Florida, Ft. Myers - Saturday, March 1, 2014 - Twins vs. Red Sox

Yesterday we toured the small town of Moore Haven, didn’t take long.  They do have a nice park and scenic areas along the river.  We stopped at one area along the locks.

 

This is a closer look at the really big alligator that was sunning on the shore. 

We didn’t stick around for a lot more pictures.  After we parked we noticed some signs stating “government facility, no trespassing” (I have a feeling that meant us).

From the locks we headed to the Seminole Reservation that is about 20 miles from the campground to check out the casino they have there.

 

This is a small casino with lots of penny slots, but we did manage to find a couple of quarter slots and proceeded to lose $10.  We heard that the big thing going on there is Bingo.  The pot for Friday night was $9,000.

Today we went into Ft. Myers to Hammond Stadium which is the spring training headquarters for the Minnesota Twins.

 

 

 

We had good seats here on the first row.

 

 

We had a great view of the field.

The Twins were playing the Boston Red Sox.  None of the Boston starters were there so we were a bit disappointed about that, but it was a great day for a ballgame.  The Twins ended up winning 6-2.  We headed home in the fifth inning when the Twins hit a 3 run home run.  The parking lot was packed so I think it was a good idea to head out early.

We passed a sign on the way home indicating that the temperature was 91 degrees.  I think it might have been a bit off, TV reports are showing mid 80’s.

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.

Florida, Moore Haven - Monday, February 10, 2014 - Motorcycle Ride

We left mid-morning to head to Ft. Myers to look around and maybe stop at the beach.  With temperatures in the 80s and sunshine, it was a perfect day for a ride (after I slathered on the SPF 50 sunscreen).

On the way we stopped at Jet Blue Park which is the spring training camp for the Boston Red Sox.

 

 

We plan on getting to see a couple of games here so we wanted to make sure we knew where we were going.  We were surprised to see that they have a huge farmer’s market there every Monday from noon until 4:00.  We just picked up produce yesterday and we knew we would be spending a long day on the bike so we didn’t stop at the farmer’s market today, but we will definitely be coming back, it looked amazing.

On down the road we noticed yellow triangle signs similar to “deer crossing” signs we see in Indiana, but these said “panther crossing” with a picture of a big black cat on them.  We thought maybe it was referring to a nearby high school mascot until we saw a series of 7-8 more signs in about a two mile stretch of road.  The area was wooded and open pasture and believe me I was scanning the roadside!  The speed limit through the area is 50 mph and they want you to slow down to 45 mph after dark.  We made a note to not even go through there after dark.

We stopped at Palm Coast Town Center looking for the JoAnn fabric store.  We wanted to get some binding to fix the flags we fly on the back of the bike.  We found something we think will work.  Before we moved on to Ft. Myers we stopped at Olive Garden for lunch and used one of our Christmas gift cards.

Ft. Myers was crowded!!!  I know there are a lot of retired people down here, but seriously doesn’t anyone work on Monday?  We couldn’t find parking in any of the beach access areas.  We are going to try to go back later in the week, but we’ll try to get there earlier.