Home Sweet Temporary Home
Trip Start
Jun 14, 2010
1
Trip End
Ongoing
Where I stayed
Pine Island Resort/KOA
St. James City, Florida
Thursday, June 17, 2010
I am a native Floridian -- born and raised in Miami but consider Tallahassee my adopted hometown, since I lived there for 24 years, not counting my time at Florida State University (go 'Noles!!). After moving to Michigan in 2000 for work, I quickly determined that I needed a dose of real sunshine and warmth in the middle of the cold gray winters of Lansing. Therefore, Jim and I started making annual trips down to Florida for our sunshine dose.
One of our favorite Florida vacation areas was the southwest coast on the Gulf. We especially liked Pine Island - a relatively unknown destination just north of Fort Myers and near Sanibel and Captiva. I had never heard of Pine Island when I lived in Florida. We discovered it after purchasing cheap flights to Ft. Myers one March, only to discover that our dates coincided with Spring Break and everything was booked (or out of our price range) on Sanibel Island, where we had planned to go. So, we took out the Florida map and looked at where else we could go near Ft. Myers and found Pine Island -- a nature-lover's paradise that is like old Florida with no high-rise developments and a laid-back life style that centers on boating and fishing. Unlike well-known Florida tourist destinations, there is no beach to speak of here. Instead there are beautiful mangrove estuaries -- perfect for exploring by kayak. Renting a boat allowed us to go to nearby keys and up the Intracoastal. One year, we took a ferry to nearby Cayo Costa State Park where we spent the day on a natural protected beach. (For more on Pine Island, see http://www.pineislandfl.com/)
We spent our summer vacations exploring other parts of the country but because of our (and especially Jim's) love of boating and the ability to see family and friends in Florida more often, we decided that after retirement (and our year-long road trip) we would settle in SW Gulf Florida. Although we liked Pine Island, we were open to settling in other communities between Ft. Myers to the south and Sarasota to the north.
And then the oil spill disaster happened. We knew that this could severely impact the fragile environment here and hesitated about whether this was still the right choice. But we decided that the best course of action was to proceed with coming down here. We had always planned to rent for a while to get to know the area better and determine where we wanted to buy a house. Now, we will rent at least until hurricane season is over and we know the impact of any tropical weather activity on the oil spill's path and the severity of oil-related damage to this area. Depending on that, we will either proceed with buying a house here or start looking at alternate locations.
We have rented a furnished condo/villa in the Port Charlotte area which we are moving into this weekend. It is centrally located for exploring the area and provides us with a no-maintenance situation and resort amenities such as a pool and fitness room. We still have our household goods in storage back in Lansing and won't move them until we buy a house.
We are looking forward to enjoying this area while it is still undamaged. We hope that it stays this way. What has happened to the north Gulf coast makes us heart-sick and the fact that containment and assistance to affected areas has been disgustingly slow has made us angry -- as it should all Americans. The Gulf coast is a precious resource and should never have been put in harm's way through lack of foresight and oversight. Let's hope this is a wake-up call regarding our dependency on the finite resource of oil for energy and the need to ramp up clean energy initiatives.
Pam
p.s. I've attached some photos from previous trips to this area to give you an idea of why we love it here. As we start to explore more, I'll update the blog with more photos.
