The popping of the Naples season balloon

In Naples this week. Are you keeping up? I am...barely. Every day brings a quieter town as the mass exodus continues. We'll join it in two weeks going back to Star Mt., however we're coming back in late May/June during Mark's post shoulder surgery recooperation. Gotta make sure he can function before I go back to Star Mt. for the rest of the summer.

My classes have all gone away except for yoga, and that stops for the summer soon. The last meeting until fall of the newly formed Southwest Florida Watercolor Society happens next week (the first for me as a new member) with a demonstration by a talented artist, one of those with all those designations after her name. Sure I will learn something, if only that I've got a long way to go.

The beach called and I went. Started off with nary a soul but there are still enough visitors around as it filled up nicely by the time I left. The weather has been mild and beautiful, Star Mt. not so much, I heard we had hail with rain snow mix. It's still that mystery weather time of year there. Early elk sighting from our neighbor. Now that's exciting...

What are these ugly ducks going to do when we leave? Mark will step back into Naples every once in a while but right now these two show up every morning waiting for their bread breakfast. They wander by periodically during the day just in case we've forgotten and might feed them again. They make absolutely no noise which is a darn good thing, squawking at all hours would not be appreciated.

I have a lot to take back to Star Mt.and somehow Mark doesn't. We also need to send back a care package full of products that we can't get easily back in Star Mt. land. What's going in this care package you ask? Batali pasta, (I talked about this in a previous post - we're hooked), Trader Joe's virgin organic coconut oil (yes, I'm buying into all the hype about the health benefits of this stuff), and Montmorency dried cherries as a start. That's the trade off being in the mountainous paradise that is so pristine with far more wildlife than people. The town or towns I should say are too small to warrant national chains (WalMart being the only one). There's not even a regular drugstore, there are however plenty of marijuana stores - now in both Crested Butte and Gunnison. Pain prescriptions are down 25% in the state. Interesting info...

cuties

We've just returned from our third movie in as many weeks. Hello, My Name is Doris (Sally Field). We were going for comedy as I don't think I've recovered even now from the terrorist violent previous movies. So, my review is good, weird, comedy of a sort,poignant and Sally Field was great. But the trailers, again, led us astray. Not a laugh a minute movie. Very brave to play an older kooky, hoarder, solitary sort of woman. Why, you ask? Case in point, two women in front of us exiting the theater could be heard discussing how "isn't Sally Field dead?" Nope, 69, gorgeous, vibrant, and keeping on. I'm a long time fan...