Biking Pine Island

Today we went back to Pine Island to complete biking the north half.  When we scouted earlier by car we saw a restaurant at the far end and this is becoming my new mantra:  “Will bike for food”.

I love this rusty yet colorful bike adorning the shoreline

this part of the path is under a hedge of palm trees

We had a head wind as we took off, but I kept thinking about how lovely it would be at our backs on the return and pedaled onward.

The bike path provided a fair amount of shade and there was only a short stretch on the highway to deal with.  This is my kind of biking.

We arrived at Captain Con’s Fish House and walked around the area admiring the birds before going in to dine.  We’ve become accustomed to eating about 1:30 or 2:00 lately, so having lunch at 11:30 seemed too early.  But, there we were so we went in to get a table.

 

A sandpiper feeding along the shore line

There were many people clamoring for the few picnic tables outside and we just smiled and went inside.  We like to leave those for the tourists soaking up the Florida sunshine since we spend a great deal of our time outside every day as it is.

We managed to get a table by the window with a view of the water and fishing pier and placed our order.  Both of us opted for the coconut shrimp basket to see if it was as good as the ones on the south side of the island.  It was.

As we were waiting for our bill we were glad to have gotten in early….there was not a seat to be had any more, with long lines of people waiting just to get on a waiting list.

You know how things can be serendipitus?  I had just read a reply to my post on biking Sanibel Island from a friend who always enjoyed eating at Doc Fords because she loved the book series that featured the area.   Hmmm….a new author?  After reading this reply I promptly went on Amazon and ordered one of the earlier books by Randy White to check him out.

So who sits down next to us but a lady with a Doc Ford t-shirt on!  She is also a fan of this author and we chatted a bit about his writing, and she was gracious enough to let me take a photo of her shirt for the blog.  I can’t wait to read the first book and then revisit Sanibel Island and find the restaurant there.

After lunch I had gotten my second wind, which was a good thing as Mother Nature decided to blow from the other direction and we biked straight into the wind all the way back.  Not fair.

We spotted these charming planters along the bike path.  Hey, this is Florida….no kitsch is too gaudy here.  When we returned to the car Left Brain informed me that we had biked 15 ½ miles today.  It didn’t seem that bad – I did feel tired at some points, but with so much to see and take in you just don’t think about how far you've gone.

After returning home I rode my bike over to Ron and Nancy’s house to see if she was home as she’d wanted to do a test drive of the bike.  She was home, so I left the bike with her and walked back. 

This confused many of the neighbors who questioned where the bike went.  I just played along and said “what bike?”….”was I on a bike earlier?”  Let ‘em think I’m nuts….they already do anyway.

The kitties were happy to see is return earlier than we normally do, so they got lots of happy habitat time as a result.

Long Live the Queen of Good Eats