Fort Myers, Florida - Family & Friends + Koreshan State Park

Hi all --

Dianne here. We've actually been in Ft. Myers, Florida for over a week and a half, but we're still getting caught up on blog time. There should be two more in quick succession as we're working on three at a time.

We met up with our friends, Chuck & Cindy, outside Ocala, FL and then caravanned to our destination for the next two weeks, Shady Acres RV Resort in Ft. Myers.

The

first order of business was, of course, to see our daughter, Amanda, and granddaughter, Kaia, who we had not seen since last August, when they moved to Florida. I managed to get a photo of Jasper when he first saw Kaia.

He was so excited!

Jasper and Kaia grew up together; we got him when she was two years old. Back then I babysat Kaia every day so that Amanda could finish college and then work. Jasper and Kaia have always been very, very close.

While my girls are at work and school every day, we have lots of time to spend with Chuck and Cindy and, of course, Sophie Ann, the luckiest dog in Fishers, Indiana.

Our first excursion was to Sanibel Island

to Lighthouse Beach, one of the few beaches in the area where dogs are allowed. The weather was absolutely perfect, and we had a great day.

Of course, we stopped at our favorite ice cream shop, Pinocchio's, before we left Sanibel.

Our next excursion was to pack a picnic lunch and visit Koreshan State Park. Koreshan State Park includes historical buildings

which were built in the late 1800s by a group who actually believed that the universe as we know it was inside the planet earth! They were a celibate group which, of course, died out over the years until the last surviving member donated the land and buildings to the State of Florida. To my cousins: One of the photos of the group labeled one woman as Elizabeth Robison. Hard to imagine one of our clan belonging to a cult! (Oh, sorry, the docent who gave the tour of the buildings prefers the term "utopian society"!

After we toured the buildings, we took a hike

with all three dogs on a lovely nature trail that winds along the Estero River.

We passed by large stands of bamboo which, since the wind

was blowing, sounded like wind chimes made of bamboo. It was such a pretty walk that we right then

and there decided to come back with our kayaks, which we did. (There will be a separate blog for that).

After the hike, we found a very pretty picnic spot and ate our lunch.

As we were leaving the park, Sophie was on high alert

and found this gopher turtle "holed up" so to speak. We also saw another gopher turtle crossing the drive as we walked to the parking lot.

We made it back to the campground in time for Amanda and Kaia to join us for happy hour and dinner. (Kaia's happy hour consisted of caffeine-free coke and Hanna Montana on the TV!) Mandy and Kaia are coming to eat supper with us every night. Since Cindy and I are taking turns with dinner duty, we've all been eating quite well. I quipped to Mandy that she hit the jackpot - she has two moms cooking for her these two weeks!

St. George Island State Park, FL

Hi all - Dianne here.  For those of you looking for Kaia's guest blog, scroll down to the one below today's entry.

The girls flew back to Indiana last Saturday.   We miss them already, but had a great time at Disney.

  On Sunday, the whippet/cat/Boomer caravan traveled to the Florida Panhandle, near Apalachicola, to spend five nights at St. George Island State Park.  Since early January, we have traveled all over Florida:  down the East Coast (Titusville, Ft. Lauderdale, Miami), to three areas of the Everglades (Shark Valley, Flamingo, Collier-Seminole), the Keys, the Southwest Coast (Ft. Myers, Sanibel Island), the middle (Caloosahatchee River, Orlando, Bushnell) and now the Panhandle.  We've saved the prettiest area of Florida for the last!!   Without a doubt, St. George Island State Park is the prettiest place we've stayed in Florida all winter.   It reminds me a bit of Edisto Island, SC where we started our journey last December.  St. George Island is a barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico, which has snow-white sand, grassy dunes, tall slash pine trees, tall

 black-needle-grass marshes - it is truly lovely.  

The 

wide, white beaches here are practically deserted; no small feat during spring break weeks in April.  The beaches are so deserted that great blue herons frequent the beach. 

 They walk along, undisturbed, and don't even move as we approach them.

The beach has nine prime walking miles of undeveloped beauty - nothing but white sand, grassy dunes, aqua water, and blue sky.  It must be the fact that this is an out-of-the-way destination that keeps it so quiet and undisturbed.  In order to get here, we crossed a four-mile bridge from Eastpoint, Florida to enter St. George Island.   The western portion of the island is developed, with condos and motels, and a few businesses.  We turned east, and soon left all development and four miles later entered the state park.   After we finally entered the state park, it was four MORE miles of nothing but a roadway through sand dunes to get to the campground.

