All Good Things Must Come To An End

Well, we have spent 103 days in Florida and the time has come for us to go back home. We have enjoyed the warm climate, our old bones and muscles felt much better and neither of us had a cold or virus. Preparations were much easier for our return trip because there were not any decisions to make---just pack up everything we have here with us.

 

 

 

One morning at 9:00, we noticed that the 68° temperature in Dunkirk was warmer than the 67° we were experiencing here in Fort Myers. However, the beautiful Florida sunshine, which I contend is more intense than in Maryland, made it almost too hot for me by noon.

 

 

We attended Hope Lutheran Church for the last time this season on Easter. The Paul Oman painting was on display and I thought the sanctuary was decorated very nicely.

 

 

Our resident alligator must be a bit shy. He didn’t show himself very much while we had visitors staying with us. But, recently he has been cruising around the lake regularly.

 

 

I am going to miss seeing the Big Blue Heron that spent time very near our lanai.

 

 

We spent our last few days geocaching. One of those days, we were joined by our local geobuddy, Brian. 

 

 

Some caches are fairly easy to find for experienced geocachers like us.

 

 

Other caches take some searching.

 

 

 

 

 

It is always satisfying to finally find the caches.

 

 

 

We have had a lot of fun with Brian and look forward to his visit with us in Maryland in a couple of months.

 

 

 

Brian is a gifted craftsman and some of the cache containers he devises are incredible. He has a reputation for unusual and challenging caches. He also enjoys building kayaks and we checked out his latest project which he is making from scratch. He obtained wood over 25 years old and then cut it into beveled slats. The gluing process takes a lot of time. Two years ago he built a kayak from a kit that he purchased from a dealer in Annapolis. That boat is hanging behind Cordell’s head in the photo.

 

 

 

Like several other places we have seen, Brian has mounted an electrical box on a tree instead of using a post.

 

 

 

We have noticed many details in various places here--lots of murals, beautiful landscaping in urban and residential areas. Today, I was surprised to see this decorative base on a utility box.

 

 

 

 

Sometimes, we find other things near the sites where we are caching. We have learned to be watchful every time we are near water, including places like this water retention site. It didn’t look as inviting as some of the preserves or undeveloped areas, but there was an alligator swimming around while we were there. Several turtles were in the water, but they didn’t seem concerned about being alligator bait.

 

 

 I have seen a lot of beautiful flowers that have been blooming while we were here.

 

 

We went back to Cape Coral for our last caching trip before leaving for home. When we stopped at Bissett Park, I thought it was interesting to see a sign warning about the presence of alligators that was posted so closely to a children’s playground.

 

 

We spent a lot of time there looking for a very well hidden cache.

 

 

Our caching trips have taken us down a variety of road surfaces. But, this day was the first time we drove on a grass road. There were no houses or any signs of development, but stop signs were placed at the intersections. We didn’t see even one vehicle while in this area. I surmised that the only people who would have any interest or business here, would be geocachers. It appears that road maintenance here consist of mowing the grass in the highway instead of plowing snow.

 

 

Last year, this part of Florida had record rainfall. This year, they are experiencing a drought. The difference was very noticeable in this neighborhood where one yard was green while the other was brown.

 

 

And so, we end this Florida visit with another beautiful sunset.

 

 

 

April 9 - 10th

 

Palm Sunday

 

There was a special service at Hope Lutheran Church on Palm Sunday.  Artist and Pastor Paul Oman painted pictures during Scripture readings and praise music. This ministry is called "Drawn to the Word." He brings the Word of God to life before our eyes. He begins with a blank canvas.

 

 

Note that the images are initially upside down.

 

 

When the canvas is turned right side up, the scene becomes very clear.

 

 

Pastor Oman painted a completely different scene in the earlier service

 

 

The local alligator was cruising our lake today and spent quite a bit of time near our lanai

 

 

On Monday, we visited the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation (SCCF) nature center. It features turtle and terrapin aquariums, a marine touch tank, a butterfly house, a network of quiet walking paths with an observation tower, and a native plant nursery. We learned that 68% of Sanibel Island is protected by SCCF.

 

 

SCCF restores wildlife habitat through projects such as planting mangroves and other native vegetation, removing invasive plant species and building oyster reefs from discarded shells that will provide shelter for other marine organisms.

 

 

We went there especially to look for an Earth-Geocache. These type caches are at special geological locations people can visit to learn about unique features of the Earth. EarthCache pages include a set of educational notes. There is not a physical container placed at the site and geocachers usually are required to answer questions posed by the cache owner in order to claim a find.

 

 

It was very quiet in the preserve while we were there and we only saw one ibis.

 

 

We did climb up the observation tower and enjoyed a beautiful view.

 

 

The Australian Pine is considered to be invasive all over southwest Florida and there are many efforts to eradicate this non-native tree. I personally think this is a beautiful tree, but can easily see the damage it does to the environment when nothing can grow on the ground underneath it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

April 5th

Myakka River State Park

 

Even though this was a long day, it was filled with interesting things and a successful geocaching adventure.

