Sunday, February 12, 2023

13 February 2023, Southern Camping Trip Day 38

Cypress Trail Campground

Fort Myers, Florida

Babcock Ranch home.

Marc-  We spent much of today visiting a solar powered high tech town about 10 miles north of Ft. Myers.  The Town is being constructed on a 27 square mile former cattle ranch.  The homes are well built and range from $300,000 to $1,500,000.  Everything is new including the school system.  The massive irrigation system is reused water.  The elevation is 31 feet (a virtual mountain area in terms of Florida).  The place seems to be attracting people who recently dealt with hurricane Ian.  Babcock Ranch suffered little damage.  We took the tour and visited several model homes and were impressed.  We have no thoughts of moving there.  There was a farmer's market there today and we enjoyed lunch in a local restaurant on the man-made Lake Babcock. This house may not look very big from the front, but if you saw it from the side you would say it's got a very large footprint.  Several of the homes had 3 car garages.  The smaller one is usually for the golf cart.

You can walk for miles around Lake Babcock.

We stopped at Manatee Park near the outfall of the Florida Light and Power plant.  The warm water from the Power plant feeds into a small river that leads to the Caloosahatchee river.  The park has a small visitors center, walking trails, Kayak rentals and manatee viewing areas.  The manatees enjoy the warm water coming from the power plant on cool winter days.  It has been fairly warm here until today.  The water is 82 degrees in the viewing area.  Only two manatees were reported to be in the area.  We saw one.  


Manatee Visitors Center mural.


Manatee statue.

Manatee


Park flower.




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