Day Trip to Marco Island

(Wauchula, Fl)  Hi 84 Lo 53 – We were up real early to leave for Marco Island for the day. It was very foggy but that lifted fast when the sun came up. We ate breakfast at a local diner, which was outstanding. They have more little mom and pop diners in little Wauchula (Pop. 4,400) than our hometown of Cary, NC (Pop. 105,000).  And they all have such great food! We’re enjoying eating out very much.

Marco Island is just south of Naples, 2 1/2 hours Southwest of us. It was a very nice trip south on U.S. 17, then I-75, and finally County Rd. 951 over the bridge to the island. We arrived about 11:30 at the home of Tennille, a friend we knew from our years stationed at Scott AFB, IL. She was a band student at O’Fallon, IL High School when I was a band chaperone. We lost track of each other through the years, but we reconnected through Facebook.  We visited at her place for awhile then went to the beach.


Pure white sand. It almost looks like white powder.




The water of the Gulf was very calm, and many beautiful shades of green and blue. Here are two kayakers we saw just offshore.



The beach is very wide. I’m standing by the water and that’s the beach house in the center of the picture.

The island is six miles long and four miles wide. It's very upscale with many large beautiful homes, and a lot of seasonal residents (snowbirds). It’s more of a laid back bedroom community during the summer months.  As she was taking us around the island, we saw a car being loaded on a car carrier truck. Tennille said many of the residents have their cars shipped down from up north at the beginning of the winter season, then have them shipped back north in the spring. Now THAT's being well off!

We had lunch at The Sunset Grill, a local sports-themed place right on the beach.  I had a shrimp melt. It’s like tuna melt only with melted cheese on top of tiny shrimp, and it's baked on a thick slice of toast. The side was sweet potato fries.  Talk about good!

Jim had a huge order of nachos, and he said they were also very good and Tennille had taco salad, which was huge. After we ate we walked the beach again, then drove to a section of the island called The Estates.  That's where the biggest, fanciest homes are, and they were eye-popping! Their values start at a million dollars, and that's their current value after the real estate slump. Where DO people get all that money??

After we saw all the houses, we returned to Tennille's house for some more chit-chat. Tenille had recently been given some stone crabs, which are very hard to get this season. I had never heard of them. You eat the meat in their claws. They were already cooked, so we dug in. They are very hard to get because the octopus are eating them. They can't be found in any restaurants this year.

We used the bottom end of a butter knife to crack the shells. Then the meat came out in a big chunk. The taste was very sweet when compared to crab legs or lobster. Quite delicious! We can’t get them in North Carolina, so it was quite a treat.

On the way home we saw several signs warning of panther crossings. The picture is blurry because I had to shoot very quick, but below the picture of the cat is says "Panther Traffic." This ties in to today's Florida Trivia (see below).

On the way home my 1998 Toyota RAV4 reached 100,000 miles.  Jim pulled over on I-75 so he could take a picture of it. I’m hoping for 100,000 more.

We had a wonderful day today. Thank you Tennille for showing us around.  We’ll see you again next year when we come back to Florida. We might even bring Tumbleweed down and stay in a local RV park for a few days.

Florida trivia:  The Florida state cat is the Panther.

18 days left till we head North.