About Time to Update!!!

We have been staying busy over the last several months. My 98 year old aunt has had some physical issues which have meant weekly or twice weekly visits to the doctor. None of the issues have been serious, but she wants to go to the doctor for anything, no matter how minor.

We have also been riding our bikes on a regular basis. We have put over 500 miles on them since we got them the beginning of June. This past week, we've been putting the bikes up on the car and driving south to Venice to bike a "Rails to Trails" trail. It's an abandoned CSX railroad line and is now a wonderful bike trail. There is also a trail along the Venice Waterway which is beautiful. It is so nice to bike along the trail and not have to worry about traffic! We've been riding quite a bit around home also. We have a new nature preserve about 1-1/2 miles from our home that is wonderful to bike through. In the preserve is a 56 foot tall tower that overlooks the preserve and adjacent waterways. It is wonderful to climb up to the top (81 stairs which I'm now able to climb thanks to my new knees) and watch fish jumping and birds feeding.

We were out on our patio the other day and a bird flew over us. It was large and I was pretty sure it was a bald eagle. It landed on the bank of the pond immediately behind the house and we looked and sure enough it was a bald eagle! We wanted to get a picture but of course it flew away before we could. It was majestic! We've also had many ospreys fly over and several times have seen them with fish in their talons. One of the things we love about living where we do is the wildlife we see.

Above I mentioned biking in Venice. One of the parks along the bikeway is Caspersen Beach Park. Yesterday as we were biking across a bridge heading out to the gulf, we saw a bobcat not more than 10 feet away sharing the bridge with us! Unfortunately, neither of us had a camera with us,