Florida: Everglades City to Marathon in the Keys

Days 203 - 204
NM: 42 + 43 = 85
NM Total: 3777 (4346 miles)

Before leaving Everglades City Rod & Gun Club, I went into town to buy some milk. On the walk back from my errand I found the Everglades City Bank building. A rather big sign out front read "The Bank Building is Open", so I wandered over to see. As I approached the building, a woman came over to me to ask if I wanted a room. I had noted the sign on the building said Bed & Breakfast, so I was not too surprised by this inquiry.

I told her, "No thank you. I was just curious about the bank." She said, "It's not a bank anymore but if you want a room, I have some available." I politely declined the offer of the room and told her I thought, given the sign out front, that perhaps some of the bank history had been preserved. She said, "No, we don't have a bank here, but you can have a room if you want." I declined the offer yet again. She offered me a room at least two more times after that before I could get away to head back to the boat.

Everglades City Bank c. 1926
(now a B&B)

I knew we were almost ready to untie our lines and pull away from the dock, so as I entered the Rod & Gun Club building for the last time I got my cellphone camera out and got busy taking some last minute memories with me. The Rod & Gun Club is fascinating as the more you look around, the more you see.

Street Entrance to the Club

Found this guy hanging around the bar

Alligator skin etc. hung on walls

Grandfather Clock in Lobby

We left the dock just after 11:00 a.m. Clark wanted to be sure to have enough water under the boat, so we had to wait until we had a rising tide. He estimated a 5-hour trip to our stop for the night.

Goodbye Rod & Gun Club

Goodbye Everglades City, Florida

One last look back 

To reach Marathon in the Florida Keys, we needed to break the trip into two parts -- just over 40 nautical miles each. We decided to stay at the Little Shark River anchorage in the Everglades National Park. For part of the trip we had to go out into the Gulf of Mexico. Clark carefully checked the wave heights and wind directions to make his travel plans. He chose well.

Flat waters on the Gulf for our trip down the coast.

Within the limits of the Everglades National Park, fish traps are not allowed. Once outside those limits it resembles a mine field, literally.

A Proverbial Mine Field of Traps in the Gulf of Mexico
(see the fuse???)

We arrived at the anchorage just before 4:30 - about 30 minutes over Clark's 5-hour travel-time estimate. As we pulled into the anchorage, several others boats were also arriving and selecting their spots for the night.

Little Shark River Anchorage in
Everglades National Park

Popular Stopping Spot for Boats heading to the Keys

The anchorage provided a peaceful and picturesque place to spend the night. Hoping not to be attacked by mosquitoes, Clark was ready with the camera as the sun began to set.

Sunset in the Florida Everglades

Sunset Reflections

The Everglades National Park is so vast and remote that we had no cell service, no internet, no television, and no radio stations. Clark did a scan on the FM radio, and it went all the way through without finding a single station! Good thing I had a novel to read except that we turned off all the lights so as not to attract the mosquitoes. Well, then good thing I had my Kindle with the built in reading light. Modern technology wins out after all.

Clark and I are the proverbial night owls, so we found it difficult to fall asleep when we decided to go to bed at 9:30. Since we had been sitting around in total darkness, we decided we might as well turn in. As we laid there trying to fall asleep, we reminisced about the places we have visited on the Great Loop trip and tried to remember in reverse order all the places we had been in the order we visited them. Impossible exercise! I cheated and pulled out my cellphone where I have cataloged each place we stayed and the dates we stayed there. Even knowing the names of the places, we had trouble remembering some of the stops.

Recently, the boat has been making some odd sounds at night that we have never heard before. Various folks we have met here in Florida gave us a variety of explanations such as "It's the barnacles collecting on the bottom of your boat". "My goodness, the noise is so loud and frequent, we must be covered in them", I thought when I heard this. Clark decided to do some research - "Thanks Google!"

