Thursday, January 26 - Marco Island and Everglades City

Since we have extra days in Naples, we rented a car to do some shopping and exploring.
We rode our bikes to the car rental agency, this was the view as we crossed the bridge.

We are getting good at this bike thing!

First stop with the car was McDonald's for an Egg McMuffin and iPhone update, we thought.  The one we picked did not have a single plug-in.  Oh, well, on to Marco Island.  We have been shopping for a dinghy for a couple of weeks, Danny is tired of pumping ours up every day.  The cheapest and best for us was at West Marine in Marco Island, so we went to pick it up instead of waiting until we get there by boat.

First tourist stop was the Marco Island Historical Museum.  It was quite impressive, obviously it had significant financial backers!  The Kay Marco Cat was found on the island, it is now in the Smithsonian Museum.  Both the Chamber of Commerce lady and the museum docent said they WILL get the Cat back to Marco Island. The cat behind me is a reproduction, the original is 5" tall!

Everglades City was our next stop.  It had been important in the construction of the Tamiami Trail crossing Florida.  The local museum was located in the former laundry of the company town.

 This is also home of the historic Everglades Rod and Gun Club, where Eisenhower fished.

We drove down another mile or so to the visitor center for Everglades National Park.  It was very disappointing.  The focus was tours of the Everglades, the visitor center itself had part of one room set up as displays.  Well, we tried to be scholarly.  This was the best view.  I told you it was disappointing.

Leaving Everglades City, we drove through a section with several of these signs.

The panther is one of the most endangered species, and they are serious about this habitat!  Fences for miles, and the area is designated as Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge.  Danny was interested because we had seen a large, beautiful panther at the wildlife refuge at Tybee, and he would love to see another one!

We got back to the dock in time for the return of the fish boats, and the flock of pelicans that attends each cleaning.

Danny decided to unpack the dinghy and inflate it, then he had to find a place to put it on the boat!