Sanibel Island Day 1

We got a little bit of a late start this morning, but made it to Sanibel around noon. We drove around for a bit looking for a good place to have lunch and came across a little place called the Over Easy Cafe. I had a grilled cheese with bacon and Lauren had a turkey club. It was really good. It reminded me of a place you would see on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on the Food Network. Actually, most of the restaurants on Sanibel look like a place you'd see Guy Fieri at filming an episode.




Next we headed over to Tarpon Bay Explorers where we went out on a little boat tour of Tarpon Bay. We had a very funny and knowledgable guide named Captain Dave. He pointed some bird rookeries, where we saw pelicans, cormorants, a reddish egret, and some plain old white egrets. We also saw 4 manatees. Two mommies and two babies.



Next we headed over to the J. N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge to take a tram tour through the park. Along the way we saw osprey, yellow crowned night heron, more egrets (reddish, great, snowy, not so great), roseate spoonbills, a great blue heron, a little blue heron (no medium blue heron), and a red shouldered hawk. There were also plenty of the unofficial Florida state bird, the mosquito. Lauren is convinced that there were also some no-see-ums, but I didn't see any.



After the tram tour we headed over to the Blue Giraffe for dinner. I was disappointed though, because I was really looking forward to trying some giraffe steak. It seems they were out. I settled for plain old cow steak, and Lauren had Filet of Sole with some Crab and Lobster stuffing. We also had dessert. Hot fudge sundae for me and Key Lime pie for Lauren.

We then headed to the Sanibel Lighthouse around sunset. It was beautiful watching the sun set in one direction, and then turning around to see a giant thunderstorm rolling in. We managed to snap some great pics before it started raining though, so it was a successful excursion. We managed to make it halfway over the causeway before the rain hit us.




Stay tuned for tomorrow's post... We're going snorkeling and hopefully dolphin watching.

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