Florida, Ft. Myers - Monday, February 17, 2014 - Farmer's Market Trip

I figured out how to overcome my poor eyesight to allow me to finish my cross stitch project.  We checked out reading glasses to see if we could find some that were stronger than my prescription glasses – no luck.  On the way home I happened to think about this clip on magnifying glass that we already had, it works perfectly.

 

 

We waited for the Schwan man to arrive before taking off this morning.  I had never bought anything from Schwan, but it seemed like a good idea to look into it because the closest grocery store is 45 minutes away.  Frozen foods would probably not do too well in the bike storage compartment in the 80 degree weather we have been having here.  We purchased a few things to supplement what we already had left from our beginning of the month purchases.  It’s a bit more expensive, but the to-your-door service is nice.

Our goal this morning was to check out the farmer’s market we discovered the last time we were at Jet Blue Park (spring training site for the Boston Red Sox).  In order to get there you have to drive through the area I wrote about previously that warned of “panther crossings”.  As we were riding through that area this morning I got to wondering how many panthers had to be sighted before the state would spend the time and the money to put up 20 warning signs.  I also wondered whether a panther could outrun a motorcycle.

Jet Blue Park is located just outside of Ft. Myers and the farmer’s market is open on Monday from noon until 4:00.  There was a big crowd there when we arrived at just after noon.

They had food vendors on site and we picked the lobster rolls.  Unfortunately, I was too excited about the lovely lobster roll that I forgot to take a picture until after I had mauled it.

After storing our vegetable and fruit purchases on the bike we tried to check out the ballpark, but it was closed except for tours today.  We decided to wait until next time to do the tour or our vegetables would be cooked before we got home.  This shot was taken through the fence – grass looks nice.

We checked out the fan store.  Greg liked a ball cap, but not so much after he saw the $50.00 price tag.

They had some statues commemorating ballplayers who had retired numbers.  Jackie Robinson was the only one I recognized.

 

 

On the way home we stopped at the Hickey’s Creek Mitigation Park to see exactly what it was.  I originally thought it was a “migration” park.  A “mitigation” park is an attempt to offset the environmental impacts of development on a certain species of animal or type of native plant.

The Hickey’s Creek Mitigation Park was established to mitigate gopher tortoise habitat destroyed by development in southwest Florida.

 

The gopher tortoise is a land tortoise that originated in North American approximately 60 million years ago making it one of the oldest living species on the continent.  We didn’t see any, but this is the picture that was on the back of the map they gave us.  The info on the map didn’t say how big these tortoises get, but we saw some kind of tortoise in the Sioux Falls Zoo that looked like huge slow moving boulders.

We didn’t walk too far along the trails today.  They recommend sturdy hiking shoes and lots of water.  We had tennis shoes and half a bottle of water and it was very hot.  The only wildlife we saw was this little lizard.  Hint:  it is on the fourth stake from the left.  And we saw one turtle for just a minute.

 

 

On a cooler day this would be a nice area to explore.

There is even a picnic area.

After we got home, Greg checked out the website to purchase tickets to one of the Red Sox games – every last one of the said they were sold out.  We think we might ride back over to the park tomorrow and see if we have any better luck on site.