The sites in the

 campground are large, and it's very quiet here.  It is more of a family destination than a snowbird park, so there is a mix of tents, pop-ups, trailers, and motorhomes.  

 Lots of people with kayaks. 

 If we had been able to get reservations for more than five nights (four full days), we would definitely break out the S.S. Minnow while here.  There are two really nice hiking trails which allow dogs.  (Dogs are not allowed on the beach here at the state park, but ARE allowed on the public St. George Island beaches).   Yesterday we took the "boys" on the longer trail and clocked over six miles on my pedometer before we were done.  It was a good workout, too, because portions of the trail necessitated walking in soft sand.   (I'm still trying to work off all that ice cream from Sanibel Island.)

This is our fourth year in a row to be on the Florida Panhandle this week in April.  This year, it's just a coincidence.  In years past, we were forced to use this week because of Roger's school's spring break.  (The Panhandle is a more manageable drive from Indiana for a one-week stay than the peninsular portion of Florida.)  We've spent the prior three years near Destin: two years at Camping on the Gulf RV resort, and last year at Topsail Hill State Park.   Topsail Hill is another lovely Florida state park.  I must say, though, that for unspoiled beauty and quiet, I like St. George Island even better. 

  

Allergy report:  Roger's oak tree allergy has gotten MUCH better since we arrived here.  There are a very few of the live oaks around here; most of the trees are tall slash pines. 

 From here, tomorrow, we have a long travel day to a Corps of Engineers campground on Lake Lanier, north of Atlanta.  We have our fingers crossed about the oak pollen there.  I'll let Roger take over and add his thoughts on St. George now.

Roger here..

  I suspected that this would be a great place after we arrived at the state park and began driving to the campground.  All that could be seen through the windshield was a narrow road winding through the snow-white dunes. 

 Occasionally there were patches where the sand had drifted onto the roadway.  The green waters of the Gulf of Mexico were always to the right.

Having watched development take over the State of Florida over my lifetime, it is hard to believe that this unspoiled area exists.  People obviously know this is here because the campground is full - not busy, but when walking

 along the beach, the isolation is dramatic.  Two days ago in the late afternoon while Dianne made chili (and rested) and the whippets just rested, I decided to strike out on my own just to see how quiet this place can be.  I walked down to the beach and headed east, away from the park entrance (four miles away), to explore as much of the other five miles of beach as I could before evening. 

 Within five minutes not a soul could be seen - nothing but an endless stretch of white sand and emerald ocean that narrowed to a point at the horizon.  There were lots of sounds (wind, crashing surf, chirping gulls), but none of the human variety.  I walked for about 45 minutes at which time I knew that I needed to head back if I was to arrive before darkness (and Dianne's chili dinner :).  Rather than taking the beach back, I cut across the dunes, avoiding the fragile vegetation, until I came to an abandoned, sand covered, roadway.  The view between the dunes from the roadway was cool.  On the north side was the brown choppy water of the intracoastal waterway and the mainland (four miles away).  On the south side was the green water of the Gulf of Mexico.  The walk back was more arduous than the walk along the beach for a couple reasons.  First, I was walking on soft sand most of the way instead of the hard-packed sand of the beach. 

 Second, the wind, which was significant and chilly at that time of day, was in my face.  Fortunately, I wore a hoody so I was able to tie the hood around my head - Lawrence of Arabia struggling through the barren sand dunes (sans camel).  Dianne's chili tasted especially good after all that exercise.

Last night we had a campfire for the first time in weeks.  The drought that has plagued most of Florida and prevented us from enjoying a campfire is not an issue on the panhandle.  I have to admit that I had significant issues in South Carolina and Georgia in building a blazing campfire.  My fires always seemed to smolder (no flames) after the kindling and fire starters burned out.  My typical campfire activity consisted of - add more kindling, add more paper, restart, sit down, add more kindling, add more paper, restart, sit down, ad nauseam - ending with the pouring of water on the smoldering logs so we could go to bed.     So....  this time Dianne tried her hand.  She began by scavenging an abandoned (hollow) log that was left at the campsite next to us.  Her intent was to use it as a chimney that would create the blazing fire.  It took a while for the log to catch, but when it did, the results were good.

  I guess she will have to build all the campfires from now on :)

We are planning to head to the beach today to sit and watch the water - no more of this walking stuff, at least for today. 

Collier-Seminole State Park

Hi all - Dianne here.  We spent three short days at Collier-Seminole State Park outside Naples, Florida.   As we suspected, there were too many trees for us to have satellite coverage, so we "roughed it" without satellite OR TV for the time we were there.   The only local channel we were able to get was a fuzzy FOX station; that was good enough for us to get our weekly fix of American Idol.  We did miss having internet access, but there is a lot to do there at Collier-Seminole, so we were certainly not bored.

