Sanibel Island Wildlife Refuge

Today we took a bike ride through the wildlife refuge on Sanibel Island. Unfortunately I don't have pictures of the beautiful homes and beaches on Sanibel/Captiva, but if you've been there you know how wonderful it is.
We did do the 8 mile bike ride through the park and it was very interesting. No alligators today even though it was a perfect 68 and sunny. I think they haven't figure out it safe to come out and sun on the shore. We did see the Snowy Egret, Ibis, Rosette Spoonbill, herons of different types and other I can't name.
Here are a couple of the pictures I took.

Edison Banyan Tree

I have discovered that once a mistake is made while doing a posting, it's either very difficult to correct it or I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm inclined to think it's the latter.
So, I'm trying this approach; posting the picture on another posting. I hope this works.

Edison Home and Lab

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Friday we spent a very windy, cool day at the Edison Home. It is a beautiful spot on the Calooshatchie River. Edison had his winter home here as well as his Botanical Lab where he was looking for a replacement for natural rubber. He developed an oversized (6') goldenrod plant for this purpose. Eventually the need disapeared for the alternative for natural rubber and he closed down this operation.
The grounds are lovely. He and Henry Ford became extremely good friends. Ford bought a house immediately next door to Edison where he and his family would spend 2 weeks every year. Ford thought of Edison as his mentor.
There is a huge banyan tree on the property that takes center stage. These trees are amazing because roots extend from each of the limbs toward the earth and bury themselves making a single tree seem like a jungle. You can see just a portion of the tree in this picture.

Ft Myers

We've moved to Ft Myers in heavy wind, but are here safe and sound. We've started our domino tournament with Jim and Barb and thanks to MaryAnn and Larry B (their idea) I've made a trophy to award to the winner at the end of our domino Olympics.
We've also met with other St. Louis Sailing friends who are at the beach in a beautiful penthouse with wonderful views of both the bay and the gulf.
Today we're heading to the Edison Home and Lab. It's a wonderful complex, one we look forward to seeing again.
The weather is still in the high 50's and very low 60's with the promise of warming weather to come. We really want to be able to enjoy the beach while we're here.

Ft DeSoto

We've been at this georgeous park since Monday and we love it. The weather has been up and down. Warm and sunny the beginning of the week and then the heavens opened up with a downpour and lots of wind. It turned cold (40-50) and now the wind has died down, the sun is out and the temps are getting back to the low 60's. The news is saying this winter in Florida is the coldest on record. And we had to be here!!!!

BUT, we're making the best of it and still having a good time. We met up with Jim and Barb Mencin (at campground with us. We've also met with Denny and Shara (from St. Louis) who had recently bought a 38' Beneteau and are living on it off and on this winter. Our dear friend from MN if also living down here and we spent the day with her (Lindsay) yesterday and will go to her place for dinner Sunday.

Barb and I took a walk on the beach in the rain with the dog. We had umbrellas, the dog got a bath. They have great biking paths here all around the park. We're making good us of them.

The Mexican Train Domino tournament is on. We're 2 nights into it so no clear winner is emerging yet. We've had lots of discussions as to how we were going to eventually decare a winner. We finally decided on using Regatta points for each game. One game equals one race. The person with the lesat amount of points at the end of 12 games (races)will take home the homemade trophy. No throw out games. I'll post a picture of trophy at a later time.

I think you can tell we're having a good time. Tonight is happy hour and dinner at a waterfront restaurant to celebrate my 59th birthday!

Here are some pictures.I'll need to publish pics of the park at a later date.

Moving Day

We're haeding to Ft Desotos today and looking forward to being with friends and the water. Our campsite is right on the water! We spent our last evening with Don and Cathy and a group their Canadians friends. We watched the USA beat the Canadian team in hockey. You have to know there were only 4 Americans in the group........YES!

Posts will be awhile coming this week cue to the fact that the park does not have internet.

Lakeland

The weather is nice this weekend. Temps in the 70's. We've had dinner with our friends, Don and Cathy Becker. They have a beautiful home here in a lovely gated community with a golf course. Going back on Sunday for a "wine and dessert" party with a group of their friends.

Today is clean up the Lambertghini and get a haircut. We've been laying low this week, watching the Olympics and doing minimal sightseeing.

Tuesday we leave here to go to Ft. We meet up with our St. Louis sailing friends (Barb and Jim Mencin. We won't have access to the computer like we do here so the posts will be very minimal.