Fort Myers Beach 2010 - Sixth Week

This afternoon, we headed south on Estero Island on a bike ride. We stopped at the Red Coconut Campground to check out their beachside campsites. We would love to stay there, but the price of $100 per night for a campsite is too extravagant. As we neared the end of the Island, we walked our bikes out on the beach to the ride the last mile. In total, we rode over twenty miles and got our much needed exercise.

Thursday evening, we met with a group of boaters for a pizza party at the local pizzeria. We met a recently retired couple from Wapakoneta, Ohio (Dan and Bobbie Thompson). During our conversation, it came up that they had sold their Pearson to a fellow in Iowa. After a few questions, we discovered it was John Leindecker's latest boat "Lienheart."

For the last month and one half, we have been picking up fresh local seafood at the market across from our campground. We couldn't leave without taking advantage of the great deal on shrimp, so we and Spyksma's both picked up 5 lbs of shrimp to bring back to Des Moines.

Sunday was Palm Sunday, so we attended the services at the Fort Myers Beach Catholic Church of the Ascension. This beautiful old church stands on a large track of land in the center of the island. As usual, the church was packed on Palm Sunday.

Our last night at Fort Myers Beach, we met up with friends at the Tiki Bar at the Lighthouse Resort. Gary is pictured here with Gary, a power boater from Waverly, Iowa. Gary and Barb winter at Matanzas Marina with Keith and Betty. Gary has not shaved or had a hair cut since he left Waverly in November.

For dinner that evening, we joined Bill and Kathy for a stuffed Grouper dinner at Parrot Key Grill. We have ventured here several times in the past to enjoy the Frank Torino show. Frank was joined by the Fort Myers Beach "Female Vocalist of the Year" - Tammy (below). It turns out that she is from Davenport, Iowa.

For the past month, we have had wonderful neighbors who spend their winters here in Fort Myers Beach. Maryann and Wally Matthews are from Eaton Rapids, Michigan. Even though they were Michigan State fans who had cheered against our UNI Panthers, they treated us like long time friends. They even let us use their kayaks for one of our ventures into the Mangroves. Hopefully, we will have a chance to be their neighbors again in the future.

As we left on Tuesday, we said goodbye to our home for the last 5 weeks, Oyster Bay RV Park. Hopefully, it will not be turned into condos before the next time we visit Fort Myers Beach.

Following our departure from Fort Myers Beach, we headed to the New York Yankee Spring Training site in Tampa. Our grandson, Aaron, is a big fan of the Yankees, specifically Derek Jeter. We know he will enjoy the souvenirs we picked up for his birthday.

We had little mishap along the way. Our bike carrier worked its way loose from the back of the jeep spilling out onto the highway. Nobody was hurt, but one of the bikes is a complete loose, while one of the others needed repair.

Fort Myers Beach 2010 - Fifth Week

On Tuesday of this week, after the winds died down, we decided to head to Cabbage Key. Cabbage Key is between Cayo Costa and North Captiva Island, about a day's sail or 25 miles north of Fort Myers Beach.

Those of you who know Keith and Betty Gordon, know that they got married here 12 years ago on Ground Hog's Day. The picture shows the location of the actual wedding ceremony.

Cabbage Key contains about 12 homes and a wonderful restaurant and survived many storms as well as Hurricane Charlie in 2004. With the recent cool weather there weren't many customers besides us at the evening's dinner.

During Jim Hudson's visit to Fort Myers Beach in January, he tried out a game new to us called Pickle Ball. He insisted that we give it a try. Pickle Ball is played on a small indoor court and is a cross between tennis and ping pong and is not as hard on our old bodies as a full game of tennis. We all enjoyed learning the new sport.

Later in the week we went on a bike ride in Fort Myers on a new trail that follows one of the canals. The ride out was quite easy, but the ride back in the wind tested our stamina. The canal contained several alligators that are always an attraction when you can pick them out of the brush.

On Sunday, Bill Spyksma celebrated his 62nd birthday, which means he now qualifies for Social Security. It won't be quite enough to buy a new boat, but it was enough to prepare a wonderful Pork Loin dinner for all of us at his "Cando". A cando is like a condo, but is a much smaller on site mobile home.

