Sanibel Island Vacation Diary - Day 9Click the audio controls below to start the audio diary. The button in the center is the play button. You can control the volume with the slider on the left. The transcript is also included below. [9 minutes, 25 seconds]
Fred: It was a good weather day in the morning, so I decided it was time to make my run out to Ding Darling (J.N. "Ding" Darling) on my bike. Susan was out on the beach by, what time? Susan: I have no idea. Fred: Ahh, it doesn't matter. Susan: Hey, I do matter. Fred: Anyway, I left at 9:40 on the bike and began my ride out to the preserve. Had a good ride out there. I believe I returned at 11:50. I looked at my watch when I locked the bike up, so just over two hours and that included multiple stops at the preserve center where they have a bunch of displays; multimedia. They have a multimedia setup. All different kinds of things you can watch and interact with. Learning about Ding Darling and what he did for preservation of this area and other places that you can learn about. The wildlife around here. They have examples that you can touch, of skeletons and pelts from some animals that are in the area, so it's a pretty neat place. They have a good gift shop there. I purchased a really cool map. I guess it's almost like a satellite view of the whole island. Susan, in the meantime, was out on the beach and she met with, we have some friends who had been down here staying in a different place that's next door called Song of the Sea and they stayed there, said it was nice, so Susan spent some time talking with them on the beach and then when I got back, I ate some leftovers and then once I got back, Susan went back out with me and we went and took the car out to the preserve and filmed some things because I didn't take the video camera with me. I think I just said I did earlier. It's been a long day. Anyway, so we took the camera out and filmed from the car and caught actually quite a bit more interesting stuff the second time around. There was a raccoon and caught several different types of birds flying and jumping fish. So anyway, it was the first time for Susan to go through the preserve and I believe she enjoyed seeing that. It did start raining while we were driving through the preserve, so it was a little hard to see some things, but all in all it was a good tour through there. After we left the preserve we went to Jerry's. There's a place there that has good t-shirts and Susan wanted to get a particular t-shirt she had seen the other day, so she stopped in and we got that for her. Then we came on home and decided to go to the Sanibel Steakhouse for dinner. I guess it was another hour or so before we did that. We did make reservations. They have a very small restaurant and it's in demand and it's probably a good thing we did. We were able to get a seat in the back room, which we like to sit back there. It's a little nicer and maybe quieter, so we asked for the back room and they had one table in the middle, which maybe some people don't like, but we liked it, or I did. The others are the type of table where you're sort of lined up on a bench next to other people and I don't really like that so, ask for that center table in the back room if you want it, or stay out in the front room. There are seats that are by themselves so you're not next to people. But the food was excellent. We've eaten there probably every year, I guess that we've been coming here when it opened and I think maybe that was one of the best times, best meals I've had out there. Susan is giving it the thumbs up. We both had the filet. She got the 7 ounce filet and I got the 11 ounce filet. The 7 ounce is $30, the 11 ounce is $34 so, go for it, add the extra 4 bucks and you get almost twice as much meat. They have extra sauces you can add for a dollar. Susan got the blue cheese butter, which is . . . is it just butter with blue cheese added to it? Susan: Sort of, it was Maytag Blue Cheese and it was sort of hard like butter and you just sort of sliced it with your knife and laid it on top of your steak and it melted, but it was unbelievably good. Two thumbs up. Fred: I got a peppercorn sauce and that was excellent. They used to serve the meal ala carte, but now they do include a potato of your choice and julienne vegetables. So I got steak fries, which are very good here, there at the Sanibel Steakhouse and Susan got the smashed potatoes with garlic. Susan: Very good. Fred: She enjoyed those and then we both opted for dessert. Oh and Susan got a Caesar salad and I ate part of that and it was very good and then we both got a dessert. I got an apple thing. I don't know what you call it exactly. It was like a high-end apple pie with two scoops of vanilla ice cream and that was excellent and Susan got a . . . Susan: Chocolate Decadence. Fred: Chocolate Decadence cake and I ate about half of that that she didn't eat. Both desserts were excellent. So excellent meal. The total came to $101. Susan got two glasses of wine? Susan: One. Fred: One glass of wine and we both had tea. So, then plus tip. So we got out of there for about $121. So very good place to go, Sanibel Steakhouse. In season, definitely call to make reservations and you might even consider calling . . . Susan: Even out of season. Fred: Yeah, even out of season, make reservations, but during season make reservations maybe even a week in advance, maybe more, I don't know. It's a good idea, if you're coming down here and you know you're going to be wanting to go there, give them a call ahead of time and make a reservation. After that we just came on home and went out to the beach. The beach was full of people. The tide was way, way out. It was about 8:30 and it was low tide. Very low, so the beach was just full of people looking for shells and just enjoying the end of the day. Susan: Glad it wasn't raining. Fred: It was beautiful. Yeah, everyone was enjoying the fact that it wasn't raining anymore. The rain, by that time, had cleared out, so. That's always nice to get out there and take in the last sunlight that's coming down. And that was it for Thursday.
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