Images from southwest Florida: Travels from Sarasota to Marco Island

Here we go with a collection of images of Southwest Florida. Visited places from the city of Sarasota to Marco Island. 

A week of camping in Oscar Scherer State Park. Forested place with beautiful sunsets - weather permitting. 

We got a lot of rain during a week of camping in this park close to Sarasota and the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico. The forested campground is across a creek. We saw owls and snakes. There is a beach-lagoon in the park, but signs warning of alligators didn't encourage us to swim here. 

Drunken campers gave a free show after midnight one of those nights. A lot of arguing and bad words. The police came and threw them out of the campground. The wildlife is a lot better. 

Our bushy campsite in Oscar Scherer State Park. Note the old gazebo as shelter of our camping kitchen - it was a good model but bulky and heavy. Now we have the smaller Gazelle. 

There are five hiking trails in Oscar Scherer State Park. They are color coded. The yellow Trail is the longest one at 5 miles. The Legacy Trail also goes through the park. This was a good trail for the bikes. It follows an old railroad route from Sarasota to Venice. 

Biking on the Legacy Trail, we reached the historic Venice passenger station from 1927. A section of the old railroad was left near the state park. This trail connects to Venetian Waterway Park and goes west to end at Caspersen Beach or Shamrock Park - depending on which side of the canal you pick to ride.     

Caspersen Beach was all about the drama of trees falling by erosion and people searching for shark tooth. We hiked the coast for some miles.

Our best photo of Caspersen beach in a stormy day. The Gulf of Mexico is reclaiming some land here. This beach is dubbed "Florida's shark tooth capital". We tried hard but didn't find any. People come supercharged with tools. 

Nokomis is another nice beach close to Oscar Scherer State Park. 

The sands of Nokomis Beach - another "shark tooth beach" of the Gulf of Mexico. Nokomis means "my grandmother" in the Ojibwe language - learn more about this name and the 1855 epic poem of Longfellow in this link. We found turtles and enjoyed a beautiful sunset with the sun dropping into the gulf from North Jetty Park. 

But the sands of Nokomis Beach were nothing compared to the sands of Siesta Key. Some say that these are the whitest of the world. They look like refined sugar when dry. 

The thin sands of Siesta Key. There we found easy parking, free trolleys for transportation on the island, and many bars and restaurants in Ocean Boulevard - we stopped by Gilligan’s Island Bar.  

In Siesta Key we camped in the Turtle Beach Campground on the south of the island. The camp is just a short street that ends on the beach. Not much privacy between campsites, but the access to the beach is priceless - photo of a sunset in Turtle Beach in this post. 

The businesses of Ocean Boulevard in Siesta Key, Turtle Beach in a stormy day, and the kayak ramp by the campground. 

The kayak ramp of Turtle Beach is pretty close. It launches to the Blind Pass and Little Sarasota Bay. The Jim Neville Marine Preserve is roughly a 1.5-mile paddle away - there is a small and secluded beach at the northern point of the preserve.

One of the biggest state park in Florida is close to the city of Sarasota. 

Amazing walk surrounded by wildflowers in Myakka River State Park. This beauty is right by the road. Easy and accessible for everyone. Get lost in a sea of wildflowers. 

In Myakka River State Park we found three campgrounds to choose from and miles of trails to explore. One of them, the Canopy Bridge Trail, goes over the trees - first aerial hike. There are boat tours and canoe rentals to explore the waters of the lake. Big alligators live there and there were too many when we visited to go paddling. Better the big boats. 

The Canopy Bridge Trail with its observation tower. Good views of the vast expanses of Myakka River State Park from up there. 

What's the meaning of the word "Myakka"? Most say that comes from the Seminole Indians meaning "big water" - more in this article. 

The Ringling Brothers and the art Museum in Sarasota, Florida. 

The Ringling Brothers circus was once called "The Greatest Show on Earth". Beautiful gardens, the circus museum, the art collection with paints of Rubens, Veronese, and Cosimo, plus the amazing John Ringling's mansion facing Sarasota Bay. 

The beautiful Ca'd'zan mansion. The name means "the house of John" in old Venetian.

 

John Ringling was a fan of the old architecture of the Italian city. His home on the bay is a piece of art.  

Some images from our camping trip to Pine Island. 

Pine Island is north of Ft. Myers and it's the longest island of Florida. Out of camping options, we stayed some days in a KOA RV Park. 

A paved trail follows the main road of the island making easy to move with the bikes - it's 15 miles long. Along the way, we found some short trails through natural areas. Many birds in this island.

We also visited the Randell Research Center in Pineland - central image in the previous collage. There was a Calusa village here, the second biggest that the Spaniards found in South Florida. Only the mounds are left - "Calusa" means "fierce people". These American Indians dominated South Florida in the 16th century. 

Hernando de Escalante y Fontaneda was capture by the Calusa in 1549. The Indians killed all the other survivors of his shipwreck. He spent 17 years living with them and wrote a short chronicle of his ordeal - the Spanish text is available in the Virtual Library Miguel de Cervantes. 

Colorful Matlacha. 

At the entrance of Pine Island, we stopped at the colorful Matlacha. The color palette here goes wild on the walls of antique stores and cafes. We also saw the gallery of painter Leoma Lovegrove. 

In Atlanta, Georgia, her portrait of Jimmy Carter hangs in his Presidential Library. Her art is in the private collection of the White House in Washington, DC and in President George W. Bush’s Presidential Library in Dallas, Texas. 

By the city of Estero, we camped in another park: Koreshan State Park. This is a historical place on the banks of the Estero River where a self-title messiah promised to create a city without sins that would be called New Jerusalem.

