Hey, stop this train!

After so many days of being on the road we knew it was time to find a place to stop and spend at least a week. After researching our options we decided to try out the Value Place extended stay hotel chain that is located in a number of Florida cities. Lakeland, Florida, seemed like a centrally-located city with enough surrounding options to keep us occupied for a week. It is also close to our friends from Virginia, the Clendenin's, who spend the winter months here in their RV.

Friday morning before leaving Fort Pierce, we spent some time in the downtown area, which included a visit to the Manatee Education Center. Besides the indoor and outdoor exhibits we had an opportunity to watch a group of manatees hovering just beneath the surface of the water in the ditch behind the center. The manatees like the ditch because it is an outlet from a city utility plant. The water flowing into the ditch from the plant is warmer than the surrounding water and manatees crave warmth (I know how they feel)! One of the things we learned about manatees is that the leading cause of death for them is pneumonia. They don't have a thick skin nor a high metabolism to help them stay warm.



Leaving the Manatee Education Center we took a short drive across the inlet to check out the nearby beaches. The beaches on the Atlantic side of Florida are different from the Gulf coast beaches. It was a windy day, rather chilly, and the waves were rolling in. Standing there in the wind reminded me of other beach visits over the years in places like Virginia Beach, VA, or Ocean City, Maryland. It seems like whenever I'm there it's cold and windy and I want to just get somewhere warm like it was when we were at the Everglades. Still a lot warmer, though, than it would have been in Virginia or Maryland.


On our drive across Florida to reach Lakeland from Fort Pierce we stayed off the major interstates to get a better feel for what Florida is really like. Lots of cattle ranches and orange groves and orange juice processing plants to look at.


Here in Lakeland we are enjoying the chance to get our bearings and know that we don't have to pack up the car again until Friday. Saturday we got on our bikes and explored the Lake-to-Lake bicycle route.

Lakeland is appropriately named. There are multitudes of small lakes in and around the city.
Lake Hollingsworth, first lake on the Lake-to-Lake route.

Lake Morton, close to downtown.

Hollis Gardens, close to downtown.


Yesterday we attended church with our friends, the Clendenin's and got a tour of the area where they live in Polk City, which is a small town close to Lakeland. Today we are catching up on some business and taking time to figure out where things are around the city. Our hotel offers internet, but we have found it to be frustratingly unreliable. We are now happily working on our computers using the great wireless service that is offered for free at the Lakeland Public library.

Either a cold front has moved into the state or it just isn't as warm here as it was in southern Florida. Our bikes are on the car and if it warms up enough this afternoon we will explore another bike trail here in town. Meanwhile, it is nice to have a few days to know we don't have to be on the move and that we have a stove where we can cook actual dinners.

Everglades to Fort Pierce by way of Lake Okeechobee

We didn't intend to be in Fort Pierce tonight, but our adventures in Florida have often led us to places that we hadn't necessarily thought of visiting. The 3 days that we spent in the Everglades were like that. Until a conversation last Saturday with our friends, the Marshall's, we weren't thinking that the Everglades would be somewhere we would go during our time in Florida. I can't believe that we almost missed going there. It was a fantastic 3 days, with so much more to share about than I will have time for here. But I'll give a quick rundown just so you'll know that we didn't get eaten by alligators and are still alive and well.

Alligators, alligators, alligators. I kept pleading with Lee that we just HAD to go through the Everglades because I really wanted to see alligators. And see alligators we did. During the 3 days there were many places we stopped to view them. They like to lay out in the sun next to ditches, as well as sometimes when we would see them floating in the canals like half-submerged logs. At no time did we ever see one that looked like it had enough energy to even care one bit that a bunch of tourists were there gawking and taking pictures. Notice in the third picture that this is a whole nest of alligators!



Our tour of the Everglades started at the western end and included time in the Big Cypress National Preserve, which adjoins Everglades National Park in the northeast. One of the activities here (besides stopping at roadside viewing areas to see alligators and at visitor centers to watch educational videos about the park and preserve) was to hike a portion of the Florida National Scenic Trail that goes through the preserve from north to south.

It was an interesting surface to walk on, not rocky like trails we are familiar with in the Shenandoah, but often rough terrain where the limestone bedrock was eroded and pitted.
"Lee picking his way over the perilous pitted limestone path"

Our first night was spent at a nice, but rather pricey, motel in Everglades City. When we realized that we would want to spend more than one night, we decided to try our first campout of the trip and stay at the Monument Lake campground we had seen earlier in the day while driving through the preserve, not far from Everglades City. Even without having planned on camping out we found that we had all we needed to make it a pleasant experience.

