach and caught the first sunset of the trip.  It had been too cloudy all the other nights to see anything and when we saw that sliver of gold shining along the water we ran down to see it. So gorgeous!  The rest of the night was a buffet dinner hosted by HFC and we chatted with a lot of people, turned in around 9pm, and called it a night.  

Thurs, June 17, 2021

Travel day home!  We are very thankful for a leisurely going-home morning.  We got up at 7 and enjoyed the calm ocean waves on the couch outside with some espresso.

This was the best coffee stand of the whole week.  Fresh pour-over and whole fat cream...MMM....delicious.  We filled our cups before breakfast and enjoyed this pool view while some servers were working to clean up a table for us.

This is some kind of tapioca pudding with granola and chia seeds and frozen fruit...a "chef specialty".  We share this one.

Two perfectly round pieces of french toast with pineapple and berry compote.

costa rican crows...that's what I call the black grackle.

One last view and beach experience!

The shirt says it all!

Goodbye beach....we'll miss you.  We met our bellman at our room at 10am for him to collect our luggage and catch a ride at 10:30 to the airport.

Overall we are blown away with HFC putting us up in this place.  We didn't know what to expect and were wowed every moment with the service and scenery.