Sand Sculpture Festival

Nov 4^th


A beautiful day dawns over Paradise Coast as the kids clamor to go out for their morning constitutional. Rolling over to look at the clock – it’s 7:00 am, and suddenly a warm, wet, fuzzy face is peering at me as if to say, “Wakey, Wakey!” No, it wasn’t my good buddy Don, it was Wicket... and Punky was getting Tina awake, heh, heh (inside joke).

Needless to say we promptly leaped out of bed and staggered to the bathroom, quickly followed by the kids looking for their leashes or breakfast, either one. After our eyes were finally open and pills swallowed, teeth brushed, etc., I pulled on my shorts and tank top, leashed up the dogs and led them out for a quick run.

After they had their constitutional and everyone ate breakfast, Tina and I headed for the car to start our day. Our first stop was the Comcast office – our third time in four days. Let me back up a bit. When we moved in we had very basic cable (17 channels) but our HOA pays for the next level up which gives you 99 channels. Since we wanted HD as well (only $13/mo), we called Comcast and they said to stop by their office and they’d give us a couple of boxes we could install ourselves.

So we drove out to their office the next afternoon (trip 1) and the place was packed, so we decided to come back the following morning when they opened. We did that, getting there five minutes before they opened (trip 2) we found a line 20 people long. Our turn came though and we got to the counter to find that the “cable boxes’ we needed weren’t available but they could have an installer come out on Friday to get everything set up.

The Comcast Cable Box is just below the TV

Yesterday a Comcast installer came out in the afternoon and after setting up the cable boxes and connecting everything, tried testing the system and couldn’t get it to work. He claimed there was an equipment problem at the sending end, told us he would get us a welcome package from his truck, went out the door and we never saw him again. Tina spent several hours on the phone with Comcast support trying to get the cable box to work – they concluded we had a faulty “Remote Control” and suggested coming in for a new one.

Thus today’s trip. Fortunately we had a whole day of activities planned so this was just our first stop. This time we arrived 15 minutes early and the line was about 30 people long. Finally they opened the door and told us to go directly to the counter to get a replacement remote. Yippeee! A break. We got the remote and headed for our next stop, JC Penney. But this is another story, heh, heh.

We have been getting a lot of small things done since we got here. Putting up mirrors, cabinets in the bathrooms, assembling furniture for the guest bedroom, etc. One item was drapes for the living room and dining room. We found what we wanted at JC Penney’s in Naples  and bought drapes and rods for both rooms. Bringing our purchases home we plugged holes and painted our repair work. 

The missing panel in our drapes covering the sliding glass doors which lead out to the lanai

After the paint dried Tina measured and I installed the rods. Once that was done, Tina started hanging the drapes. We had five panels 84” long and one panel 94” long. Calling the sales lady at Penny’s we found out they were all out but she’d call around and see what she could find and call us back. Well she found a set of drapes but they were at the Estero Store, 30 miles away. We agreed to go pick them up since we were going to Ft Myers Beach.

Stop two. We got to Penney’s and found the drapery department right away. Explaining the situation the clerk went and found the replacement panel with our name on it. Ooooops! It was the wrong style and color. Dang! Finally a sales manager came to our rescue and after searching through their entire stock found what we needed on hold for somebody else. Since we were there she gave us the one we needed and also gave us a discount on our original order – finally something is going right for a change – heheheh!

Heading for the beach at the Gull Wing Beach Resort

Leaving Estero we got back on I-75 south and drove ten miles back to the Bonita Springs exit. Getting off the freeway we drove through the sprawling city of Bonita Springs and out to Lovers Key State Park. There was a large grassy field across the road from the park and the local boy scout troop was directing cars to parking. Once we got parked we walked back to the entrance and boarded a large tour bus for the ten minute ride to Ft Myers Beach and the Gull Wing Beach Resort where the festival was being held (http://sandsculptingfestival.com/).

All the vendor booths

Getting off the bus at the entrance to the resort we walked past a line of food vendors and out onto the beach. What a beautiful setting! A bright blue sky, white sand, vendor tents and the Sand Sculpting area roped off with an entrance and exit. We bout our five dollar tickets, got out wrist bands and went into the artist area. 

Cinderellas Castle under construction by the"Amazin" Walter McDonald

What amazing talent!

 I’m only putting a couple of photos here on the blog, the rest will be on our photo album page (http://picasaweb.google.com/mjdolanski).

Pretty impressive!

We wandered around for an hour watching the artists work, then went out to the vendor area to walk around and admire all the crafts available. Tina found a small silver dragonfly so she scored – heh, heh! By now it’s after noon so we headed out towards the bus, stopping to get a couple of huge polish dogs for lunch followed by a small ice cream cone. It was a quick trip back to the car and then we were headed back towards Naples.

Stop three of the day was actually a whole series of stops at furniture stores, thrift stores and consignment stores looking for a chest of drawers for Tina. It has to fit a spot exactly so we need to find something that had specific dimensions – only 36” wide and 42” tall – exactly. Not easy to do. By 3 o’clock we located one dresser and only one at our eighth and last stop. It would work, it looked nice but it was not very high quality, so we left it and decided to head home.

Arriving back at the condo we took the kids out for a long awaited walk then Tina got started on trying to get the remote to work. Remember the remote? The one Comcast said needed replacing? Well, it didn’t work. So Tina went back on the phone to Comcast Support. After nearly an hour of waiting on hold and then working with the tech, Comcast said they’d remotely reset the cable box and within an hour everything should be working. Right…

After dinner, after checking to see if the box had been reset, Tina called Comcast again. Another frustrating hour and the support people finally through in the towel and agreed to send out a tech person, on Monday, sometime between 7 and 10 am. We’ll see. This saga is to be continued.

On a lighter note, we are almost finished with getting everything set up in the condo, we’ve started our workout routines in the gym and on alternating mornings we are going for bike rides to get back in shape. We expect to be comfortable riding to the beach within a couple of weeks. In the mean time we’re enjoying the nice (warm) weather and planning lots of things to do.

Signing off for now.