Our Trip to Ft. Myers Florida

We flew to Ft. Myers on separate airlines. Me on Spirit Maureen on American. We frequently book our airline travel using points acquired through various credit card companies. Sometimes it's more prudent for us to travel on different airlines. Either way we can usually work it out that we arrive pretty much at the same time. Enterprise messed up our car rental and stuck us in a Corolla for the week rather than the premium car we had reserved. We stayed at The Westin Cape Coral Resort at Marnia Village. We had a beautiful 2 bedroom 2 bathroom suite with a full kitchen with a wonderful view overlooking the marina and one of the 3 pools on the property. They have 2 different fitness rooms, free bicycles and provided a water taxi to Ft. Myers beach.  The water taxi left at 10 and returned at 2 so we only used it once since we wanted to visit a number of different beaches in the area.

Saturday evening we ventured out to Ft. Myers and wound up at the Dixie Fish Co. on Fisherman's wharf. It was right next door to the more famous Doc Fords. It was a smaller place with live music and good happy hour pricing. We meet some fun people and had some awesome shrimp Tacos. Afterwords, we did some grocery shopping at the local Publix. 

Sunday after a short workout at one of the Westin fitness centers we drove to Ft.Myers beach. It was about a 30 minute drive from the Westin into Ft.Myers. Traffic was a little heavy once along the beach and parking was somewhat scarce. There were a number of parking lots ranging from $10-$20 per day. The one we parked at was $20. We were on the beach just a little to the right of the pier in the photo. We met a nice couple (Lee and Sharon)  from Cherry Hill NJ whom wintered in Ft.Myers. We enjoyed the afternoon on the beach chatting with them. After our day on the beach we walked around and ate at one of the local joints during happy hour.

Monday we went to Bonita Springs. We had heard the beaches there were beautiful. It was about a 45 minute drive. We spent the day at the Barefoot Beach Preserve county park. The cost for this public beach was only $8.00 for the day. That was nominal compared to the parking at Ft. Myers beach. We found a spot in one of the lots and had about 1/4 mile walk down a boarded path to the beach. It was a lovely beach set in a nature preserve with gopher turtles all over the place. We saw quite a few of them while walking through the preserve. There were showers and restrooms located not far from where we were on the beach. Barefoot beach is misleading because you really can't walk barefoot because of all the shells and rocks. Everything is in it's natural setting. Those that were shelling had awesome results.

That evening we had tickets for a sunset cruise out of Salty Sam's Marina in Ft. Myers. We arrived there about an hour early and ate dinner at a BBQ place at the Marina. We shared a sampler of brisket, ribs and pulled pork along with a couple draft beers. The cruise was quite nice. The captain was very knowledgeable about the area and gave lots of information about the things we passed and the local area. It was about a 45 minute ride out to where we viewed the sunset. It was a cloudy evening so it was surprising when the sun did appear under the clouds and we saw a beautiful sunset. Here's a picture I took.

We started our day on Tuesday with a 60 minutes couples massage at a local studio. It was something different for us. It felt nice and relaxing but not sure that I would do it again. I think it was a little overrated. I enjoy sitting in a massage chair just as much. Afterward, we drove about 1/2 hour north to Sanabel Island. Vice president Pence had been vacationing there since Saturday. We stopped along the bridge and at our lunch along the bay it was quite scenic and quite. People were fishing and swimming right off the side of the road. We spent the majority of the day at Bowman's Beach. The parking was $4.00 per hour. The beaches here were another beauty. White sand with clear water and awesome view. It was a super clear day and you could see all the way across to Fr. Myers. Afterward we stopped in at Doc Ford's for some expensive cocktails. That evening we wound up at Bonita Bill's they had $3.00 tacos, $7.00 pitchers and karaoke. We had a good time and enjoyed watching all the folks sing karaoke. I almost got up but just couldn't pull the trigger. Maybe next time.

Wednesday we rode the water taxi provided by the Westin to Ft. Myers beach. It left at 10 am and after 1/2 hour arrived at the beach in the Times square are. We stayed out he crowded beach area the entire time and then rode the water taxi back to the Westin. We were hoping to do some hot-tubbing but either I was too sunburn or the water was too hot because I couldn't even get my feet in the water. That evening we had tickets to see Casey Weston at the Southwest Florida Performing arts Center. She was with her band Gypsy and they performed the Fleetwood Mac Catalog. They were very good and Maureen was very surprised how many of the songs she new, The encore of "Don't Stop" was awesome. They go the entire place standing. The one drawback to the evening was that we arrived late thinking the doors opened at 7:30 when actually they opened at 5:30.  We did get small plates of food and had to wolf it down in like 15 minutes.

Thursday we again went to Ft. Myers beach. This time we drove and found a spot for $15. We were close to the beach and it wasn't crowded at all. We stayed for about 5 hours and then wen to Bahama Mama/s to meet Lynn whom was driving in From Marco Island to meet us for dinner. Lynn is the Inn keeper we met in Gatlinburg  whom had been relocated to Ft. Myers after the devastating fires in Gatlinburg . We enjoyed her company and the 2 of them enjoy speaking of work.

Friday was our last full day in Florida. we awoke early and went to Vanderbilt Beach in North Naples. We went there on a recommendations of friends and it was just as wonderful as they said. The sand and water were beautiful and the the light wind made it just the perfect day on the beach. Although it was not anything like this picture because of the crowds. There was a parking garage close by that had $8.00 daily parking. We ate dinner across the street from the upscale Turtle club. I had the fried mahi-mahi and Maureen had a shrimp dish. We had planned to stay at Vanderbilt Beach for what had been billed as one of the best spots to view a sunset except that it got cloudy and the sunset didn't pan out. we did enjoy some cool open mic blues music while we waited.