 

We decided to make the 1 ½ hour drive to Myakka River State Park, east of Sarasota. We had visited this park 2 years ago and knew we wanted to return. It is one of Florida’s largest (37,000 acres) and most diverse natural areas. Having been developed in 1934 by the Civilian Conservation Corps makes it one of the State’s oldest parks.

 

 

 

There are a variety of activities available at this park and we still have not done all that interest us. It is made very clear that swimming is not allowed. One only has to look at the park brochure to understand that a good reason for not swimming is because alligators are abundant.

 

 

We took an airboat tour on the lake which measures 2 ½ miles by 1 ½ miles.

 

 

We took this tour two years ago and saw lots and lots of alligators—more than we saw in the Everglades. However, it turned out that this was not a good day for alligator sightings due to it being windy. Captain Robert gave us much information on alligators.

 

 

One of the facts we learned, was that alligators do not like wind. They have flaps on their eyes and ears that close when they are underwater. On windy days, the flaps continue to open and close and are quite annoying to the gators. They can stay underwater for up to 24 hours on one breath of air. One way to determine the length of an alligator is to measure the distance from the eyes to the nostrils—one inch equals 1 foot and they usually grow 1 foot each year.

 

 

 

The park has a very nice café which offers a variety of food including alligator bites, alligator stew and gator red beans and rice. We chose to order their homemade chicken salad wraps which were delicious. I have tasted alligator meat in the past and it is definitely NOT like chicken as some people told me.

 

 

And of course, this park has geocaches—lots of geocaches—150-200 of them are active. We only had enough time to look for ones that were placed near the parking area at the lake. The yellow happy faces are caches that we have found.

 

 

Our favorite was a container placed in the Visitor’s Center. From the description, we knew beforehand that we had to answer some questions to get an access code. That turned out to be easy because not only did we pay attention to the boat captain’s narration, but we also actually remembered what he said! Neither of us realized the cache was sitting out in the open when we went inside the center. We thought we might have to ask an employee to give it to us, but no one was there. Then I begin looking around for a cabinet that we might have to open or a picture frame that was hinged. Finally, I saw a combination lock on the wooden container that was shaped like an alligator.

 

 

We weren’t completely sure that we had one of our answers correct, but we made an educated guess. Cordell entered the code into the lock and happily it opened immediately. There was a variety of trade items inside the cache.

 

 

While hiking in the park, we saw some big trees.

 

 

The main reason we traveled to Myakka today was to look for a series of 29 geocaches placed along the road leading to the park. This is known as a power trail. We have done two other power trails in Delaware and they were not interesting because the cache containers were all about the same and most of them were placed at the base of telephone poles ¼ mile apart. Today, we found all of the geocaches.

 

 

We knew this might be a more interesting experience when we saw an alligator near where we stopped for the second cache site. It was only a six footer so we continued on the trail.

 

 

This Power Trail Series was entitled Fun Run and it indeed was fun. The cache owner varied the types of containers he used and the places where he put them. Several of them were hiding in guardrails and they were the easiest of all to find.

 

 

A more difficult find for a new geocacher was one that was hidden in the pipes of a storm water drainage grate near a guardrail. But we have seen hides like this is the past and so we found this one fairly quickly.

 

 

This one was placed near a sign for Myakka Valley Ranches, a subdivision comprised of approximately three hundred 5+ acre parcels that is situated adjacent to the State Park.

 

 

The cache owner had cleverly dabbed white paint on a fake pinecone and left it on the white sand around the base of a telephone pole where it blended in very well.

 

 

We have seen enough fake rock caches that this was an easy find.

 

 

We have found plenty of cache containers hanging in trees, but this one was covered in camouflaged tape and well hidden behind some of the Spanish moss.

 

 

This tiny cache was hanging from the back of a board on a fence.

 

 

 

Two of the caches were found near gates to the park. I especially liked that the park has used someone’s name on the gate.

 

 

 

We did find a few other caches along the route that were not part of the series. One was a small centrifuge vial attached to an apple snail shell that was on the ground. We see a lot of these shells because they are a favorite food of the Swallow-tailed Kite.

 

 

Another one was a match stick holder hanging from a fishing pier.

 

 

 

I saw some pretty wildflowers along the side of the highway.

 

 

 

We had a high temperature of 92° today—a bit too warm, but I am not complaining. A friend sent me an e-mail a couple of days ago and told me that we could come home now because the temps in Calvert County had reached 80°.

 

 

After we finished finding caches on the power trail, we circled back to the Sarasota National Cemetery which we had driven by earlier. We had seen a strange structure from a distance that made us curious.

 

 

While this cemetery is not as large as the one in Arlington, it is quite impressive and very peaceful.

 

 

 There is a memorial walk which has markers honoring various branches and units in the military.
 

 

 

 

 

Patriot Plaza, a 2,800-seat ceremonial amphitheater, features commissioned art that honors veterans. Along the perimeter, there are exhibits of photos from the Civil War up to the war in Afghanistan.

 

 

We were running out of time and I did not get to spend as much time there as I would have liked.

 

 

It was a long day and we did not get back to the condo until after 9:00 pm. We were tired after having missed our afternoon naps, but it was one of the best days we have experienced while here in Florida this season.