My Trip to Naples - Part 1

Pretty as a postcard!

No... she's actually screaming! Does NOT like cold water!

In 10 minutes I'll refuse to eat and throw ALL my food on the floor... but aren't I cute right now!

101 meets 1 - Great-grandma gets to visit with Elena again

So we've had a pretty nice time here in Naples, Fl. We flew direct which was a good plan since Elena had never been on a plane before. She did surprisingly well on the flight - sleeping most of the time. Didn't cry when we had a bit of turbulence and only at the end was a little fussy pulling on her ears because they must not have popped as we descended.

Our first day was mostly a wash. Jen and I were both exhausted having got up before 7am with Elena crying the majority of the night being sick with a head cold. We ate some ok Mexican food (Jen hated it, I gave it a 5 or 6) and pretty much hung out in the hotel room.

Day two we walked to the beach along a raised walkway through mangrove trees. There were shuttle golf carts that zipped by but we wanted to enjoy the morning and walk the 8/10 mile at least once. It was very pretty. I'll have to post a Naples gallery later. E must have been tired because the first time we went to put her in the ocean she FREAKED! I don't know if it was the cold or if it was just scary, but she was having none of it.

Jen pretty much just laid with her on the beach as she napped and I walked around taking pictures. Later that day we drove to the Naples Pier which stretches pretty far into the Gulf. There were tons of fishermen and gulls and a few people surfing - a really neat spot just to sit and people-watch.

We tried another restaurant with "good" reviews called Buzz's Lighthouse and even though we spent a bunch we didn't get a very decent meal. I had a grouper Reuben which was actually decent (prob cause I couldn't taste the grouper over the rather good coleslaw) and Jen had the grouper dinner - which seemed very fishy and not fresh but processed. Elena's hot dog kids meal was also bad - just as well cause she wasn't hungry anyway. So our current tally on picking good restaurants was 0 for 2.

Today (Wed) we met my 101 year old grandmother for lunch in North Naples and got to see where she lives and spend some time with her. She told us about a nice cafe near our hotel so we backtracked and the food was the best we've had since we got here. Jen and I have decided we must be food snobs or else Naples has a LOT of mediocre to bad eateries.

After taking my Gma back home we finally hit the resort pool and both Jen and I went down the waterslide (I went more than once) and Elena got to swim in a pool for the first time. We tried both an infant lifevest and floaties. While she didn't seem to like either very much, however the floaties seemed to work best for her. More pictures of this to come.

Now we are lazily relaxing in the hotel room while E naps getting ready to explore another restaurant hoping we don't pick another lemon. Could we just get a gem for a change. Are all these reviewers just not educated how good food SHOULD taste? We ponder this and more as we debate just how we became food snobs living in a city like Cincinnati.

-Jason