Nov 25, 2012 - Letterboxing in Estero

There are only 2 letterboxes for me to find in this area this year! Both are in Estero which is about 1/2 hour south. For the first one, I walked the beginning of a nature trail at the Florida Gulf Coast University. I found the tree with a fallen trunk in its V but the ground looked like wild pigs or armadilloes or some other ground-digging animal had been living and eating here. The box was opened up, the logbook was almost unrecognizable, but the stamp was intact! I will be sending a message to the owner of the box after this. The second...

Jun 1, 2012 - Trying To Reason With Hurricane Seaason

It was time to head down towards Estero , Florida for some fun with a few friends at the Coconut Pointe shopping center. We had clouds and possible rain most of the day, just when we get out of the truck and walking over to the restaurant , the rain was starting to come down. Not hard, just enough to let you know the water was fallen from the sky. Then it stopped as soon as it started , the clouds were still there. The rest of the night we had no rain , it was raining all around us , but not here. We had a good time talking about...

May 14, 2012 - GO TAKE A WALK

For the last few days we have been going down to the CREW ( corkscrew regionl ecosystem watershed) to walk the trails and to see mother nature. We got to see whit-tail deer,wild turkey and a great big barn owl , besides the flowers and plants. We have been walking the trails but also finding cache containers hidden on and off the trails in the park. There is over 100 caches in the CREW area and miles on trails just to walk. We went down to find a earthcache which does not have a log to sign or a container to find. It was a 200 old oak tree...

May 12, 2012 - Cypress Dome Hiking Trails

Norma and I went down to the Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed near Estero , Florida last week to see a big oak tree that was over 200 years old on the Marsh Trails. Last week we had a trail map of the area and was walking the trails to stop at two or three places on the trail to be able to log in that we found this earthcache.For what ever reason we did not locate the tree on the trail, we had taken the wrong direction and had gone down a fire road (service road) that had high weeds , but there was foot prints in the soil of the...

May 6, 2012 - The Crew Marsh Trails

We did a self guided tour through four distinct ecosystems found at CREW (Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed) ) pine flatwoods , sawgrass march , pop ash slough and oak hammock. CREW is a 60,000 acrea watershed and a 5,000 acrea marsh. Besides the water shed that holds all kinds of plants and flowers, Lots of animals use CREW , white-tailed deer , wild hogs,armadillos,bobcats,black bear and florida panthers. We did enjoy the slow walk on the trails and to be able to enjoy the woods , to be able to walk the trails and at the same time do...

Apr 23, 2012 - Island Hopping

After church (what an excellent preacher) we decided to take to the beach to revisit the islands of Sanibel and Captiva. We had been there before once with Sprint's President's Club and once with our girls. The sky's were clear but it was very windy and not a good beach day. We drove to Captiva (the furthest island) and had lunch on the water at the Green Flash. We had to do a little creative parking for the big honkin' dually but we got it. Then we drove back to Sanibel and stopped at the J.N.Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge. They had...

Apr 22, 2012 - To the way back machine

Yesterday we waited out storms that never came so we stayed close to the campground. Fortunately this is the Koreshan State Historic Site with plenty to see. This philosophical religious sect began in the late 1800's by a man named Cyrus Teed. One of his beliefs was that the universe was inside the world. Anyway he drew about 4000 believers worldwide and started a utopian society here with 300 followers. We had a guided tour of the many preserved buildings and grounds which lasted about 2 hours. It was really good. Then Shirley went...

Apr 21, 2012 - L8R G8R

We have moved on to the left coast of Florida to the Ft. Meyers area. This is where Captiva and Sanibel are. However, we left our campground in Everglades NP at 8 AM and it seemed like a long trip pulling into the campground in Estero at 4 PM. Made a number of stops which made it a big travel day. One of the stops was the Oasis visitor center of the Big Cypress National Preserve on the Tamiami Trail (US 41). The Everglades is very large filling the entire far southern portion of Florida. There was a boardwalk along a diversion canal that...

Mar 21, 2012 - Estero Bay Preserve State Park

Today is a nice day for a walk , the sun is out with a few clouds and no rain.We went off to Estero Bay Preserve which encompasses over 10,000 acres of land bordering the estero bay. A tidal swamp dominated by red,black and white mangroves , wet flatwoods with a mixture of slash pines , cabbage plams and grasses provide habitat for many animals. We walked the RED TRAIL which is about four or five miles from start to end. You pass in pines,plams and grasses , then into salt flats , into ferns and wets lands and back into pines. You can...

Mar 14, 2012 - A Walk In The Park

We went to Estero Bay Preserve State Park near Estero , Florida , no camping just a nice preserve to walk the trails. They have a four or five mile trails that winds it's way in slash pines , cabbage palms and grasses that provide habitat for many animals. The slash pines and cabbage palms give way to tidal marshes with low-growing succulent plants and wet flat woods back to slash pines. It was like walking from one world to another as you enter from the pines to the salt flats. We came out on to the salts flats and got to see fossil wooden...

Mar 4, 2012 - Gulf Coast of Florida

These two weeks have been spent on the Gulf Coast of Florida. We left Mandeville, LA with a load of mail including all our tax information (Thanks Wendy!). We headed to The Gulf Islands National Seashore - Davis Bayou Camp at Ocean Springs, MS. Then on to more of the National Seashore Park at - Fort Pickens, Pensacola, Florida. We then traveled along the Gulf Coast to Estero, Florida to visit friends Dave and Mary Helberg. Highlights: * Saw our first Alligator in the wild, hiked and enjoyed the $8 camping fees and hot showers at the Davis...

Jan 25, 2012 - Koreshan State Historic Park

Since Regina had never been to the Koreshan State Park, we spent the afternoon there. I notice that I was there a year and a week ago and wrote up a good story of what the park is like. Here is a link to that - mytripjournal for Jan 18 2011 The only place Chic & I didn't see last year was the area where the machine shop and steam generator were. That generator provided power for the whole town of Estero until 1946 when Florida Power & Light took over.