Tag Archives: captiva island

My 2011 Summer Vacation Review

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Summer Vacation Review Part 1

First we stayed in Hilton Grand Vacation Suites at SeaWorld, and while it was an older hotel, it was still pretty nice.  What was really great though was that across the street was the SeaWorld parking lot!  Talk about close to the action!

SeaWorld wasn’t exciting for me, but I grew up with it…  But my kids loved it, and my daughter said it was the best vacation ever for her (she loved dolphins and orcas).

Next we went to Discovery Cove with was just a little further down the street from our hotel too!  We loved being so close to the action and even at a good price too since the hotel was only about $130 a night!

Discovery Cove was a good resort and fun.  They put some time into making it look cool, and the kids loved it.  It’s the dolphin ride that they will both remember though.  I’m glad I have it on film!

Summer Vacation Review Part 2

The Captiva Island (a sister island to Sanibel Island) part of our vacation we very interesting and went at a much slower pace, and by slower…  I mean really slow!

The island was beautiful and the sunset was awesome, but restaurants close on Sunday!?!  Yep, that’s right, the restaurants are closed on Sunday!  We had to drive to Sanibel Island to find an open restaurant.  During the weekdays, the restaurants and bars close after 11:00pm!  This is a far cry from Myrtle Beach!

My son didn’t get stung by any jellyfish this year, but he didn’t go very deep into the ocean either though.

The highlight of the vacation for me was just hanging out with friends and family, chilling by the pool and watching the sunset go down!

My vacation is coming to a conclusion, soon I’ll be back to my normal middle class lifestyle.

But it was a great time all around!

MR

 

Reflections While Watching A Captiva Island Sunset

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Gulf of Mexico Sunset

Captiva Sunset

 

I’m on vacation with family and friends on Captiva Island in Florida, watching a Gulf of Mexico sunset, and it’s incredible!

As a younger version of myself, I’ve vacationed at Clearwater Beach in Florida, and even though it’s beautiful there too, now on Captiva Island, I’m watching the Gulf of Mexico sunset with a greater level of awareness and appreciation of the beauty of the event.  For a second, my mind drifts and I wonder if sailors and pirates of an ancient time also watched such sunsets with the same level of wonderment as my family and friends are currently doing.

The beach is tiered so that it look almost like two massively long sand bar steps to the ocean.  I sit on the layer that is only one step above the ocean by a few feet.  The beach texture is course because of all the flakes from partial seashells lying around everywhere.  It’s not the white pretty sands of Clearwater, but still pretty nice all the same.

I would like to say that it’s just my family and friends watching the sunset, but the beach has a fairly decent crowd all watching the same magical sunset.  In many ways it reminds me of the New Year’s ball falling at midnight to start the new year.  Surprisingly, the sun submerges below the horizon line in the far off distance quite quickly, much quicker than I anticipated.  The sunset spectators at the beach clap and cheer as if they were applauding after the Fourth of July grand finale fireworks display.

The most notable features of the sunset is the way the golden colors from the sunset rays dance on the tops of tiny waves in a line directly from me to the sun doing down.  I looks to the left and notice the dark tiny wave tops and think how cool the bright rays might looks as a contrast.  It’s quite striking!  The overall lighting is on the edge of twilight and I can now imagine how sailors could see manatees off in the distance and think that their silhouettes (especially young manatees) look like the outlining shapes of mermaids.

It’s funny how our minds drift while on vacation and we appreciate the simple events in life.  I guess this is what they mean by the saying “Stop to smell the roses”…

Having fun,

MR