Play at McCarter

I went to McCarter Theatre in Princeton to see the play "Stones in His Pockets" last evening.  It was good but not what I had expected.  Two amazing actors played a total of about a dozen roles.  But it was not a comedy as I had thought.  Still, it was a nice night out.

Yamato Drummers

We saw a great show in Princeton's McCarter Theatre last evening.  The Yamato Drummers of Japan was a very entertaining group.  They have a contemporary twist on traditional taiko drumming.  They include female drummers and sprinkled in some comedy that was really fun.  And the drumming was fantastic.

Disney World - Pandora

The main reason for going to Animal Kingdom was to see Pandora.  We rode the Na'vi River Journey and the Avatar Flight of Passage and took lots of photos.












I also enjoyed the Tree of Life in Discovery Island, but I complained that they used an unrealistic green for the leaves.  Otherwise one would swear it was a carved real tree.

Disney World

We spent the last two days in Animal Kingdom in Disney World and stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge last night.  We head north tomorrow, staying overnight north of Charlotte, NC.  We enjoyed the drive south on routes 81/77/26 and will go home that way as well.

We enjoyed the musicians in the park.  This guy was fantastic.  I have no idea what his instrument is called.

Not surprisingly, much of Animal Kingdom is focused on viewing animals.  We took the Safari ride in the Africa section once each day in order to see the most animals.  And we walked through all the other spots where animals can be viewed.

Corkscrew Swamp

We drove to Orlando via National Audubon's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary.  It is not really on the way, but we wanted to go there and hadn't made it while staying on Sanibel.  The 2.25 mile walk along the boardwalk was very nice.


The trees were full of bromeliads.


We saw lots of very large bald cypress trees, for which the sanctuary is noted.


And lots of examples of strangler figs.


There were many trees down and damage to the boardwalk from hurricane Irma.  Most had been repaired but a section was left undone, with a sign that reads "This section of the boardwalk - the Dodson Spur - will remain permanently closed as a reminder of the damage inflicted by Hurricane Irma on Sep 10, 2017."


We saw an anhinga nest complete with chick, whose skinny pale neck can be seen next to the parent.


And a large alligator.

Leaving Sanibel

Others in the party decided we needed to get to Disney World earlier than planned tomorrow, so we are leaving Sanibel today and staying in a hotel in Orlando tonight.  So here are some final thoughts on Sandy Bend.  I would definitely stay here again.  But Kingfisher Vacations would have to be able to assure me that construction was done and we would have a screened-in patio.  I really missed the ability to let fresh air into the condo and to basically live out on the lanai.  Other than that, Unit 3 is very nice.  But I think I would go to a higher floor next time.  While you can walk out to the beach from the bottom floor, there is no way to lock the door.  So if you want security, you must go out toward the parking lot.  On an upper floor the doors into the lanai could be left open while you were gone.  Unit 6 seems like a good choice and its lanai is completed.  You definitely want 6 or 8 so you can watch the sunset.  But it looks as though 6 has been redone more recently with modern appliances.  And Unit 8 is upstairs next to the common area and could be noisy.  Unit 5 doesn't have the new lanai with sliding glass doors and I don't know if it ever will.  All the others are done or under construction.

Sanibel Island Day 11 - Cont'd

We decided to go out for dinner, so instead of biking we drove to the public beach at the end of Tarpon Bay Road to walk a different section of the beach before dinner.  We ended up by Casa Ybel and the "pelican trees."  There always seem to be pelicans roosting there.

Sanibel Island Day 11

Brrrr.  Another cold snap is upon us.  We woke to 37 degrees with high winds and a forecasted high of 57 degrees.  Weather Underground says the average high for today is 75 with a range of 61-82 and the average low is 54 with a range of 42-59.  I guess they are going to have to revise that.

At least we have bright sun so we had a long walk on the beach anyway.  We hope to do some biking this afternoon.

Sanibel Island Day 10

Today's outing was a bike ride through the Bailey Tract.  It is an easy ride from Sandy Bend.  And we took a break for lunch at the Over Easy Cafe.  We saw birds, alligators, turtles but I didn't try to take photos.

Sanibel Island Day 9

Today was a day for wildlife searching.  The naturalist on our nature cruise at Ding Darling told us about a good place to see manatees.  There is a power plant in Fort Myers that releases warm water that was used for cooling.  The manatees congregate there so they created Manatee Park where people can go see them.  This is a typical view.

