Tuesday-April 2nd – Still Heading Northbound.

 

We both just love to hear the local people's Georgia accents. When we mentioned it to the hotel desk clerk last night, she told us that we were the ones who have an accent, not her. And she was absolutely right because we were in her state after all. When I mentioned to Cordell that I never noticed any discernible accents in Fort Myers, he told me that it was because everyone who was there during the past three month was from out of state.

We got back on the road northbound at 8:30 this morning. Our Garmin told us that we would arrive at our hotel in Dunn, NC by 2:00 pm. Ha! Ha! The Garmin knows a lot of things about routes, traffic, speed limits, mileage, travel time, and every kind of place to stop while traveling. But it doesn't know Jack about our penchant for geocaching and how difficult it is for us to pass by some caches.

 

 

It was a beautiful sunny morning and the temperature hit 90° by late afternoon. When we thought about the weather that is forecasted at home next week, it was impossible for us to not linger in this beautiful and friendly state of Georgia. I thought that I might like to become a geohobo.

 

 

While driving in the small town of Eulonia, GA, we were surprised to see a Piggly Wiggly grocery store. I have fond memories of this chain of stores which were located where I grew up in southwest Virginia and I didn't know they were still in business--a bit of nostalgia for me.

 

We drove down a road which had beautiful trees on both sides that were draped in Spanish moss. Their limbs provided a canopy over the road.

 

 

When we crossed into South Carolina, the I-95 highway went from 3 lanes down to two and traffic was much more congested. After about 5 miles, everyone was back up to the speed limit.

We found two caches in Georgia and stopped in a Kroger grocery store to buy apples. I had failed to pack socks in my small baggage that I am using daily and Cordell told me that it would be too difficult to retrieve my large bag from under all the stuff riding on top of it. I was delighted to find some sneaker socks in Kroger that are unlike any that I already have.

We have seen numerous signs along all the roads we have travelled during our lifetimes. But today we saw one that was new to us. It read "Bush Management" and was placed in an area where workers were removing bushes from the sides of the roadway.

We found three caches in South Carolina and one was completely different from any of the 1,794 that we have found during our caching "career". I would like to replicate it at home.

When it was time for lunch, we noticed the Olde House Cafe in Walterboro had a lot of cars in their parking lot. This is usually a sign of a good place to eat, so we decided to go inside. We noticed that we were now far enough north that there were not many old gray headed people among the customers.

 

 

We also determined that despite our early start, we had travelled only 137 miles in 4 1/2 hours. At this rate it is going to take us a lot loooonger to get home than we expect. This might blow our Garmin's mind.

Approximately 60 miles from the North Carolina border, we noticed that the trees have a lot less leaves and the farther north we got, the barer the trees were and the grass is brown.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we finally arrived at our hotel for the night, we realized that it had taken us 8 hours to make a 5 ½ hour drive. At 4:30 pm, it was 86°. It was as if the Florida sunshine followed us north.

 

We have seen a lot of self-contained RVs on the road today and almost all of them were towing vehicles. There are many out of state people staying in our hotel tonight, too. Just in one row of the parking lot, I saw tags from New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Illinois, New Hampshire, Ontario, Kansas and one from North Carolina.

 

After dinner, we took a walk around the area before settling in for the night. There was a pretty sunset here tonight even though the skyline is different from what we have been seeing in Fort Myers.

 

Our travel is now 2/3rds over and we should be home tomorrow night.

Tuesday, April 1st – Goodbye Florida!

 

They say all good things must come to an end and that was true for me today. We loaded up the car and by 8:30 this morning we had started our trip back home. It has been a fantastic 3 months for us and we remain thankful that we received this blessing to stay in such a warm climate.

Cordell was ready to come home. As for me, I have truly left a part of my heart in Fort Myers. On our way out of town, we stopped and checked out my tin heart geocache that I placed on Valentine’s Day. It is named “I Left My Heart In Fort Myers” and 13 people have already found it.

