Sharks teeth and the end of the trip

We've been home two weeks now, and I'm finally getting to the last blog entry to record our trip.

When we left Fort Myers, we headed towards Venice, Florida, where we spent the last two nights of the trip.  On the way, we stopped in North Port to meet up with an online friend and her husband.  She and I had become acquainted back in 1997 when we were expecting babies as part of an online email group (before Facebook ever became a thing).  Her family had lived in the northeast back then but recently moved to Florida, and (because Facebook is a thing) she had been sharing photos from various Gulf beaches near her that made me interested in checking them out, too.  They suggested meeting for a mid-afternoon meal at Blue Tequila which was so delicious that DH declared it his favorite meal of the trip.  It was nice to meet face-to-face and they had some good recommendations for things to do in the area.

The following morning we woke up to rain.  It was the first rain we'd had since we were in Dominica on our cruise, and it was the first time our plans had to change due to weather.  In fact, when the tornado warnings sounded, it was reminiscent of our Middle States trip when we were dodging severe weather.  Thankfully it passed by about 10:30, so we decided to go ahead and venture out.

First order of business was gassing up at Costco!  There's a pretty new one in the area, so we went to check it out.  It makes our local Costco look like a 5 & Dime store.

Then we drove out to Manasota Beach because my friend had told me they often find sharks teeth there.  A few years ago, we had gone to Amelia Island, Florida, for an anniversary trip, and while walking along one of the beaches, we had talked with a woman who was hunting for (and finding) sharks teeth.  Ever since then, we've wanted to find our own, so this seemed like a great opportunity to try.  The beach wasn't busy as the rain was just letting up (and it was a Monday morning), so we spent about 45 minutes enjoying the fresh air and sea spray and searching for sharks teeth.  We met a family that had the whole shovel and sieve set-up for some serious sifting, so we asked them to show us what we should keep our eye out for.  The kids were so excited about their finds and gave us some helpful tips.

Of course we were just looking with our eyes and not digging around and sifting, but we managed to find a few on our own.  Another fella was also looking and had a handful that he gave us since we were such obvious tourists!

We had plans to meet one of DH's cousins who lives in Venice, so we went back to the hotel to get cleaned up and then headed over.  DH hadn't seen her since the mid-1970s, but we had talked on the phone a few weeks before meeting up with them. I was especially excited because I asked her about old family photos and such, so she had a lot of things ready for me to scan for the genealogy projects that I am working on. 

After our visit, we headed back to the hotel.  There was a Culver's nearby, so we "broke" our rule about not eating at restaurants we can go to at home - and I got a cheeseburger.  Not the same as getting one in Key West, but it worked.

We had originally planned to visit another of DH's cousins in Bradenton on Tuesday, but she had to be out of town unexpectedly.  We were going to go up to Tarpon Springs and check things out there and then on Wednesday to to Weeki Wachee Springs to see the Mermaid show on the way home, but since his cousin wasn't available, we decided to just head home a day early.  Tarpon Springs and Weeki Wachee are within a reasonable distance, so we can do a short trip to see them another time.

So that's that!  We wanted to see the Edges of South Florida, so we did just that!  I love being retired!

~ Cindy D.

The Edison-Ford Winter Estates

One of the things we were looking forward to was visiting the Edison-Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers. It has a perfect combination of the things we find interesting: history, culture, museum, biography, and, of course, plenty of #flowersmakemehappy opportunities!  Our American Horticulture Society membership allowed us to tour the property free as part of the reciprocal garden network.  We definitely got our value from our AHS membership.

DH had visited the site in the late 1980s, but quite a bit had changed, yet stayed the same! These properties are well cared for and managed where visitors can immerse themselves into what life might have been like for the Edisons and Fords around the turn of the century (from the 1800s to 1900s, I mean, for my younger readers).  

The houses are beautifully maintained, and they each have their windows opened so you can take photographs without glare.  Although you do occasionally find yourself with a photo that has a voyeur from the other side looking in!

