Visions of Vacations Past

I spent Tuesday morning writing 32 e-mails to the parents of students who still have summer books checked out (all of which were due on Sept. 6). Yesterday a bunch of them came back, and I expect more today -- writing to parents is often pretty effective. One mother told me her 9th Grade son just doesn't seem to understand the difference between going to a library and going to a bookstore!

Still, I'm surprised how many books are still lingering out there. I feel like I say this every year, but this really does seem like my worst year for getting books back. I hope I can get all this cleared up by the end of the month.

Today I'm going in slightly late because I have another round of blood tests at the hospital. The doctor is checking my cholesterol levels again, among some other basic functions. Yay.

Yesterday I randomly discovered that the little resort on Sanibel Island, Fla., where my family stayed in 1979 was destroyed by Hurricane Ian in 2022. Here's what it looks like as of August -- just a couple of cleared oceanfront lots. Right before the storm, it looked like this. We stayed in that front cabin on the left right behind the trees, as I recall. (Or at least a cabin in that location. After 40-plus years, who knows if it was the same building.)

The place was called Mitchell's Sand Castles and I wrote about it before, though I didn't name it. I'm sorry to see that it's gone.

Also, my brother wrote me the other day that the Sun n' Sea Resort on Longboat Key, another set of old-fashioned beach cabins where we stayed a few times, was recently demolished. I think plain ol' "progress," rather than a hurricane, did it in. Here's an article about the property sale that led to its demolition, including some photos of the old cabins.

Beach resorts just don't look like that anymore, and it's sad.

Also yesterday, I randomly got an e-mail from a photo site called Shutterfly telling me to buy something with my uploaded pictures -- a calendar, a mug, a blanket -- or they would be "archived." (Or something like that.) This was a surprise to me because I didn't recall having a Shutterfly account. When I looked at it I found it full of pictures of my friend Liz (in the middle above), most of which were not mine. I think I must have set it up in advance of her 50th birthday in 2019, and her friends uploaded many of the pictures, and maybe we had them printed into a book or something -- and then we forgot about it.

Anyway, I downloaded the picture above, showing me, Liz and her friend Jessica at Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, back in 2006. Since I spent so much time showing you Iguaçu Falls this summer, and I blogged my trip with Dave to Niagara Falls in 2011, I figured you might like a glimpse of Victoria Falls as well! (I actually blogged from there too, but I didn't say much. That was back in my days of minimalist blog posts.) I have other photos from Vic Falls but I don't think I have this one. Or maybe I do. Maybe it's mine. I have no idea.

(Top photos: Autumnal scenes on my walk to and from work.)