Post 21 Fort Myers

-

 

Fort Myers Jan 11-17

In Fort Myers we stayed at an upscale RV park that’s part of the Sun Resorts chain.  The amenities were great and the community was very friendly.  We even painted coconuts one evening in the community center. We mailed, yes, mailed, said coconuts home to a few grandchildren that we knew would appreciate the novelty. There were camper vans, trailers and class A and class C rigs of all sizes and permanent mobile home sites there.  Many of the people were snowbirds from up north.  Check out the solar panels on that bus!  Also, some of the best bathrooms!  We keep saying we wished we had taken a picture of every shower we had used.  Some were spa-like and some were like a prison camp. 





Our first outing in Ft Myers was to Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island.  What a great place for birding! Ding Darling is famous for its migratory bird populations. We drove a 4-mile loop road, stopping at various water areas to check out the birds. We saw gray and white pelicans, ibis, egrets, great blue herons, roseate spoonbills and many more. This wildlife refuge is part of the largest undeveloped mangrove ecosystem in the US.





Cindy’s nephew, Zach and his fiancé, Emily, were spending the week in Ft Myers with Emily’s parents.  After our Ding Darling visit, we met them all at the local brewery for a beer and then out for Mexican food.  They invited us to join them the following night for Trivia at Margaritaville on Fort Myers Beach.  We were proud of our second-place finish losing by only 2 points! Zach and Emily are relocating to Austin, TX at the beginning of February.

Thomas Edison and Henry Ford both purchased winter homes in Ft Myers.  In fact, they were next door neighbors and their homes have been preserved and are available to visit.  Both homes include a lot of history of both men.  We were both amazed at just how brilliant Thomas Edison was. He developed many devices in fields that included the phonograph, motion picture camera and electric power generation, contributing to mass communication and telecommunications. He was not only an inventor, but a businessman and manufacturer. Yes, he also made improvements to the incandescent light bulb and built the first power grid to light homes and businesses. Edison holds over 1,000 patents!


















Our next hike was one of our favorite adventures - Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Naples, established in 1954.  At this great preserve, they’ve built a 2.5-mile wheelchair accessible boardwalk literally across 5 different habitats.  We, again, saw many birds, including the Painted Bunting, but also alligators and the magnificent bald cypress trees. The sanctuary protects the largest remaining old-growth bald cypress forest in the world. It provides food and shelter for thousands of species. It is also a gateway to the western Everglades.













We’re heading back north toward Tampa to meet up with Anne’s daughter, Tiffany, for the weekend.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Getting Ready for Our Big Adventure

-
Image
 It all started with a Zoom beer tasting with friends from Wisconsin.   "Come to the State Fair", they said.  "Ok", we said. The Zoom meeting ended, we finished our beers, were a little bit drunk, and we said, "Hey, we're planning to sell the house and we'll already be halfway across the country so let's just keep going!" After a quick sober check the next morning, we were still in agreement to take on the adventure. Ten days later, we purchased our van and put the house on the market. Now we were committed! We started building out the van while, at the same time, sorting, purging and packing.  We took many van loads to Savers and the recycle center and the rest went into storage. Our house sold in two days so we were under the gun to finish everything and hit the road.  We closed on the house Friday, July 11th.   We said Good-bye to family and friends.  Our friends, Audrey and Les, blessed and smudged our van with some special sage to send u...
Read more

Post 1 Starting Out and Working Out the Bugs

-
Image
July 23-29 We started our trip on Wednesday, July 23. We planned to stay close to home for a couple of nights to get a little practice living in the van and to say Good-bye to our best friends, Catherine and Nancy. We spent two nights at the DAR State Forest in Goshen, Massachusetts. We'd been there before many years ago and were pleased with the many upgrades they had made to the campground. We practiced putting up our rain fly and using the generator solar panel. The generator is not providing as much energy as we expected especially in the hot weather we've had. It has struggled to keep the fridge cold for more than 12 hours at a time without a recharge. We're working on different solutions to keep the generator charging and the refrigerator cold. On Friday, June 25 we had breakfast with Catherine and Nancy and headed out to our first stop, Seneca Falls, in the Finger Lakes region of NY. Seneca Falls was the site of the original Women's Rights convention back...
Read more

Post 2 Great Lakes Adventure: Ohio , Michigan and Indiana

-
Image
 July 30-Aug 6 Week 2 began with us checking into Punderson State Park in Ohio for 3 nights. Our first day, rain had moved in overnight, so we drove into Cleveland to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.   We were sad there was no senior discount, but then realized that 90% of the patrons are over 60!   Everyone would be getting a discount!   We strolled through the history of Rock and Roll from its early beginnings in jazz, blues and country to current artists.   There was a great exhibit celebrating 50 years of music on Saturday Night Live.   We had forgotten how many famous artists had appeared on SNL both as musicians and in some of their skits.   It was a blast from the past for us, so we left with good vibrations. A fun day! Of course, before we left Cleveland, we just had to find a local brewery. The Noble Beast was perfect. We enjoyed a couple of pints with a yummy pretzel and then headed back to camp. Back at camp, the rain was slowly l...
Read more