A State at a Time: Florida - Day 14 - through Ft. Myers and Naples

Collier-Seminole State Park, Naples

Monday, 30 January 2023

today's route

I passed a sign for the Ortona Cane Grinding Festival the first Saturday in February. Ortona is unincorporated and apparently quite small, but the festival sounds like fun, including bluegrass music and - what else? - cane grinding.

I passed a turn for the Ortona Indian Mound Park, and I'm not sure much is left of the original mounds. Apparently there's an archaeological site there, but the mounds, which are still visible, have been mostly destroyed. One had the entire center hollowed out, presumably by those searching for artifacts. Two were destroyed when they were mined for use as fill dirt. And much of the land is still privately owned. So much for heritage.

An unusual sight: I saw a cowhand with 2 dogs pursuing a large cow running along inside a fence near the road. They were running toward a large livestock transport truck.

At LaBelle, we crossed the Caloosahatchee River (amazing names, these Florida rivers) and saw the Hendry County Courthouse with a tall clock tower, set to the right time.

Hendry County Courthouse

A little way down the road we passed several RV parks, including one named Riverbend Motorcoach Resort. Definitely sounds high class. And expensive.

We passed large nurseries. Cows. Marshes and ponds. Mixed woodlands.

And then to Fort Myers, est. 1886. Hurricane Ian tore through this area just 3 or 4 months ago, and I saw some pictures of the destruction it caused. I expected to see the town still pretty torn up because of it. Instead, I saw that many business signs were gone and some roofs had been damaged, and likely some of the vacant lots had once had buildings on them. And that was it. I went through the main part of town and drove around a bit, but you'd never know from where I was that there'd been such a bad storm. I was impressed with the resilience of the residents, to have cleaned up this thoroughly this quickly.

I remember Momma and me driving along the coast road a year or two after Katrina and still saw extensive damage in Gulfport (MS) and other towns along there. And maybe if I'd gone over to the coast here at Ft. Myers I'd've seen something similar. But here in town, they've cleaned up well.

I still remember hearing on the radio the mayor of Ft. Myers bemoaning the fate of his "charming city" - and quickly saying that it was still charming, just messed up. Well, I have to agree that this is a charming town, one where I'd like to spend more time.

I saw a sign directing me to the Edison and Ford Estates - as in Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, who built houses next door to each other. There're tours now at those places and, while I'm sure it's very interesting and I'd enjoy it, the tour costs $25, which I think is excessive.

I'd heard somewhere that Cape Coral, near Ft. Myers, has a 6.8% growth rate - one of the highest around. And a 2017 article I found online seems to confirm that, along with a scathing commentary on the contradiction that Florida is: seriously prone to weather damage while people keep moving here at a rapid rate, impervious to the real possibility of losing their home and their investment almost any time. https://www.politico.com/magazine/fastest-growing-city-america-florida-cape-coral This article also makes some interesting points about the political makeup of Florida in relation to environmental choices.

I'd heard that Cape Coral too was seriously damaged by Hurricane Ian, and found several articles agreeing that it was. Somehow I doubt that will stop people from continuing to move there, though.

I'd picked up US-41 in Ft. Myers and stayed on it all the way south. This road is also called the Tamiami Trail, and it runs across the north side of the Everglades to Miami. In fact, the name comes from it having been built as the Tampa to Miami Road.

There were many towns along the road and, at Estero, we made a turn for a dog park. This turned out to be a very large fenced area - 2 areas, actually, because one was for small dogs. But when we got there, all the action was in the large dog area, which worked out fine for us. Dext got to meet quite a few new dogs and I was proud of how well he's handling this dog-meeting situation these days. Being rushed by a number of dogs at once used to make him really defensive and upset, but he's not like that now that he doesn't have to worry about Gracie any more.

The dogs' people were there talking about the ugly behavior of the adult child of one of them, with the focus on provisions in her will. I'm glad to be reminded occasionally that my life is essentially without drama; it helps me feel calm.

The road took me through the towns of Naples Park and Naples, neither of which seemed have any hurricane damage, though I know from news reports that they did. Between Ft. Myers and Naples I saw a long string of fancy housing developments on both sides of the road. Once again, there's a lot of money in this state. Did all the baby boomers get rich? If so, how did I miss getting in on the action?

I passed the turn for the Isles of Capri, which I found confusing. Turns out it's a housing development built on 4 mangrove islands near the town of Naples. Probably what confused me is that the island of Capri is in the Gulf of Naples in Italy.

I started seeing signs warning of panthers.

And I turned into tonight's state park campground.

We got here pretty early, so I took Dext for a walk back toward the park's entrance to see a couple of sights they had.

First there's this information about bears; I'd seen a similar sign back at Tomoka State Park too.