Dan and Hannah hike Lovers Key on the Gulf Coast of Florida

To be a snowbird or not to be a snowbird?   That is the question.  Do we take a two or three month bite out of Maine winters and spend the time in Florida or do we hunker down for the winter in Maine?

Flying from Boston to Fort Myers in mid-January, Hannah and I have scheduled a week in Florida to see if being snowbirds is in our future.  It’s nearly guaranteed that the weather in Southwest Florida will be in 70s and 80s all winter long.  Fact is, I also want small town New England in Florida but just warmer.  I want a place without the traffic and congestion, which is what so much of Florida seems like to me.  We may have a problem, Houston.  We don’t lie in the sun, shop, or eat out much.  We hike and bike.   As readers of this blog know, we are drawn to the Rocky Mountain West; either north to Wyoming and Montana or south to northern Arizona and southern Utah, with their open spaces, small towns, and slower pace.  We’d like a two bedroom condo so our kids, other family, and friends might stay with us for up to a week at a time.

After our motel breakfast on our first morning in Naples on the Gulf of Mexico, we drive 26 miles north on I-75 to the Bonita Springs exit and weave our way through city streets to Lovers Key in Fort Myers Beach.  For $8, we support the Florida State Park System and have found us a hideaway from vehicles of all sizes.  In the early 1900s these islands were only reached by boat, and the lore is that only lovers would make the effort to make it to this romantic island.

At the ranger station we are given trail maps and a guide to the shells on this Gulf of Mexico beach.  On the Black Island Trail, we first pass by Butterfly Garden before heading onto the mangrove forest.  Black Island was named after Black Augustus, a pirate who made the island his home.  We walk on this mid-January morning as if we are in a private park.  The sometimes sunny, sometimes shady trails are sandy and easy on the feet.  It’s easy to catch a hiking rhythm on this trail.  Let me say that hiking boots make for a pleasant hike on these trails, far better than sneakers would.  It is a 2.6 mile hiking trail, ideal for people who do not think of themselves as hikers.  Florida is flat, and then flat some more; they’ll have hell to pay as global warming becomes a reality. 

The trail is well-marked and filled with descriptive signs describing the f and f (flora and fauna).   Therein lays some cause for mild D and H divergence.  There are hikers whose predominant purpose is to get exercise and then there are hikers who like to learn a thing or two when they can.  Have you guessed that I’m the former and Hannah is the later?  I am just into keeping a good hiking rhythm going.  (One major concern with me ever hiking the entire Appalachian Trail is that I’d be hell-bent on bagging miles (i.e., focused on hiking many miles each day) and would miss the full the smell-the-roses experience of the blue blaze side trips off the main trail to fully engage in the trail towns and with the townsfolk.)  Hannah and I make it work as I mosey around without tapping my foot, whether figuratively or literally, and Hannah doesn’t linger forever at each sign.  The signs talk about snowy egrets, anhingas, and Virginia creepers.  (Ask Hannah.)  Bike tracks are evident on the sandy trail, but this Sunday morning we do not seen even one bicyclist.  Trash is nowhere to be found.

On this day of 75 degrees we learn from our son Will it’s less than 10 degrees in Maine at noon as we pick up his cell call.  Warm is a major vote for Florida in the winter, I can’t deny it.  From the parking lot at Lovers Key we take two walking bridges to the beach through the sanctuary of tropical birds and animals.  

We walk near the shore which is not too steeply sloped to the water along this 2.5 mile beach.  Shells abound including ones with live animals in small conch shells.  A little blue heron stands by a fishing pole waiting for the leftovers from the fisherman.  

Starfish and sand dollars abouund. 

We have found a haven, an oasis, an escape from the Florida traffic and congestion.  As we finish our two hours of beach walking, a couple sitting on the limbs of a sun-bleached, long since dead tree says to us that they have knee envy.  Their knees hurt while we just carry on.   We are lucky to have such knees.  Thanks Mom. Thanks Dad.

An hour on the Black Island trail and two hours walking the beach of the Gulf Coast makes for two happy campers.   Florida?   Maybe.  It’s warm indeed while Maine is muy frio.  Still we wonder what we’d do.  It’s got to include exercise in a big way.  It’s got to be about having a small town feel.  We are country mice.  

We have a week to find out if Florida is our cheese.