Rather than a birthday cake, Bill wanted a banana creme pie on which we placed the only candle we could find - a votive candle.

The winds have been quite strong over the last month, this kept us from enjoying a kayak trip through the Mangroves. On Monday morning, we loaded two kayaks that were borrowed from our neighbor onto Betty's car for a kayak adventure on Tarpon Bay.

Tarpon Bay has a numbered trail system that takes you through the Mangroves to view a wide variety of birds and fish in the shallow waters. Following our tour, we went to the Ding Darling Wildlife Preserve. Those of you from Iowa know that Ding was a cartoonist with the Des Moines Register and he donated his land for this preserve. Prior to our return to Fort Myers Beach, we toured Captiva Island and were amazed at the extravagance of the homes built along this narrow island. Many of these estates were in excess of $3 to $5 Million.

Fort Myers Beach 2010 - Fourth Week

Our friends, Randy and Deb Cameron arrived on Tuesday afternoon on a direct flight from Des Moines. We didn't waste any time taking them to the beach to see the reason why they flew such a long distance. Randy had been here twice before while helping Keith and Betty transport their boat to and from Florida. Unfortunately, he only had a day to see the sights. This time it is different, they have 10 full days to tour the area.

Randy and Gary took a couple of moments to discuss the potential flooding at Saylorville Lake that is likely to occur while we are all in Florida. Randy and Deb will be staying with us in the RV for the first half of their stay and with Jay and Kathy Light the second half.

One of the things on Deb's "To Do List" was to bike ride around Sanibel Island. On Wednesday, joined by Betty Gordon and Bill Spyksma we took a 12 mile trip with various stops to view the sites.

The girls enjoyed the sign shown below that was outside the diamond store. All men should read the message and learn from it!!!

The next day, we took in the Cincinnati Fireman show on the beach. Deb has a sister that lives in Cincinnati and we wanted to show her the talents of the local Firemen. They have been performing on the Fort Myers Beach for 25 years doing their rendition of the Blues Brothers, Michael Jackson, John Travolta in Grease and various other shows, while involving the Spring Break bikini clad girls. As you can see, the guys aren't bad looking either.

It was great having Master Chef Bill Spyksma with us this year. On Thursday evening, Bill put his skills to work preparing a delicious Shrimp Alfredo pasta dinner for our group of eight. To round out the evening, Betty suggested we play a few rounds of cards (3-13 and Kings in the Corner).

We have been coming to Florida for three years now and they always seem to be in a drought. It is not the case this year. It rained between 5 and 7 inches in the Fort Myers area on Friday. As you can see from the pictures below, the island's lack of storm sewers means that the campsite and surrounding roads encountered severe flooding.

Fort Myers Beach is an area where most of the activities are outside. Our search for something to do for the day lead us to the Fleamasters - a 900 booth flea market house in multiple huts.

Bonita Bill's, a marina/pub on the water where the locals congregate, has Karaoke each Friday evening. Some of the performers were exceptional, good enough to be on American Idol. Gary and Deb couldn't resist the temptation to entertain the crowd with an Everly Brother's song.

Bill Spyksma chickened out on his bet of singing by not showing up. Betty, however, fulfilled her part of the bet and danced with Gary to a Rock and Roll song. Hey Bill, the group says you still owe us a song before you leave Florida!

Even Patsy Cator joined in the singing with Gary in the spirit of the evening.

Randy and Deb got into the swing of things and danced to an old standard. Don't they make a cute couple!

Each year, the Lion Club of Fort Myers Beach hosts the Annual Shrimp Fest Parade and Festival. The bridge to the island is closed from 9 to 12 as the mass of spectators cross over to the island to view the 1 1/2 hour long parade, preceded by a 5km marathon. For lunch, we all headed to the food stands to dine on fresh scallops, grouper, shrimp and crab cakes. Later that afternoon we moved Deb and Randy to Jay and Kathy Light's for the second half of their stay.

Fort Myers Beach 2010 - Third Week

Our good friend, Debbie Cattoor arrived late last night after a variety of airline delays and difficulties. After sleeping in this morning, we headed out to do a little site seeing on Estero Island (Fort Myers Beach). The Island is about 5 miles long with the northern third being hotels and high-rise condos with lots of entertainment, and the southern two-thirds luxurious homes and condos.

