Wednesday morning began with poolside coffees!
The house is the cutest!
Ready for the beach!
Ah, the beach. This is Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Park, a short drive from the beach house.
Summer, Francesca and Leighanna.
Me and Leighanna.
This cute turtle was super busy munching on some leaves.
We were pretty exhausted from the morning at the beach, so we spent the afternoon resting by the pool.
Pool beer!
A photo of me taken with Summer's blurry-lensed iPhone (aka "romance filter").
Lil' burgers!
We walked to The Turtle Club restaurant on Vanderbilt Beach for dinner, and to watch the sun set.
Lizard!
The establishment across the street from the Turtle Club was called the Lighthouse Inn, and it was so retro! We made a mental note to go back and check it out later.
Rabecca leading us on the path to the Turtle Club.
Here we are! Table at the beach!
The rolls were delicious.
It's happening!!!
Cheers!
Oysters Turtlefeller.
For dinner, I ordered the Sea Harvest. Scallops, shrimp, crab and grouper. Terrible, dark photo but you get the idea!
We all shared these little boozy milkshakes for dessert.
Thursday morning we enjoyed another round of coffee poolside!
Then we went on a dolphin-watching boat cruise!
We got to learn about a lot of rich people and see a lot of really fancy mansions.
DOLPHINS!
Pelicans!
Maia and Leighanna.
After the boat ride, we wandered around Tin City for awhile.
Two-for-one margaritas!
Cheers!
These Pelicans were enjoying a delightful lunch of fish scraps.
Next we headed to Downton Naples for lunch.
Palm trees!
We went to Cafe Luna for lunch. Champagne toast! Cheers to being friends for decades!
Fish sandwich and fries.
We grilled at the house that night.
I think this was the only rain we got on the trip! A refreshing sprinkle.
Cooking up a storm!
We played Headbanz while we ate. That game is sooo hard!
Dinner! So fresh and summery!
Friday morning, we kicked it up a notch with coffee and mimosas!
Maia made us an egg breakfast!
Another morning by the pool.
Then it was to the beach! Summer brought her kite!
BEACH.
That afternoon, the majority of the gang felt like staying in, but Summer and I couldn't get enough beach. We headed back to the Vanderbilt Beach area to find a restaurant on the shore for a late lunch. Hibiscus!
We went to BALEEN Naples at La Playa beach resort, because Yelp told us they had good fish tacos.
COCONUT MARGARITAS!!!!! These were so so so good.
The fish tacos WERE good!
But the star of the show was these incredible tropical nachos. They had fried wontons, pulled pork, pineapple, mango, cheese and more! Definitely a contender for best nachos of my life.
Fruity martinis that were good, but no drink could taste as amazing after those coconut margs!
Our view.
The beach makes us happy!
We decided to check out the Lighthouse establishment that we had seen earlier.
It would have been a great place to enjoy a cocktail, but they don't have a liquor license so they just have these strange saki cocktails. We didn't finish this. We didn't try the food, but it smelled good!
Later in the evening, we ordered pizza back at the house!
Saturday was our last day! Wah! We drove to Tigertail Beach on Marco Island to explore something different.
You can set up on the main beach, or you can wade across a tidal pool and walk through the brush to get to a sandbar on the Gulf.
Which is what we did!
Worth it! The sand was so white and the water was gorgeous!
Leighanna and Jim were floating out in the water and we saw a giant stingray (not pictured) swim super close to them! Ahhhh.
After the beach, we went to the nearby Snook Inn for lunch. Peach daquiri!
They had a great salad bar, and we were all craving some veggies.
This Florida Avenue IPA was REALLY refreshing!
I also had fish tacos, but forgot to take a photo. This is the aftermath.
After lunch, we headed to the pier.
View from the end of the pier.
While we walked the pier, Rabecca and Francesca had gone to the beach. They couldn't resist one last dip in the ocean!
There they are!
We're going to miss you, ocean!
That evening, we headed to Vanderbilt Beach to catch the sunset.
Smile!
Maia and Leighanna.
Summer and me.
Sunset!
Totally jealous of those two girls' matching rainbow dresses.
Bye bye, sun!
Summer, Maia and I went to have one last restaurant dinner while the rest of the ladies had a night in to get started on their packing. Which is the responsible thing to do! But we just couldn't resist SUSHI!! This Sushi-Thai place in a little strip mall turned out to be a hidden gem.
It was amazing inside! We sat in the open-air section, with elephant statues and waterfalls.
The indoor section was beautiful too!
Summer got Jumping Squid, which was SPIIIIIIIIIIICY.
I had Tom Kha seafood soup that was the BEST! There were shrimp, scallops, fish, and squid!
And our sushi rolls were beautiful and SO good!
It was a grand finale to amazing trip.
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