Company!

My mom and sister flew into Ft. Myers early yesterday afternoon. We took advantage of the afternoon to do a little touring - Koreshan State Historical Site was our first stop. In Naples proper, we walked out to the end of the pier, took a quick look around, and got blown back to shore. It was COLD and WINDY. We strolled around the 3rd Street shopping area, decided against the $68 finger towel and the $112 glass carafe and moved over to Tin City where we ate at the Riverside Restaurant. It was an early bedtime for everyone

This morning, we were up early to make our 9:00 reservations for the Shark Valley tram tour. What a show! We saw anhinga, cormorant, bittern, black- and yellow-crowned night herons, green-backed heron, tri-colored heron, little blue heron, great blue heron,

cattle egret, snowy egret, great egret, wood stork, glossy ibis, white ibis, roseate spoonbill, purple gallinule, black vulture, turkey vulture, kingfisher, brown pelican, red-shouldered hawk, osprey, gators, and mama gator with babies. We witnessed a fight between a cormorant WITH a catfish and an cormorant who WANTED a catfish (photo below show the winner).

After leaving Shark Valley, we had lunch at the Depot Restaurant in Everglades City, followed by a visit to the Smallwood Store in Chokoloskee (photo below). We rounded out the day with a motorboat trip from the National Park Visitor Center at Everglades City up the Turner River and through a lovely mangrove “tunnel”. We stopped to view a Calusa Indian “shell mound” - amazing!