The gardens on the property were beautiful.  There were roses and citrus and even a moonlight garden near Edison's study.  And the banyan tree(s) were huge!

In addition to the houses, there is the laboratory that you can walk through, and a wonderfully done museum featuring both Edison and Ford.  However, there's not the lightbulb.  We inquired and were told it had been removed earlier this century (2006 or so) when ownership and management of the property transitioned - and it was probably not really the original lightbulb anyway.

We did a self-guided tour but didn't opt to listen to the audio portion that you could be through an app as we only had a finite amount of time to spend (two hours).  They offer a guided tour but it, too, wasn't going to quite fit into our afternoon.

~ Cindy D.

Sanibel, Captiva, and Fort Myers Beach

As luck would have it, the final weekend of our trip around the edges of south Florida had us in Fort Myers Beach during their shrimp festival.  And it was also the shell festival and shell show over on Sanibel Island.  And an early spring break weekend.  

So of course the popular areas were busy and traffic was a little heavier, but we managed around it.  We had planned to spend the day just seeing what there was to see, beginning with a guided shuttle tour at the J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge.  We reserved our seats the night before, getting the last two available on the 10 AM tour.  The information said come over early to see the visitor center and nature walk, so we did which helped us not be in too much traffic.

Only when we got there, the visitor center was closed because they are getting new air conditioning.  They've been without it since Hurricane Ian.  But the nature path was open, so we had a nice walk and got to see another alligator.  And some ducks. And spoonbill birds.  And a ginormous iguana at a distance.

The tour was informative but we didn't see a lot of wildlife, but we weren't really expecting to.  There were a variety of birds and some fish, but still no manatee even though they said there had been some earlier.  

After our tour at the Ding was done, we drove to the end of the island to check out Captiva.  There is limited public parking and by the time we got there, there were no spaces, so we snapped a few pictures from the moving vehicle and headed back to Sanibel.  The houses along the way were beautiful mansions.  And the water looked nice and clear.

As we headed back into Sanibel, we stopped at the National Shell Museum.  I hadn't realized that they had reopened after Hurricane Ian as the last time I had looked, they were still closed. They still have areas that are closed, but we enjoyed what they had opened back up.  The museum includes a touch-tank area that was interesting and some beautiful exhibits.  They said many of their shells are still in Gainesville.  They had an interesting exhibit about shells and fashion. 

We wanted to go see the lighthouse on Sanibel but the parking for it was part of their public beach parking and there were no spots, so we skipped it.

We couldn't decide what we wanted for lunch, and a google search wasn't helping me find anything gluten-free, so we stopped at the Publix on the way back to the hotel.  (Have I said how much I hate my celiac lately?)

Our hotel was right next to the Lee Tran (bus) Beach Park & Go station.  I had noticed the schedules printed in the lobby, so while DH was resting, I went to check it out.  The front desk person walked me through how to use the bus to get to the beach for just 75-cents per person each way, direct, no changing buses.  It was about 4 PM so we still had some daylight, so I decided I wanted to go check out the beach since our attempts at Sanibel and Captiva hadn't panned out.  DH wasn't so keen on going but he didn't want me to go by myself and I wasn't asking him to drive/navigate traffic, so we got ready to go.

At this point we didn't know it was the shrimp festival at Fort Myers Beach.  We found that out when the bus dropped us off and it was super busy.  But we were able to walk out on the beach and take a few pictures not in a crowd.  The bus was scheduled to return in 30 minutes, so we walked around a bit and then queued up.  However because of all the traffic, the bus was running quite a bit late, so we almost ended up being at the beach for sunset.  It was easy-breezy getting back to the hotel once the bus came, and if we ever stayed there again on a non-fesitval day, we'd use the bus service to get to the beach area rather than trying to drive.  Their bus system also goes to some of the state parks in the area that we had originally been interested in checking out.

Up next: a visit to the Edison-Ford Winter Estates.   Thanks for following along.

~ Cindy D.