A Sanibel Sabbatical

Lita and I met nearly four years ago on Sanibel and she had yet to return. I wanted her to experience "my Sanibel" which included lots of shelling, bike-riding, picture-taking, a visit to my favorite antique store in the world and of course, lots and lots of eating! We had such a fun time! It was a great way to end the summer!

Our first stop was The Island Cow restaurant where we had a delicious lunch.

Lita at Island Cow

Lens: Helga Viking

Film: Ina's 1969

I ordered "Frickles" which is a version of fried pickles. They were a little salty for Lita but I gobbled them up!

A Basket of Frickles

Lens: Roboto Glitter

Film: Kodot XGrizzled

After lunch we headed out to Tarpon Bay for some shelling. It was a beautiful day with lots of gorgeous scenery! Irene had passed by just a couple of days before and she left behind some great clouds!

 Cloud at Tarpon Bay

 Ruddy Turnstone

Turtle & Wildflowers

Double Take

We then headed over to do a bit more shelling on Bowman's Beach while waiting for the sunset. We nearly missed it and we were eaten alive by mosquito's and no-see-ums. But, sunsets are always worth the bites. :)

Boardwalk to Bowman's
Lens: John S
Film: Kodot XGrizzled 

Driftwood with Shadows

Lens: John S

Film: Kodot XGrizzled

Lita and I were running to the car to grab our tripods when we realized the sun was setting quickly. My toe was killing me and I looked down and it was all bloody and skin was ripped off. I quickly put a band-aid on and we ran like the wind back to the beach to catch the sunset. This is just one of a gazillion that I took!

Sunset at Sanibel

Once the sun had set we had so much adrenaline that we just decided on the spur of the moment to take some self portraits while jumping in the sea. It's not easy to jump in the sand while waves are hitting you. Lita was having trouble figuring out my cable release for the shutter so I had to jump a whole lot more than she did! I was exhausted afterwards! :) Here are our best jumps:

 Laura

Lita (she had great form!)

Laura as an X, marks the spot. :)

Day two started with self portraits in a hammock at our hotel. We were getting bitten by no-see-ums once again so it was a quick shoot before heading out to have breakfast at Over Easy Cafe. Lita and I shared a yummy chocolate chip pancake and I had tons of coffee. After all, we were planning a bike ride in high heat and humidity. I was going to need lots of energy!

Summer 2011

Over Easy Cafe

Lens: Buckhorst H1

Film: Ina's 1969

After our yummy breakfast, we headed back to the hotel to change clothes and rent bicycles. We rode for a couple of hours, stopping whenever we found a photo op. 

Swing time!

Beach Bike

Lens: John S

Film: Cano Cafenol

Sanibel Lighthouse

Taken with the Hipstamatic

Lens: Bettie XL

Film: Float

After our bike ride, I took Lita to my favorite antique store, Island Trading. I purchased an antique fan, a book from 1907 and a large photograph from the 1950's which I will share in a future post. There were lots of fun things to take pictures with using the Hipstamatic!

Cigar Store Indian

(this makes me think of the Seinfeld episode of the same title)

Lens: Melodie

Film: Float

 Green Bottles

Lens: Matty ALN

Film: Blanko

Lifesavers

Lens: Watts

Film: Ina's 1935

Natural Point

Lens: John S

Film: AO DLX

Retro Signs

Lens: Watts

Film: Big Up

Grandma Potter

Lens: John S

Film: Kodot XGrizzled

Pop Culture Reflections

Lens: Hornbecker

Film: Big Up

We ended our day, of course, in a Barnes and Noble where I finished my weekend with a couple more Hipsta shots:

Bookstore Cafe
Lens: Tejas
Film: DreamCanvas

The Reader

Lens: Roboto Glitter

Film: AO DLX

What a wonderful way for Lita and I to end our summer together...reliving memories of the first time we met when we bonded over our love of nature and photography. Here's to another year of priceless friendship!

