Road Trip!!

Our memories of the ocean will linger on, long after our footprints in the sand are gone. ~Unknown

Here are the pics of yesterday's finds, like I said before, there is not much here, except for Brad's Scotch Bonnet and Alphabet Cone.

Here is Brad's 'Loot'...

Jess and my pickin's were pretty slim!

Jess

My finds

Jess' ALMOST Scotch Bonnet

My Almost Scotch Bonnet

My Lion's Paw piece

This will be a long post, but I want to make sure I show pics and give details so you can try to go here, I believe it is a good trip!!

We decided to head down south today, go to Barefoot Beach (circled in red) and work our way back up towards Ft. Myers and see what we would find. Here is a map so you can see where we are talking about....notice I put an X where Bunche Beach is. (From my previous posts) You need to click on it to get a larger pic.

Our journey started on the turquoise bridge leading into Ft. Myers Beach, if you are at the lighthouse beach and look towards Ft. Myers beach, you can see the bridge on a clear day...

 The trip down is really interesting, and there is lots to see! The most surprising part for us is that the road to Barefoot Beach starts in a gated neighborhood of huge mansions! You drive on a brick road along manicured yards, palm trees and these amazing houses!

 You continue through the area until finally you see the brick road come to an end and you get to a state park setting, just around this turn, you arrive at a small building where you have to pay $8 to enter.

There are signs everywhere about Gopher tortoises! It apparently has a high population of them, Low and behold there was one right there beside the road to greet us!

At RC's suggestion, we went as far as we could to the last parking lot, and walked out to the beach and down to Wiggins pass. It reminds me very much of Cayo Costa with trees along the edge of the pass.

We found a shell tree, I had heard that it is tradition in Florida to find a shell, make a wish and hang it on the shell tree for good luck. We all did exactly that!

The shelling here was very thin as it has been on Sanibel this week, but I spotted this piece of coral, it was embedded in the sand so Brad worked to dig it out for me!

How awesome is this?? Bless his heart, he lugged it all the way back to the car for me! I can't wait to clean it up and put it on our porch! I put Hubby's flip flop there for you to see the size...

Here is the Gulf side of the pass

...this is just inside the pass...so different and very peaceful!

We combed the beach, floated around a bit, and did a little exploring.

 This Snowy Egret, kept his eye on us the whole time....

We decided to try following the nature trail back to the car, it was shaded and seemed like more of a direct shot and hopefully would be cooler...it was over a mile back this way, so we felt like the beach was further!

Back at the parking lot.

When we started out, we planned on going to Barefoot, then stopping on the way back at Lover's Key, then somewhere on Ft. Myers Beach/Estero, and ending at Bowditch point, (just across from Bunche).  It was a beautiful day, but very hot, and it was a long, long walk from the parking area to Wiggins Pass which was recommended by my blogging buddy RC. So we just went to Barefoot ate some lunch and came back home. We were very hot and tired, and a little bit discouraged because of the poor shelling! That's okay, there is always tomorrow...right??

Stay tuned...

::Hugs::

Cheri