Cheeseburgers in Paradise....

Last Wednesday morning found us at Fisherman’s Village Marina boarding The Island Star, part of the King Fisher Fleet, for an excursion to Cabbage Key for lunch.

King Fisher Fleet was originally founded over 30 years ago as a one-boat fishing guide service by Capt. Bob Allen and his wife Helen. The fleet has grown to include multiple fishing boats and excursion boats and employs approximately two dozen staff including boat captains, fishing guides, tour boat mates and booking agents.

Fisherman's Village Marina

Fisherman's Village Marina

 

Great Blue Heron at marina

Snowy Egret at marina

The Island Star

Looking forward

Looking aft

During the cruise we were entertained by our captain and crew relating interesting historical facts about the Charlotte Harbor area, watching the passing boats and the dolphins that occasionally swam next to us.

Passing sailboat

Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphins

Passing boat

Osprey enjoying lunch atop a navigational marker

Getting passed again

Cabbage Key is a 100-acre island in Pine Island Sound, not far from Captiva and Sanibel Islands. There are no paved roads, and is accessible only by boat or plane. The island is largely comprised of a Calusa Indian shell mound and sits 38 feet above sea level. Calusa Indians did not farm like the other Indian tribes in Florida. Instead, they fished for food on the coast, bays, rivers, and waterways. They learned to catch shellfish like conchs, crabs, clams, lobsters, and oysters. The Calusa did not make many pottery items. Instead they used shells for tools, utensils, jewelry, fishing / hunting spears and ornaments for their shrines.  Shell debris was discarded into huge heaps.

Someone's living the good life at Cabbage Key

 The Cabbage Key Inn was built to be a private home by Alan and Grace Rinehart. Alan was the son of Mary Roberts Rinehart, the once famous and best-selling mystery writer. They bought the island in 1929 for $2500 and spent another $125,000 creating their winter estate. The main building was constructed in the 1930s. It became an inn and opened to the public  in 1944 when the island was purchased by an artist, Larry Stults, and his wife, Jan. They ran it until 1969 when Bob and JoAnn Beck took the helm. Current owners Rob and Phyllis Wells live on the island and have run it for three decades.

The original house (now the inn and restaurant) has six fireplaces, five porches and a 25,000 gallon water storage tank to capture rainwater. Over the years cottages were added, one as a playhouse for the kids, one for the caretaker and a few for friends. Some of the cottages now can be rented by the public for overnight stays and others house the restaurant staff.

View of Inn from the dock

View of small beach below Inn

One of the rental cottages on Cabbage Key

Yellow Crowned Night Heron on Cabbage Key

Turks Hat Hibiscus on Cabbage Key

In the main dining room there are thousands of dollar bills. Legend says it started with a local fisherman who taped a signed dollar bill to the wall as pre-payment for his next cold beverage. An estimated 70,000 autographed bills now paper the walls and ceiling of the restaurant. Some of the bills are firmly affixed, while others dangle and sway in the breeze from the ceiling fans. Any bills that fall are donated to charity. Of course patrons are constantly replacing the fallen ones with their own signed bills.

Ceiling in main dining room

Another picture of main dining room

Legend has it Cabbage Key inspired Jimmy Buffett’s famous song, “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” and, indeed, the singer’s own signed bill hangs proudly behind the restaurant bar. In the late 70s, Buffett’s sister lived on Boca Grande, a nearby island.  An avid pilot, Buffet arrived via seaplane and pulled right up to the small section of beach near the boat slips below the restaurant. While Buffett’s publicist won’t confirm or deny if Buffet penned his famous song on Cabbage Key, Buffet did dedicate the song to the staff of the restaurant at a 1978 concert (the year the song was released) at the Lee County Civic Center. Could be that’s where the legend of the song being inspired by the island and its cheeseburgers was born.

We thought it only fitting to dine on cheeseburgers before returning to Fisherman’s Village Marina.

Settling in........

