Pancake Breakfast at the Campground

On my last morning, we rode our bikes down for the pancake breakfast that is held every Thursday morning at Oscar Scherer Park. We had a delightful conversation with a couple who is from Massachusetts and has been camping in Florida for the past 10 years. They have also traveled all over the country in their trailer to National Parks. We had fun comparing notes about parks we'd both been to, as well as getting pointers from them about fantastic parks to see in the future.

I'm reminded again as I leave to fly home today how much I love camping! I love being in the great outdoors and we have met the nicest people along the way. It has been such a fun way to travel over the years — and as we look ahead, we have lots of places we still want to visit!

Loving Oscar Scherer Park and Surrounding Area!

One of the nice things about this park is that it has bike trails, hiking trails, etc., but it is also close to several places where you can go into town and do some other things.

Today, because it was raining earlier in the day, we decided to pack our beach stuff and then head into Sarasota for a very late lunch with the hope that if the weather improved, we could go back to Siesta Key beach.

We had a late lunch in Siesta Key — as you can see, our weather improved greatly by the time we left our lunch! Look at the beautiful sky!

We got back to Siesta Key Beach in the late afternoon — once again, we are so impressed with this beach and its beautiful white sand.

We stayed at the beach until some storm clouds rolled in again, and then we took off to head back to the campground for Betsy's last evening in Florida.
 

Biking on the Legacy Trail

We continue to be so impressed with the beautiful Florida State Parks.

Oscar Scherer State Park has the Legacy Bike Trail running right through it — so you can hop on your bike in the campground and then either bike to Sarasota at one end or to Venice at the other end.

We decided to try the bike trail and go to Nokomis Beach which is just north of Venice Beach.

As you can see, the bike trail is beautiful — paved with little rest stops along the way.

The ride to the beach was easy and took only about 30 minutes. Nokomis Beach was beautiful, too!

After our trip to the beach, we stopped at the Pelican Alley for a beer before riding back to the campsite.

You can see that Pelican Alley was named for all the Pelicans that line up on the water.

We ended up riding about 24 miles yesterday — felt really good to get some exercise!

Move to Oscar Scherer Park

We arrived at Oscar Scherer State Park on Monday afternoon. The park is located about 5 miles south of Sarasota, FL. While the campground is not right on the beach, it is much closer to the ocean than our previous campground. So after we got settled, we decided to take Dave and Betsy's car and head to Siesta Key Beach to watch the sunset.

First we had dinner in Siesta Key at the Old Salty Dog — great fish tacos!

Then we walked through Siesta Key to the beach.

The brochure that we got at the campground office rated Siesta Key beach very highly.

It was truly a beautiful beach — fine white sand that seemed to extend on forever.

Dave and Betsy in the sunset's glow.

It was a beautiful night on a beautiful beach.

A Weekend Visit to Naples

On Friday, Greg and I left the campground to travel about 30 minutes to Naples, Florida to visit our old neighbors, the Galiks, in their new home.

Marilouise and Betsy spent many mornings in Minnetonka walking before all the children (seven children between them) were up solving family "problems" and sharing family joys. We have stayed in close touch over the last 12 years since the Galiks have left Minnesota and always look forward to seeing each other and catching up.

 This time, we got to spend time with them in their beautiful new home complete with a lanai, pool and water garden all under a screened dome. It seemed like paradise to us!

Here you can sit in the middle of a water garden complete with the sound of several small waterfalls in a stream.

We took a picnic dinner to the beach in time to do some sunset watching. Here I am having my new favorite — Yuengling Lager. This beer is not available in Minnesota, so have been enjoying it on our Florida trip.

We had a wonderful weekend in Naples enjoying our good friends and beautiful weather!

A Visit to the Thomas Edison Museum

We had a wonderful visit at the Thomas Edison winter estate which is located in Fort Myers. Thomas Edison had a close friendship with Henry Ford — and they had adjoining compounds in Fort Myers. So, there was lots of information about Henry Ford at the museum as well including all the ways these two amazing men were connected over the years.

While I had primarily thought of Thomas Edison and the invention of the electric light bulb, we learned that he was an incredible inventor who held 1093 patents! His inventions included the phonograph and the movie projector — the museum was great and well worth a visit.

More of Edison's inventions.

Sanibel and Captiva Islands

One thing that is different about our camping trip this year is that we aren't camped right on the ocean — so we really hadn't spent any time at a beach yet. So today, we drove to Sanibel and Captiva Islands for some beach time.