                     As a cruiser, when you get to the warmer waters in Florida and further south, you may hear noisy crackling sounds coming from beneath your boat’s hull at night. The noise can be shocking if you do not know what you are hearing.  The sound may be described as bacon cooking in a frying pan, the crackling of dry wood burning or Rice Krispies in a bowl of milk.

Clark found out that the culprit is snapping shrimp. He said that as we left the Everglades and reached Marathon the snap, crackle and pop should diminish.

One-inch long 'snapping shrimp'

We still heard some snapping during the night at the Everglades anchorage. Was it my imagination or had the frequency and volume appeared to have lessened? We shall have to see if we still hear the noises in the Florida Keys.

The trip from the anchorage to the Keys was long and mostly uneventful. We put way points into the GPS system before shutting everything down the night before, so we were ready to go in the morning. The waters were calm again - Clark did his homework well. We played 'dodge-em' all the way as we had a crab trap "mine field" for the majority of the trip. As we traveled along, Clark periodically gave me an update on the distance to the next way point while I either read my novel or played my cellphone games to pass the time.

Along the way we suddenly heard our boat name, Sea Moss, being called over the VHF radio. Velo-mer saw us via the AIS and recognized us. We met them way back in New Buffalo on Lake Michigan and have not seen them since. Clark chatted with Bob over the radio for a while discussing planned destinations, etc. Velo-mer was headed in the opposite direction to us, so we eventually said our farewells not sure when we may cross paths again.

We had planned for a speed of 8 knots, but with the current against us we could not make that speed, so the trip to the Keys took about an hour longer than we had hoped. We arrived at 3:00, and immediately we met folks we recognized. The folks on the boat next to us, Corkscrew, whom we have met twice before helped tie our lines as we docked. Then, just down a few slips from us, I saw and yelled hello to Liz from Knot Sew Easy. She came over to say hello, and we learned from her that we would see a number of familiar faces staying here.

After settling in to our slip, Clark went up to the marina office to ask them a few questions. When he came back to the boat, he said that we had two choices -- move to a different slip now or be told we had to move the boat a couple of times during our stay. We had not had time to get attached to our slip, so we decided to move now and save aggravation later. We said au revoir to Corkscrew, pulled in our lines, and moved to a more permanent spot. We plan to be here at this marina for the next 6 to 8 weeks. Already Clark is worried that he will get antsy with being in one place for such an extended stay.

I left Clark washing the salt off the boat and walked over to the Faro Blanco* lighthouse for "dock"tails with JoAnn and Jim from Namaste who, after we moved the boat, were in the neighboring slip. Every day the weather is nice, whoever is around meets at the lighthouse for "dock"tails. I met some new folks (not loopers) and heard the local scuttlebutt which I shared with Clark when I got back to the boat.

* Faro Blanco is an English name for lighthouse evolved from an ancient lighthouse Pharos of Alexandria.

Florida: Everglades City & Chokoloskee Park

Day 202

Friday 1/29 – no boat travel

During the night a cold front came through so miracle of miracles – it stopped raining! We woke to a temperature of 58 degrees with a predicted high for the day of 61.  We planned for a day of biking, so I had to pick out layers of clothes to allow for ranging from being hot to being cold as we biked.

Clark needed to mail a letter; I needed to buy something in the way of breakfast food from the sparsely-stocked grocery store. We ate breakfast and prepared to go out on our bikes. As we got ready to pull away from the boat, Clark noticed that his back tire was flat – to the rim! I had biked on ahead to the end of the Rod & Gun Club driveway and waited and waited for him to come along. Finally I went back to see what was holding him up and found him using a hand pump to put some air in his flat tire.

He managed to get air in the tire, and it looked like it would hold, so we set out for the post office as planned. At the post office we got a big surprise. A produce stand is setup in the post office parking lot every Thursday through Saturday morning. This week, due to the lousy weather yesterday, the days were changed to Friday through Sunday. Either way, we hit it on a Friday morning.

