Monday, March 28, Day 24, Bonita Springs Ft. Meyers Beach

On the elevator ride down to the car was a man wearing a baseball cap with WWII, Korean and Vietnam embroider on it. I said all three? He said he was in 41 years and was in all of them. I shook his hand and thanked him for that. He smiled and said thanks.

We decided to go for a walk at, Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary,

maintained by the Audubon society. It is 17 miles to the east of Bonita Springs and Naples out in a sparsely populated area. We took it a couple years ago a 2.25 mile boardwalk through it. There are many areas where you can sit and look at the scenery.

There are many signs along the way explaining what one can see. The boardwalk meanders along with having two paths in case the wood storks are nesting you bypass some areas. They were not there this year, this happens every once and a while. There was a marker standing in the mud of the forest floor, the bottom marking was 16.5 feet above sea level. A couple steps down the line there was water, so I would guess it’s around 16 feet. This is winter down here and the waters are not evident like during the summer. We saw many small birds, herons, egrets,

ibis - center of this picture, hawks, heard a barred owl,



Shirleen's Alligator shot



saw an alligator, and spider’s with their webs.

The fern thickets I saw reminded me of mushroom hunting with Grandpa Izzy and Grandma Jeanette in the bottoms of Cobb’s creek. We found a mother load of mushrooms in and amongst the ferns.

There were a couple places where the boardwalk was modified for the vegetation.



Egret hunting



After 3 hours it is time to leave the quietness of the sanctuary and back to the other forms of life, getting gas for the old buggy.





 

We drove along the Little Hickory Island and Ft. Meyers Beach. There is only one straight line through this area and all I could see is cars and vans, no pickups, ahead of me. The people on bikes were making more headway than we were; well even four guys who were sauntering down the sidewalk were going faster than us. It is midafternoon and we have not eaten. With this line of cars it is time to find a place. Well we go for miles and nothing. Then as we can still not see the end of the line in front of us we find Junkanoo On the Beach restaurant. We were seated by a sliding window and got the fresh breeze of the Gulf. We split a Mama Mia pizza with pepperoni, sausage, fresh tomatoes, mushrooms and onions on a thin crust. They had a Sicilian style, turns out to be a thick crust variety.

Tonight we have a place to stay so no hurry to find a place. Turns out I dined in, ate two leftover pieces of pizza.

Tomorrow Sanibel Island and Captiva Island. jerr