February 2003.........

Naples: A charming town on the West coast, it was just a small town, until it was developed commercially as a resort area after 1974. It's sub-tropical location makes it a winter haven with temps 10 to 15 degrees warmer than the mid to upper part of Florida. Marco Island is just down the road, where we rented a pontoon boat with some friends, took picnic lunches, and went to a huge sand bar between the bay and the ocean, spend the day walking the beach, looking for shells and just relaxing.

Pictured Above: We took a sightseeing trip on the Naples Princess, a large boat that takes you around to see some of the huge houses on the bay. The compound top right, has two homes, an 8,500 Sq Ft guest house, and the main house with 26,000 Sq Ft.

Tin City: (pictured below righr) A fun place to go, it's located on the Naples river, a shallow water port. There is no deep water port in Naples. Great resturants, lots of funky little shops, a good place to play tourist.

Naples: Silver Lakes (pictured below left) beautiful, friendly, and as are all nice Florida Campgrounds, expensive. We paid $1500. a month, plus elect. Have since learned one can rent from lot owners at a bit lower price. The park has a very nice golf course, plus large pool, and activities at the club house

Bonita Springs: from Naples we visited the Barefoot Beach in Bonita Springs. We were told if you arrived early when the tide was still out you could find sand dollars. We arrived shortly after 8 AM, had to go way out in the water to find them, they were mostly under the sand, we learned to dig them out with our toes and flip them up so we could catch them and not have to go under water. Spent about 5 hours there, mostly in the water. Took home around 40 sand dollars and some other interesting shells. Fun place to spend time. Sorry, no photos of the beach.

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