They had a mix of fruit (grapefruits, oranges, strawberries, blueberries, melons and apples) as well as a variety of fresh vegetables. I hadn’t planned on buying produce, but I could not resist the temptation with it spread out right there so conveniently. Fortunately Clark had his backpack with him, so I filled it up! From there we headed over to the grocery store, and I found some interesting-sounding Post cereal with walnuts, raisins, dates and grain clusters. Except for the quantity of sugar included in each serving, it might actually be considered healthy.

I threw the cereal box in the backpack as well, and we headed back to the boat to drop off our goodies. Our plans for today included lunch at the Rod & Gun Club restaurant. Even though it was a bit chilly we sat on the screened-in porch to eat our lunch. Clark’s broiled seafood platter included frog’s legs. He said he liked them. I sampled a bit and decided I could do without that in my dietary plans. It tasted a little “gamey” to me.

When we came back to the boat to get the bikes for part two of our two-part bike ride adventure for the day, Clark’s tire was very low on air again. He pumped it up and we set out to explore. This time our plans included a visit to the airport and the Gulf Coast visitor’s center at the very edge of town. But first, we went to the hardware store and bought a patch kit for the bike tire. We had patches but all the glue in our repair kits had dried up over time, so we needed to buy new.

The ride to the airport was relatively short as compared to Monday’s ride to the airboat adventure. When we got there, however, there was almost nothing to see. One small airplane that looked like it could hold two people maximum sat there alone. We decided to go see what the next stop had to offer. At least here we found lots of people milling around as it was the visitor center at the entrance to the Everglades National park and a place where folks could take boat tours.

Gulf Coast Visitor's Center

After seeing our two main attraction objectives (airport and visitor’s center), Clark said he would like to visit Chokoloskee  Island. When I looked at the map before our ride to see where the airport was located, I spotted Chokoloskee, and it looked like a rather long bike ride across part of Chokoloskee Bay. However, since the other part of the bike ride had been so much shorter than I anticipated, I agreed that we could try it and see how far we got. 

Beside Bike Trail to Chokoloskee
Look closely and see the sleeping Pelican in the front of the picture

Welcome to Chokoloskee

"You are here" map of Everglades National Park

Fishing is Great in Chokoloskee Island, FL

At least the Pelicans think it is.

Of course Clark took me all the way to the end of the island and then some as we toured around. We found Smallwood's Store which was originally a trading post and over time was converted into a museum. At $5 per person entrance fee, we decided to pass on the opportunity to look inside.

Smallwood's Store Museum - originally a trading post in the early 1900s

Scene Near Smallwood's Store

 We saw lots of different style homes on Chokoloskee with many for sale and a few for rent. The vast majority were raised, single-family homes or mobile homes.

Except for this One mansion on the Island

With more "keep out", "no trespassing" signs in one place
than I have ever seen before.

and This Beautiful Log Cabin with a Stained-Glass Window

And then, to make it interesting, a Few of These Thrown into the mix

The log cabin and the run-down trailer (both shown above) were only a few hundred feet from each other. 

On our way back to the boat, we stopped by the Chokoloskee Mall which includes the Chokoloskee post office, a restaurant, and a “gift shop” which appeared to be an outside sales area where an artist was selling her paintings as she painted more pictures on the spot. I went into the restaurant to buy a bottle of water as I could feel a headache coming on – generally a first sign of dehydration for me. They had no bottled water, but she gave me a cup of water for free to take with me. Nice!

Chokoloskee Mall - Post Office

Chokoloskee Mall - Havana Cafe 

From there we stopped at the Observation Tower for a from-high view of the surrounding area. The tower is 80 feet high. The boat captain standing there who asked if we wanted a tour of the Everglades said that the tower had 108 steps. Clark went up in the tower, and when he came back he said he had counted 120. I was not overly enthusiastic about climbing up the tall tower. Once we found out it cost $2 per person, I decided to stay at the bottom and let him go explore up there alone. The $2 fee was just the excuse I was looking for not to climb!

