FISHING ON SANIBEL ISLAND - Barely a mouthful!
Just spent the last week and half in Fort Myers.
Getting there from the Keys was one of our worst travel days yet. You have to drive thru Homestead to get traveling west and lucky us, we hit a detour for their 61st annual Rodeo parade. It was just starting so we thought we could easily get around it but what a freaking nightmare. No more detour signs after the first one and we got trapped by blocked streets. And remember this is with the trailer in city streets. Not fun! At one point Dave actually had to make a U-turn with it, luckily there was just enough space to get out. But then the rest of the downtown was in gridlock and people were driving like idiots. Took us an hour to get the hell out of there and it was hot and muggy. Luckily we were familiar with the area after being in the Everglades for a week so we found a way to get around the mess. Never seen anything quite so unorganized.
Then after a couple of hours driving, we blew another tire on the trailer. Dealing with that sucked up almost another hour. So even though that's been our worst day yet, it's still better than a day at work! :-)
To top off the perfect travel day, we get to the RV park that Dave booked (that’s another story) and it's a DUMP! It was an old mobile home park that they're converting to an RV park but yikes...creepy! Not maintained at all and the bathroom, which I specifically emailed her about to make sure they had one was a moblie home where the laundry room also was. I walked in, looked around at all the dirty, water stained walls and junk in it and thought I wouldn't wash my big toe in here...disgusting!!! Luckily we have a decent bathroom and shower in this bigger trailer because we needed it. It was also supposed to have WIFI, but not! So spent a few days looking around and found another place with spotless bathrooms, a pool, WIFI (although it was soooo slow it was basically non-existent) laundry and was well maintained so we moved to it and stayed another week. And it was cheaper than the DUMP! The joys of being a nomad. :-)
Dave’s sister Ruth and her husband Brian & Dave’s brother Al and his wife Gloria rented a condo in town for the month of Feb so we hung out with them most of the time we were in town. I really enjoyed spending time with my SILs (sister-in-laws). We had a lot of laughs and some excellent meals...thanks ladies! Al too!
Weather was decent, sunny but kinda cool so didn’t really get to enjoy the beaches much. But we did get out to Fort Myers Beach, beach and onto Sanibel and Captiva Islands to their beaches. Nice! Also got in one good day of fishing at Sanibel. Fed alot of fish, caught only 1 worth eating but we did get to feed a few of the little guys to a huge eagle like bird that befriended us. Got some great pics of him but can’t quite figure out what he is...if anyone has any ideas, let me know.
Update: Turns out the bird was a young Bald Eagle. They don’t get their distinctive white markings for 5-6 years. Thanks to my brother Jon for passing along that info!
So now we’re in Kissimmee, just south of Orlando so staying here until we fly to Costa Rica on Monday. Can’t wait to feel some heat!! Tonight is supposed to go down to freezing and highs are only in the mid 60s for the rest of the week.