Friday - October 28

 ONE MONTH ago today, Ian struck our area with such a vengeance and the disbelief continues.   After all this time, there are still so many hurting and each and every day we see the dreadful damage left behind everywhere.

We walked this morning and later were off to Punta Gorda to see friends from the 90's.    Kevin and Dawn from Chicago had a sailboat (PDQ) like Sail Catrina which we had from 1995-2008.   We were on their boat (Phenix) several times out of DuSable Marina.     Last time we were together was July 10, 2016 at the Gary, IN air show when Ryan was flying with the Blues.    

In 2019, they moved from Chicago to Punta Gorda, have a lovely home and a pontoon behind their house on a canal.    They had vegetation damage and also lost a lot of the screens on their cage.    But over all, fared well.    Lots of roof damage in Punta Gorda.    Their friend Michelle (she and Brendan have a PDQ in PG and one in Chicago.) came cruising with us.    We had a delightful ride thru the canals and out on the Peace River passing several familiar landmarks.    Docked the boat at Laishley's Crab House and walked a short distance to TT's Tiki Bar.    Brendan had been out of town but joined us for lunch.

Michelle, Brendan, Dawn, Kevin, Pat, Mark

Back to their home, more visiting and then we headed back to Fort Myers - what a delightful afternoon on the water, being with Dawn and Kevin and making plans to get together sometime this winter.

Rested a bit on Flo and then off again to the Fort Myers Community Church Fall Fest.    This event was a big family affair with lots of young families (kiddies all dressed for Halloween), lots of food and many activities for the kiddos (hayrack ride, 3 bouncy houses, face painting, pet the goats, egg toss, gunny sack race, mummy wraps, etc., etc.)    The main reason we were here was to hear our favorite husband/wife duo - "Gatlin".    Darryl and Andrea have entertained us for several winter seasons here in Fort Myers, but their venues were badly damaged or destroyed thanks to the hurricane.    So when our friend Beth saw on Facebook, they were going to be the entertainment for this evening, we decided to go support them - not sure if we'll see them anymore this year???

As always, very enjoyable and Darryl had 4 generations of the Gatlin family there.    Fun evening!

Andrea and Darryl

Have an awesome weekend!