Ft Myers Campgrounds and Friends

Koreshan State Park

Aw - back in the woods - the kind of site I love!

And no sight of the neighbors!

We are here at the Koreshan State Park in Estero. This park is very nice.  I thought we had stayed here before but I was wrong.  There is TV here, so Big Bob is content without the satellite dish.  The only draw back is no sewer hook-up so it's the bath house for me since I love a long hot shower.  We will be here five days and that is a stretch for us without sewer but we should be OK as long as we stay watch the water usage.

 There is a lovely picnic area

  

With a large playground

For the kayakers and canoers  there are rentals available and a nice launch area to the paddling trail

There are many trails in the Park

With some running along side the Estero River

 

 Cypress Knees

Not many squirrels here but gopher turtles at almost every turn.

  

There is an old historic village that we visited.- the Koreshan Unity Settlement, settled in 1894 by Dr Cyrus Teed. It sets next to US 41 and the Estero River.  The Koreshan Unity was founded on communal living and property with the goal of everyone working for the good of all - Utopia!

 Amazing how many of the buildings are still standing.

 Te Demkohler House - 1882.  This house was on the land when it was donated to the Koreshans

The Planetary Court - 1904  The governing council lived here

 The Founder's House AKA Teed House and Children's School) - 1896

Although you can't go inside most of the buildings, they have large pieces of glass that allow you to look inside to the period furnishings.

Gulf Air RV Resort

Our second campground on this trip.  This is an Encore Resort and is part of the Encore Trails package so the only cost is the $57.00 monthly payment to Thousand Trails.  Sweet!  

We have a nice site, although we are in the short term RV field, no immediate neighbors.

As is the case with most RV Resorts in Florida (we haven;t found this any other state)  thy have a large number of annual and seasonals who live in Park Models (basically a single wide trailer with a enclosed porch).

I get that the parks need a steady income, but I always tend to feel like an intruder under these circumstances.  But the folks are always nice to us, so I guess it is me.

The park is landscaped beautifully, with a lovely area to sit and chill.

 A large pool

A large club house, with lots of planned activities and games.

If I were a snow bird, I could be happy here!.

Seen in the park

Gator on the move 

He seems awful big to me to tote along, but he is cute!

Time with Friends

While we were here, we were able to hook up with two of our friends for something to east 

Sue Krietinz -  We first met Sue about 10 years ago while visiting another friend in Wisconsin to celebrate her birthday.  The three of us hit it off at once as Sue is such a hoot!  She relocated to Ft Myers a few years after that and  we have been trying to get down here to see her since then,  Nice it finally happened.    We met Sue at Bahama Breeze for 1/2 price appetizers and a few beers. We had never been to one of these restaurants and it was delicious as well as the price was right! But the bet was being able to catch up with Sue and her life now!

John Schafer - We meet John at the El Cap.  He actually lives in Ft Myers and commutes to St. Petersburg for work, staying with his old fraternity buddy Monday thorough Thursday.  We were able to meet his wife, Cynthia and sister-in law, Donna.  They took us to Grandma Dot's for lunch (best grouper ever!)  The after lunch, we went back to our campground and relaxed with a few beers!

As usual we found we had to make a trip to Camping World.  The GPS died (it was four years old so I guess it was time) and although we don't need one here, the Back Friday sale had started and I had a coupon..  And of course, we couldn't just buy a GPS LOL.

Same goes for the Harley Dealer - a trip to Seven Bends for t-shirts and a chip.

We stayed busy checking out the area.  We had been done this way before but it was with our grandson for Travel Ball so there wasn't much sightseeing then - game after game after game!

Estero, Ft Myers and the Islands