Happy New Year!!!

Now I know I am really behind! A year behind! Hope your New Year was great; best wishes for all things good in 2013. We had a lovely Christmas and New Year with our friends Tim and Carolyn in Stuart. But I will come to that ...

From Nokomis (on the gulf/west side of Florida) we went further south to Naples. On the way we stopped in at Punta Gorda on Charlotte Harbour to visit Ed and Eleanor who we met in South Dakota - at Sheridan Lake. They come south for the winter too.  Doesn't everyone?

Ed introduced us to some early Florida history - Juan Ponce de Leon - the first Spanish explorer to arrive in Florida. In late March/early April 1513 his ships landed on Florida's East Coast near St.Augustine. He claimed  the land for Spain and named the place La Florida - 'place of flowers'. There is some navigational tussle as to exactly where he landed but plans are afoot for quite a celebration on 3 April 2013 being 500 years since the event.

Ponce de Leon continued down the East Coast, along the Keys and up the West/Gulf Coast. He entered the Charlotte Harbour area. In 1521 he returned there to set up a colony. Unfortunately for Ponce de Leon he and his party were ambushed by the Calusa tribe at Mound Key. Ponce de Leon was shot in the thigh by an arrow. He abandoned the settlement. He later died of his wounds. He was but one player in Florida's rich history which was moulded by different nationalities and cultures: initially a large indigenous population, then colonization by the Spanish, then the French followed by  English colonists from Georgia. The official US occupation took place in 1821 when General Andrew
Jackson captured Pensacola.  History lesson over!

Guess who?

Then we were off to Naples. We have a reservation for 3 nights. Overcast skies turned into rain in the evening - heavy rain, thunder and lightning!!

Although the rain cleared the next day it was still overcast. We biked up the Tamiami Trail to a shopping and residential mall about 3 miles away.
The Mercato  includes 12 fine restaurants, 20 upscale retailers, luxury residential condominiums ... and a cinema complex. We are going to see the movie Lincoln. We enjoyed it; a wonderful way to pull all our Civil War experiences together!

We must have looked a bit like hill-billies in such a sophisicated setting as the Mercato. We didn't think to cover the bike seats before it rained so we had really wet backsides for most of the day, including sitting in the cinema. We decided not to dine there for a late lunch after the movie! We stopped for coffee at a Dunkin' Donuts on our way back to the RV Park.
We have also acquired some Christmas decorations so there was much adjusting of them until they were right??

Upstaged!!

The next day we set off to explore downtown Naples. We left the bikes behind and caught a bus. We thought we had it sorted but there was a connecting bus that we had to 'connect' with - perfect going in but a total stuff up coming back. We then ran out of time to take a trolley around Naples and had a very long walk home!
But we did get to see Naples downtown. We walked around and along 5th Avenue South and all the streets leading from it and to Tin City (little stores in an old warehouse building on the waterfront). A beautiful shopping area that just begs to be properly explored!

The Tamiami Trail

The Tamiami Trail is the southernmost 264 miles of US Hwy 41 and runs from Tampa to Miami (hence the name). The 165 miles N-S section extends to Naples where it becomes the W-E highway crossing the Everglades.  And that is where we are headed next.