Naples, FL: Scenes from Vanderbilt Beach and Surrounding

Here are a few shots (mostly the beach!) on the trip to Naples. Dad and I both took a lot of photos to email to my mom, which we did almost as a livestream, and which she loved. You can follow along all in one go:

We had a bird friend we saw on two separate days. It was beautiful and fun to watch.

This was the view from our hotel room on the first day during a clearing of the rain. Our hotel was on the beach but you can see it was still a bit of a hike to get from the room to the water.

It was rainy and chilly but we still went down to the ocean right away. Then we turned around and went to the hot tub. (The weather was not beach weather for most of the time we were there, unfortunately.)

We were lucky enough to get to run outside one morning (of four) and this was our reward - a truly brilliant sunrise that followed us for the whole run.

We finally got to see the water without any rain clouds...

And my last day there (Saturday) was wonderful until about 2pm.

Dad and I went on a long walk and watched this yacht doing some crazy maneuvering. We had no idea what was going on (it was about 3:30pm in these shots, although it looks - and felt - much later due to the pink clouds) because the ship was acting kind of weird. We think it was a sunset cruise that got to its destination several hours early.

This is my favorite house along this part of the beach. The courtyard is just amazing and the whole thing looks so stately.

Dad got into the water for a couple of minutes near sunset. Then we went to the hot tub :)

Before leaving for the airport (I had a later flight) we got to watch the sunset. Despite the clouds, it was really nice, and a great way to end the trip.

I think I say this all the time, but the Gulf is really the way to go if you visit Florida. The beaches are white and soft and the ocean is warm (as a kid I remember it could be actually quite warm even in December -- it was 69 degrees for my kayaking trip) and much calmer than the Atlantic. Either way it's Florida, but if I could choose I would always go back to this general area for the beach.