Leaving Florida – Some overall impressions

We have spent three months in Florida. We’ve been here as “snow birds,” and we can understand why Florida is such a popular place for people like us. With freezing temperatures and snowstorms in the north, we are so glad we made the decision to spend the winter in this moderate weather area. We will spend next week at a work project (with United Methodists Volunteers in Mission) in Gulfport, Mississippi, so before we leave, some impressions....

It hasn’t been warm and sunny every day, certainly, but the cold or rainy days have been few and far between. Most days have been pleasant, many with days where we enjoyed going into a pool or taking a dip in the ocean. But the weather can drastically change pretty fast. There have been a couple times when we had the air conditioner on one day, and the heater the next. We watch the weather reports regularly, because there could be tornado warnings (luckily, none that affected us), or severe rain/thunderstorms, or high winds. One our longest driving days recently, the winds were awful – it was hard on John pulling the trailer.

We have especially loved the ocean and beaches of Florida. The water on the Gulf Coast is an emerald green color; Key West area has gorgeous shades of blue. There are miles of white quartz sand beaches that look like sugar, (and in one place, felt like flour.) It’s so wonderful to dig our feet into the sand, or take barefoot long walks on the beach. And the shells – particularly in the Naples area! Piles and piles. You could collect buckets and there would still be tons of shells left on the shore. There are more marinas here than any place we’ve ever been, with lots of commercial or private fishing boats and yachts. (If we lived here, we’d want to get a boat, too, because there are so many waterways.) We’ve loved the abundance of fresh seafood, even if we’ve had to purchase it rather than catch it!

The diversity of wildlife is amazing. We’ve seen more alligators than I could have imagined – none close enough to cause any worry, thank goodness. Also saw a couple crocodiles. Southern Florida is one of the few places crocodiles and alligators co-exist. The birds have been most interesting, especially the large water birds: many great blue herons, egrets, osprey, pelicans, anhingas. We've seen a couple of eagles in their nests. We’re not so good at identifying the smaller birds, but we’ve loved listening to them. There are huge bumble bees where we are now, but fortunately they’re not interested in our bodies! Huge dragonflies in another area. Lots of small butterflies. Some mosquitoes, but not many, really –whereas they are very prevalent later in the year. The no-see-ums have not been fun in the southern area – those tiny little things have been attracted to Gayle, causing mosquito-like itchy bites, yet they seem not to be attracted to John! There are biting ants, too, Gayle found out after standing in an ant pile unknowingly until she felt stings on her toes. Those 6-7 welts lasted for weeks!

The plant life is also interesting. Lots of areas have a combination of pines and palms – tall slash pine trees with small saw palmetto palms along with other shrubbery. In other areas, there are many different kinds of tall palm trees. Much of Florida is marshy, covered with sea grass or mangrove trees growing in the fresh or salt water. The manatee is the state fish, but because they don’t see well or move fast, they get mangled in the boat propellers easily, so there are many protected areas for manatees.

There are agricultural areas, obviously, but we haven’t seen as many orange or grapefruit orchards as I expected – probably because we didn’t go inland very often. But the fresh orange juice or bags of grapefruit we’ve purchased have been wonderful. We also know that there are many sugar cane farms, but we didn’t see too many of them either. Lots of ripe strawberries are in fruit stands this time of year, but we haven’t seen any strawberry fields.

As in any state, there is a wide gap between the rich and poor. The wealth is obvious with the large homes and screened-in swimming pools, lush golf courses, large yachts, expensive resorts and restaurants galore. But there are many run-down areas as well. Florida still seems to be building many new areas, and/or repairing from the damage of Hurricane Ivan a couple years ago, but some areas are still in very blighted conditions.

Then there’s the current debate about the electoral process – whether or not to count the votes of the Florida election that was held early. We’re glad we didn’t vote in Florida. We’re glad we don’t live permanently in Florida. But we are awfully glad we’ve had these three months to experience life here as snow birds, to walk the beaches, to enjoy the wildlife, to see diversity in so much of nature. It has been a blessing.