Wednesday, March 16, Day 12, Port Charlotte

The day started out with breakfast at the hotel but a different twist. Instead of a bacon/sausage meat there was white meat chicken. Not sure any less calories as it was breaded.

On the way to the muscle car exhibit a Jensen passed us, what a throaty sound to the engine.

It is time for a visit to Muscle Car City in Punta Gorda – a place told to me by my mechanic in Mankato, old time friend from New Ulm – Tom Z. we pull up to an old what looks like Kmart building or something similar. This is a persons personal collection of over 200 cars.

Open the door to it and there site a 54 Corvette and one from each year thru 1974, a ZR1 2010,

Camaro’s, Chevelle’s, Pontiac GTO’s, some hot rods

This is a rare Chevy hot rod.

– a 40’s Willy’s like the one's I loved to watch in the early 60's in California and a Gypsy wagon someone built.

That would be neat to travel in a 34 Chevy truck bed. Gas pumps, signs, Coke memorabilia and more I can’t remember. A great walk thru was had by both.

Even a 61 Pontiac, not like my 61 white Catalina convertible I had in Hawaii but reminiscent, like Shirleen said, ‘what lines’.

Out to Fishermen’s Village on the pier in Punta Gorda for lunch. We sat looking into the blue waters of the bay at The Village Oyster Bar, watching boats of all sizes come in to port on high tide while we were eating Shirleen’s blackened fish sandwich – fish was grouper like but a farm raised fish; I the breaded oysters with crispy fries – great fries. The oysters were good but not up to the St. Pete’s I had. The coleslaw was a vinegar/sugar dressing like the Kaiserhoff but a little sweeter. We walk thru a couple stores with expensive clothing, neat south Florida items for your house decoration but out of place in southern MN. There was a Navy guy sitting with a T-shirt that said he was a sub sailor, I stopped by and mentioned I was on Tecumseh and Blackfin, he knew someone on it 2 years b4 I was on it. He was on an old diesel boat and four nuclear boats, must have been a lifer. There was a military heritage museum at the end of the pier – Village. I shy away from these but entered this one. They had many uniforms, battle equipment and an interesting piece. The old guy who greeted us ask Shirleen to follow him and lift an item,

it was a piece of hull from the nuclear boat SSBN 609 USS Sam Houston, 19 boats b4 the T-cup (Tecumseh). Looked like 1.75 inch hull.

We noticed a wildlife area three miles away. Let’s take a look! Drove to the area, of course I took the right turn, wrong, should have made a left turn. The speed limit at the park gate was 11 MPH.

We found a spot right at the beach front to park.

There is a pier where four or five are fishing. One of the men caught a blowfish which I missed on this picture.

He was upset about it and asked if the oriental man was around, another said no. turns out he is the only one who eats this type of fish. As I said, he was besides himself, he did not have anything to cut the line with. If I remember right, a blowfish has spines which they force out when someone would put there hand around the body. He remembered he had a finger nail clipper along, why? and not a scissor? He held it over the rail and clipped the line as it fell back into the bay. You could look down and see many types of fish swimming around. We went onto another walking path to another peir for fishing. There was a fellow at one end that asked if we saw the rabbit? He was a city worker who worked out there. He was informative for us as he pointed out the large foot and a half long vertically stripped sheephead, some other dark fish and a porpoise jumped 50 feet up channel.

One of the fella’s was launching his boat with two young boys. It slipped off the boat trailer and started to float out, the man jumped into the water after it. He grabbed the line but could only hold it still. Another guy came running over to help, he grabbed an anchor with line and launched the anchor to the boat and hauled it in. now the owner got out of the water, I am sure he was a plumber, he pants and cleavage made me think that way. The city worker pointed to a boat and said those three are fishing for crabs and maybe netting mullets.

The guy driving the boat is his electrician and when not having a job he does this as a way to make it. We then sauntered back along another path. I should mention these walk ways are docks up off the muck and undergrowth. Along the way I notice some cabbage leaves which looked out of place, looking back into the undergrowth there was the rabbit the city guy was talking about.

We walked to an area that talked about the first white killed in America at this spot by Indians. Back to the car, whoops, a C6 Grand Am Corvette parks three spots from ours. I said I want to see the auto convertible top nest itself. The color is like ours but sparkles. They exit the car and I remark how nice the C6 looks, he said is that yours looks new. No I said, another 150 miles and it will have 100,000 miles on it. I said your trip down here beat us by at least 500 miles, they were from Ontario. He and I started talking and the girls stood away and started their conversation. He loves his car and trades every other year. This car did not have a 6-speed as the rest of his did. He got the Grand Am because it is three inches wider and they can throw there golf clubs into the truck, which they can’t with a standard corvette. They are also Harley riders and have found no Vette friends and do many trips with the bikes. He mentioned he had a friend with cancer and that he had few summers if any left. They motored down here Monday morning and had intended to come earlier but her mother with Alzheimer’s disease was near death. She has not known her daughter for seven years even though she visits her each day. They said if she dies when they are down here she will fly back. They needed to talk, each of them, and found our Minnesota easy to talk with. The man was highly successful and use to also yacht race when they lived in St. John New Brunswick. I mentioned we had visited there and enjoyed the downtown market by the gazebo. We must have talked 45 minutes and the backs of my legs were really heating up. We said goodbye and shook hands and parted as they walked to the pier to see hat action was going on there.

Last night we were going to eat at the Cap’n and the Cowboy for dinner, well we went there tonight. We were seated across from a guy sitting by himself but us on a table. Along came his tobacco onion rings, piled a foot high on a large plate. I chuckled and told Shirleen to look at the bunch he got. He noticed us looking and told the waitress to get a dish as he wanted to share those with us. He said with a grin, I can’t eat them all so enjoy them. I would have bought him a beer but it was 2 for 1 and he had enough and the waitress could not back off his beers from his tab. I was able to thank him and shake his hand. He was a loss control specialist for a company out of Ocala and travelled the east coast to Chicago. Shirleen’s price reduced filet was done just right and really tender. My ribs were dry to the bone, I had a half order and left some. Actually all we wanted was a burger, which was not on the menu.

I asked where we could watch the sunset, she said across the bridge to Punta Gorda; I remarked do we drive back and forth across the bridge to see it set. She gave me an odd look then smiled and said there was a park across the bridge. As we pull up to the park the sun has hit the edge of the bay. Beautiful to watch across a large expanse of water without land on the other side. jerr