Quality Time

Your's truly took the weekend off from racing to spend some quality time at the beach with the Mrs. this past weekend. Well, not entirely as I did find time to pick two of four winners in the Publichandicappers.com Winter of our Discontent contest.

Now some of you Northern types may laugh at this, but the weather really did not cooperate for a weekend at the beach. The sky was mostly overcast and the temperature was a chilly low 70 something due to the constant gale force wind coming off of the cool ocean water.

Living on the edge of the Everglades does offer some exciting encounters with wild-life now and then. Maybe some day I will tell you of my close encounter with a rather pissed-off gator while fishing. The sub-tropical climate is also hospitable to a wide variety of imported species such as this 5-foot Iguana I met while on my lunch break at work yesterday. Today he was impressively showing off his brilliant orange throat, but my hands were full and I was running late and couldn't snap a picture.

The reflection you see in the window is me trying ever so carefully to get close enough to get a good picture without scaring the critter away. While they look quite fierce, they are really quite shy and would rather run than fight. On cooler winter days, it is really neat to see them sunning themselves next to the canal as I drive home on the turnpike.

Ok enough of this. I have Friday off and I'm going to the races. I have Calder, the Fairgrounds (where I've been doing very well so far this season), and Golden Gate to dig into. If your good, maybe I'll post my picks for this week's Winter of Discontent contest