Everglades City - Observation Tower
Built in 1984

Hmmm - the sign agrees with the boat captain.

Views from the top of the tower ...

While Clark went up the tower, I talked to the boat captain. We were not in the market for a boat tour, but I have to say that if we were, I would want him as my guide. He grew up in the area and, after years of living elsewhere including Egg Harbor, NJ and Tennessee, he moved back home. He is a licensed captain and a certified naturalist and has a lot of interesting stories to tell and knowledge to share. By the time we had gone through a few of the captain’s stories, Clark was back from his climb up the tower. 

The boat captain told us that Chokoloskee means “Big House” in Seminole and gave a little background related to native Indians in the area and why they named the island that. Then, as he showed us the tour boats they use, we talked about boat tours in the Everglades. He said that no airboats are allowed in the national park itself. I had asked if much wildlife could be seen on the tours, and he said that since they are “wild” life, it is a crap shoot as to whether they are seen or not. He made of a point of saying they do not feed any animals and told a story about an airboat captain that did feed alligators.

As the story goes, the captain of the airboat fed something to an alligator and then turned to talk to the guests on the tour boat. Apparently the alligator wanted more and climbed up on the airboat and bit the lower half of the man’s arm clean off right there in front of the tourists. Since feeding alligators is against the law, he not only lost half his arm, he got hit with a $5000 fine and 10 months in jail as well. The awful joke around town at that time …

                “Need a job? Captain Doug is hiring. He could use a ‘hand’.”

While we were talking a small plane flew over which led us to discussing the local airport. The boat captain said that one-to-two crashes per year happen there. I asked if it was due to the short runway there, and he said it was more often than not the gusty winds. He proceeded to tell me about a famous fisherman (he did not give his name) who was doing a documentary on the Everglades and leaving the area by plane. With 30 mph wind gusts, his camera crew, etc. refused to fly out with him due to the conditions. They said they would drive and meet him at their next location. He said he had no choice but to fly because of a prior engagement he could not miss.

The plane appeared to take off with no problem, and then when the plane reached an altitude of around 200 to 300 feet, a gust of wind caught it and flipped it over causing the engine to stall whereby the plane fell out of the sky and burst into flames upon impact. The boat captain said that fuel and smoke could be smelled in town for three days after.

We chatted some about the Great Loop and our plans, the type of boat we are traveling on, etc. Eventually we said our farewells and got back on our bikes to come back “home” to the boat. I checked when we got back. Google Maps calculated the distance to be just over four miles each way from the boat to the end of the island, so with our earlier biking, I guess we must have covered at least ten miles on our bikes today. It felt good to be out and about after being on the boat all day yesterday.

As soon as we got on board, Clark pulled out the bike tire repair kit we bought earlier today and his tools to see what could be done about the flat. He has fixed a large number of bike flats in his time, so he knew the procedure. After he had the inner tube pulled out, he could hear the leak hissing, but he could not find it. He asked me to join him on the salon floor to see if I would have any luck. Eventually I felt the air coming out of the tire with my finger as I passed it over the inner tube. Using a soapy mixture, he rubbed it on that spot and we saw bubbles, so now we knew where to repair.

Having had the bad experience in his youth of having his bike tire punctured multiple times due to the same sharp object being lodged in the tire itself, Clark ran his finger along inside the tire and found something sharp. He tried to push it out through the tire, and it would not budge. He finally managed, using pliers, to pull it out towards the inner tube and found it to be a piece of metal resembling a thick staple in shape and size. How it got on the inside facing out, we will never know. 

After finding the hole and the culprit, Clark let me go back to working on my blog while he did the actual repair work on the tube and reassembled the tire. We are hoping that is the last of that problem! The bike repair took quite a while, so we ended up with a late dinner as a result. Fortunately I had some leftover veggies so I could pull together a quick meal.

Having been here for six days, we are leaving Everglades City tomorrow and starting to make our way down to Marathon in the Florida Keys via a couple of anchorages. 

