Day 4 - Punta Gorda to Fort Myers

My gracious hosts had to lead a bike ride early Saturday morning, so I was rolling down the road by 8am. Before I left, they provided me with a great breakfast of toast, peanut butter, and orange juice. My plan for the day was simply to get to Fort Myers, which is only 25 miles.

My rear was sore. No doubts about it. Saturday is my 4th day of riding in a row, and I can't remember the last time I rode 4 days in a row. As a result, I made a casual 25 miles even more casual. After 10 miles, I stopped at a gas station for breakfast #2. Two delicious Dunkin' Donuts and a Muscle Milk. They really need more Dunkin' Donuts in Kansas City.

I rode the next 10 miles into old town Fort Myers, where I found a Starbucks, drank a hot chocolate, and hopped on the internet to catch up on this crazy blog. Downtown Fort Myers is pretty nice.




The next stop on my tour was the Edison/Ford winter homes.  It's tough to make a present day comparison to this, but 100 years ago, two of the most influential Americans lived across the street from each other every winter.  Their homes are amazing, and the botanical gardens have some interesting species.


I continued to cruise around the neighborhoods, peering over fences into giant houses along the waterfront.  A different kind of life, I suppose.

Food was calling my name again, and I stopped randomly at a place called McGregor Cafe. Fresh grouper sandwich! Incredible.

From 2010-03-20 Day 4

On the south end of town, a KU watch party was calling my name. Two fantastic KU alums have been organizing watch parties at the same bar/restaurant in Fort Myers for the past 11 years. I thank them for welcoming me into their group, but we all know how the game ended so I am done writing about KU.

After the game of misery, it was about dark and I still needed to find a place to stay. There were several RV campgrounds between the bar/restaurant and the Ferry, but none had primitive camping.  The cheapest one I found was $55.  Yikes!  So, I cruised around one of them, saw they had 3 open sites on their office board and went to check them out.  The three open sites were all on the highway, and not very cool.  Tucked back in the campground was an empty small site for a small RV.  I asked the neighbors to this site if anyone had been there.  They didn't know.  By this point it was 9:30pm, and I was pretty tired.  I laid my tent down, but kept everything packed up so I could leave quickly in the AM.

Day 4 - 42 miles
Trip to date - 215 miles