February 25, 2015
Day 23: Immokalee to Fort Myers
Most people we have seen in Immokalee seem to be of Spanish origin. Of course we have no real idea of how this came to be or what their main occupations are. We are leaving town now, and so may never know. It's hard to learn everything on such a whirlwind visit.
Another aspect of town though is BBQ. I walked over to one last night. It had what seemed like an appropriate woodsy smell, but I forgot - true Southern BBQ food tastes like it came out of an ashtray. Maybe it's the wood - pecan? It just doesn't do it for us, and normally we (I) love BBQ.
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Now, by mid-day, we have done 34 km, into a slight head wind. The land around feels very barren, though there are a lot of industrial scale orange groves. The road has featured lots of heavy trucks and generally high speed traffic, so the overall feel has not been very pleasant. The people too seems rather sketchy. We have just stopped at the one and only service station and Subway shop, and the people around just do not seem trustworthy. we will soon take a turn more toward Fort Myers itself, and will see if the human and physical landscape take any kind of a change for the better.
The headwind gota little tougher, so we drafted our way slowly, deeper in to Fort Myers. Like in Naples, we found broad, broad (like 6 lanes each way) avenues, and the full selection of fast food, grocery, bank, and other services. Unlike Naples, though, was room for bicycles, in the formof separated bike paths. Particularly on the Daniels Parkway and Six Mile Cypress, this was very nice.
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We detoured slightly to reach Sun Harvest Citrus, where we knew from a previous blog, by Jeff Skinner, that there was unlimited juice tasting. Sun Harvest is mainly a packer and shipper of citrus, but their retail store was also packed with shoppers. The typical price for citrus in 40 pound lots was $1.70/lb, plus shipping. Is that a good deal? Even if it is not, the free tasters were great.
From Sun Harvest we were no longer really fighting a wind, and we made good progress. Again we noticed the amazingly wide streets and multiple lanes, with heavy traffic. No problem, though, because every way we wanted to go had either a bike path or a sidewalk.
On Martin Luther King Blvd we were running into a much poorer neighbourhood, with all black people. The distressing part was that unlike in other poor places, the people were not at all curious about us. They did not want to mug us and they did not want to greet us, they just seemed to not see us. Hmmm.
One we turned off Martin Luther King, we entered a much more peaceful and pleasant part of the city, and soon we arrived at the yacht basin. We located the "Horatio", the boat of John and Kelly, our warmshowers hosts. John and Kelly live aboard this 38 foot yacht, and of course were able to tell us all about it. It's all new for us, who have scarcely been aboard any boat.
John and Kelly were super interesting not only for their knowledge of boats. They are cyclists, and also have walked the AppalachianTrail. Not only are there stories in that, but they also have a fine understanding of what cyclists or trekkers need. That starts with salad, and goes on to a shower, a place to plug in electronics, a supply of spare batteries, and a chance to crash out early. What super hosts and nice people!
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Today's ride: 76 km (47 miles)
Total: 1,145 km (711 miles)
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