Saturday 31st December – New Year’s Eve in Tampa

Steve and Barbara had probably been awake for hours by the time that Simon and I showed our faces for coffee, but we’d had a late night by our standards!  After a brief chat and exchange of contact details and this blog address (hi, Barbara and Steve!) we decided to have another bite of the Siesta Beach cherry as it was warmer today:

Tampa skyline

Hatted muffler man

Having taken over 4 free parking spaces in the car park we ventured onto the sand.  I risked wearing a bikini but a brief toe-dip in the water confirmed to me that I would not be swimming today!  But it was pleasant to lie on the smooth sand for a couple of hours reading before driving the final hour and a half North to Tampa.  It was on this journey that I had a flashback to earlier in the trip when we had been trying to see all of the over-sized roadside attractions.  ‘That’s the muffler man!’  I shouted to a very confused Simon.  And it was, or to be more precise it was the ‘hatted muffler man’ listed in our road atlas as one of the two Florida ‘must-see’ gimicks.  And we weren’t even trying!

We were booked into the Barrymore (better not risk the pool here either then) Hotel for two nights, situated by the Riverwalk in Tampa.  Straight away it was a vast improvement on our recent Miami motel experience.  The RV was in a secure but spacious parking lot that we could see from our window. The room was up to our ‘usual’ standard, the reception staff were extremely helpful and even better than that – there was a free return shuttle bus to wherever you wanted to go in the city. 

Go bolts!

I had done some research leading up to our stay and discovered that an area called ‘Channelside’ was holding a New Year’s event with fireworks.  Entry was gained with free wristbands on a first-come, first-served basis.  After a couple of hours relaxation and pampering we were ready to jump on the shuttle and try our luck.  The other group on the bus stated that the place to be was at the party at the Aquarium but as they were all dressed in tuxedos and dresses we agreed that the outdoor fireworks were probably more our scene.  And we weren’t wrong!  There was a great atmosphere at Channelside.  There was a security presence but it was all very friendly.  As we strolled around to get our bearings we chanced upon the booth handing out wristbands to the restricted capacity viewing area for the fireworks, positioned right on the waters edge – result!  We bought reasonably priced beers to drink whilst people-watching.  There was an area set up with big-screens showing the ice hockey match that Tampa Lightning were playing in and a DJ booth was set up in another area getting people dancing in the street. 

The evening went by rapidly as we people-watched, chatted to strangers and grabbed a bite to eat as midnight approached.  We made our way through to our exclusive wristband area at the waters’ edge just before the countdown and the fireworks began.  It was a world away from watching fireworks back in the UK when it is almost always freezing cold and your feet get numb by the end of the evening! The atmosphere remained buoyant and the area we were in had loads of space available so we weren’t crushed in by any means.

At the end of the fireworks and the ‘Happy New Year – 2017!’ wishes there was the inevitable ‘what now?’ decision to be made.  We were more than happy with the 5 hours or so that we had been out.  The hotel had told us that the Riverwalk back to the hotel was safe at any time so we made our way there with the general throng of people heading that way and enjoyed some night-time views of Tampa. 

Despite being away from friends and family we had enjoyed a great night for New Year in a place I certainly never imagined spending an evening like that!

Friday 30th December – to Sarasota

There’s a phenomenon here in Florida at the moment called ‘Eagle-cam’.  It’s all over the news about a couple of bald eagles that are incubating two eggs in a nest just north of Fort Myers.  This isn’t the first occasion this has happened and the eagles (Harriet and M15 – she got the better name) have raised young here before.  A local real estate company own and manage the cameras at the nest and the footage is streamed onto the internet 24 hours a day.  I have checked it out and it’s addictive viewing, the quality of the footage is brilliant.  You can still check it out for yourselves at http://dickpritchettrealestate.com/eagle-feed.html

Anyone for fish?!

Spot the nest.....

Despite the fact that the closest footage is from the cameras, as we were passing the area we thought we would go and find the nest itself.  We were not the only ones! But it was well worth it as we got to see the parent birds swooping in and out with food for whichever of them was tending the eggs.

