Show and Tell

Since Cory decided to share some pictures with you last week, I'm going to do the same.
Ready?
Here goes.

First, an explanation. There are 27 pages of real estate listings in the Ft. Myers/Cape Coral yellow pages. You know how in the South, it seems like there's a Waffle House on every corner (for my Northern friends, think Tim Horton's in Canada). That's how ubiquitous realtors are here. Every strip mall, every city block, every office building, has at least one. This particular realty company has found a way to set themselves apart from the competition. A Real Estate Hooptie*.

*By the way, I looked up the spelling of "Hooptie" in the Urban Dictionary, a book I gave Cory for Christmas.

Speaking of advertising, I spotted this bus at a stop in Cape Coral the other day. That's my station! By the way, in true television news tradition, two of the four people pictured on the bus no longer work there. In all fairness, they both left in the last few weeks. One got a job in Indianapolis, the other left the business to go to nursing school.



Cory and I were stressed as hell during our move. Zoe did not share the sentiment. She sat in that spot on the dashboard for about ten of the twelve hours we were on the road, taking occasional side trips to sit in one lap or the other. She did, however, freak us out when we got to the apartment. We couldn't find her, and were starting to worry that she'd somehow gotten out of the U-Haul when we stopped at the realtors office. Panic doesn't even begin to describe our state of mind. Eventually, we discovered that she had cornered herself in a little crevasse behind one of the seats in the cab of the truck. We couldn't see her, and could barely reach her. It took about ten minutes to get her out of there.


Zoe misses her friends back in Columbus. She's been waiting by the phone.


It was kind of cloudy yesterday, so this picture didn't turn out quite as nicely as I had hoped. This is a little roadside park that's on my drive to work. On a nice day, there are dozens of boats on the river, and it's really beautiful


A Florida sunset, shot at the same roadside park.


One of the first things you see when you enter Manatee Park in Ft. Myers is this sign.
Don't harass the manatees. Seriously. They'll sue your ass.

By the way, do you think "harassing" the manatees includes calling them "sea cows?"

There's a little lagoon on the Orange River where the manatees like to hang out. You can only make out about ten manatees in the water, but there were probably 30-40 in this little cove. They float just below the surface, and the water in this spot is pretty shallow (maybe 6-7 feet at the deepest). We visited Manatee Park on a cold morning (at least, cold by Florida standards). The manatees often spend chilly nights in this spot because the water is very warm. There's a power plant just up the river. (Interestingly, the "captain" at Manatee World told us that the power plant is only allowed to operate because of the Manatee Protection act. When the plant changed its process a few years back, it ceased pumping warm water into the river. They had to install a heater that would produce warm water on its own so that they could continue operating in that location.)


Eat your heart out, Hayley... Despite the fact that the manatees are very close to the surface of the water, you don't get to see much of them. Mostly you see the top of their backs, and that's about it (Cory posted a photo in which you can see a manatee's propeller scars on its back). Anyway, unless they're in the mood to show off, the best look you get is when they poke their noses up for air. This is a pair of manatee noses... not an easy picture to take. They only put their noses up for a couple seconds, and if you have a digital camera, you know that there's a serious delay between the time you press the button and the time that the camera actually takes the picture. It's all in the timing.