Nikons with Hat

Worldwide Photowalk Day 2010

For today's Creative Saturday, Lita and I got up early (4:30am!) to head to Hollywood Beach to participate in Worldwide Photowalk Day 2010. After a few sunrise shots and a group photo, everyone headed off to do their own thing and Lita and I strolled down the boardwalk to find interesting and odd things to shoot. Here are a few of my favorites from the morning:

Sunrise on Hollywood Beach

Mod Shadow Girls

Beach Pairs

Yellow and Blue

The walk was suppose to be from 7am until 11am when the group would then meet at a restaurant for lunch. However, after two hours of walking around in the sun and humidity, I began to get heat stroke so we decided to go to cool off in Barnes and Noble until it was time to meet for lunch. As is typical whenever Lita and I end up at Barnes and Noble, we lost track of time and missed the lunch get-together so we went to Friday's for lunch instead.

Lita at Friday's, snapping pics of pics on the wall. :)

After refueling, we headed over to Home Depot to get paint chips to use in a future Exploration task as well as Michaels where Lita purchased some watercolors and I got some decorative paper. All in all, it was another inspiring and creative day!

Into Another Year Goes She

Sunday was the birthday of my creative soulmate, the beautiful Lita!
We celebrated by taking a quick day trip over to Marco Island. Neither of us had been before and we were excited to see what adventures we would find. Now, we usually don't go with map or plan, just get there and see what happens! We headed to the islands South Beach first and took a few shots of the beautiful white sandy beaches.

South Beach, Marco Island

Sea Oats

Although not as many shells as Sanibel, there were some nice finds like jingles, clams and cone shells.  Birthday Girl collected the nice round flat jingles to use in future crafting.

Sand Shark!!

Laughing Gull who is not laughing over the catastrophe happening in the Gulf of Mexico which is now affecting Florida's shorelines. 

Of course we had to do some shadow shots on the beach.

After a short time on South Beach we headed over to Tigertail Beach. As we were walking down the boardwalk towards the beach a guy leaving said to us "There's nothing down there to shoot". I loved Birthday Girl's response which was "it's subjective" which is true as we can always find something to shoot. We continued walking and came across a playground. Birthday Girl gets motion sickness easily so I was the one who got to fly through the air and pretend I was seven years old again!  What fun!

When we made it to Tigertail beach the first thing we saw was an Osprey who flew right over us with a catfish in his grasp and landed on a tall post. We quickly hurried over and snapped several shots of this beautiful bird of prey.

Once this raptor began drawing blood, it was time for us to move onward. We met a Londoner named Tiki Tony and he told us how to get over to the Gulf of Mexico which involved crossing the lagoon. We were a bit nervous, afraid of falling with our camera equipment but we love being adventurous so we carefully made our way over to the west side of the lagoon.

We laughed and giggled the whole way over...feeling the soft, slightly slimy seaweed under our feet.

Almost there birthday girl!  I love your adventurous spirit!

When we finally made it over to the other side we walked down a path that had tons of cute little crabs running in and out of the brush. The sound they made when they all started moving at the same time was like a stadium full of people all clicking their fingernails together.  It was quite the symphony!

The lagoons at Tigertail beach were stunning. It was a beautiful area teeming with life, like this little stretch here that had silky seaweed to hide the silvery minnows darting about:

Adding to the experience, I became one with the seaweed.

After our morning on the beaches, we had a wonderful lunch at NeNe's cafe followed up by a visit to a little chocolate shop where we met another Englishman, this one from Birmingham and where we discovered a Lita doll! It was this little plush doll that looked just like her! Of course I had to get it for the Birthday Girl and once she posts a picture of it on her blog, I will link it here so you all can see this little Lita lookalike! 

We wanted to do the trails at Rookery Bay in the afternoon but for some crazy reason they have the trails closed on the weekend. We then headed back over Alligator Ally to our local Barnes and Noble where we went a little nuts and bought magazines, a book on writing and a huge book on Pinups. Birthday girl and I are already getting inspired from it and have some digital ideas that we will be creating in the coming months. The Birthday Girl also picked up a great book called "How To Be An Explorer of the World" and it has tasks that get you more involved and in touch with the world around you.  This week we will be starting the tasks together and blogging about our explorations:

As Birthday Girl says goodbye to another year, our day together reminded us both that you can grow older without growing up. Keeping that spirit young and adventurous is important to longevity.

So, as she leaves one year behind and steps into another, she will keep her heart light and full of love and nurture her soul with creativity and child-like laughter and her loved ones will benefit from her joys! xoxo