Look at the technology...!

Harvey got nice and close....

Nest close-up....

From there we carried on north towards Siesta beach, the number one beach in the USA.  It must be true, it's on a sign....

The sand really is that white, it's not a reflection from the clouds!

As recommended by Barbara, it was a beautiful beach.  The sand was almost perfectly white and extremely fine.  But today was not quite sunbathing weather.  There were others on the beach but I would not have been convinced to get into swimwear let alone venture near the water today! So it was a brief visit before continuing on to Sarasota to Steve and Barbara’s house, arriving about 530pm.  Their neighbours were definitely still in the Christmas spirit.....

We reversed the RV up onto the front of their property and met their two dogs – Truly and Lucy, who were very friendly and affectionate.  Now, Sarasota is one of those places that I had certainly never heard of and we probably would have driven right by had it not been for meeting Steve and Barbara.  But it is a gorgeous place with a central square full of character and lively restaurants and bars and we walked down to the beach just in time for a stunning sunset:

We were then treated to dinner at the lovely Columbia Cuban restaurant, which was so generous and unexpected.  I had a Mahi Mahi fish dish which was delicious. 

We had such a lovely time at dinner and the Sangria really was the best we’d tasted!  Big thanks to Steve and Barbara for spoiling us.

My Mahi Mahi dish

Back at the house we attempted some music as a four-piece with me on bass guitar and Barbara on piano.  We managed some three-chord improvisations but we weren’t quite the Beatles!

Barbara with Truly, Lucy heading in through the dog-flap!

Simon and Steve did some more jamming before we moved on to the serious business of the scrabble.  We played two games.  You may be forgiven for finding it hard to believe if I say that Simon and I each won a game! Madness…  Not wanting to give Steve and Barbara the chance of success in a rematch, we felt that 1am was late enough to be calling it a night and headed out to the RV.

Thursday 29th December – Sanibel island

About an hour north of CS to the West of Fort Myers, is a chain of islands.  We had recommendations to visit them and we were not disappointed.  We crossed the massive toll bridge over to Sanibel Island and headed to the J.N ‘Ding’ Darling National Wildlife Refuge.  There was a bicycle trail around the refuge so we could stop as often as we liked. The wildlife was incredible. 

Alligator with scary eyes...

Ruth's favourite - ospreys AGAIN! But this time two nesting ones!

Roseate Spoonbill

White Ibis

Sorry, don't know this one! But I got soooo close.

View of multiple bird species in the lagoon from an Observation tower

Alligator next to the road that I cycled right past

Little Blue Heron

Yes, another osprey!

There were observation towers and boardwalks to cycle along, it was so well done.  We spent hours there so we then had to choose whether to head back to the RV or stay on our bikes and do some more mileage so we could catch the sunset on the island of Captiva. 

We went for the bike ride and I enjoyed a sunset swim.  We hadn’t packed our bike lights for the day as we were not expecting to be out for so long but we had to cycle back down the paths in the darkness to find the RV.  For me, it had been the best day’s wildlife watching of the trip so far.

Me having a sunset swim... bliss

I forgot to mention that I had tried to find somewhere different for us to stay between CS and our New Year’s Eve hotel in Tampa.  Again, the Florida craziness meant that I really struggled.  So, in the end we booked another night for tonight at Collier Seminole, despite having to move to another plot.  Tomorrow we would make our way to Sarasota to meet up with Steve and Barbara who had invited us for dinner and we had persuaded them to let us park out the front of their property.