We arrived at Alligator Park on January 15^th so I thought it was about time I posted an update.

Park entrance 

Alligator Park is a resident owned, 55 & over mobile home park that caters to snowbirds with their RV’s as well. While one area the park has RV sites in rows, other RV sites are mixed in with the permanent resident’s mobile homes; we are between 2 permanent residents. The mobile homes of the residents are well kept with some having very nice landscaping.

RV row

Our site

Our street

Resident across from out site

Resident patio

A few years back, when I was on the road full time, I checked out this place as well as several others in the same area. I found Alligator park to be the most desirable because of the space between the mobile homes, the upkeep of the property and homes and the friendliness of the staff and residents. It’s no wonder there aren’t any vacancies. We have already booked the same site for next winter so we have a place to stay, but we will continue to check other parks in the area just to keep our options open.

The park is well maintained with a large community center that hosts a variety of activities, a heated pool, and a building that houses a laundry, central mail room and well stocked library.

Community Center

Heated pool

Multi-use building

The "must have" shuffle board courts

The White Ibis are everywhere

There is a Walmart (saw a gator there Friday), Home Depot, Publix grocery store and gas stations within a few miles of our temporary home. We are about 20-30 minutes away from FT. Myers, Cape Coral, Pine Island, Matlacha Pass and just south of Charlotte Harbor. The beaches at Ponce De Leon Park are a short 20 minute drive.

Life has settled down to somewhat of a routine now. We found a gym very close by that’s free for me (Silver Sneakers program with my Medicare Advantage plan) and was a reasonable cost for Ronna during our 10 week stay; we work out every morning Monday thru Friday.

Wednesday is usually reserved for some type of exploring and dockside dining, sampling the local seafood.  Of course there is the usual laundry, grocery shopping and keeping the camper and truck clean. But there is always a dip in the pool to end the day.

Last stop on the way to Punta Gorda....

While we have been at Alligator Park in Punta Gorda Fl for the past week, our last stop before arriving was at Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park in Micanopy Fl.

Founded in 1821, Micanopy was originally an Indian trading post. It’s a small place of about 600 people and was the first distinct US town in the Florida Territory.

The town consists of several antique stores, small diners and historic homes. Most notable are the Herlong Mansion (now a B&B) and the Simonton House.

Herlong Mansion

Simonton House est.1910

Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park became Florida’s first state preserve in 1971. It hosts a variety of wildlife, including bison, alligators (of course) and wild horses; direct descendants of the horses brought to North America by Spanish explorers. The area of the state park was explored by naturalist William Bartram in 1774. The Seminole Indians called him “Puc Puggy”, meaning “flower hunter” and the road to the campground bares his name.

"Puc Puggy"

Notice the road sign in the upper right

We were only able to explore one of the eight trails in the park and the Visitors Center. Most of the trails were closed or partially closed due to high water and flooding from the recent rains.

Our camp at Paynes Prairie

Visitor Center

Had to turn back on this trial because of flooding

Got off a quick shot of a deer we spooked while on the trail

Flock of unidentified waterfowl 

Wild Horses

In the near future I'll be posting some pictures of our site here at Alligator Park.  

The trip continues.......

Time to catch up a bit on the blog.

Last post had us at Whittington Woods Campground in freezing temps.

Sunday and Monday (January 7 & 8) we spent at Tom Sawyer RV Park in West Memphis Arkansas. While the temps had risen a bit it was still cold with rain. Late Monday afternoon we ran out of propane, which was my fault for not keeping a closer eye on the tanks. The campground didn’t have refill facilities and the local Flying J gas station’s facilities were down due to a leak in their system. The handy dandy GPS found a Tractor Supply about 15 miles away so I braved the Memphis rush hour traffic and ran over there. Another lesson learned; check the propane situation more often in cold weather.

Tom Sawyer RV Park is right on the Mississippi river and has had to close on occasions when the river overflows its banks. Fortunately we didn’t run into any of that. They have a couple of interesting cabins for rent as well as an abundance of camping spots with full hook ups.

