Peace River Fossiling

This was a bucket list event- floating down the Peace River and finding prehistoric sharks teeth and other cool animal bones!

A group of us rented canoes and sifting gear and explored.

First, you use a shovel to dig up the sediment. Then you dump it into a floating sieve and shake it like a Polaroid picture!

Different size sieves find different things- I found this macaroni colander to be the best type for finding sharks teeth.

Overall, our cache was pretty impressive! 8 hours on the water and 12 miles later, I took home some cool finds. Extinct dugong bones and prehistoric horses and giant armadillo make up most of the large pieces below.

Someone in my group found two huge megalodon teeth- they can fetch quite a sum!

 

Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve 5k

I was just getting over my bout with H1-N1, which was dubbed the Rookery Flu, since 1/3 of my office was home sick. This was my first race back- and it was tough! But gorgeous scenery- it's really a spectacular place, out there in the Everglades.

Memphis

I traveled to a conference in Memphis- home of Graceland! I wasn't able to visit it, but there was Elvis memorabilia around every turn. Besides being in the freezing temperatures, the city was really neat. This photo was taken at Stax Records, a big label from back in the day of Otis Redding. I learned a lot at the museum!

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Gasparilla Island 5k

This was the hardest 5k yet! The course was on the sand from one lighthouse to the other, and back. It was sunset and so, so, SO hot!

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Collier County Fair

I grew up going to fairs- lots of them. But the fair in Naples is very different! Take a look at those cabbages!

People-watching is good at any fair, but this was paramount! Check out those boots!

Then there was a carney selling tickets to see "Black Jack" the giant cow, for a $1.00. The sign made us pretty curious.

And there he was, huge as ever. He weighed over 3,000 pounds! But he just sat there, with a sad look on his face.

The sign said he's very spoiled, but he looked like he might charge right through the fence and beeline to the agricultural tent for some of that giant produce!

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One, big, happy family!

Such an interesting menagerie at my household! I couldn't have hand-picked better pets! Otis is so glad that Rosy is here, especially when it's pest control day, and they get to share a box inside.  And Bumble and Sheba think Maverick is King of the Castle. He likes it that way.




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Rodeo!

 

I now understand the saying this isn't my first rodeo. What an experience!

This is the same rodeo that Grandpa Beck used to visit when he wintered in Florida- pretty neat.

It was really interesting to see all of the different events. The bull riding was cool.

Some of the activities were hard to watch. I kept thinking they were hurting the animals and then when they were thrown off, I thought for sure the cowboy had broken his neck.  Then they turned the children loose with the calves- it was some strange stampede I didn't quite understand.

We thoroughly enjoyed the cold beer and people watching!

It was a fun way to end the day after a rugged 5k race earlier that morning!

Like we told the newspaper reporter... We run for beer :)

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