Myakka River

Our next place to check out on our journey was the Myakka River Motorcoach Resort on the Myakka River in El Jobean, next to Port Charlotte / Punta Gorda.

We pulled in early Thursday afternoon and while walking Bear we were told of the neighborhood party going on that night and numerous people invited us to attend.  We showed up expecting to be talking with ourselves most of the night; boy, were we wrong.  Everyone made an effort to make us feel at home and really talked to us, trying to get to get to know us.  What a friendly group of people and most of them about our age.  They had a spread of food and a keg of beer!  We ended up playing LCR in the street with large dice – about 37 of us.

What fun!  Ended up playing Flip Cup till way too early in the morning.

They invited us to play Pickleball later in the morning (around 9:00am).  Round robin type play were they try to include everyone into the play.  About 25 people showed up.  A game that Kat and I have just started playing.

Now, if you haven’t played pickleball yet I suggest that you go out and do it.  It reminds me of ping pong in live format.  I played for a few hours and developed “tennis“ pickleball elbow.  That really hurts!

We drove over to Manasota Key (on the Gulf) which took us about 15 minutes.  Stopped at a beach restaurant called the SandBar Tiki & Grille and grabbed a small lunch.  It was great having our toes in the sand, drinks in our hands, and Bear by our side!

There was a guy playing the guitar and singing who obliged us with “Turn The Page”.  Talk about really liking a place.  We had to head back to the resort because there was a Meet & Greet scheduled for 4:30.

The Meet & Greet was held in the clubhouse which is really nice.  On the second floor, overlooking the pool and spa, is a bar area and gathering place.  It is such a wonderful way to meet your fellow campers.  We met Carlo and Bonnie Fratini, Jeff and Molly Wills, Bouraine Smith, Marge and Cub Stewart, Ron and Ruthie Sherman and got reacquainted with Jeff and Teri from Canada that we met at the Newmar International Rally in Syracuse, NY.  Bouraine Smith invited us back to her casita for a fire.

I got cold (had to be lower 60’s) so I snuggled up in a blanket and took ridicule from Jeff.

Right outside our spot on the lake was a friendly alligator:

Bear liked keeping on eye on him and he liked keeping an eye on Bear.  We watched them both!

The next day we were leaving and decided that two days wasn’t really enough to get a great feeling about this place.  Although we knew that we really liked it and that it checked a lot of our boxes.  On our way out, Kat checked with the office and found another slot for us to come back to five days to really understand this place.

This may be the place!