We had a nice day checking out Marco Island, the Naples Pier and downtown, and finishing with a nice evening at the Naples Beach Brewery.
It was pretty wet outside in the morning. It rained quite good last night, at least there was one big downpour that woke me up it was so loud. The temperature was a bit cooler too, at 72F, rather than what it was yesterday at this same time at 81F. Most of the morning and early afternoon we had crappy weather, and it was raining even as we got out for the day, opening up to a nice day at the end of the day.
The girls were up before I woke them up again, so they had breakfast and spent some time watching videos on their computers. Just before 9 I had them stop and get going with school, which they did. Bella had a good day again, got all her stuff done on her own, and when I checked it all later she only had one thing left. Bia had a normal day, and when she was done with her last live class we left for our adventures.
I was able to get a good amount of writing done and am all caught up. I went for a run as well, and had a good run without interruptions. Only had to stop once to cross a road with some traffic. I had two work calls and some work emails to do, and overall had a great busy morning.
Carol took care of laundry, made lunch and dinner ahead of schedule, and also went out for some grocery shopping. She took care of some paperwork for her parents as well, and helped the girls as needed while I was out or on calls. She’s all caught up with laundry, and ahead with dinner.
After we had lunch, we just waited for Bia’s last class to be done then we left. The plan was to just go see some places as it was still raining, so we didn’t even bring much as in change of clothes or anything. We did bring towels though, in case we got wet like yesterday when we were soaked in the rain.
Our first stop was Marco Island, which is just a few miles south of where we are. As we drove in, the entire area is very nice. Pretty houses and buildings, lots of houses on the water, with a lot of canals coming in, lots of boats, etc. We stopped at Tigertail Beach and walked around. That is a very cool area, with some interesting sand that felt like molding sand. There’s a canal, and right after that there is a beach. To get to the beach you can walk to either direction, or cross the canal into the little island to reach the beach front right there. There are lots of shells in that area as well. As we arrived, there was a lady coming back from the island over the canal, she was crossing through the water and it was just below her chest so pretty shallow. We didn’t come ready for that, and it was drizzling still, so we just walked around the sand. That is for sure a spot we’d come back for a day, if we had another day. The canals would be great for the paddleboard, and the beach front would be nice for enjoying some water, getting shells, etc. Bella had collected a few shells and was ready to return to the truck, so her and I went back while Carol and Bia checked out some bird. They were both back soon after and we left to our next stop. We drove around Marco Island a bit and then followed on towards Naples Pier.
On the way to Naples Pier, we stopped at Tin City. That is a nice little spot with shops inside tin buildings, and they are all next to a canal. We found a spot to Park and Walk, and checked out the stores. Carol had said we could only go check out a brewery if we went to Tin City, so I made sure it was on our way :). There are a bunch of cool little shops in there, with the usual touristy stuff. Carol and the girls ended up spending some time at a magic shop and Carol got some stuff for the girls. Apparently she didn’t get what Bella wanted and she was upset for a while from there, at least until we got to our next stop. From there, we drove towards the pier.
Driving around downtown Naples is nice, everything is very pretty, all the grass and streets are immaculate. It is such a pretty town.
We made a stop to check out a beach entrance before we got to the pier, and it was nice. Super nice sand, very clean, lots of space.
We parked by the pier at their parking lot, paid $1.50 for 30 minutes and walked to the Pier. Right then, the weather changed and it was nice and sunny with a breeze. The pier was filling up as we were walking in, and there were people at the beach. The beach is very nice too. Nice and clean, fine and white sand. The waves were a bit strong yet from the storm though. We walked in towards the end of the pier, and there were people fishing, so lots of birds and big pelicans around. It was cool to see all the birds flying around, and diving to the water once they saw fish, or someone threw a fish or pieces of fish they just cut up. A little over half way, as we walked in, a guy had just caught a catfish. It was a good 2 feet or so, and looked like a little shark. As he had it on the pier, people started gathering around to see it. Someone made a comment that this one was tough, and he should be careful not to touch it. hahahahah… he was an older gentlemen, maybe in his 70s, and he just smiled and kept going. He held the fish down with one hand, and sliced it in half, right there. Bam! Well, that did not go well with Bella. She was crushed and crying. We watched the birds and the view a bit longer, then I started walking back with Bella. She was very upset and said she will no longer eat fish. She could not believe someone would do that to a fish like that. And she started talking about maybe going Vegan. Oh boy… she’s not even 10 and she’s already thinking about that. Her and I walked to the truck. I took some good pictures from the pier, the beach and the birds. Soon after, Carol and Bia were back, right in time for our parking to expire. We then left towards Naples Beach Brewery.
Naples Beach Brewery is not far from the pier, and is in a more industrial area. It is one of the many buildings in this park. It’s a nice spot, very relaxed. As soon as we walked in, the girls saw they had games, so they picked one up for us to play. They got the Cheaters version of Monopoly. hahahahaha…. I grabbed beers for Carol and I, the girls got sodas and we started playing. It was really fun. We started all following the rules at first, but later Carol and I were cheating, sometimes we got caught, sometimes we didn’t… it was funny. I took a property from Bia and she didn’t notice for a few rounds, then she noticed exactly which one she was missing, and I found a way to make it reappear next to her cards without anyone noticing. Hahahahah…. Carol was paying herself $500s from the bank. The only one not really doing any of that was Bella. But we were all having fun and we had a great time there. We were only going to stay for 45-60 minutes and ended up there for almost 2 hours. We left almost at 8, and I’m glad we had dinner ready at home, otherwise it’d be a late night. As always, we had a great time at a brewery.
From there, we drove home, had dinner, showers, and all got ready for bed. We put the girls in bed and I looked for some tickets for Bia’s birthday next week, she wanted to go to Magic Kingdom, but it’s all booked. They are doing reservations right now with limited capacity, and are all booked, so we are switching to Universal Studios. We’ll buy it tomorrow.
We had an awesome day checking out Marco Island, stopping at Tin City, visiting downtown Naples and the Naples Pier, and wrapping the evening at Naples Beach Brewery.