After our wonderful Selby Garden visit on Saturday, we opted to hang out at Deeny’s on Sunday. We were enjoying not having someplace to go. Later in the afternoon Deeny’s brother and sister-in-law, George and Lorraine, stopped by. We had visited them briefly shortly after our arrival. We got to know George and Lorraine during a hospitalization that Deeny had about 8 or 9 years ago. We had planned a visit prior to an Olivia cruise we were taking. We met them at the hospital and then they picked us up and took us to see the house they were building. The Plantations is a very large development that has numerous smaller communities. Deeny lives just 5 minutes from George and Lorraine and so it works out well with them being close. It was nice to spend a bit of time with George and Lorraine.
Sunday evening we stayed in and had a smorgasbord of all the food we’ve either cooked or brought home from meals out. We certainly have not wanted for food while we’ve been here. We watched the PBS shows Call the Midwife and Grantchester and had a nice evening.
Monday Christine and I went for a walk around the community across the road from Deeny’s. We love looking at all the vegetation and trees and seeing how folks decorate their houses. I put my LeafSnap app to work to identify a couple of plants.
Bottlebrush (calistemon) 
Peregrina (jatropha) 
Beautiful bougainvillea
There are so many varieties of palms in Florida. These are a row of beautiful trees in the median along the street behind Deeny’s house.
After our walk Deeny got out the Scrabble game. As I said, it was Scrabble that brought Deeny and Christine together and was the beginning of a 63-year friendship. One can feel truly blessed to have such a long-term friendship.
Scrabble created a great friendship 
Both pondering the next word
Monday afternoon we again went to the beach. It was a beautiful day and a pleasure to be at the beach. The temperature was mid-70s with a light breeze. There was a bit more surf today, but there were warnings of strong rip tides so we didn’t go too far from shore when Christine and I swam, but at least we did get in to the Gulf. It was heavenly.
To celebrate the end of our visit, we went to Sharky’s for dinner. It’s just at the end of the pier so we didn’t have to go far from our spot on the beach. It’s a great place to kick back and enjoy the sunset and have a great dinner. And it is a tradition to eat there with Deeny.
Sharky’s sign 
Mermaid at Sharky’s
And we enjoyed a wonderful sunset. Although there were no clouds to give the sunset more color, nonetheless, it was a beautiful sunset.
Venice pier at sunset 
Fantastic golden sky
And so, our time with Deeny was coming to an end. We had a great visit and enjoyed being together. Tuesday morning we will go to Sarasota airport for our flight to Detroit via Atlanta. We will spend the night in Detroit Tuesday and then fly home to Binghamton on Wednesday.
We took one last photo prior to our departure from Deeny’s.
Thank you, Deeny, for a wonderful visit. We hope to see you again soon.
What a lovely trip. You make me feel like I am almost there in the sunshine with you.