Once we were out of the Fort Myers area, we drove on some singe lane roads in hopes that traffic would not be as heavy as we have experienced on the major interstates in the past.

 

We passed through some towns that we have seen in our travels to the Orlando area. In one of them, there is a citrus processing center and every time we have been here, we have seen semi-trailers fully loaded with citrus. We think that they must be destined to be made into juice because the fruit on the bottom is surely being squashed by the ones loaded above them.

As we were merging onto Route 4 at Davenport, we had to yield to 3 large sized RVs that were travelling north also. I suppose the exodus from Florida has begun. One of them displayed a license plate from Ontario. I was glad that we don’t have to drive that far.

 

We made a stop a Burger King for a quick lunch. There was a note affixed to the mirror in the ladies room that I thought was a good idea to encourage girls and women.

When we crossed the state line into Georgia, we made stopped to stretch our legs at the Visitors Center and of course, we found a nearby geocache.

 

 

 

 

 We are spending this night in Brunswick, GA. Our hotel has a restaurant attached to it. We enjoyed delicious steak dinners and then took a walk around the complex. So we are now about 1/3^rd of the way home.

Monday, March 31st – Our Last Day in Florida.

 

We awoke to cloudy skies this morning and it remained so for the entire day.

 

 

We have seen a lot of different sights on, across and over our lake while we have been here. One time, it was the MetLife Blimp. When the wind is coming from a certain direction we see more airplanes taking off from the airport. We saw the resident alligator several times and there are always are various birds and ducks. But, today we saw something totally different. We heard a loud noise and thought there must be some excavation going on in the neighborhood. Upon further investigation, we were surprised to see an air boat that had launched right beside our yard. We couldn’t figure out what it was doing in this lake and then we saw it spraying something on the island. We were glad that they had not come to remove the alligator.

 

 

Having little sunshine today made it easier for me to pack up everything and think about leaving this beautiful warm area. It has been a wonderful three months and I am glad that we decided to stay longer this year—especially since there has been so much snow at home.

 

 

We watched the Orioles home opener game on television and were remembering when we went to their spring training home opening game in Sarasota. We were happy that they beat Boston today.

 

We went back to my favorite restaurant, Skip One, for dinner tonight. I sure will miss this delicious gulf shrimp, but it will give me something to look forward to for next year. We are physically ready to leave bright and early tomorrow morning and head back to Maryland.

 

We were blessed with another pretty sunset tonight. It reminded me that God is in His glory and all is right.

 

 

This was our last Sunday to go to Hope Lutheran Church until next year. We have enjoyed their casual style of worship that is offered at their contemporary service. It seemed to me that many of the snow birds who attend this service have already flown back north.

 

 

 

One of the trees on the church property is in full beautiful bloom.

 

 

 

This afternoon, we went to Estero Bay Preserve State Park which has several geocaches hidden within its boundaries. This 10,000 acre preserve serves as a land buffer protecting Estero Bay.

 

There are 4 scrub trails throughout all the preserve which took us over varied terrain. 

 

 

 

 

We saw areas that had been burned some time ago, but they still reminded me of a forest graveyard.

 

 

 

 

There were several types of wildflowers blooming, too.

 

 

 

 

The ground in some areas consisted of what is known as “sugar sand” and it is well named because it is as fine as powdered sugar.

 

 

People have seen gopher tortoises and armadillos along with various kinds of birds, but we didn’t seen any of those today. However, Cordell did see a large snake skin at one of the cache sites.

 

 

We had a video call with our son, Tim, who lives in Mt. Airy, MD. It was snowing again at his home and he showed us that the ground was already covered. He was expecting 2” to 4” total accumulation. We showed him a view of the preserve and us hiking in shorts.

 

 

We hiked a total of about 4.5 miles and our 70 year old legs were extremely tired when we finished.

 

We stopped and got carryout Chinese food for our dinner tonight. We were almost too tired to eat.

