Friday, Feb. 14 - Happy Valentine's Day to everyone.

We've had three interesting days here in the Bonita Springs area, so today's rest and catch up day. It's quite warm today, probably going to themid 80s, and humid, so this morning everything was wet, inside and out. But we persevere.

We found a nice area to bike, so on Tuesday, headed out, and ended up in a very nice state park about 9 kms from our r.v. park. Koreshan State Park is located right next to the Tamiami Trail, a major highway that runs parallel to the I-75. The Trail is extremely busy, but once you get 300 meters west of it, you're in a lovely quiet park. The interesting thing about the Koreshan Park is that the property was once owned by a cult or clan, headed by a charismatic guy who brought his followers and ideas from Chicago to set up a New Jerusalem. He envisioned eventually having millions of people centered here, all following his ideas of what a perfect world would look like. At one point, he had a couple of hundred people living and working and sharing life in this area, starting in the late 1800s. There are still quite a few of the original buildings on the grounds, but after several decades of decline, the whole thing was sold to the State to set up a park.

We wandered about the trails, visited the old buildings, and watched a video that described the history of the people who lived here when the cult was going full tilt. It declined, by the way, because the charismatic leader was beaten badly by a sheriff and his deputy, which caused him to fade away. And with his lack of leadership, the whole thing fell apart.

Once of the nice features of the park is the Estere River, a quiet and peaceful flow that goes through the park and on to the Gulf. So yesterday, we biked back, rented a canoe, and paddled up and down the river for a couple of hours. It was quite lovely, a couple of manatees there to greet us, a large gator giving us the eye, and a fine great blue heron watching us as we floated past. That little trip, with the 18 kms of biking, got us home ready to settle down to do nothing for the rest of the day, although the tireless Gail did two loads of laundry just to cap things off.

On Wednesday, we drove to one of our favorite places in Florida, Corkscrew Swamp. It's a great facility, with a 2.5 mile boardwalk that allows you to wander through the area very comfortably. Dave MacKay will remember this place, as we came here for the first time with him and Sue a number of years ago. It's just a lovely peaceful area to wander about, looking for wildlife, enjoying the surroundings. There were quite a few birds, although not huge numbers, and you had to look hard to find them at times. The highlight is getting a sighting of painted buntings, beautiful little birds of multiple bright colours. We were lucky enough to see a half dozen of them at one of the feeding stations. We also saw a large otter, who came up on the boardwalk right in front of us to have a massive poop, and then hobbled along and disappeared, favoring an injured leg. What else? A marsh rat, a first for us, a coon wandering about in the swamp (much nicer place to see him than in our back yard), and the usual gator.

Getting there wasn't bad, as it's about an hour away; but coming back, I made the mistake of taking the Tamiami Trail, which was totally clogged. It was stop and go for several miles, so took almost twice as long to come home. Should have taken the I-75. I keep saying, "There are just too damned many people in Florida!", which is true, especially of popular areas such as in the Naples-Fort Meyer area, Tampa area and Orlando area. That's why we like our less crowded areas like Lake Worth, and Homosassa.

Anyway, not to complain, but it does give us pause as to where we'd like to spend future winters. Arizona and Texas have a lot of appeal, as they have wide open spaces, and except for the urban areas, aren't nearly as crowded. Food for thought for next year.

That's enough for now. Hope you have a nice Valentine's Day. Maybe we'll go out for lunch to note the day. More later. Stay tuned.