Wednesday 28th December – Naples

Naples main street

We decided it would be wrong to have spent so much time in Florida and yet we hadn’t spent any time relaxing at the beach.  Naples was a 30-minute drive from CS.  We found ourselves in an extremely upmarket beach resort with the same old problem of finding parking for the RV.  Eventually we found a great spot only a block or two back from the seafront.  However, a very snooty couple walking by were looking at us down their noses and we couldn’t work out if we were parked legally or not. So we hung around to eat lunch and see if a traffic warden came our way.  But instead a Police Officer came along! It turned out the only thing we were doing wrong was parking the RV in the wrong direction against the flow of traffic. We apologised and said we would turn ourselves around but that this was the only parking spot we could find.  The Officer was very helpful and told us he didn’t think there was anything wrong with were we had parked.  He even gave us his card and said that should we have any trouble or find we had been given a parking ticket by the end of the day we could call him and he would sort it out.  Sean Phillips of Naples community Policing, we salute you!

This meant that we could have a lovely relaxing afternoon on the beach.  I even used my second-hand boogie board for the first time.  Okay so there may not have been any waves but I enjoyed myself nonetheless!

Naples Beach

We stayed until sunset but so did everyone else so we got stuck in traffic fighting our way out through the town.  We didn’t mind at all as it meant that we could ogle the beautiful main street with its exclusive restaurants and imagine how the other half were living.  We were celebrating having spent not a single cent for a lovely day out.

Tuesday 27th December – Everglade adventures

We’d agreed that one of the things we ‘had’ to do in this area was have a go on an airboat – like the ones off of ‘Gentle Ben’ if you are of a certain age!  We headed into Everglades City and our decision over which of the numerous companies to go with came down to the usual issue – parking the RV. We found a car park with lots of space and this meant that we were now customers of ‘Jungle Erv’s’.  We went for a one hour wilderness ride with ‘Duane’.

This is not us... but we must've looked this cool....

Squeezing through the mangroves

Big Daddy alligator

Wee baby 'gator (had no fear of boats or people)

It was loud, hence the ear defenders, but great fun and we saw lots of different sized alligators amongst the mangroves. It turned out we didn’t even need to get on to the airboat to see one of the largest ‘gators yet – this beast was laying just behind the launch area in his usual territory (the gator, not Simon!):

Having done the air-boating we still wanted to see more of the everglades so we continued South to Chokoloske back towards the coast. This took us past Everglades State Park so we stopped off to take a look.  Well, more accurately Simon chilled out on the RV whilst I went to take a look at the wildlife.  I was pretty pleased that I did, spending a significant amount watching ospreys, this very friendly red-shouldered hawk and pelicans fishing in the sea. 

Red-shouldered hawk

On my wanderings I found an oyster-house restaurant and suggested to Simon that we just go for a happy hour drink to use the Wi-Fi before heading back to CS.  I got some serious blogging done whilst enjoying some seriously good coconut shrimp but the wi-fi only worked for me for some reason.  It was great to have a day out having spent Christmas at CS and by the time we returned to our plot it was dark and late in the evening.

Monday 26th December – Boxing day kayaking

That darn propane alarm kept going off again last night so we both had a disturbed night’s sleep which means that we subsequently both slept late.  Adamant that we have to do something to prevent this reoccurring I studied our manual and took a look at the fuse box.  The manual warned that you can’t just disable the alarm without it causing other parts of the RV not to work.  This morning we discovered that when you remove the fuse that disables the alarm the only thing that it affects is the power to the slide out. We can cope with that.  Now all we need to do is make sure the fuse is in when we need to move the slide out and we won’t have to worry about the alarm.  Sorted.

So, later than hoped we drove the RV down to the boat ramp to take the kayak out into the mangroves.  The tide was against us so it was quite hard work but we persevered wanting to make it to the bay where we thought there may be dolphins.  But no, it was too shallow in ‘Mud bay’ for much life.  Apart from seeing a couple of mangrove crabs we didn’t see much life in the two hours we were paddling.

The mangroves

Mud Bay... with added water droplets on the lens

Running late to call Simon’s family who were all together for boxing day we drove the RV straight to Gators’ crossing again to make the call.

We had a relaxed dinner and another fire to enjoy the evening outside.  Because of our late morning we had missed seeing Steve and Barbara before they left the park today.  However, they had left us a lovely note with their contact details in Sarasota in the hope that we may meet up on our way past later in the week.