Sunrise over Monument Lake the morning after our campout.

Early morning walk near the campground.

Since we weren't prepared for campsite cooking we did go into town and enjoy a nice seafood dinner at a local restaurant. My dinner included a cup of delicious stone crab soup. We learned that stone crabs are harvested locally in the bay and that it is illegal to capture and keep the whole crab. Instead, only one claw is cut off and the crab is put back in the water. If done correctly, the crab will regenerate a new claw for the next hungry tourist.

A lot of what we learned about the Everglades was on a boat tour that we took from the park visitor center at Everglades City. The boat tour also provided the thrilling experience of watching a pod of dolphins race up to our boat and swim and play, jumping and rolling in the waves made by the boat's wake. Unfortunately, we didn't have a camera with a shutter fast enough to catch a picture of the dolphins.
Lee on the boat before departing the dock.

Two of us on the boat.

And we wouldn't want to leave the western end of the Everglades without showing you the picture we took at the Ochopee Post Office, which is between Everglades City and the Monument Lake campground. It is the smallest post office in the US, but only in the size of the building. The postmistress said that it is a busy post office and not on the list of post offices planned for closure by the US Postal Service. Of course, it's busy with all of us tourists who stop and get postcards of the cute, little building.

Midway through our Everglades experience we enjoyed a 15-mile bike ride through the area of the park called Shark River Slough. It should have been called Alligator River Slough, since alligators were visible everywhere along the ditches, but obviously no sharks in the middle of the everglades. And, as in so many of the other areas of the park, clouds of herons, egrets, wood storks, ibis, and anhingas, to name a few, were everywhere. What I found particularly interesting about this trail is that it was an asphalt road built to carry tourists by tram on a circular route with a stop midway at an observation tower. The bikes were allowed to share the road by pedaling in the opposite direction of the trams and then pulling over and stopping whenever a tram was approaching.



Observation tower at Shark Valley

Our overnight stay Tuesday night was at a motel in Florida City, which is at the eastern edge of the Everglades. Wednesday morning we took a short side trip to Biscayne National Park which is within viewing distance of Miami across the Bay. It is also the northernmost part of the Florida Keys. We didn't take time to drive down into the Keys, but, hey, you can't do everything.

Before saying goodby to the Everglades, we drove in through the Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center and found a picnic area for lunch at Long Pine Key. After lunch we walked on a trail through the pines that came out on the shore of a small lake.


Wednesday night found us camping again, this time at a Corps of Engineers campground in the town of Pahokee on the shores of Lake Okeechobee. Don't you just love the names of the places in Florida? Lake Okeechobee is the second largest freshwater lake in the continental US (bonus points for knowing what the largest one is). Herbert Hoover Dike was built around the lake in the 1930's for flood protection. There is a paved and off-road trail called the Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail (LOST) atop the dike. And wouldn't you know it, but our intrepid travelers had to get their bikes off the car and see what it was like to pedal the LOST trail.

Pretty hard to get lost on it, that's for sure.


So tonight, as I mentioned, we are in Fort Pierce, on the Atlantic Ocean side of Florida. This area is known as the "Treasure Coast" from a number of ships of Spanish galleons that wrecked off the coast during the 17th and 18th centuries. We don't plan to dive for sunken treasures, but as this adventure continues, who knows what treasures await us.

Fort Myers Beach to Everglades

After a totally relaxing and enjoyable week being spoiled by our hosts at Fort Myers Beach, it was time yesterday to pack up and move on. Across the water is the view of Carlos Pointe condos (long building in the middle), where we stayed for the week. This view was taken from one of the beaches on nearby Lover's Key State Park.

The first stop after leaving FMB was at the J. N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge on nearby Sanibel Island. Lee and I had spent time there on a previous visit to Florida, but we had a special reason yesterday for going there. Our friends, the Marshall's, from northern Virginia were vacationing there. Over the years we have shared many hikes and bike rides with the Marshall's. How nice to see some familiar faces.

After spending the morning riding our bikes through the refuge to observe the many birds, we enjoyed a delicious lunch at a local restaurant. Lee was thrilled that he got an opportunity to taste a new dish--conch soup.