"On the Road Again ... Just can't wait to get on the road again ... la la la la la la ..."

Florida: Rod and Gun Club in Everglades City

Day: 201

Thursday 1/28 – no travel

All day long it poured buckets of rain down on us with barely a break. Instead of trying to deal with the weather conditions, we decided to spend the day relaxing on the boat. I managed to do some reading, mending, and organizing of boat storage. Clark spent the whole afternoon with his guitar. Well, perhaps not the whole afternoon as he did take some pictures (shown below) of the Rod & Gun Club sometime during the course of the day.

While I was busy with my indoor activities, the tide came rolling in and in and in and in. Further down the way from us the water was so high it was over the bulkhead. With the rain and the height of the water, I just plain refused to get off the boat. I felt it was too miserable and dangerous to try it.

Because we have no television here, I got the chance to read after dinner as did Clark. All told, it was a pretty lazy day.

Pictures taken by Clark of the Rod & Gun Club in Everglades City, FL:

Fuel for your boat? Anyone?

Sea Captain guarding the entrance ...
I keep feeling like someone is watching me, and
it turns out to be this guy every time.

Well, it is a Gun Club after all.

and a Rod Club as well

 With Lots of exhibits

Even at the Front Desk

And in the Sitting Area

Old Time Phone Booth in R&G Club

Florida: Tornado Warnings – Everglades City

Day 200

NM Today: < 1

NM Total: 3576

Once again the weather alarm sounded on my phone to warn of extreme danger from tornadoes. This time at 4:45 a.m.  It went Eh – Eh – Eh, and this time Clark’s phone also registered extreme danger. What to do? What to do? Once again we had no “safe harbor”. The clubhouse is locked up tighter than a drum by 9:00 p.m. Once again the heavens had opened up to show no mercy as to the volume of rain pouring down. What else could we do? We stayed put on the boat. There seemed no other choice. Since we are at least tied to the dock, I figured we were in better shape than the numerous motorhomes on the property.

The initial warning message said tornadoes possible until 5:15, but then every 15 minutes we got an update that extended the time of the alert. The final alert showed 6:15 as the end of the advisory. It seemed like every time I managed to dose off, I heard “boink” “boink” “boink”, which is as close an approximation as I can get to the update sound coming from the Weather Network application on Clark’s phone.

Eventually we slept, but when morning rolled around and it was time to get going for the day, we were both very tired. With an 11:00 a.m. check out time, we had a few things to do to get ready to move the boat.  We walked up to the clubhouse to check out and request that the pump-out equipment be made available to us, so we could empty our holding tank before departing this marina. We managed to get up there and back during a break in the rain, but the weather was not through tormenting us.

Last night Clark and I fed a line for the cable connection under the floating dock so that we could watch some television. We had to run the line under the dock because the management at the marina fears lawsuits from tripping hazards. No cable connection existed on our power podium, but there was one on the podium supplying services to the nearest RV parking spot. Clark ran our wire up over the embankment and plugged into that box. This morning we had to disconnect the arrangement.

Of course just as we set to work to disconnect our cable and electrical power, it started to rain -- sprinkles at first and then heavier. Fortunately, at the first signs of rain, I ran and put on my raingear including my rain pants and jacket.  Even as the steady rain came down I kept dry.

My raincoat Clark gave me for Christmas
came in very handy today.

 Check out was at 11:00. We requested the pump-out equipment for 11:00. It was now 11:00 and time to leave our dock. No sooner did we cast off the last line than the heavens opened up and it absolutely poured down. To add to our fun lightning and thunder joined into the act.

We only had to move the boat a few hundred feet down to a different slip to reach the pump-out connection. As we made our way over there, I stood on the bow of our boat ready to tie up the boat in the midst of the storm. Right at that moment an airboat passed by us. I felt very sorry for the two passengers that I saw on the airboat. They were returning to port from their tour, and I wondered if it was cut short by the storm.

