We awoke a little late to capture the sunrise on our final days on Estero Is. but today again promises to be bright and sunny. Martha wanted to get her final serving of the daily ‘fireman show’ on the beach (2nd time) and drags me along to savor all the bikini action. I must say it was entertaining to see all the scantily dressed ladies enjoying themselves. :drool: By mid-afternoon we returned to the condo to enjoy a cooling swim in the pool and to plan our last dinner outing for the week.

Martha was in a panic to finish all the booze she bought earlier in the week. She didn’t trust our baggage handlers to deliver the goods, so she drank the remaining berry-something coolers (yuk), a full bottle of Chardonnay (dreadful stuff), and the last bottles of Corona beer (I helped with this). By sunset she was buzzed good :drunk: and we took the trolley down to Town Square. Full of indecision we opted to return yet again to the Smokin’ Oyster Bar and enjoy our last Florida seafood feast, share four more beers, and keep an eye on our watches so we didn’t miss the last trolley home. Yet another great meal/service at the SOB and we made the final trolley of the evening with time to spare.

Departure Day: Our cab was scheduled to pick us up at 3pm to arrive at the airport’s recommended time. At 2pm Martha was hungry and quickly went across the street to grab a couple take-out hamburgs. No sooner did she leave when the doorbell rang and it was our shuttle driver. She said she knew she was early and to take our time. Forty five minutes later Martha returns with a bag of hamburgs, I had the luggage pre-loaded, condo locked up, and off we go… to merge into stalled traffic that stretched for as long as we can see. It looked like an evacuation drill to get off the island :blink: The chauffeur kept rocking and chanting “don’t worry as soon as we get over the bridge we’ll be OK”. She couldn’t be more wrong. It originally took us a 20-25 min cab ride to go from the airport->condo, but almost 2 hrs the other way. Our unfortunate driver seemed new to her job and by her reactions while waiting in traffic, I’m confident she will be quiting soon. Rush hour traffic in Fort Myers is almost QEW bad, but luckily the drivers are more courteous.

We arrived next to the curbside check-in for Spirit Air (most convenient), we checked our bags, received our boarding passes, and had time to spare. Fort Myers Airport is very well thought out and a pleasure to use. Lots of courtyard areas, FREE wi-fi, NO airport departure tax, spotless/clean, and has very friendly personal (even the TSA). Since we still had time, we sat down in the courtyard area and opened up Martha’s bag of hamburgs. Now I know why it took 45 mins to cook, these freaking things were enormous. One could have fed a family of three easily (but we still managed to eat both). :yum:

After our very late lunch we passed easily through TSA inspection, got to our departure gate, boarded early, the flight left on the dot, and we arrived in Detroit about 20 mins early. A very fitting end to a what my sainted Grandma would say was a “lovely, lovely vacation”.