Housework, Road Trip and Estero Bay State Buffer Preserve

In the Estero Bay State Buffer Preserve - this is what they call "the real Florida". Just a couple of blocks away it's wall to wall vehicles, six lanes of traffic and shoulder to shoulder shopping malls.

I think this is a Red-Shouldered Hawk.

This Gopher Tortoise was just plodding along the pathway in the Preserve. He didn't appear to be afraid of us at all and let us get really close. He didn't even withdraw into his shell.

This morning I got the laundry done and our new mattress cover on the bed. Hope it makes me sleep better. The last couple of nights I've had trouble sleeping. After laundry, I cleaned out our closets and then off to Walmart to pick up some items. On the way back, I dropped our discarded items from our closets at Goodwill.

After unpacking groceries, we headed south to Naples. From Fort Myers to Naples there is barely a break in the cities. Of course, Bonita Springs is in between these two cities. As I said today "if you can't find it on that strip of road, you don't need it". There's everything from dance classes to all kinds of doctors, lawyers and dentists to shopping malls of all kinds and a Publix grocery and a Walgreen's Drugs about every two miles.

We drove south of Naples a ways but since it was late in the day, traffic was getting worse so we took the freeway (I-75) back. On our way back we stopped at the Estero Bay State Buffer Preserve as Gordon needed his picture of the day. We walked around a bit and then I saw the hawk in the tree. Gordon continued on back toward the truck and as I was approaching I saw him squatted down looking at something. At first I thought it was an armadillo as there is a sign saying there are some in the preserve but it turned out to be the tortoise above! It's always interesting to experience new things including seeing new animals.

Today hit 90F (32C) but still with quite a breeze. It was still pretty hot! The last few days have been quite hot except yesterday which wasn't as bad. When Betty and I were at Fleamasters on Friday the thermometer in the car on the way back registered 92F (33C). We're going to have a rude awakening in a couple of weeks when we head north!