Features

Pine Island

Posted on: January 16, 2007

by Barbara Orr

The day started with a good long soak in the Jacuzzi and breakfast out on the veranda. It actually started a little earlier when I was awakened by my 2 year old grand nephew yelling “help me, help me” I awakened out of a sound sleep and had my hand on the bedroom door before I heard his mother’s voice. I was mentally reacting to “grandchild, pool”. I have nine grandchildren myself, who often spend the night, seven at a time, and I react out of a sound sleep to distress cries. I went back to bed at that point until breakfast was ready.

We travel family style our youngest member here is 2 months old, the oldest is 65. We’re only as fast as our slowest man, and we don’t leave anyone behind. There are 9 of us this trip, 3 are going golfing today, My sister Gladys, My brother Bob, and Bob’s son-in-law, David. In Florida, you never try to retrieve a ball from a water feature because of the Alligators. It’s against the law to feed an alligator, $500 fine and/or 6 months in jail. Now why any one in their right mind would try to feed an alligator is beyond me, right up there with trying to pet a buffalo. They average 12 feet in length for a male, and 8 feet for a female. They weigh from 400 to 700 pounds and can run at more than 20 miles an
hour, you can’t out run an alligator; they hoist themselves off the ground and run on their toes. There is an old legend that you can outrun an alligator if you run in a zigzag pattern, but it’s false. Climbing a tree might be better. My brother Bob, has not been concerned about the Alligators, because lately in Florida they’ve only been eating women, and he figures he only has to outrun Gladys.

While they’re off golfing the rest of us are going to tour “Pine Island” a large sand bar off of the west coast in the gulf. After packing a 2 month old and a 2 year old in the car with all of their stuff, with a couple of directional changes, we made it to pine island. The Island has huge tropical palm tree nurseries, the one at the north was called “Palms Away” The world’s biggest bougainvillea nursery called Bougainvillea Growers International
Bougainvillea is a vining shrub that flowers in bright colors and it is a popular landscaping plant in warm climates. The Island is covered with strange looking pine trees that almost look like palm trees with most of the foliage at the top. There are hundreds of pairs of hunting hawks flying overhead. I always notice the birds when I am traveling with my relatives, I always watch for buzzards.

The only other enterprise on the island was fishing and there was a small fishing area And a truck with a big swordfish in the back, not unlike the deer and elk at home. As we drove around we noticed the flags at half mast, we asked and found out that
Former President Gerald Ford had died. When you travel with small children, deciding Where to have lunch where people won’t be ready to shoot you in a resort area can be A challenge. After driving by at least 35 resorts and restaurants, we had lunch (at 4p.m.) At a great Mexican restaurant called Iguana Mia’s, it had fun murals painted every Where and has been voted the best Mexican restaurant in the area for 15 years.

While I was cooking the chicken on the barbeque, waiting for the golfers to return, there were 5 great rocket fireworks shot out over the beach, followed immediately by a police helicopter shining its lights in the neighborhood trying to spot the culprit. I enjoyed the fireworks; I hope the fine wasn’t too big. They sold fireworks here but they could only be shot off on new years eve or taken home.

The golfers got back an hour after dark and they were freezing. They had only made it to the 16th hole – but they admitted that Gladys had beaten them easily- again. She’s the oldest member of the group at 65, but neither she nor the 2 month old are the slowest.

While we were waiting for our last arrival at the airport, in the cell phone parking lot. You sit there until your relative gets their bag and then they call you on the cell phone and you run in and pick them up; we were in the Panther Crossing area. All around the
Fort Myers Airport the roads are all marked with large Panther Crossing signs. They are Florida panthers and evidently the airport was built in the middle of a large habitat. They are black, about 40-50 pounds about 5 feet, a little smaller than our Mountain Lions We didn’t see any. The traffic to the airport is heavy; I can’t imagine any getting across the highway safely.

We picked up our last member at the airport at 10 pm. Heather, Bonnies grown daughter hadn’t been to happy about flying alone, her husband Ryan was Goose hunting, He’s the Hunter and Fisher in the family, and he’s always hunting something whenever he’s not working. While she was flying the air marshals arrested the man who was seated in front of her for being drunk and disorderly, the police hauled him away as soon as the plane landed. She was a little shaken until the undercover air Marshall showed her his Badge. She was glad to be on the ground.

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