{"id":2372,"date":"2011-04-24T21:11:02","date_gmt":"2011-04-25T02:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/?p=2372"},"modified":"2011-12-06T16:02:48","modified_gmt":"2011-12-06T21:02:48","slug":"naples-to-sarasota","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/?p=2372","title":{"rendered":"Naples to Sarasota, Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday – April 24, 2011<\/span><\/p>\n

When we drove across the Everglades yesterday and arrived in Naples Florida, we both were pleasantly surprised.\u00a0 Naples looked like a prosperous, elegant, and pleasant place to live.\u00a0 Route 41 was a wide boulevard with a lovely center island blooming with lovely flowers and palm trees.\u00a0 The Everglades were wilderness wetlands and, in contrast, Naples seemed like a refined and gentile city.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Causeway Toll Booth to Sanibel Island <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We were on the road by nine o’clock in the morning.\u00a0 We drove around a little to see more of Naples and discovered beautiful houses along the Gulf of Mexico.\u00a0 Each street dead-ended at the beach and provided public access and a few public parking spaces.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Causeway to Sanibel & Captiva Islands <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We continued on Rt. 41 north then turned west on Bonita Beach Road.\u00a0 The road continued to Estero Blvd. and across the western barrier island of Fort Myers Beach.\u00a0 Our goal was to to see Sanibel Island and Captiva.\u00a0 We took the narrow bridge across San Carlos Bay.\u00a0 It was Easter Sunday and families had already gathered along the beach of the Sanibel Causeway. They had claimed their territory; set out the grills and picnic gear, turned on the music, and gathered to enjoy the day.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Typical Road on Sanibel <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Once we were on the island, we drove east to see the Sanibel Lighthouse.\u00a0 We passed several resorts and condominium units along the narrow road.\u00a0 The speed limit is 20 or 25 MPH, so everyone moved in slow-motion.\u00a0 The lighthouse looked like a large rusty pipe surrounded by scaffolding with a light on the top.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Sanibel Lighthouse<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Then we drove north and west along the main driving road.\u00a0 We had to share the road with many bicyclists and it was a tedious drive.\u00a0 The island seemed like a comfortable and pleasant place to live; it reminded me of the expression: “dressy casual”.\u00a0 The houses were relatively modest, but very nice, and probably cost a fortune.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

We drove to the end of Captiva and turned around.\u00a0 It was sunny and hot and we were thirsty, so we stopped at a general store to purchase cold drinks.\u00a0 We finally drove off the islands and noticed that there were more picnicking families along the causeway. \u00a0Loud music blared and the scene was very different from Sanibel and Captiva. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Sanibel Island Houses from the Causeway<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We continued to drive north along Route 41, but felt that we were moving too slowly.\u00a0 We decided to make up some time by hopping on the fast Route 75.\u00a0 I drove for a couple of hours on the 65 mph highway.\u00a0 It was a tiring drive because the other drivers were driving much faster than my 68 mph and it took a lot of concentration to drive that fast on a two-lane highway, parts of which were under construction.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Tibbals Learning Center <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We got off Route 75 at one of the Sarasota exits and drove towards the Gulf.\u00a0 We drove through some nice neighborhoods and ended at the John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art.\u00a0 It was about 3:00 o’clock and we didn’t have time to see all of the museum.\u00a0 The woman who sold us the tickets made some recommendations of what to see with limited time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Side-Show Miniatures <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We first went to the new exhibit of The Circus Miniature – Tibbals Learning Center.\u00a0 This is a 3800 square-foot replica of The Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus before 1958 when it was a traveling circus. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A man named Howard Tibbals made all the miniature figures during the last 50 years.\u00a0 The Ringling Museum built an addition to their Circus Museum to house the collection.\u00a0 It was an amazing display!!<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Howard Circus Big Top <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

There were few people at the museum today.\u00a0 We walked to the other end of the circus museum to see the collection of circus memorabilia. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There were wagons, costumes, posters, and other circus artefacts. \u00a0There was a woodcarving workshop and a displays of circus memorabilia. \u00a0One display had Emmitt Kelly’s costume and props. \u00a0We took several photographs and continued to John & Mabel Ringling’s beautiful house on the Gulf.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A Circus Wagon<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The interior and exterior of the house was impressive.\u00a0 It was located directly on the water with a spectacular view of the bay. \u00a0The architecture is called Venetian Gothic and it is actually a palace. \u00a0In Venetian style, the name of the house is: Ca’ D’Zan or House of John.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Garden View of Ca’ D’Zan<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The interior was decorated in a heavy European style which was the fashion in the 1920s when the Ringlings used the house during the winters.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Main Living Space with Balcony<\/span><\/p>\n

We didn’t purchase the “guided tour” so we could not see the upstairs rooms. \u00a0We had the “self-guided” general admission. \u00a0It was fine because we could take as many photos as we wanted and there was a lot to photograph downstairs.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>John Ringling’s French Desk<\/span><\/p>\n

The Ringlings used the house mainly for entertaining and it seemed like a perfect house to entertain guests and have a good time!<\/span><\/p>\n

It started to rain when we left the Circus Museum and ended in a heavy downpour.\u00a0 We had not had rain for many weeks and it was good to experience it again.\u00a0 At the end of the storm a beautiful, almost total rainbow filled the sky. \u00a0If you look closely to the photo, you can see the beginnings of a second arch above to the left of the main rainbow. \u00a0Double lucky?!<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Lucky Rainbow<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We found yet another Hampton Inn near the highway and later we had a surprisingly good dinner at a seafood chain nearby called the Bonefish Grill. \u00a0It was a good day. \u00a0The day was filled with many interesting sights and good memories.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday – April 24, 2011 When we drove across the Everglades yesterday and arrived in Naples Florida, we both were pleasantly surprised.\u00a0 Naples looked like a prosperous, elegant, and pleasant place to live.\u00a0 Route 41 was a wide boulevard with a lovely center island blooming with lovely flowers and palm trees.\u00a0 The Everglades were wilderness […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,18,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eastern-united-states","category-florida","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2372"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3673,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372\/revisions\/3673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}