The passengers appeared to be a husband and wife. The wife had on no headgear – just the sound-reducing headphones; she was sitting up looking around as if it was not even raining. The husband had on a rain poncho and was doubled over on himself trying to stay dry. I could just imagine him saying, “What am I doing out here???” or “Why did I let her talk me into this?”

After we got two lines on the boat, Clark told me to get under cover from the rain as well as the lightning. Eventually the rain slowed down enough to make it semi-reasonable to be working outside. It rained steadily throughout the pump out exercise, but we got the job done.

The trip to the Rod and Gun Club marina was very short – less than a nautical mile. We managed to get our basic lines in place when the rains came down with a vengeance one more. Since we had registered the day before, we were in no hurry to run into the building to check in, so we sat inside the boat to wait it out. Boy did it rain!

Watching from the boat as the rain poured down

 With the rainy weather and the lack of sleep last night, we had a lazy afternoon. I finished my mystery that I was reading, and Clark read a magazine. He disappeared into our state room (bedroom) for a long time. I just thought he was reading in there, but at some point I looked in and saw him fast asleep on the bed. Cheater! I laid down on the couch then and dozed a bit myself.

By late afternoon, I was ready to take a trip up to the building to use the facilities. I stepped outside, looked over the side of the boat, and gulped. No way was I getting over to the land. The tide had risen significantly since we tied up, and the bulkhead was way down there and way over there. I came inside to put on sneakers to assist with getting off the boat. (I had on sandals which are definitely not cut out for climbing.) I also changed into long pants since the temperature had dropped during the course of the afternoon, and the boat was very wet. If I had to climb over the side, I wanted clothes covering me as I did it.

I mentioned to Clark that I could not get off the boat, so he got up to come survey the situation. He said, “I don’t see where the problem is.” Egads! He climbed off like the gazelle he is and put down a step for me to climb onto. It was not much of a help, but it was something to aim for. As I started to climb off the boat, Clark decided to help more by pulling the boat closer to shore. Unfortunately for me, I was holding onto the boat rail to support myself during disembarking. When he pulled the boat closer to shore, my thumb was smashed in between the boat rail and the piling that sat just there.

It hurt so much that all I could do was yell, “Ow, Ow, Ow”. I heard him say, “What?” I guess he finally figured out my problem because he either let go of the boat or pushed the boat away, I do not know which, but I could get my thumb out. Fortunately it was not broken just hurt like hell. I am so tired of being injured. I just started to sob but pulled myself together enough to go use the restroom. I was in and out in record time. All I could think about was getting ice on my hand.

I had worried about getting back on the boat with the height and distance issue, but when I got back, somehow I scrambled on board. I grabbed the ice and sat on the sofa feeling forlorn and sorry for myself. As I sat there, eventually I began to wonder what was taking Clark so long to come back to the boat. As it turned out, he was waiting for me inside the building wondering why I was taking so long in the restroom.

I refused to get off the boat to go look for him, so I went to stand in the cockpit figuring he might look out at the boat at some point and see me there. As soon as I stepped outside, a woman came over and asked if I was from Rumson. I said, “Yes”. She said that she had lived there herself at some point and her sister lives there currently. I did not know her sister, so she said her farewells and walked away. When Clark heard talking, he poked his head out the door of the building and saw me on board, so he joined me there.

I refused to put down my ice pack, so my left hand was incapacitated. Using my right hand only, I gave a modicum of support to Clark as he adjusted the lines to move the boat back so that the railing and the piling would not get me again. As we sat on the sofa a little while later, I told him he would need to make dinner.

Funny how he translated that statement. He said, “They serve dinner here, but I was planning to eat lunch here one day – not dinner.” My response, “I don’t want to eat in a restaurant. I want you to cook.” Given the look on his face, I might as well have asked him to fly to the moon. He said I would have to walk / talk him through it.

