Saturday and Sunday in Naples

Saturday in Naples.  Hot. We’ve clearly overshot Spring and found summer; Sunny and 29C this day.

We killed the morning doing not much of anything. 

I did some catch-up on the blog and homework and we hung around the trailer park mostly getting ready for lunch with J.C. and Nancy. 

We both showered in the campground bathhouse — normal for me, I like the extra room and often this allows Lorraine to use the trailer’s shower, which she much prefers, while I shower in the campground. But here in Naples we don’t have a direct sewer hookup so we’re being careful with water.  There are two tanks for water in the trailer — 40 gallons for “grey” water, soapy dishwater, shower water etc.  and 40 gallons for the other stuff in the “black” water tank. Let’s just say it’s not actually black.  If we can manage to make it to next Saturday without having to make it to the dumping station and reparking the trailer both of us will be pleased and we certainly don’t want to move twice.  As a result we’re making use of the nice bathrooms that are only about 100 feet away and using paper plates as much as we can.  Even without a sewer hookup and without cable TV this place costs us $70 US a night — the last 3 campsites were only about $35 each; Location is everything.  Our campsite here is approximately 20 fee by 40 feet total — and this includes truck parking.  It is possible to touch the truck and the trailer parked beside it.   So it’s a good thing the bathrooms are clean, they help park and have a very nice pool and a number of community activities. 

On the other hand we’re lucky to be here at all — I had to check at least a dozen parks before finding one to reserve ( and I reserved this one at Christmas time).   South Florida in the high season is expensive and many of the parks maintain a lot of rules that would empty parks further north.  No pets in many, No travel trailers or pop-ups ( they want only the expensive big trailers), no kids, no trailers more than 10 years old, minimum stays of 7 to 30 days...  I was happy to find this one even if it is 30 minutes drive away from John and Nancy’s — they are in North Naples and we are just outside Naples and most of the way to Marco Island.  And the wi-if is good as well and the map location in google is accurate. 

John and Nancy ( My step-dad and his friend) arrived to pick-us up for Lunch at 12:30.  We gave them a quick tour of the interior of the trailer and headed out for lunch at  Stan’s Idle Hour in Goodland on Marco Island.  It was a pleasant 20 minute drive with a lovely view of the water across the bay onto Marco. Lorraine got to see her first Alligator of the trip ( I missed it).   Stan’s is a great sort of waterside bar of the great old Florida tradition but with better food than most.  We sat in the sun waterside just close enough to the stage, where a husband and wife team were cranking out old rock-and-roll for us to be able to hear but not so close that we couldn’t comfortably talk.   I had a great bowl of Manhattan Clam Chowder and everyone had Fish Tacos except JC. We watched boats come and go into the bar and enjoyed a couple of drinks while the sun streamed in. Lorraine gave the last few of her fries to the catfish swarming along the edge of the dock and we headed back to the trailer park.  Dinner was light needless to say. 

On the Sunday — Saint Patrick’s day — we headed back north to visit the Audubon Society’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary.  This is the Florida that I love.  I could go there all day everyday and would certainly volunteer there if I had the chance.  Once upon a time Southwest Florida was known as the Great Cypress Swamp.  Thousands of square miles of alternating patches of Pine Flatland, Cypress Bogs and wet prairie as water flowed west in a great sheet out of the Everglades — the cypress bogs forming a “River of Trees”. The bogs were home to more than a million wading birds and a winter home to near countless species.  Unfortunately the Bald Cypress provides long, straight, boards of insect and rot proof lumber in a beautiful colour; the largest trees of the eastern U.S.  Within a hundred years the Cypress trees were down to a few thousand acres north west of Naples.  Fortunately for all of us the Audubon Society and others stepped in to buy the last remnants of this once great virgin forest and they’ve been protecting it ever since.  Wood Storks and Snowy Egrets and likely the Florida Panther all owe their survival into the 21st century in large part to this continuing conservation effort.  

The sanctuary provides a beautiful boardwalk circling past some of the largest and oldest of the cypress trees — through wet prairie, and pine flatland as well.  It is truly beautiful.  The huge cypresses circled by Strangler Figs, wading birds, a seemingly endless variety of bromeliads, blue flag irises, wild ferns and beautiful wildlife. 

Right near the beginning of the boardwalk we got to see a Red Shouldered Hawk go into a stoop and drive through the branches of a Slash Pine grabbing a catbird on the way.  As it pulled up into the sky and circled towards a second red-shouldered hawk came plummeting out of the sky to try to grab the prey for itself. The two dog-fighted and screamed towards us until one the hawk with the prey fell out of the sky literally at our feet at the edge of the boardwalk.  It was incredible.  The hawk looked up at Lorraine and I and the docent who had also stopped to watch the action gathered its wits and flew into a nearby pine forgetting it’s lunch in the prairie grass by our feet.  We stopped to watch it and see if it would pick up the little catbird again.  I think I caught the dog fight nicely on my film camera — will have to wait for old fashioned developing to find out for sure.  Unfortunately for the hawk a continuous stream of photographers stopped to take his picture from right where he had dropped his lunch so we moved on down the path.

There really was too much else that we saw — a copperhead, raccoons, a couple of water moccasins, an immature Ibis,  countless woodpeckers, female indigo buntings, a large mother alligator with a couple of babies, a beautiful white egret, an infinity of cardinals ( now I know where they go in the winter), an ovenbird and so many many wild plants.  It’s a shame they didn’t stop and manage to conserve more of this forest.  I’ll let some of the pictures speak for themselves.   

Overall we spent about 4 hours walking the 2.25 mile long boardwalk — I could have taken double that time.  Lorraine got sunburned — the cypress screens the light and cools the air but still leaves enough UV to hurt and she thought she had enough base tan from Cuba not to worry. Well, it worked for me.  Lorraine is also suffering badly from no-see-um bites as well — I’ve been bitten a lot here at the park but I don’t raise welts but Lorraine makes up for me. 

We rushed back to the camp just in time to change and walk the dogs before heading back north to J.C. And Nancy’s for a little St. Patrick’s day party at their condo and a very nice dinner on their Lanai. Despite the bugs and the sunburn Lorraine is ready to move here.