Carving at the entrance (relative of  Chucky?)

Barge on the Mississippi

Tree house cabin

Tree house cabin

Ronna next to 2011 river crest height. Park had to be under water.

After leaving Arkansas, clipping the edge of Tennessee and crossing Mississippi we spent Tuesday and Wednesday at Birmingham South Campground in Pelham Alabama, which just south of Birmingham. The campground was very close to a Home Depot which worked out well since when we arrived Ronna found one of the pantry shelves had collapsed. I decided to knock out the shelf below the broken one and rebuild / reinforce them both. So much of my time was spent doing some carpentry work. Sorry, only one picture of this stop.

Birmingham South main office

Yesterday we entered the Florida panhandle and stopped at Alliance Hill RV Park which is about an hour west of Tallahassee. This is a newer park with concrete pads on pull through sites with full hookups. It’s a bit off the beaten path being 8 miles south of Interstate 10 but very nice and quiet. They have a beautiful community building with a large screen TV, comfy couches, a small library, laundry facilities, showers and a pool. The temps we a comfortable 67 when we arrived.

Today was a rainy day that started off all wrong. The cat decided to fall off the top of the headboard at 4:30 this morning and landing on Ronna's face, her rear claw cutting Ronna's lower lip. Then around 6:00 AM Ronna broke the little toe on the right foot by stubbing it on the couch leg. But she was a trooper and we made a side trip to Florida Caverns State Park, a short 30 minute drive from the campground. These caverns were prepared by the CCC for public tours between 1933 and 1942 and are the only caverns in Florida accessible to the public. The tour was about 45 minutes and the guide most informative. We even saw a few bats that inhabit the caverns along with salamanders, cave crickets and blind crayfish. Ronna took the following pictures with her cell phone as I never thought about bringing my camera (duh!)

CCC memorial statue

Entrance to caverns 

Trying on hats in the gift shop

Tomorrow we head for Paynes Prairie State Park in Micanopy FL, about a 4 hour drive. We will spend 2 nights there. Hope to get some pictures of the wildlife. 

On our way to warmer places....

The temperature was -10 when we left Pingree Grove at 0700 but the weather was clear and the roads in great condition. After a pit stop in Elburn for coffee, Gibson City for a light breakfast and Champaign to drop some paperwork at Ronna’s son’s house, we arrived at Whittington Woods Campground around 1330.

We had taken the camper to Whittington Woods back in November and placed it into storage so we could avoid pulling it though any bad weather that might arise in January.

The temp had reached 21 degrees so we didn’t freeze too badly getting the camper ready to move. I was surprised that the tires had held their full 80 PSI and I had fully charged the battery before we left Pingree Grove. So it was just a matter of installing the battery, hitching up and moving a few hundred feet from the storage area to the campsite. 

Once we were parked in site #2 we plugged in the shore power and fired up the furnace. The nighttime temps were going down to 4 degrees and the predicted high for Saturday was 17, so I decided to leave the antifreeze in the fresh water system and not de-winterize the camper.  Out campsite was right next to the clean, heated bath house and we could use a bucket of fresh water to flush the toilet in the camper if necessary. We had thought ahead and brought dinner for Friday night and a gallon of water to make coffee on Saturday morning. Ronna had brought an electric blanket which warmed the bed nicely before we retired and we got good night’s sleep.

Saturday found us at the local Walmart, stocking up the fridge, and filling the truck with diesel for Sunday’s morning drive to West Memphis AR. We had burned through a 30 pound tank of propane since our arrival so I got that refilled at the campground as well. We have two 30 pound tanks so never came close to running out.

This is a very nice campground with very friendly, helpful owners and there are several other rigs here with us. We had a neighbor pull in late Friday afternoon and leave by 10 this morning. They said the roads in Michigan were terrible with snow and ice and they were heading for Texas.

A friend of the owners does the carvings shown in the below photos.