Biking...finally

While we have friends in Arizona and Texas who are shivering due to the polar vortex, it's 86 degrees here and with no rain...so we finally got to test out those bikes.

Our first outing was yesterday in Cape Coral and our goal was to bike to Perkins for lunch as we had a coupon to use.  If there is food at the end of the destination, I will bike to get to it!  This involved a lot of riding on the sidewalk as the traffic is quite heavy and wasn't the most pleasant of rides.

But today we went to the Lakes Park in Fort Myers, which has a little something for everyone as well as several bike and walking trails.  

It encompasses nearly 300 acres of trails, lakes and gardens.

On the way to the park I spotted an Applebee's and since we had a gift certificate for there, we decided to have an early lunch before biking.  I had taken all the loose coins we collect and dumped them into the Coin Star at Wal-mart.  Since they wanted an 8% fee to convert it into cash I opted for one of the several gift certificates instead.  It was almost like getting a free lunch.

Once we arrived at the park we paid for our parking and unloaded the bikes.  Our new carrier makes it very easy to load and unload them, which is a real plus as I like to take them places to ride.

There are several shelters and it seemed most of them were in use today for family celebrations of all kinds.

Along the path we spotted several anhingas, egrets and herons.

When I spotted the gopher tortoise I almost caused a collision by Left Brain.  I guess I need to get one of those little signs that say this vehicle makes sudden stops.

We stopped near the end of our trek and I took a stroll through the botanical gardens.

Even though it's winter, there were still many plants blooming their little hearts out.  Left Brain stayed with the bikes so I could take a little stroll.

A hybrid Californian chameleon?

Long Live the Queen of Parks