Happy Birthday

 

A delicious key lime pie was a special way to celebrate a birthday.

Fountain

At an outlet shopping mall. 

Climbing Wall

 

A good way for kids to entertain themselves for an hour or so.

Honor Flight

 

Soldiers from the Korean, Vietnam and more recent wars were lined up at Southwest Regional Airport in Fort Myers for their Honor Flights to Washington, D.C., and Arlington National Cemetery.

Sally

 Sally is captain of our bocce team.  We are terrible, but no one cares.  It is a good excuse to get together with friends.

Sally is a Brit who lives in Manhattan and Naples.  She was the chief operating officer of corporate legal departments and law firms, including GE, TimeWarner, Verizon, Akin Gump and Clifford Chance.  Her husband and she will be taking a three week trip around Japan pretty soon.

Jason

I was in Fort Myers recently, where I saw a man painting a very big mural on the side of a building.

The artist was surprisingly reluctant to talk about himself or even to tell me his name.

Eventually, Jason told me that this is the first mural he has tried to paint.  He works in construction and wasn't sure his first mural was going to be high enough quality.  Jason, it looks good to me.

Linked to Monday Murals.

Church

 

Naples United Church of Christ.

Croquet

A Saturday morning croquet match.

 

Joelle is Belgian.  Her husband worked internationally in insurance, spending time in New York, London, Paris and Brussels.  Rob and Joelle met in Brussels.  They now live full-time in Naples and have two adult children who also live in Naples.

Christine has her Masters in German and has worked as a magazine editor, an interpreter, a translator and a teacher.  Her husband and she have an osprey nest visible from their back yard.  They let me enter the yard in search of osprey photographs.

Morgen is from Indianapolis.  She worked for years in merchandising furniture and home furnishings.  Morgen is a talented artist and sculptor.

Hubs

 Leaving a parking lot, the lovely hub of a car got me thinking.  I didn't photograph that one, but for a few days I looked at hubs.

Isn't this a good design?  I don't remember what kind of car it is on.

The insignia tells me that this is on a Mercedes.  But, I have noticed that many other Mercedes have uninteresting hubs.

Similar but different.

This hub has an odd design.

Isn't this unusual?

Two more Mercedes hubs.  Some people have jobs designing hubs.  I have never met them.

Kind of straightforward but still classy.

Ok.  Maybe the white walls caught my eye.

License Plates

I saw PLNE JNE near Naples Municipal Airport.  Think this is a woman pilot? 

This small pink convertible is LIL (little).  But, LESS?  Maybe their other car is BIT MORE?

BUGSEY?  Maybe the owner's nickname?

I'm guessing the owner of this car is affiliated with Habitat for Humanity in Collier County.  The Habitat affiliate in Collier County, which started in 1978, has provided 2,600 families with homes.

The Collier program is the most prolific among 1,200 Habitat programs nationwide.

L1ONESS is likely owned by a fierce woman.

The flag in window helped me with this one.  BUXXX is owned by a fan of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Naples Harbor

 On Monday I went on a boat ride in Naples harbor.  We were on a catamaran that held maybe 40 people, plus a three person crew.

Couple of pretty sailboats went past.

Some motorboats whizzed past.

A pod of dolphins entertained us.  I never get good dolphin photos.

Some big houses were especially beautiful in the golden hour.

Fountain

 

Nice fountain at the entrance to Bonita National Golf and Country Club.

National Champions!

 

Yesterday the University of Connecticut women's basketball team won their 12th National Championship with a domineering 82 - 53 victory over South Carolina.

Azzi Fudd had much of her UConn career sidelined with injuries, but she had 24 points in the championship game and was voted the Most Outstanding Player of the tournament.

Paige Bueckers finished her UConn career with 17 points.  She is expected to be the first player chosen in the upcoming WNBA (Women's National Basketball Association) draft.

And, watch out for Sarah Strong in the coming years!  Sarah was earlier voted the NCAA Freshman of the Year.  In the championship game, she had 24 points, 14 rebounds, five assists, two steals and three blocks.  

 In his 40th year as UConn's head coach, Geno Auriemma led his team to its 12th National Championship.  Geno is losing five seniors, including Bueckers, but Fudd and Strong will return next year along with three All-American high school players he has recruited.  

All of these images were taken from the television screen.  Rights belong to ABC and ESPN.

Dump Trump! Deport Musk!

Yesterday at the Collier County Government Complex in Naples, thousands of people turned out for a non-violent protest against Donald Trump and Elon Musk.  It was one of hundreds of "Hands Off!" rallies around the country.

Signs opposition a great many of the Trump/Musk policies, practices and actions.  And the men.

People gathered at the Collier County Government Center for a few speeches, then marched out to nearby U.S.Route 41 to wave signs and shout at passing cars.

It was striking to me how many and how loud -- but also how polite -- the protesters were.

Collier County is peopled with retirees from up north.  It is strongly conservative and Republican.  And yet, there were many folks who would have looked more comfortable playing golf or bridge who instead were carrying signs and shouting slogans. 

Sure didn't feel very conservative or Republican on Saturday.

This guy was very proud of his sign.

I haven't seen crowd estimates, but there were a LOT of people there.

Signs were printed.  Signs were hand-made.  But all expressed strongly felt emotions.

Quite a few protesters were veterans.

Luna Tick.

Lots of cars honked in support as they passed.

Quite a day.