 

 

***OUT TAKE

Not only am I having trouble remembering what day it is, but now I sometimes get confused as to where I am!

 

 

 

 

Saturday, March 29th - Rainy Saturday.

I sure felt sorry for the people who are on vacation this week in Southwest Florida because we had rain the entire day. I have never experienced a full day of rain in Florida during the past three years that we have been wintering here.

 

There were some powerful thunder storms with lightning that at times seemed to strike right on the lake outside our lanai. I cannot imagine what it must be like when a hurricane comes through here.

 

 

We just stayed in the condo and got some good rest today.

 

 

When the rain finally stopped, the humidity was much lower and the air felt very refreshing. We did get time to take a short walk between the storms. Somehow, we had a very pretty sunset.

 

 

 

Friday, March 28th - Sanibel Island all day!

It must be difficult to accurately predict the weather here or else our app is not a particularly good one. Very often, we have found that forecasted rain does not materialize. That was pleasantly the case today. We had an 80% chance of rain by 2:00 p.m. So, we decided to make hay while the Florida sun shines. It turned out to be a fabulous day and one that I will remember all year long. It couldn’t have been much better for us.

 

 

 

We loaded up our bicycles and headed back to Sanibel Island. It is approximately the same size as Manhattan Island, NY - 7 miles by 2 miles. However, Sanibel has 6,000 residents and Manhattan has that many in one building. This is a very beautiful place and I wonder if anyone ever tires of it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It seemed that we had good timing because when we arrived at the parking lot at 10:00 a.m., the empty parking spaces were filling up quickly. We chose the lot next to the beach at the lighthouse. We unloaded our bikes and took off for a geocaching excursion which took us to parts of the island we hadn’t seen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many of the residents have personalized their mailboxes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are accustomed to seeing signs warning motorists to watch for panthers and bears--also signs telling us not to feed the alligators. But it is only on Sanibel that I have seen signs cautioning us about the gopher tortoise. I wonder how long it would take for one to actually cross a road!

 

 

We saw several properties for sale, but one in particular caught my eye. I sent a photo of it to my son, Andy, and told him if he wanted to invest in it, we would be happy to take care of it for him during the winter months

 

 

 

 

One geocache was placed on a red mangrove root at the site of a small pier along a canal at a location we would never have otherwise seen. People evidently fish here because there is a fish cleaning station set up on one end of the boardwalk. I found it very peaceful and restful to sit there under a canopy of trees while tucked back off the road and the busy bicycle trail.

 

 

At midday, we rode back to the parking lot, retrieved our picnic supplies and ate our lunch at a table placed in the nearby woods.

 

 

People were now idling their cars in the full parking lot while waiting for someone to leave. I felt sorry to disappoint those who asked us if we were leaving when we walked to and from our car.

 

By this time, our cell phone batteries were low, so we left them charging in our car and spent a couple of hours on the beach recharging our batteries, too.

 

 

 

 

 

After spending about 2 hours on the beach, we were sufficiently rested so we took off on our bikes for more geocaching. The last cache we found was named Welcome to Paradise and was located on undeveloped land near the causeway bridge.

 

 

 

If Adam and Eve had lived in this paradise, they would have had no trouble covering their naked bodies. We went through some leaves that stuck to our shoes and socks so badly that we couldn't even remove them. We threw our socks away. We have never seen leaves like these and I haven’t found out what they are.

 

 

We were having such a good time and I never wanted to give up this day. Suddenly, we noticed that our parking meter was going to expire in about 15 minutes. I knew that I could never bike fast enough to reach the parking lot that quickly. So, Cordell jumped on his bike and left me in the dust, or I should say the sand, while he raced his bike back to the parking lot. I followed at a relaxing pace which was just about all the pedal power I had left in me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I so wanted to stay and see the sun set, but it wasn’t going to happen until 7:45 p.m. Some clouds had started to gather and we weren’t sure if there would be anything to see. We were hot, sweaty, tired and thirsty, so we decided to call it a day came on back to the condo.