Vacation Aborted

After we got home from the Sanibel farmer's market, we got word that our house in NJ was flooded.  Turns out it was a frozen then burst pipe.  We quickly loaded up the car and started the 2 1/2 day drive home.  I never even got to walk on the beach at Sanibel.

Florida Day 13 - Sanibel Farmers Market

A very popular place - with good reason.  We got there just a little after 8:00 AM and the close parking spots were already full.

Florida Day 12 - On our way to Sanibel

We had an interesting day today.  We had to check out of our place in Everglades City and check into the one in Sanibel - we are staying at Sandy Bend again - with several hours to spend in between.  We discovered that Corkscrew Swamp is roughly along the way to Sanibel and remembered enjoying walking there last year.  But before going there, we needed a place to eat lunch.  According to Google, the little town of Ave Maria has some good-looking restaurants and we would be nearby at lunch time.  What a strange place.  It is brand new - founded in 2007 - and is the current home of Ave Maria University, founded originally as Ave Maria College in Ypsilanti, Michigan by the founder of Domino's Pizza.  The college only lasted from 1998 to 2007 and then somehow was reincarnated as Ave Maria University in the namesake town in Florida.  The centerpiece of the town is the Catholic church.


It is very modern inside and I didn't care for it.


We did have a very nice lunch at the Pub and Grill in Ave Maria.  Then on to walk the boardwalk at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary.  I walked with my cane and managed to make the whole 2 1/4 mile circuit.  We can no longer complain about the cool temperatures - it was about 80 degrees while we were walking.






This is one of the huge bald cypress trees the area is famous for.


And a great example of a strangler fig.

Florida Day 11

We are still in Everglades City.  This afternoon we took a National Park boat tour out into the area we paddled yesterday, and beyond.  As luck would have it the winds were much less today.


But the boat trip was very worthwhile.  We saw LOTS of dolphins and W got great videos of their playing in the wake of the boat.  I gave up trying to get a photo since you never knew where they would pop up, but it was great fun watching them.

Then we headed for a huge flock of while pelicans.   We have seen them before, including at Sanibel, but never in these numbers.  There was a small group on a sandbar.


And a much larger group nearby.