The menu I selected was chili dogs with left over vegetables. Even the chili was leftover, so all he had to do was cook the hotdogs. I don’t know how it could get any simpler than that. Even so I had to give step-by-step instructions from what food to pull out to what pans to use and where to find them.  I also decided that since I had planned to make him his applesauce cake for dessert, he should cook that too.

All said and done, he did well. The only problem was that he wandered off every few minutes to do some unrelated task. Put up the boat curtains. Zip up the full enclosure. … I had to keep calling him back to the task at hand. I said, “If I cooked like you do, we wouldn’t eat dinner until midnight every night. Stay focused.”

As we were talking today, we agreed that tonight’s marina has some pros and cons. We decided that the pros are that it is much quieter than the other location in Everglades City – no airboats flying by all day long. We also like the much shorter walk to the building to use the head. Of course the down side of this location is the hurdle of getting to the shore to get to the building to use the head. Also a con, we have no television here whatsoever – neither cable nor over-the-air signal.

As far as my left hand is concerned, the base of my thumb is tender and redder than my other thumb. I don’t see any significant swelling on that hand. Although it feels a little stiff, I can bend my thumb without serious pain, so nothing is broken. The injury mostly got me out of cooking and washing the dishes, so there’s a plus! I had thought I might do some knitting since there is no television, but that plan went out the window when my hand got squashed. Ah well, I guess I’ll get to read another book instead.

Florida: Everglades City History Tour

Day 199
No Boat Travel

We hoped to extend our stay at Everglades Isle marina since the weather looks miserable for anchoring out and we like this facility. Unfortunately, when we talked to them about rate, they told us the rate we had for our first three days here was a one-time only promotion. To renew for additional days we would need to pay the full price for each day, and the full price here is more than our budget tolerates.

With rain and thunder storms in the forecast, anchoring out did not sound like too much of a fun time. I suggested that Clark consider the Rod and Gun Club marina at the other end of town. We stayed at the luxurious Everglades Isle partially because of my birthday in conjunction with the promo rate. The Rod and Gun Club does not offer the same atmosphere as Everglades Isle, but their daily rate is actually less than Everglades Isle promo rate. All things considered, we decided to move there for the next three days to wait out the bad weather before heading further south.

Clark did research on his Active Captain app before making the decision to move to the new venue. Part of the reason they offer lower rates is that they do not accept credit cards. We do not carry large amounts of cash on board, so we needed to find money at a bank. Somewhat surprisingly, Everglades City does not have a bank (even though our Google app seems to think there is one here). We asked a local and found out that we could find an ATM in the local mini mart.

We went there first to get cash and then went to the club to make our reservation. They seemed confused that two people on bicycles wanted to have a slip for a 35-foot boat. When asked where we were hiding our boat, we just said it was tied up downstream. I got the impression that Clark did not want to say it was currently located at a competitor's marina.

The Rod and Gun Club holds a lot of history. The building dates back to 1889 when it was  used as a post office, trading post, and warehouse for sugar cane. In 1922 it became the Rod and Gun Club famous for its fishing and welcoming of visitors to the area.

Ad for Rod & Gun Club Restaurant and Motel -
seen from the water side of the building.

We made our reservation at the club, and with that business concluded, we headed for the post office in town. At least they have one of those here. Even so, we were concerned as to what their hours may be, so we headed there to get that off our 'to do' list before they closed. Clark had a bill payment he needed to get posted asap.

With our business for the day out of the way, we could explore more of the town's history starting with the county court house. At the court house we learned of Barron Collier who was responsible for the founding of the Town of Everglades and Collier County.

Monument at Court House honoring Barron Collier

Collier County Courthouse

From there we visited the Museum of the Everglades to learn more about the area. Fortunately, this museum was free (donation only) which Clark loves. The museum described the history of the area and the influence of key persons over time via several videos of interest. One of which gave more insight into the creation of the town and founding of Collier County. It all relates to the creation of the Tamiami Trail.

