Captain's Choice blog: Highlights of Ft. Myers

We are enjoying our time in Ft. Myers with lots to do and see. The weather has been all over the board, from lows in the 40's to high's in the 80's and very little rain. Our goal has been to walk a minimum of 3 miles a day and I am happy to say our phones have us averaging over that for the month of December.

Gold loopers Hour Plan heard from gold loopers Sunset Delight that they would be in Ft. Myers Beach for one night (Wednesday, 12/5) and contacted us and Shell Belle to see if we wanted to meet up for dinner. We were in, Hour Plan rented a car and off the 6 of us went for dinner. Hour Plan didn't tell Sunset Delight that Shell Belle or us were joining so they were surprised when they walked into the restaurant and saw us. A happy reunion of a few loopers!
We first met Sunset Delight in Canada in 2015 when they were doing the loop on Sea Moss and have caught up with them here and there ever since. They live in NJ and this year we both left that area at the same time, we just kept missing them until now. It was a great night and we look forward to seeing them again when we get to the keys.
When we walked into the restaurant we had our own surprise when we saw our Buffalo friends there...Dussings, Martins and Jimmy Clinton. I guess that group hadn't arranged it and just ran into each other. As we were sitting at dinner we were commenting about how many "Buffalo" people make the trek down to Ft. Myers for the winter....it's clear to see why!

Downtown Ft. Myers has plenty of restaurants to choose from and a cute ice cream shop that we stopped at on their main street. Mark asked the owner if she carries his favorite flavor, orange pineapple. She explained it wasn't a big seller but asked what his other favorites were and we found out she carried both of them, maple walnut and rum raisin. We told her we would be back, we weren't ready for ice cream just yet. We ended up going back 2 days later and she was out of maple walnut so Mark had to razz her a bit that she didn't have his first or second favorite. Right away she said I have your 3rd favorite but I also ordered the orange pineapple for you, it will be in Thursday, come back after 11. WOW, what service...we were so surprised she would do that. Then she asked if we were locals and when we told her no but we would be here for almost a month she told us she expected us in daily. We chuckled and made our way back Thursday and sure enough she had the orange pineapple...needless to say we have been back several times.

Mandy and Jim from Shell Belle showed us where a rooftop bar was Friday night to get the view of the city. The city also had an art walk that we explored and it drew a good crowd downtown. For a northerner it just seems funny to be sitting outside eating and drinking in December with temperatures in the 70's...but boy are we enjoying it!

We picked one of the coldest days so far (Tuesday, 12/11) to go explore the Edison & Ford Winter Estates. Picking a cool day was by design, there is a lot of walking outside and we had walked over on one of the 80 degree days and thought this is better for a cooler day. Mark & I spent hours looking at the homes, Edison's lab, Ford's Museum and the grounds. They are also all decorated for the holidays and what better time to look at the decorations and lights than a cool 52 degree night. Jim and Mandy joined us for the evening and being that they are from St. Louis they agreed that the temperatures along with the sights and sounds really made it feel like Christmastime.