February 1, 2012

Most of our time today was spent on Sanibel Island. This was our second time on the island and so far, it is the place I like best.

Someone at this visitor’s center had a good sense of humor to post this sign. It says "Please wipe snow from shoes before entering building."

We rented bicycles and rode about 10 miles.

There are many really nice bike paths. Some paths pretty much parallel the road...

...and others go deeper into the preserved areas.

There were a lot of other people riding bikes, but we saw very few on the path we took away from the street.

Perhaps it was the possibility of seeing an alligator that kept most people away.

We never spotted an alligator, but I will admit to being a little nervous when I was on foot in that section . Every noise in the undergrowth sounded like it could be an alligator to me. Cordell has no such worries for it is the same thing as bears in the mountains when we are hiking for he know that all he has to do is out run me!

Cordell wondered if an alligator should bite off someone's leg, would they still be fined the $500.00 for feeding the alligator?

We saw other wildlife including a large osprey, a heron and a red shouldered hawk, but the most surprising was a huge iguana perched in a tree.

There are many areas that give public access to the beaches. This is the only one we have seen where boats can be anchored so closely to the shore. Instead of driving or biking to this beach, those people arrived in their boats.

There is a lighthouse on this island that began operating in 1884 and is still in use.

The temperature was 86 degrees here by late afternoon. We hear that it was one degree below the record for this date. My granddaughter and her mother spent time on the beach at Chesapeake Beach today. So it appears that we haven’t escaped all that much cold weather after all.