The park rangers there are very proactive, putting on lots of programs. They were all very, very helpful and friendly.  I give the staff there an A+!   

We took the dogs hiking on a trail, then took ourselves in the SS Minnow on a canoe trail through the mangroves.  I'll let Roger elaborate on that a bit.  In fact, we enjoyed it so much that we did it two days in a row.

Roger here...  On the first full day we did a one-mile hike with the dogs.

  Dianne took some interesting pictures of the red-barked Gumbo

 Limbo tree, as well as the red fungus (maybe lichen) that lives on many of the trees.

  Later in the day we took our first excursion on the

 Blackwater River that flows through the park.  Before the paddle trip we registered with the park rangers so they could send out a search party if we did not return.  The river, which is affected by the tides, is truly "black" due to the tannins in the water - lots of  jumping fish and other creatures in the water that we could not see.  (Note from Dianne - at the very shallow points where we could see the bottom, it was obvious that the water was surprisingly clean and clear, despite the dark color.  The bottom just looked like sand with a scattering of leaves which had dropped from the trees.  

Also, the SS Minnow was actually cleaner after our trip than when we had it in the Caloosahatchee River.  It hardly had to even be wiped down.)  

At the launch area, the river was pretty wide.  However, after about a quarter mile it 

narrowed into a winding, deep, somewhat narrow stream through the mangroves. We soon found ourselves totally alone as we criss-crossed up the stream.  In one section the sky disappeared under a complete cover of mangroves - much like paddling in a cave.  Deep in that section, we saw a small set of eyes protruding out of the water.  We thought it might be a snake, but upon closer inspection we confirmed it to be a baby alligator.  We knew it was newly hatched because it still had its yellow stripe.    We made it about a mile and a half the first day

 before turning back shortly after seeing the baby gator.  It kind of creeped me out.  Dianne, however, was very brave.  The paddle trail is 13.5 miles long and eventually dumps into the Gulf.  Obviously, due to the ridiculously small gator, we barely put a dent in the trail.

When we checked back in with the rangers at the end of the trip, they assured me that if we encountered a gator, that it would leave us alone unless we harassed it.  (Right, like I'm going to harass an alligator in an inflatable kayak!).  They encouraged us to go again the next day and to go further, which we did.  On the second day we  paddled for about four miles and had a great time - a very different experience than Sugar Creek in Indiana.  We intend to go kayaking a couple more times before we leave South Florida.

Dianne already mentioned how nice Collier-Seminole State Park is.  While wandering through the park, we took a couple shots with the dogs as we clowned around at the Barron Collier monument.  

We also took some shots of the "Walking Dredge" display 

that was used to build the Tamiami Trail Highway (US 41) through the Everglades and Big Cypress Swamp, linking Tampa and Miami and opening southwest Florida to travelers. 

  

We had some time to lounge around the campsite.  There was actually wildlife viewing at the site with dozens of gray squirrels (kept Jasper on his toes, Chaplin just slept), lizards, and about thirty kids in tents with their fathers on a weekend outing.  (Dianne here - there wasn't a mom in the bunch.   It wasn't the boy scouts, because there were both boys and girls, of all ages.  They had a great time, and I dubbed the group the "Good Dads Club.")   We did not get a shot of the tent city across from us, but I am really pleased with the picture of the small lizard

 that I got on a tree at the exact moment that he extended his very red neck in a mating ritual.  

The park had an ice cream social on the last evening we were there. 

 Dianne made sure that Jasper and Chaplin were able to partake - vanilla ice cream, their favorite.

Dianne again - Our site at Collier-Seminole was not spacious by any means, but the activities there made up for it.   Another interesting aspect of the area here is that it is one of the few sites where royal palm trees are indigenous to the area.   They are interesting to view up close; the trunks on the mature trees look like concrete.   The younger palms have stripes and green areas. 

  I am including a photo of a tree from one of our hikes, but I'm not sure you can get the true effect. 

  Charlie the cat wasn't very happy at Collier-Seminole; because of the dirty sand everywhere on our site, I KNEW the first thing he would do if we let him out on his harness was roll around in it and then his fur would be a mess.  At least whippets don't normally roll in the dirt, and even if they did, their fur is so short we could just wipe them down.   With Charlie it would have been a major issue.  

Check back in a few days and we'll get caught up and describe our fun days here at the Groves in Fort Myers with our camping buddies, Chuck and Cindy, and their brand new puppy.   See you then!