February 10, 2006
Siesta Bay Resort, Lee County, Florida

We are coming close to the end of our time in south Florida. We spent one week here, then one week in the Everglades, and finally another week here with Mom & Dad Woods. Our first week here provided relief from the preparations and travel required to make the transition from our former life. We relaxed and enjoyed the company of our hosts. Last week we took our little Ford Focus and tent and headed southeast. We had heard of hurricane damage at the Park, but didn’t realize that Flamingo was closed. It was a struggle getting our backcountry permit, but we got it and spent three days exploring the Hells Bay land and water area of mangrove, mahogany, and weakly brackish lakes and channels. We looked for birds along the Trail, in the Park, and in the Miami area. We saw crocodiles at Flamingo that had survived the storm and the gray salt and marl residue left by it. We returned to the Ft. Myers area tired and bug bitten, but happy having enjoyed the magnificence of the sawgrass glades, hardwood hammocks, and the stately winterbare cypress strands of south Florida that remain in between the traffic clogged roads and uncontrolled development of the coasts and even the more northern interior areas.

I noticed that some of you may be wondering how to do this. You can set up a link to a web page by entering

"<a href="http://www.electricscotland.com/webclans/dtog/davidso2.html" >Davidson</a>"

where you want the link to appear. This obviously is an example so you need to insert the URL you want to link to in the quoted section of the code and the name that will serve as the link between the carrot ">" that follows the URL and the closing tag "</a>."

For example, click on
Davidson to

This website is fantastic. It is great fun reading and writing blogs. Love to All, Jim