Interstate 75 effectively runs from Buffalo on the Canadian border to the bottom of Florida a distance of some 1500 miles and many a snowbirder from Canada knows this interstate. With just short stops in the Flying J truck stops overnight they were in Florida and their new campsite within days. So our next stop was to Pine Island the same campground Chuck and Ceil were staying at. They were staying for several weeks but we could only get in for a week but that was enough, we still had places to go. We arrived and Chuck was there to greet us at our campsite a beer in hand, now thats looking after your mates. We did the usual back in with the aid of a camp worker who always seems to know best and attempts to guide us in, we have done this hundreds of times so I just ignore him and watch Rose's guiding directions. It seems whenever we have the aid of a camp worker it takes so much longer to back in, I know they are just doing their job but it can be frustrating sometimes.
Once we are all set up we walk over to Chucks motorhome for another beer and a good catchup and of course some great T bone steaks on the BBQ for dinner. Pretty much the next week we just hung around went to the local town of St James City where we visited the "Ragged Arse" saloon for a beer and of course the local Legion Club.
One afternoon as we sat having a beer we suddenly see this "turtle" crossing the road near the camper, not something you see everyday I can tell you and he was not small and he walked with "attitude". We had heard about the common snapping turtle along with the alligator turtle in Florida. A quick read up on this fella and it states "they can be very belligerent when out of the water" that and its ability to turn its head and bite you from all angles makes him something to not pick up, but they do use them for turtle soup.
Turtle with Attitude
One thing we had read about was Sanibel Island just a few short miles away. Rose had read so much about it and the fact that it appears that every shell in the Gulf of Mexico seems to end up on this island.
So we headed off to Sanibel Island and the first thing was the bridge toll, yep $6 to just get on the island. Once you toll is paid you head over the bridge to the island proper, this is where our problems started. I think everyone in southern Florida was on the island that day or at least trying to get on it, it took us the best part of and hour to get clear from the traffic jam. We headed north up the island and reached its northern most point. With a carpark for 10 cars only there was no way we were going to get to enjoy the beach here not withstanding they still allow people to own the beach behind their mansions something long gone in Australia. We headed back south and found another small carpark $3 an hour so we paid and went for walk. I must admit the ocean looked beautiful and yes the beach was made up of course crushed shells.
Sanibel Island beach
Looking into the Gulf of Mexico
I then noticed a couple with what appeared like a deep fryer basket scooping from sand below the waterline. As always my curiosity got the better of me and I just had to ask what he was catching, I figured it was bait of some kind. Yes it was bait but they called then "sea fleas" a new one on me so this bloke kindly dug some out and gave them to me. Although not a "flea" they are jellyfish larvre and they call them fleas because there are so many of them and yes they do bite.
Sea Fleas
So our trip to Sanibel Island was a bit of a dissapointment for us, we must have missed the "right" beach to be at. Sanible Island was a place for millionaires and condo's and it appeared to us they want to keep it that way. There is no parking on any of the main streets or thoroughfares all the parking we found was to be paid for at $3 an hour so our trip to the beach cost us $9 not a biggy but there are plenty of free beaches out there with no traffic jams and bridge tolls.
When we made the decision to visit Florida we new it would be difficult to get an RV spot, it is winter after all but we really had no idea how difficult it would be. In the past we just went with the flow but now we had to move and all we could get was four days in Fort Myers so after another sad farewell to Chuck and Ceil we headed south to Fort Myers.
Fort Myers was just a short drive but it was someplace to park the trailer, the best we could get was three nights so we went with that. We arrived at the park to be greeted by the lady that take s the fitness class all she could tell us was out site number and informed us we would need to come back to the office in a few hours. We headed down the very very narrow park road. This park was not made for RV's that was obvious it was made for "park" homes which essentially are delivered and hooked up to services and that was it. We needed to make wide turns and in this place it became somewhat difficult as a wide turn would entail entering someones lounge room! But with great skill we were able to negotiate the roads and find out spot.
When we finally booked in we were informed there was a shuttle bus that ran down town for 70 cents one way, very useful information considering we intended to go down and have a drink and watch the sunset. Some other useful information was the bar down the road, called the Parrot, so we drove down as we intended to eat out and as luck would have it it was happy hour, so it was $4 pina coladas for us and they were very nice indeed.
LIfe is hard in the USA
Next night we headed to Fort Meyers on the trolley bus so we walked the beach, the jetty and spoke to the locals who were fishing. As we wanted to watch the sunset we had no option but to eat out again and for me the primary cook I could get used to this. A small confession though when we sighted our trailer we backed in to far so we could not deploy the BBQ, you would think with all the times we have done this we would get it right but alas the excuse works for us this stop. Again happy hour was on and we enjoyed the cheap drinks even more this time as neither of us was driving. Dinner was ho hum but it was made up by the sunset on the beach overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, its so popular people lined the beach to photograph it and once the sun was down the beach was deserted.
The Sunset was beautiful.
Rose as usual did some research on what was around to see at Fort Myers and it is known for the summer houses of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, yes the inventor of the light bulb and the Ford motor car. Thomas Edison and Henry Ford were great friends and they both had winter houses in Fort Myers right next door to one another. We opted for the self guided tour which is a set of headphones with a handpiece and when you reach the appropirate number you select it and it gives you a commentary. Due to the hard work of the trust that looks after these historic homes they are in perfect condition and is well worth the money we paid. We spent hours looking around and just sitting and imagining what it was like all those years ago. One thing we were surprised at was the size of the houses, they were quiet small no doubt up north they had large mansion but these houses were just normal size but they did have a full time staff in their day.
Thomas Edison's House
Henry Fords House
Lovely grounds to walk around
Thomas Edisons Laboratory
With only three days here we really did not have much time to sit around so our last night we caught the trolley bus again but went back to the Parrot for happy hour and our final dinner at Fort Myers. Could we have spent more time here? yes possibly but we did not have that option RV sites at this time of year are at a premium so after many hours Rose had found us another site near Miami and close to the keys, in fact there was not a single RV site anywhere on the Florida Keys available!
