December 16 to 31, 2009 - Fort Myers Beach, Florida

We left Port Saint Lucie on December 16th and drove 156 miles to Gulf Waters RV Resort in Fort Myers Beach, Florida.  This will be our location through January 2010.  We last stayed in this campground from mid-December 2007 through February 2008.  This time we are on the other "lake" in an improved campsite, but we were unable to get a spot here in February.

You can see the pad has been extended in these photos, which is part of the improvement:

Our view.  The tower on the right is the wi-fi antenna.

Looking through the windshield you can see something by the water.

Here is a closer look, we have a "neighbor", about a 5 foot alligator that still has its stripes.  Normally they lose the stripes around 3 years old and are a bit smaller than this one, so this one has been eating well.

Another view:

The clubhouse and pool are visible from in front:

Looking back at our site:

A great egret is also out this day.

There were no alligators in the lakes our last visit.  They had removed them after they got large and more aggressive.  But new ones find their way in. 

One day we visited with Lee and Edie, who were camped close by.  They are in Boomers and are also friends with Howard and Linda. 

We picked up a Wii and Wii Fit at Costco and Diane has been using it every day.

December 22nd we took a drive to Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park and stopped at Bamboo Wok in Naples for lunch on the way.  We had last visited the State Park in February 2008 but our best visit was in January 2008.

Photos from our December 22nd visit to Fakahatchee Boardwalk, Part 1, Part 2

December 24th the new Samsung netbook arrived in the mail.  It looks like it will do well at replacing the Acer netbook that died.

The Christmas tree is set up.  This view shows the tree, Evita's relocated dishes and the Wii.  You will also see our alligator is back if you look closely.

The campground had a nice Christmas Eve dinner.  They supplied ham and scalloped potatoes and the rest was a potluck.  Too much food but it was quite good.  We had a good time visiting with others staying here.

Evita taking a walk with Diane checking for alligators.

Diane's computer started having a hinge problem so after some effort and study Bill put his engineer cap on and found a fix.  It did take a couple trips to the hardware store to get all the parts correct.

A close up shows the new screw and washer that are holding the hinge in tightly and this fix seems to be working.  Eventually Diane will get a new notebook computer, but not yet.

More photos of the wildlife here at Gulf Waters, Part 1, Part 2

The weather turned cool toward the end of the year. 

We did not eat out that much during this time.  We again tried the Red Robin at the Gulf Center Mall in Estero and this time it was as good as the ones in the west.  We figured corporate came in and showed them how to do it right.  We also revisited Noodles in Naples one day for lunch and had lunch at the Chili's in Cape Coral another day.

Mostly we have relaxed here in Fort Myers Beach.  We will see what 2010 has to offer.  The campground had a New Years Eve Party starting at 8PM on New Years Eve.  They definitely were having a good time when we went to bed since we could hear them from our site.

Back Home    Back to 2009    Previous Adventure    On to 2010