Fort Myers, Sanibel, Captiva Ohh My…

Before getting to our campsite we stopped at World of Beer in Ft Myers https://worldofbeer.com/locations/gulf-coast-town-center/ for an overnight stay at a Harvest Host. You might know it's free to stay at these stops. In the long run you wind up spending more at the venue eating and drinking than you would at a campground but it's a nice change of pace. Brad's college buddy, wife and friend met us there. Gunnar, his beautiful wife Barb Menseck and their good friend Skippy. Yes, and below that’s Brad laying on the ground. No, not shifting gears but putting up our steps. He's been doing that for almost three months now. He has to manually put them up and down with a bungy cord. Brad swears he'll order the new motor in St. Pete...we'll see.

Since our Harvest Host stay was so close to our campsite in Ft Myers, we got there early and were able to get a bunch done that first day. We went to Ft. Meyers beach which was lovely, took a bike ride to the pier and time square, had a quick drink at the Liki Tiki BBQ, and, watched the sunset. Great start! Our campsite was not your typical campground. It was a trailer park, great place, but not conducive to hanging outside, so we went out to dinner at Doc Ford’s. https://www.docfords.com/ft-myers-beach/ Wow, great dinner, great atmosphere, and, outstanding bartenders. Yes, we sat at the bar and our first bartender, Dan, was a Philly-boy. Brad enjoyed riffing with him, of course about Philly sports and the other bartender Rick, was a Redskin’s fan. So they had some fun and interesting banter as well.

The next day we went to the Edison and Ford winter estates https://www.edisonfordwinterestates.org/ Thomas Edison was a remarkable man and his winter estate was beautiful and intriguing at the same time. We took a self guided tour with an accompanying audio app that we clicked on to listen too at every stop. Edison had the first residential swimming pool in Florida and we took in the actual laboratory they experimented extracting rubber from thousands of plants. The Henry Ford estate, right next door, was cool too. He had a garage with cars of course but these actually still ran. The tour provided insight to their relationship and business dealings. Both Henry Ford and Thomas Edison had a friendly, admiring, and intriguing relationship all at the same time. Only in Florida can there be a museum of homes where you don’t enter the rooms and view all of them through open doors. Why? Cause the weather's so good....After our self guided tour, we had lunch at Pinchers https://www.marinaedisonford.com/ with a beautiful view of the water and then ended the night with a game of mini gulf. This time Brad took the win…finally.

It rained all day on Thursday so we booked some future sites and took care of other personal stuff. We went to the movies at night to see “No Time To Die”. The Ft Myers Beach Theater was this quirky place. They had rows of tables and office chairs that served alcohol and food. We kept our tradition of popcorn and soda. Not that comfy for a 2 1/2 hour movie but it was different and fun and we dug the movie.

Friday we went to Sanibel Island. We stopped at the visitor center and this informative old man gave us great advice. He told us which beach to go to and where we could ride bikes if we wanted. After his recommendation we went to Bowman’s beach. By now, you can probably tell we love the beach. We brought a change of clothes so after we drove to Captiva Island for dinner at the Bubble Room. Speaking of quirky...This place is decorated with old toys and each room was adorned with old 8x10's of movie stars, toys, playful antiques, and child friendly statues and memorabilia. One room is strictly decorated for Christmas all year round. The place is a trip. The waiters are called Bubble-Scouts and where Boy Scout uniforms. The dinner tables were each a toy chest display under glass enclosures. Kathy loved Sanibel and Captiva and said "why go to HawaiI when this place is so beautiful". She loved it so much we went back the next day for a bike tour through a different part of Sanibel Island.

The day before we left Ft Myers, we drove the hour to Naples. We walked 5th Ave. It was cool to see residential above all theses hoyty-toyghty clothing, art, and jewelry shoppes. Not necesarily our cup of tea but the collections in the art stores were absolutley amazing and for what the asking prices were they should have been. We ate filet mignon tacos at Tommy Bahamas in Old Naples for lunch. We bought and tasted some fancy balsamic vinegar and oil at Tin City and we walked the Pier. Where we watched the fishermen and surfers. Pretty cool! Then we road our bikes down Gulf Shore Blvd. The houses on that street were unbelievably, beautiful and amazing. We kept pointing from one side of the street to the other to gawk at these amazing homes as we rode our bikes. We didn’t take any pictures since they were peoples private homes. Besides, we didn’t want to get arrested for stalking them.

Hat Head!

We haven't missed an Eagles game yet and this Sunday was no different. We went to a Bills sports bar with over 65 TV's. Not a seat in the house when we arrived but these two exceptionally nice Bill's fans Betsy and Lauren invited us to sit with them. We did and we had fun. Birds 40-Saints 29. Thanks for reading our blog. Next stop...Sarasota to catch up with family and a place Brad has been going to for over 30 years!

Peace Out, Thanks Again, Kathy and Brad