Friday, April 16, 2004
Delta Airlines has a new low-fare carrier called SONG which we flew back on from Ft. Meyers. Non-alcoholic drinks and entertainment are complimentary but everything else has a price tag. Want lunch? That will be four dollars please. Their in-flight entertainment system is quite smart. Installed at every seat, the system has 24 channels of live satellite television, 24 channels of music and an interactive trivia game on a monitor installed in the back of each seat. Remnants of thunderstorms made our flight a very bumpy one and I must say that even FOX News is comfortingly distracting when the low-budget flight attendants have just told you that heavy, heavy turbulence will be preventing them from getting up from their seats to collect empty cups from your tray, and by the way, would the people sitting near the emergency exits please make sure that nothing is blocking the door...
Sanibel Island is Bush/Cheney country. Thankfully the garlands of garlic warded off the ill effects so many Republicans were having on my otherwise blissful vacation.This Republican stronghold called Sanibel boasts miles upon miles of white sandy beaches bespeckled with trophy seashells for the taking. To add to our growing collection at home, we brought back a small fig shell, pear whelks, whelks, juvenile horse conchs, fighting conchs, and a turkey wing. Most beachcombers had buckets of seashells and if they were all to be carted back home, I did the math and figured that the beaches of Sanibel must lose approximately 7 tons of shells a year!
Sanibel's three-thousand-acres-plus of the J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge is home to a host of endangered species who thrive in the estuarine habitat. The part open to the public is about a three-and-a-half stretch that can be accessed by foot, bicycle, or car. Why one would want to drive through I have no idea. I think people are under the mistaken assumption that the refuge is going to be like a Disney ride and that alligators are going to waddle across the rode in front of them on cue, stop to be photographed, before slithering back into the mud flats on the other side; snakes will drop from a low-hanging branch just as the mini-van drives beneath it; a bald eagle will swoop over the water, a pike in its talons, just as an American crocodile emerges onto the sandy water's edge for its afternoon sunning. No wonder the park's visitors look so bored as they exit the refuge. They haven't seen or heard much of anything. No, one must walk through the refuge to appreciate all that it has to offer. Even biking one misses out on the quiet goings-on of the habitat. Over the course of our two-hour walk we saw two eastern indigo snakes, three American alligators, one American crocodile, a loggerhead turtle, a wild raccoon (about half the size of its trash-fed, fat suburban cousins), lizards galore, roseate spoonbills, the white ibis, great egrets, snowy egrets, blue herons, pelicans, cormorants, ospreys and as a special treat, a blue bunting.
We are all very suntanned now. My good friend at the State House commented that I finally look like I am supposed to look, meaning that I am more often tan as I am pale. "And I see you wore a light blouse to show off your tan today," she said. "Damn straight," I replied. "If I'm going to risk skin cancer and premature aging, I'm going to at least look good the few years I have left before my skin irrevocably goes down to shriveldom!"
Couple of random notes. How brilliant is MacDonald’s? First they make ka-zillions making people fat. Now they are going to make ka-zillions getting them slimmer again. Did anyone notice that in the President's speech the other night DEMOCRACY was never mentioned as something we were trying to bring Iraqis anymore? Guess they've finally realized that might be far-fetched. And how about Apple's reported earnings this quarter? Go iPods!
Sanibel Island is Bush/Cheney country. Thankfully the garlands of garlic warded off the ill effects so many Republicans were having on my otherwise blissful vacation.This Republican stronghold called Sanibel boasts miles upon miles of white sandy beaches bespeckled with trophy seashells for the taking. To add to our growing collection at home, we brought back a small fig shell, pear whelks, whelks, juvenile horse conchs, fighting conchs, and a turkey wing. Most beachcombers had buckets of seashells and if they were all to be carted back home, I did the math and figured that the beaches of Sanibel must lose approximately 7 tons of shells a year!
Sanibel's three-thousand-acres-plus of the J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge is home to a host of endangered species who thrive in the estuarine habitat. The part open to the public is about a three-and-a-half stretch that can be accessed by foot, bicycle, or car. Why one would want to drive through I have no idea. I think people are under the mistaken assumption that the refuge is going to be like a Disney ride and that alligators are going to waddle across the rode in front of them on cue, stop to be photographed, before slithering back into the mud flats on the other side; snakes will drop from a low-hanging branch just as the mini-van drives beneath it; a bald eagle will swoop over the water, a pike in its talons, just as an American crocodile emerges onto the sandy water's edge for its afternoon sunning. No wonder the park's visitors look so bored as they exit the refuge. They haven't seen or heard much of anything. No, one must walk through the refuge to appreciate all that it has to offer. Even biking one misses out on the quiet goings-on of the habitat. Over the course of our two-hour walk we saw two eastern indigo snakes, three American alligators, one American crocodile, a loggerhead turtle, a wild raccoon (about half the size of its trash-fed, fat suburban cousins), lizards galore, roseate spoonbills, the white ibis, great egrets, snowy egrets, blue herons, pelicans, cormorants, ospreys and as a special treat, a blue bunting.
We are all very suntanned now. My good friend at the State House commented that I finally look like I am supposed to look, meaning that I am more often tan as I am pale. "And I see you wore a light blouse to show off your tan today," she said. "Damn straight," I replied. "If I'm going to risk skin cancer and premature aging, I'm going to at least look good the few years I have left before my skin irrevocably goes down to shriveldom!"
Couple of random notes. How brilliant is MacDonald’s? First they make ka-zillions making people fat. Now they are going to make ka-zillions getting them slimmer again. Did anyone notice that in the President's speech the other night DEMOCRACY was never mentioned as something we were trying to bring Iraqis anymore? Guess they've finally realized that might be far-fetched. And how about Apple's reported earnings this quarter? Go iPods!
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