After leaving Marathon, we drove to the west coast of Florida on the Tamiami Trail, stopping for lunch en route at the Big Cypress Swamp Visitor’s Center where we walked along the pedestrian bridge looking at the alligators basking in the noonday sun. Then we drove on to the Ft. Myers area and spent a few days on Pine Island.
We went to our next location, Oscar Scherer State Park north of Venice, specifically because the Legacy Trail runs through it. We found Oscar Scherer park to be a welcome natural refuge from the surrounding urbanization of the Sarasota-Venice area. The maximum RV length is 36 ft. which is no problem for us.
We had visited the Venice area last year and saw the bike trails, but the weather was too cold and windy to ride. Our bike outing wound up being one of our longest at 26.2 miles. We started at 9:30 am and returned home about 5 pm. We headed south on the Legacy Trail from the park with the Venice Depot as our initial destination- about eight miles.
However, by the time we reached the environs of Venice, we discovered that the trail was closed for construction of a trail bridge over the US 41 bypass. Some other bikers told us of a way around the construction that involved a steep bank and ditch. This bypass wound up taking us to downtown Venice rather than the Venice Depot. That was a nice serendipity as Irene wanted to look in the stores there anyway, and we found a nice sidewalk restaurant for lunch.
After lunch we continued south on the Venetian Trail which has sections on both sides of the Intracoastal Waterway.
On this section of our ride, Irene was ecstatic to see and photograph two bald eagles perched in a dead tree.
We went almost to the Gulf of Mexico before returning downtown and getting some ice cream to bolster us for the return leg home on the Legacy Tail. The weather was beautiful and sleep came easily that night.
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