Sun-N-Fun Resort, Sarasota, FL, to Koreshan State Historic Site, Ft. Myers, FL:  Left Sarasota at 11:00 and arrived at Koreshan and were set up by 2:00.  Went over to see my brother, Ron, and his wife, Jan, in their new place.  Jan’s daughter, Laurie, her friend, Mark, Laurie’s daughter, Mary Lou, and Mary Lou’s friend, Lexi, were visiting from Maine.  Ron grilled filets and Jan made a potato salad.  Great dinner.  Their new place is great!  This park we’re in is really nice.  We’ll explore around some tomorrow.  88 today.

Laurie, Mark, and Jan

 Lexi & Mary Lou

  Sun-N-Fun Resort, Sarasota, FL:  Woke up to the sound of rain this morning.  Just hung out and watched the Missouri football game and a couple of movies.  Biked around a little in between rain drops.  Had turkey left-overs for dinner.  We leave tomorrow morning for Koreshan State Historic Site south of Ft. Myers.  Oh, and one bad thing about this park—the water.  Tastes and smells like sulfur.  Fortunately we have a filter on the kitchen faucet.  

Lawn Bowling Court--Sun-N-Fun Resort

Park Models--Sun-N-Fun Resort

Butterfly Garden--Sun-N-Fun Resort

  Sun-N-Fun Resort, Sarasota, FL:  Headed out this morning under cloudy, threatening skies.  Wanted to check out historic Spanish Point my sister told us about.  It’s just south of Sarasota.  I thought it would be nice to take 789 south on the barrier islands, which we did, but it dead-ended before we could go back across the channel.  So, we had to backtrack.  Spanish Point had nothing to do with the Spanish.  The Webb family from Utica, NY, wanted to buy some land in southern Florida, and while in Key West was advised by a Spanish trader to check out the property on this point jutting out into the bay which was just south of what is now Sarasota.  So they sailed up the coast and ended up buying 145 acres--back in 1867.  They named it Spanish Point after the Spanish trader who advised them and for the land’s prominent extension into Little Sarasota Bay.  Over the next 40 years the family farmed over 10 acres and shipped their products south to Key West and north to Cedar Key in their own schooners.  They grew all kinds of vegetables and even oranges and lemons and had their own packing house on the property.  They built little cottages and had a resort of sorts for their northern friends to come visit.  The trails wind around through some really lush vegetation. Very pretty.  The skies cleared off and it turned into a beautiful day.  After leaving there we stopped for a quick bite to eat and then headed to Myakka River SP to check it out.  This is the largest state park in Florida.  The park itself is beautiful, but the campground is nothing we’d want to stay at.  Then headed back but got turned around because of a detour and ended up in Bradenton.  Just a quick drive down I75 back to our RV park.  Stopped at the grocery store first and then back to our site.  Pooped.  Had left-over turkey and fixings for dinner.  And more pumpkin pie for d-e-s-s-e-r-t.  Life is good.

 Pretty trails that wind through this place

Mary's Chapel

 One of six original stained-glass windows

 Inside of the chapel

Huge spider

Sun-N-Fun Resort, Sarasota, FL:  Happy Thanksgiving!  We had a great day.  Went for a walk after watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.  Then came back and put the turkey breast in the oven.  That turned out great.  Had the turkey with mashed potatoes, gravy, squash, cranberries, and pumpkin pie for dessert.  We watched “Miracle on 34^th Street”, my favorite Christmas movie.  I was so glad we did because right after that Oprah came on and her show was dedicated to John F. Kennedy, Jr. who would have been 50 today.  She replayed an interview she did with him in 1996.  Shortly after that interview he married Carolyn Bessette in that tiny little church on Cumberland Island.  When we were there a few years ago we visited that little church.  What a coup they pulled off keeping that a secret. 

