Swamps and Art

Last weekend we spent Saturday afternoon taking a 2.5 mile walk through the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. This area is under the supervision of The Audubon Society. There is a very nice boardwalk system that allows you to get up close and personal to flora and fauna. Sometimes too close (see water moccasin picture later). We saw a couple of alligators, a deer, a hawk, an owl and a great variety of other birds. This area is a gathering place for those who actually know about birds. We saw many people with giant lenses on their cameras taking pictures and identifying the birds.

On Sunday, we attended the Bonita Springs Art Festival. This is the second festival. They held another one in January, but we missed that one. We were surprised by both the number of artists and the number of visitors. Many of the artists were from Florida, but some came from the New England area, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, etc. It was a beautiful day to be outdoors. We finished the afternoon by having dinner at The Silver Spoon, a nearby bistro.



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It will be a busy musical week for me. Tomorrow, rehearsal for Friday's IBE show. I'm sing with the choir for four songs, doing two with the barbershop quartet and two more with the guitar trio that came from our jam sessions. Wednesday is the regular jam session. On Thursday, Sue and I travel to Upriver RV Resort, where we stayed during the 2008 and 2009 winters. My friend Gator asked me to play and sing again with their musicians for the afternoon "Upheaval" picnic. On Friday is the "Choir and Friends show here at IBE. It will feature the choir and eight others acts. Finally, the choir is singing two songs at the Sunday evening church service. It's no problem to keep my singing voice in shape for when we get home.

Speaking of home, we plan to start back to Ohio on Monday, April 5th. We will stop in Cincinnati on 4/9 to spend the weekend with Kris and Mark, and then go back to Kent on Monday, 4/12. My quartet has a gig on 4/15. We are singing The National Anthem at the home opener of the Akron Aeros baseball team (Indian's AA affiliate).