Leaving Florida

We awoke at our usual 5:30 am time frame and made tea in the room as we did our final packing for our return flight to Cincinnati.  At 6:30 we made our way to the breakfast area for our usual Raisin Bran and blueberry yogurt breakfast.  We brought our bags to the rental car and checked out of the Day’s Inn Bonita Springs at 7:20.  We were pleased that the Wyndham points that we used paid the full $815 price of our room for five nights.  We were soon on I-75 north toward the Punta Gorda Airport.  We stopped at the Publix near the airport for sandwiches and fruit for our lunch on the flight. I topped off the fuel tank in the car while Mary was in the store.  It only took $3.00 of fuel to fill up.  We were happy with the little Nissan Versa.  Although it was small, we managed to haul the four of us around to hiking spots in relative comfort.  The big advantage of the car was that we got 42.8 miles per gallon average fuel economy for the over 1300 miles that we had driven on our trip this week.  We thought that was pretty good considering the car is not a hybrid and has a fair amount of pep.  While the rental fee was only $158 the taxes and surcharges brought the total to over $230.  Still, we had about $150 in flight costs, $250 for the nights in Homestead, $250 for meals, $70 for gas, $20 for the annual National Park pass.  Altogether we spent about $1,200 for our week in Florida.  Of course, if we didn’t have the hotel points the cost would have been $2,000.

Anhinga

We got through security at Punta Gorda airport quickly although, unlike when we boarded at CVG, we didn’t have TSA PreCheck so we had to take our shoes off and empty our backpacks. We never know when we will have PreCheck and when we do not.  Hopefully when we get Global Entry we will be able to avoid some of the check in problems.  We were in line with a lady who lives at the south end of Georgetown near Red State Barbecue.  She grew up near Clarion, PA where Mary went to college.  It was nice visiting with her.  

There was a lot of fog at the Punta Gorda airport so the flight from Cincinnati had to be diverted to Fort Lauderdale so our departure was rescheduled for 1:15 rather than the scheduled 10:59.  We ate our sandwiches and chatted with fellow travelers who were hoping to get back home this evening in time to watch the Super Bowl LIII. While we were at the gate, I saw Courtney (Kramer) Epperley who was a former Yeager Scholar and student in CI 415.  Courtney is an outstanding biology teacher at Huntington High School in the room where Pat McKee taught.  She is expecting in June and took advantage of a long weekend caused by weather related school closings to visit her family in Naples.  It was nice to see her.

Brown pelican

We boarded our flight and lifted off at 1:15 as expected for the flight to Cincinnati.  The flight was nearly full except for a few who had rescheduled when the flight was delayed.  We were picked up by the Hilton shuttle through our OneStopParking reservation and returned to our car for the drive back home for a brief stop to check on the house before going to the apartment for the week.  We are happy that the weather will be in the 50s and not the subzero weather of the week before that we avoided the week before.  

We are not birders and did not go out of our way to see any particular species of birds.  However, most birds in this area are very showy and fairly easy to identify with commonly available guides.  We made no effort to attempt to identify any ducks.  Neither did we bother listing all of the common birds like robins, sparrows and starlings.  Birds that we confirmed seeing during our week in Florida:

Brown Pelican White Pelican Anhinga Double Crested Cormorant White Ibis Glossy Ibis Limpkin Sanderling Roseate Spoonbill Great Egret Cattle Egret Snowy Egret Reddish Egret

Little Blue Heron Great Blue Heron Green Heron Yellow-Crowned Night-Heron Black-Crowned Night-Heron Black Stilt Red-Shouldered Hawk Broad-Wing Hawk Kestrel Osprey Belted Kingfisher Common Moorhen

Purple Gallinule Common Gallinule Wood Stork Sandhill Crane Red-bellied Woodpecker Pileated Woodpecker Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker American Crow Wild Turkey Turkey Vulture Black Vulture Blue-Grey Gnatcatcher Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary

Painted buntings at a feeder

We both had some things to do in the morning so we awoke at 6 am then did some things in the room and left at 8 am following our Kashi breakfast.  We drove to the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary.  We arrived a little after 9 am and paid the $28 fee for our admission then signed up for a guided tour at 10:30.  Our guide, Phil, a retiree from Athens, Ohio, was a knowledgeable and capable guide.  He gave us an overview of the area as well as the variety of plants and animals that inhabit the 17 square miles of the sanctuary.  We walked along part of the nearly 2.3 mile board walk with visitors from New York, New Jersey, Seattle and Kentucky.  Phil pointed out all of the birds that we saw and shared a lot of information about the history of the area.  After we completed the tour around 12:30, we returned to the car and had our normal travel lunch of peanut butter, crackers, apples and carrots. 

Red and grey lichens

We went back to walk the entire trail including the parts that were not on Phil’s tour.  There are some huge cypress trees in the swamp some of which had strangler figs growing on them.  We saw many epiphytic bromiliads growing on branches as well as many varieties of lichens.  We were amazed by the tiny floating ferns that we thought were duckweed plants, there were also resurrection ferns that appear dead until the wet season when they rejuvenate.  There were also strap ferns and leather ferns that grew in profusion in the swamp. 

Along the way we saw a number of song birds including painted buntings, gnatcatchers, phoebes, black and yellow crowned night herons, ibis, grebes and many others.  One small adult alligator was seen but we did not see her babies.  We saw a raccoon foraging for food in the swamp and a small frog swimming on the surface.  A cottonmouth water moccasin was sunning in some plant matter not far from the boardwalk.  Probably the highlight of the trip caught us quite by surprise.  As we were back on the road leaving the area, we saw a large cat running across the highway.  It took us some time to realize that we had seen a Florida Panther!  

There are only about 80-100 panthers still alive and we saw one today.  Most people in the area have never seen a Florida Panther.  These cats are the same species as a puma, cougar or mountain lion but inhabit the Everglades area of Florida.  The population is sharply down because of habitat encroachment and deaths on the highways.

When we left the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary we drove to Marco Island to meet our friends, B. J. and Diana Johnson.  The Johnsons are here spending a few days before leaving on a 20 day cruise throughout much of the Caribbean.  Their condo is very nice and convenient to many interesting areas.  They told us about one of their favorite restaurants on Marco Island, Snook Inn.  

Cypress tree with strangler fig

We all decided to go there for dinner.  We had a boiled shrimp appetizer.  B. J. and Diana had a large lunch so only had a bowl of conch chowder Mary had broiled grouper stuffed with crab.  One fillet had a dill sauce and the other had hollandaise.  I had a broiled seafood combo platter that had Mahi Mahi, grouper, crab, three scallops and three shrimp. Mary and I both had a baked sweet potato and a small salad.  We were very happy with our meals.  The quality of the food and service were both very good.  We really enjoyed chatting with the Johnsons.  They have been our good friends for over 35 years and we enjoy seeing them only regretting that we don’t get with them more often. 

We drove back to our hotel through Naples.  We were aware that Naples has an overall very high income.  The size and quality of homes is an indication of the resources of the residents.  Another indicator is the number of golf courses in the Naples area.  The flat sandy land, the warm climate and the high income people in the area who golf creates a need for the many links in the Naples area.  One thing that did surprise us is the cars in the area.  In driving in and through Naples during our trips to the Everglades or to Marco Island we have seen Bentleys, Ferraris, Maseratis and Lamborghinis not to mention the BMWs, Mercedes, Lexis and other luxury cars.

We plan to leave the Wyndham Garden Fort Myers Beach tomorrow morning and drive to the Tampa area where we will visit some local attractions then check into our hotel near the airport where we can get to the terminal at PIE in time for our Thursday morning flight.