The Tamiami Trail project was instigated to connect Tampa to Miami - the west coast to the east coast of Florida. Because of the complexity (swampy terrain) and nastiness (mosquitoes) of building this connection across the state of Florida, the effort of completing this roadway has been compared to the building of the Panama Canal. Building the trail took several years, and the trail would not have been completed in the 1920s at all if not for Barron Collier. When the project was threatened due to budget, he volunteered to pay for the completion of the trail with his own money under one condition - he got to have his own county in Florida. Voila - Collier County was created.

I do not know why, but the school in Everglades City caught my eye and has fascinated me since we floated by it in our boat three days ago. I noticed their football field with a sign saying "Gators" first. Later, when we were out biking, we came across the school again - I posted pictures of the crab traps all over the property across from the school. Today, I read in the history museum that the Everglades City School is the only remaining school in the entire nation that offers pre-school through grade 12 in the same facility. At one time the school had a school boat to go collect students from the area and transport them to school by water. Perhaps that explains the school's proximity to the water's edge.

After visiting the museum, we decided to go for lunch. On the way there we passed Ivey House which began as the rec hall for the Tamiami Trail workers. It changed hands several times over the years and is currently in use as a Bed and Breakfast.

Historic Ivey House

Ivey House Historical Marker

We had lunch in a cafe offering a wide variety of food options including sandwiches and pizza. Clark and I both ordered wraps which were quite tasty. We ate out so that we could continue our explorations of this end of town afterwards. After lunch we stopped into a couple of stores. I was surprised by the extent of merchandise in the local hardware store as, compared to other stores in town, they had a rather comprehensive inventory.

On the other hand, however, the local supermarket is a reasonable-sized store with minimal inventory. When we came into the store, I immediately recognized that I would have a hard time finding the items I wanted to buy. Clark asked me if I wanted a shopping basket. When I hesitated to say yes, he asked if I wanted a shopping cart instead. Whereby I laughed and said a basket was fine.

If living by the adage "beggars can't be choosers", I would have bought some items to "make do". However, since I was not desperate and not in the beggar category yet, I decided to pass. Everything I looked at was either not the right product (breakfast cereal choices) or not the right size. The bean can was too large, the mayo jar too small, the tuna only packed in oil not water, ...  In the end we walked the entire store and did not buy a single item.

After our history lesson, lunch, and failed shopping expedition, we decided to go back to the marina and hit the pool. Yes, it warmed up enough to make a dip a viable option! With the bike riding in the heat I was definitely ready to jump into a pool. Besides using the pool, I decided to take advantage of the free washer / dryer setup as well as the free ice offered by the marina. This marina has a few annoying rules such as last load in washer by 3:00; no showers taken after 5:00 p.m.; clubhouse locked by 9:00 p.m. (i.e. no restrooms at night).

Since I wanted to coordinate the laundry, pool time and shower taking, we needed to be done with our town exploration and back to the boat by 2:30 to collect the laundry. We made it back in time.

The pool is heated. Clark dipped his hand in and came back with the verdict "warm". Hmmm - did I believe him? I decided to wait until after I put my wash in the dryer to change into my swimsuit and then swim during the dry cycle.

Setting my phone timer for the washer cycle time

The water was fantastic and the perfect temperature - not too warm and not too cool. It felt wonderful. After my swim, I managed to get my shower and wrap up my laundry before the 5:00 deadline. I even collected my free ice to bring back to the boat.

Since it was warm today, I decided to run an extension wire out the sliding door and cook outside. I used my electric cook pot. By the time dinner was ready the mosquitoes were chasing us inside. Before we sat down to eat, we turned on a fan and shut all the windows and doors to keep the nasty buggers outside. We have not ventured outside since.

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After viewing yesterday's post, Clark was disappointed by the videos I selected to share. Here are the two he thought I should have included in that post.

In this first video a person at the airboat office threw a marshmallow to the alligator by their building. As she walked back into her office, she said, "They eat anything including people!"

The alligator eventually noticed the marshmallow and ate it.

This second video was taken on the airboat ride. It speaks for itself.