We left our campsite at 9 am and got to Bowman Beach at about 10:15 am. (there is lots of traffic on the bridge and the main drag into Sanibel!) Our plan was to spend a couple of hours there and then have a late lunch — that way missing the hottest part of the day. The weather and beach were beautiful — we even got to see some dolphins swimming out a ways from where we were set up with our beach chairs!

After our time at the beach, we went to the Bubble Room on Captiva Island — it has been around for about 35 years and specializes in HUGE DESSERTS. We had dessert after having lunch . . . . . or what I'm calling "l'inner" — so full that we won't be eating dinner tonight!

 Dave and Betsy at the Bubble Room.

The Bubble Room is famous for its homemade potato chips served with ketchup and its large desserts!

Spring Training!

 Today we went to the Hammond Stadium, the Twins' spring training facility, to see the Twins play the Toronto Blue Jays.

Once again, an absolutely gorgeous day — perfect temperature, blue sky, and a cool breeze.

 We had really good seats behind home plate, so we could easily see all the action.

The stadium was packed! It seemed like equal amounts of Blue Jay and Twins fans — looks like both the Minnesotans and Canadians were anxious to get a little "taste of summer" at a spring training game.

Twins won 12 to 2! Hope that means they'll be having a good season. :-)

Seeing a Special Friend!

We woke up on Sunday morning to another beautiful day! In the early afternoon, my really good friend, Marilouise, came to visit. Marilouise lived in our Minnetonka neighborhood for a long time and we were walking buddies. She and her husband, Karl, now live in Naples. We had lots of fun catching up and then taking our kayak out for a spin on the Estero River. Greg and I are looking forward to going to their home in Naples next weekend for a visit.

After dinner, we enjoyed watching the Academy Awards!

Vintage Car Show on a Beautiful Day!

This photo says it all about the weather! We had a spectacular day enjoying this beautiful park. After doing some biking exploring the trails in the park and taking the tour of the Koreshan historic site, we headed up to the area on the park grounds that a vintage car show was being held. The cars were all beautiful — so colorful in the Florida sun!

We finished our day by having dinner at Dave and Betsy's new trailer — lots of fun discussions about the Koreshan Unity and other Utopian Societies.

A Historic Site of a Strange Utopian Community

Koreshan State Park is a historic site of the former "Koreshan Unity." The Koreshan Unity was “quite possibly one of the most bizarre” communal utopias developed in the nineteenth century.

Throughout its history, Florida has welcomed pioneers of all kinds. Cyrus Reed Teed was probably the most unusual, bringing followers to Estero in 1894 to build New Jerusalem for his new faith, Koreshanity. The colony, known as the Koreshan Unity, believed that the entire universe existed within a giant, hollow sphere (see model in photo).  

The chief beliefs of the Koreshans were cellular cosmogony, reincarnation and immortality, celibacy, communism, equality of women, and a belief in Teed's inspired leadership.The colony began fading after Teed´s death in 1908, and in 1961 the last four members deeded the land to the state.

We went on an excellent tour of the Koreshan historic site with a tour guide — it was fascinating!

Koreshan State Park

We arrived at Koreshan State Park on Friday afternoon and were pleasantly surprised with this beautiful "jewel" of a park near Fort Myers, Florida.

This camp ground is not on the ocean like so many of our previous Florida camp grounds; however, it is a really nice camp ground on the banks of Estero River that flows into the ocean. The sites have lots of vegetation between each site, so you definitely have a sense of privacy.

We spent the late afternoon getting set up in our site — Dave and Betsy's site isn't right "next door," but only a short walk away.

After getting the preliminaries set, we went into town to go grocery shopping and out to dinner at a grill.

Myakka State Park

Betsy Larsen and I woke up on Friday to our first morning in Florida to beautiful weather — unbelievable how quickly we left the winter weather woes behind! The plan was to travel to Koreshan State Park, but before we packed up, we did some biking in Myakka State Park. Myakka is know for a large bird santuary and we had fun viewing all kinds of birds with our binoculars.

After enjoying time at the bird sanctuary, we ate lunch and then got on the road by 1 pm.

Contrast Between Florida and Minnesota

Today is the day Betsy (Dave's wife) and I travel to Florida — there couldn't be more contrast between the two states right now! Our temperature in Minnesota is -16 degrees with -35 degrees wind chill. You can see from the photo take at Myakka River State Park that Greg and Dave are enjoying some nice weather!

Yesterday they had their first full day of just enjoying Florida after their multi-day trip from Minnesota. Dave is working on learning about his new trailer and Greg spent time yesterday cleaning up our trusted motor home after the long journey. They will pick up "both the Betsys" at the airport today, and then we'll head back to Myakka River State Park for one night before heading to Koreshan State Park tomorrow.