After spending a night in a Fair Grounds parking lot at the RV show, we traveled south and then west to beautiful Sanibel Island, FL. Douglas thought he had been here before, and after a call to his mum, it was confirmed. Their family came out here in late 60s or early 70s to spend a vacation on the island. His mum remembers that every morning at dawn, people were walking the beach collecting shells. Today on the island, that is still a popular past time.
We stayed at the Periwinkle Trailer Park Campground . It was a super laid back, or almost throw back campground. No million dollar RV rigs, just a selection of retiree mobile homes, vacation cottages, tents, campervans and travel trailers for the most part. They have a very kitschy bird aviary (and a ringtail Lemur or two) and somehow our campsite wound up backing up to their pond. These exotic and native birds make a helluva lot of noise in the early morning!
Twice a day they feed the birds and the afternoon session is a meet and greet with us campers. Nice!
65% of the island is a National Wildlife Refuge or conservation land, and there are strict building codes preventing anything over 4 stories. The community has done a good job of keeping many of the old fashioned beach cottages preserved and it feels like the Florida we experienced growing up. This is partly due to the fact that you could only reach this island by boat until 1963, when they built the first causeway from Ft. Myer to Sanibel Island. The only fast food restaurants are Dairy Queen and Subway, which were on the island before laws were enacted to bar fast food chains. Had a healthy breakfast at our campsite with local strawberries and for lunch a delicious crab cake sandwich at Sanibel Fresh restaurant across the street from Periwinkle campground. That eve, Douglas visited one of the island’s two Lazy Flamingo bar/restaurants to watch the NFL playoffs, and eat some wings. And ‘No,’ they do not serve Flamingo Wings.
Meanwhile, the Sanibel beach was about .5 miles away from the campsite and a short bike ride for us, and we made some new friends along the way- a dolphin and a manatee!
We certainly could have stayed here an additional night or two but we have reservations at Boyd’s campground in Key West and baby it’s time to head south.