  The tiny little church on Cumberland Island where John and Carolyn were married

 Our version of that now famous picture

Sun-N-Fun Resort, Sarasota, FL:  This morning we put clean sheets on the bed and then headed over to Woodland Hall to wash the dirty ones along with some other stuff.  I sat over in the butterfly garden with my book while waiting.  After getting the laundry done we donned our bathing suits and headed over to the pool. Mike headed over to the lawn bowling game first to see what it was all about and I continued on to the pool.  Got in and joined the tail end of a water aerobics class.  I don’t know why they don’t just swim around for exercise.  After hanging around the pool for a while we biked back to our site and changed into dry clothes and then biked back to the grill for lunch.  They have a grill and tiki bar plus a full-service restaurant.  Back to our site and relaxed outside reading for a while.  Mike went in to get on the computer and I sat outside enjoying this beautiful day.  It’s really quiet where we are—the only noise is the thrum of the air conditioners.  Some of these park models in here are really cute.  Great place to live really. 

  

Butterfly Garden

All the drinking fountains have a little bowl for the dogs

Sun-N-Fun RV Resort, Sarasota, FL:  This place is huge—around 2000 sites.  There are mostly park models in here—a smattering of older ones and a lot of really nice new ones.  A lot of people winter here.  We saw a bunch of high end motor homes.  Our site is between two park models.  One is not occupied right now and the other is either owned or rented by a British couple.  We ran into another British couple at the laundry.  I decided to wash the quilt and put it away, so we headed over to the laundry with our books and put the quilt in one of the washers.  When it finished washing we put it in what we thought was a dryer.  Turns out it was a front-loading washer.  Can’t stop them because the door locks, so we had to wait ANOTHER 39 minutes for that to finish (sigh).  While we were waiting we walked over to a little garden by one of the ponds.  Turns out it was a butterfly garden.  Pretty little place with little sculptures and bushes with these fragrant orange blossoms.  Smelled wonderful.  Back to the laundry and put the quilt in the dryer.  In about 10 minutes it was mostly dry so we headed home.  Turns out there are a lot of Brits in here because they have a “lawn bowling” court.  Not sure what that is, but we passed a beautiful bocce ball court.  They have everything in here.  They even have a lawn bowling petanque court for the French people. Not sure what that is, but the French love it.  There’s a small fishing/sailing lake, several big pavilions housing billiards, activity rooms, game rooms, workout rooms, etc., tennis courts, and of course a swimming pool.  There’s also a restaurant and tiki bar by the pool.   So we set off on our bikes to explore this place.  Biked down to the pool which is huge and very warm.  Had a cocktail at the tiki bar (it was almost noon!).  Then we biked over to the lake and continued on past the tennis courts.  Wish we had our tennis rackets with us.  Back to our site and relaxed outside reading for a while.  This resort even has their own movie channel which runs movies 24/7.  Have to watch Dancing With The Stars one last night to (hopefully) see Jennifer Grey win.  I'm feeling unloved.  Think I'll go to the airport and get a pat-down.

Huge pool

 Cocktail time

One of several pet washing stations--accommodates both big and little dogs

Pasco Winter Quarters, Land-O-Lakes, FL, to Sun-N-Fun RV Resort, Sarasota, FL:  Not much on TV last night but we found two great shows on PBS—one on Florida history with an emphasis on the Tampa and Ybor City area, and the other on Stiltsville, which we’d never heard of.  Stiltsville is a group of wood stilt houses located one mile south of Cape Florida on Biscayne Bay in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The structures stand on wood or reinforced concrete pilings, generally ten feet above the shallow water which varies from one to three feet deep at low tide. Started in the 30s, they reached their peak back in the 60s with around 19 homes—and even several social clubs (Crawfish Eddies, Quarterdeck Club, Bikini Club, Rod & Reel Club) attracting a lot of connected businessmen and politicians, and celebrities were seen out there all the time  Tony Roma, the restaurateur, owned one of the homes there.  The area of Biscayne Bay where the seven remaining houses stood was deeded to the National Park Service and slated to be torn down.  But a bunch of activists got together and stopped it (S.O.S.—Save Old Stiltsville).  They can only be seen from land at Bill Boggs Cape Florida SP which is just south of Miami.  We plan on heading over there when we’re staying at the Everglades.  With a permit you can actually stay at one of the houses.  Wouldn’t THAT be fun!  We left Pasco Winter Quarters around noon and arrived at Sun-N-Fun and were set up by 2:00.