At the south end of the Island is a great little restaurant called "The Fish House." We have come here often by boat, as it is on the water. Deb and Gary both feasted on Grouper, while Kathy had Salmon.

Later that evening, the three of us were joined at the RV by Bill and Kathy, and Keith and Betty for an Italian pasta dinner and a round of 3-13 and other card games.

Last evening, the high winds and high seas rolled in and deposited a vast array of sea shells and fish life (star fish, mussels, etc.). During our bike ride on Sanibel Island, we stopped at the beach to explore and gather a wide variety of shells. We rode about 12 miles across the southern end of the island before stopping at Cheeburger Cheeburger (not cheeseburger) for mouth watering hand made cheeseburgers with delicious malts.

This evening, we revisited Parrot Bay Grill for appetizers, our favorite alcoholic beverage and dancing. Our favorite entertainer, Frank Torino, had us all singing to the oldies. During his Elvis skit, he wooed Debbie with "Love Me Tender."

Having started quite early, we were favorites of Frank because we stayed for the entire evening. As they were cleaning up the tables, Debbie and Bill had to finish off the evening with their "Last Dance."

Friday gave us the opportunity to take Debbie to our favorite cuisine (Skyline Chili). It gave her a first hand chance to experience one of our Cincinnati favorites. Earlier in the year, our friend Barb Reiff had served us a recipe for Cincinnati Chili that she has found on the internet.

Following lunch, we headed for the Minnesota Twins winter camp to see them play the Boston Red Sox for their home opener. We had great seats, that Deb got from her brother-in-law, Kevin Cattoor. It was a good game, the Twins won 5 to 0.

On the final day of Deb's visit, we joined Betty Gordon for a kayak trip down the Imperial River out of Bonita Springs. We were joined by Rex, a friend of Betty and Keith from Ottumwa, Iowa.

Typically the trip down this river takes about 1 1/2 hours, but we loved to explore. We spent a lot of time paddling around the massive Manatees that were swimming under and around our kayaks. When we paddled within 1/2 mile, we ran into the owner's son who had ventured out to see if we were OK after not having arrived for over 3 hours.

For Deb's last supper, we ventured to SOB (Smoking Oyster Brewery), a favorite watering hole with a wide variety of seafood meals. Debbie ordered King Crab Legs, thinking that they were a Florida product. Unfortunately, we had to tell her after the meal that King Crab Legs come from Alaska. As you can see from the photo below she wasn't disappointed. It is amazing how quick five days can go when you are having fun!

Fort Myers Beach 2010 - Second Week

The cold spell from the north hit southwestern Florida today. Temps hovered in the mid to low 60's as we gathered outside the local pizza parlor for a boaters party. Keith and Betty's boating friend from England (back row) has been working with a young couple to assist them in developing their pizza business. He also filled us in on sites to visit during our trip to England later this year.



Paula got into the mood of boating by posing as a seductive pirate.




Saturday was a much nicer day with temps in the high 60's so we decided to head over to Sanibel Island and bike. Sanibel has a very laid back atmosphere with lots of good restaurants and biking trails.



You can tell a lot of midwesterners visit Sanibel from the sign below at the Visitors Center.

Following a sumptuous lunch at the Island Cow Eatery, our group (Bill & Kathy, Keith & Betty, Denny & Paula, Gary & Kathy) set out on an adventure. Our 12 mile ride included several visits to the beach, the lighthouse and fishing pier as well as stopping for beverages at local pubs.

Each year, the Bishop visits the shrimpers and blesses their boats for the upcoming season. As part of the event, a festival is held with fresh seafood, drinks, entertainment and a tour of the shrimp boats. The guys couldn't resist having the ladies pose next to their favorite boat, the "Double E."

Later that day, when the temperature warmed up, we headed to the beach for some sunshine. The sun was bright, but unfortunately, the winds made the 70 degree temperature chilly. But in the end we all wanted to get some rays, so we persevered.

Sunday evening, we all gathered to bid farewell to our friends Denny and Paula. Unfortunately, we didn't do a good job as hosts as the temperatures for the week never reached the 80's that we planned on. Paula thought she would get ready for the colder temperatures at home by wearing her gloves.