Valentines Day-Jack

Today was Valentines day and Janet and I were going to celebrate it by taking a bike ride along the Withlacoochee Bay Trail.  This trail is about 30 minutes from the rv so shortly after noon we took off.  This turned out to be a short ride along a canal that runs out to the Gulf of Mexico.  We thought we would see a lot of wildlife but really didn't see that much along the canal due to the trees that have grown up between the bike trail and the canal.  It was still a good ride and the weather today was much warmer than it has been the last couple of days with temperatures today in the mid to upper 70's.  After our bike ride we went to Yankeetown and stopped at Ike's restaurant for our Valentines day lunch/dinner.  This restaurant was very nice but a little too upscale to suit me.  I had the seafood platter which included soft shell stuffed crab, grouper, shrimp, conch, and scallops.  Janet had the country fried sirloin steak.  Both dishes were very good and I even got Janet to try the crab and conch.  She liked the crab but not so much the conch.

The first two pictures are of us with our neighbors Joanne and Wally. We have become good friends.  The rest of the pictures are of our bike ride and the drive to Yankeetown where we had lunch.  The road to the restaurant was called Follow That Dream Parkway and was named after an Elvis Presley movie that was made in the 50's.  After lunch at Ike's we went down the road and stopped at a dock where several shrimp boats were loading up getting ready to take off for the night.  A couple of the captains were still debating whether or not to take off because the forecast called for 25 knot winds.  Others were topping off the engine oil and they were going regardless of the wind.  These boats, which are relatively small, basically drag metal things that look like rollers along the bottom digging up the shrimp which get caught in the net that is being pulled behind the rollers. The nets are lowered and raised using winches that are mounted on the deck.  We spoke to several of these fisherman who were all very friendly and very willing to explain how the boats operate.  The big dog in the picture is Booger who lives down the street from the docks.  I bet Booger weighs about 120 lbs.