Cyrus Teed or Koresh landed here by 1894 and built a religious village under the command of his Koreshan Unity with its "Seven Sisters", the "Planetary Court", the "College of Light", and a newspaper named The Flaming Sword - sounds like stuff from a Star Wars movie. 

The trees of the Bamboo Trail that follows the Estero River were a gift from Thomas Edison. 

This was the cabin of the first settler of this area. Gustave Damkohler was born in Germany in 1825. He left for Australia in 1846 and later came to America. His life ended searching for gold in Alaska after losing almost all his family in Florida - this man was a globetrotter.  

Cooking smelly sausages in Koreshan State Park, C played peekaboo with two raccoons that were trying to find a way to the smelly meat from a high tree.  

Close to the state park, we found longer trails to hike in Estero Bay Preserve State Park. 

The trailhead of Estero Bay Preserve State Park near Koreshan State Park. We found some cute silly rabbits here.         

 

Lovers Key State Park was a nice park with great beaches. We took our kayaks to this barrier island of the Gulf of Mexico that, sadly, doesn't have a campground to stay. 

Kayaking Lovers Key, the beach, and a big blue heron on the shores. 

This place was the romantic escape of local couples before the road reached the island - that's why it's called Lovers Key. There is also a pirate tale around the islands in this park. It says that Black Augustus lived in Black Island - read more about the local pirates in this article. We went around with kayaks and found the remains of his garden.

Beautiful plants on a tiny island of Lovers Key State Park. 

We also launched our kayaks at Big Hickory Island south from Lovers Key. 

Big Hickory Island has a free ramp to launch kayaks. It's between Bonita Beach and Lovers Key. 

We paddled through mangrove tunnels and a big interior lagoon to end at a sandbar by the sea. The waters were amazingly clear. 

South of Bonita Beach is Barefoot Beach Preserve. This is a secluded beach. We hiked to the spot where the Cocohatchee River separates Barefoot Beach from Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Park. Many wild birds in this preserve.  

Nice beach and many birds in Barefoot Beach Preserve. No campground here.        

Across the canal is the state park. 

The canal and the beach of Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Park. Third image: View of Barefoot Beach Preserve across the pass. 

Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Park is close to the city of Naples. No campground here. 

The mountain bike trails of Caloosahatchee Regional Park.              

These trails are good. C felt on one of the hills and dislocated a finger. We ended in the emergency room of a Ft. Myers hospital. Ice and rest in the camp. 

Our campsite in Collier-Seminole State Park near Marco Island. 

Collier-Seminole State Park is close to Naples and the Ten Thousand Islands. The park has some historical stuff as this big machine used during the construction of the Tamiami Trail. 

Machine used to excavate during the construction of the trail in the 1920s. 

The trail inside the park is short. We went for the nearby Old Road to Marco Island - you must register at the Ranger Office before entering this trail and report back at the end - I guess they want to know if you survived the panthers.  

The trailhead of the Old Marco Island Road. Welcome to panther territory. 

No panthers for us, just birds and two bored alligators in a quiet pond. 

From Collier-Seminole State Park, we also took the bikes up to the village of Goodland. 

At the entrance of Goodland between Collier-Seminole State Park and the city of Marco Island. 

This is a fishing village with a boat ramp and some restaurants. We got lunch at the Little Bar Restaurant - fish, of course.

Near Collier-Seminole State Park, we also rode on the only land trail of the Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge: The Marsh Trail. 

Views from the tower of the Marsh Trail of the Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge in Southwest Florida.         

There were many birds and a few huge alligators. The trail ends at a small island with a rustic boat ramp. We only saw one person in this trail. 

Entrance to the wilderness of the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary.

In the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary survive the oldest Bald Cypresses of North America. The trail is a boardwalk that runs for over two miles across a pine forest, a marsh, and a bald cypress forest. 

The ancient trees of Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary - some are wrapped by strangler figs. 

Some tree elders here were alive when Columbus set foot in America. Many strangler figs climbing for sunlight out of the darkness of the forest. 

Different spots of the city of Naples. North Naples at Venetian Bay, Third Avenue, Tin City and River Walk, the beach, and the Gordon River. 

Naples was explored in the 19th century by Roger Gordon and Joe Wiggins. The city was founded in 1885 and its docks were the only connection of the area with the outside world - a lot has changed for Naples since those times.

Tigertail Beach and the beaches of Marco Island - this is the public beach. Plenty of sand and shells. 

We also stopped by Capri Paddlecraft Park for the kayaks, drove the Isle of Capri, and took the road through Shell Island - there is a small and rustic boat ramp at the end. We also visited the Rookery Bay Environmental Learning Center for a lesson about the nature of this region - long ago, we stayed a couple of days at the nearby KOA Naples/Marco Island. 

Chokoloskee is the last town in the western coast of Florida. After this point there is only the wilderness of the Ten Thousand Islands. Chokoloskee means "old home" in Seminole. It's a small town on an island surrounded by mangroves, gators, and hungry mosquitoes. 

Ted Smallwood, the owner of the Smallwood’s Store, had good relations with his Seminole neighbors. The American Indians came to his trading post for goods - another historical photo of Smallwood in his trading post in this link. 

Smallwood’s Store in the island of Chokoloskee. This was an old Indian trading post. 

In 1910, Edgar J. Watson was killed on the nearby shore. This man moved from Oklahoma to the Ten Thousand Islands in 1889 after being accused of murder. Peter Matthiessen wrote a novel about him called Killing Mr. Watson - this is an affiliate link. We haven't read it. Some people like it, others feel the narrative too slow.