Today we attended services at Fort Myers First Assembly of God church and then hit the highway. Our destination was Everglades National Park. We made a stop along the way at Collier-Seminole State Park. The Royal Palm Hammock Trail provided informative signs that described the plant species, many of which we have seen elsewhere, but some that were unique to this area. Behind Lee are some of the Royal Palms that are unique to this part of Florida.

A tree we have seen many other times is the Gumbo Limbo. Besides the interesting name, it has an amusing nickname used by the locals. Fortunately, Lee and I are not part of the red, peeling skin crowd, but are, instead, getting nice Florida tans.

This photo is not a close-up where you are able to see our tans. But we were pleased when a fellow walker on the trail offered to take a picture of both of us under a Live Oak that was branched across the trail.

One of my favorite exhibits at Collier-Seminole was something that you don't expect to see at a state park. The park is the site of a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark. Who would ever have thought there was such a thing. This towering black machine is the last existing Bay City (that's Bay City, Michigan) Walking Dredge. It was built in 1924 and used to build the Tamiami Trail Highway (US 41, that we were driving on to get to the Everglades). It was an engineering marvel of its day and helped accomplish the monumental task of building a road through the Everglades and Big Cypress Swamp, linking Tampa and Miami and opening southwest Florida to travelers like us.

So thanks to the Walking Dredge and the labors of many men and women over the years, we were able to reach our destination of Everglades City in enough time to watch a short film at the Everglades National Park Gulf Coast Visitor Center. There is much more to explore and learn in the Everglades and it was closing time at the Visitor Center. We are spending the night In Everglades City and will have time for more exploration tomorrow.
Sunset this evening over Chokoloskee Bay.

Avon Park, Cape Coral and Fort Myers Beach

We left Avon Park on Wednesday to drive to Cousin Jo's in Cape Coral. On the way we made a stop at Highland Hammock State Park where we took a short walk on the Swamp Trail.


In Cape Coral, Jo and Tom were wonderful hosts. Their condominium is next to an abandoned golf course, where we took a bike ride on the trails the first morning we were there.

There were other bike riding opportunities on bike trails within the city. In addition, we spent one afternoon exploring Caloosahatchee Regional Park in nearby Alva.


On the way back we stopped at a farm that offered "pick your own" strawberries. The strawberries were just beginning to ripen so it took a lot of walking up and down the rows to find the ripe ones. We filled our bellies, though (part of the advantage of picking your own) and got enough for some good eating at home.

Sunday we left Cape Coral and drove to Fort Myers Beach. Our hosts here are Lee's brother and sister-in-law, Scott and Diane Regan. They have rented a beautiful condo overlooking the beach and are graciously letting us stay here with them. So far, Barbara's favorite activity, as usual, is sitting in the sun, while Lee has been more interested in investigating the wildlife.

In "Un-Disney" Central Florida

Once you leave Florida's interstates and resort areas, it's surprising how much rural land there is in the state. Ocala, where we were Sunday and Monday, is "horse country", as evidenced by the stretches of land devoted to breeding and raising horses. Yesterday we continued our southward journey on our old favorite, Highway 27, and we are now in central Florida, home to acres and acres of orange groves and cattle ranches.

On our way down yesterday we stopped at Lake Louisa State Park and walked on a nature trail.

View along shoreline of Lake Louisa:



This was before we started seeing all the orange groves. And I knew that it is strictly forbidden to pick anything from a tree in the groves, even when they are enticingly close to the road. So I got all excited when the first thing we saw along the nature trail was a couple of stray orange trees.

Unfortunately, the oranges weren't quite ripe. We had to wait until this morning at Aunt Joyce's house in Avon Park to enjoy fresh Florida citrus. She has a grapefruit tree in her yard and we split a big, juicy grapefruit to start our breakfast.

Today's outing was a drive to Lake Placid and a visit to the Archbold Biological Station. We watched an interesting 20 minute video on the history of the park. Our usual activity once again was to walk on the nature trail. This time we learned a lot about the area's biology by reading the brochure that accompanied the signs on the trail.

On the way home we took a detour to see Lake Okeechobee. We didn't drive far enough to see any beaches but just stopped at an area that viewed the ring of marshes around the north end.


What our pictures haven't been able to capture are the long expanses of flat horizons covered by sunny, blue skies; the innumerable small lakes; the extensive cattle ranches; the orange groves and the many trailer trucks on the highways transporting the now-ripe oranges.