And a snout captured by my daughter with her good camera.

There is also a kayak rental place there with put-in on the adjacent Orange River.  You can paddle among the manatees out in the river, though you shouldn't get too close.  The river is part of the Great Calusa Blueway Paddling Trail, so this serves as a good put-in.  But the rental kayaks are the minimal bathtub sort that I wouldn't want to take very far.  But if we are ever in the area with our own boats, it is something to consider.
Our next stop was Cape Coral, which is known for protecting burrowing owls.  We looked a couple places where they are known to hang out and actually saw one.  I didn't attempt a photo since it was so small, distant, and well-camouflaged.  But my daughter got a great photo.


The day ended with a beautiful sunset.

Sanibel Island Day 8

We started the day with a beautiful sunrise, complete with a sliver of the moon.


This morning we walked the Indigo Trail at Ding Darling.  We saw this spoonbill next to the trail.


W walked back and got the car and met us on the wildlife drive, so we didn't have to retrace our steps.  This osprey was in a tree right over the road.

Sanibel Island Day 7 - Farmer's Market

We woke to 45 degrees but bright sunshine.  A perfect morning to stay off the cold beach and go to the Sunday morning Sanibel farmer's market instead.  Wow, it was awesome.  There were the usual fruits and veggies and then an amazing array of prepared foods and food trucks.  We'll be feasting for days.  I can't believe we never discovered it before.  It is certainly popular.  It opens at 8 AM.  We got there about 9:30 and the main parking lots were already full and people were streaming in.  We managed to find parking in an overflow lot.  I don't know what you do if that is full too.  Next year we'll go earlier.

Sanibel Island Day 6 - Shark Valley

We woke this morning to 65 degrees, which was forecast to be the high for the day, with cloudy skies and high winds.  I don't think I've ever seen the Gulf this rough.


We checked the weather for south and east of here and found it was supposed to be in the 70's and sunny.  It seemed like the perfect day to go to Shark Valley.  Apparently lots of other folks thought the same thing.  By the time we got there about 12:15 the parking lot was already full and we had to park way out on the road.

We saw LOTS of good-sized alligators


but not nearly as many birds as we are used to seeing.  In fact, the birds were more dense alongside the road as we drove there.  That is probably due to the fact that the water throughout the Everglades is still high from the hurricane, so there is no reason for the birds to congregate at Shark Valley.

We still saw the usual assortment:
Tricolor heron


Snowy egret


Great blue heron


Lots of anhingas

We saw several green herons, which we hadn't seen anywhere else.  And we saw wood storks flying overhead before we got there.  And I forgot to mention that we saw frigate birds when we were on Captiva.  So we have seen most of the birds I had expected to see on this trip.

Sanibel Island Day 5

Our only outdoor exercise today was a long walk on the beach.  These terns make it easy to tell which way the wind is blowing.

Sanibel Island Day 4 - cont'd

We had a wonderful kayak trip this afternoon.  We found a new place to rent boats in Captiva, new for us anyway.  It is tucked in behind the 'Tween Waters Resort.


From here you can paddle to Buck Key.



















We turned right in Roosevelt Channel, left into Lloyd's Lagoon and took the neat canoe trail through a mangrove tunnel.  Then we paddled a bit in Pine Island Sound before retracing our route.  The tunnel was so neat we decided to paddle it again instead of going around the end of the key.  We paddled a total of about 4.5 miles.


We saw lots of osprey, including this one drying its wings.

Sanibel Island Day 4

We've had a bit of a distraction on our morning beach walks.  Three days ago we were walking by this house when we heard what sounded like heavy machinery.


That day we watched the left balcony being pulled off by a front-loader.  Each day more was gone.

Today the house looks like this.  A large piece of machinery is busy loading the refuse into dumpsters.


Google searches inform us that it was built in 1997.  It was on the market in 2012 for just over $5 million - marked down from nearly $10 million.  It is not clear if it ever sold.

Sanibel Island Day 3

We paddled the trail among the mangroves in Tarpon Bay this afternoon.




We saw lots of yellow-crowned night herons.


Some ibis up in a tree


and little blue and tri-colored herons and an anhinga.  I also saw a raccoon up in a mangrove.