florida's southern gulf coast

the day's game-plan was to keep west while driving north and check out some of the towns along the lower half of the state's gulf coast.

the first hour-or-so took me straight (literally!) through big cypress national preserve.

the most interesting thing i observed on my way through was the plethora of birds.  

a lot of the birds were quite large.  i didn't pull over to get pictures because i didn't want to bother them.  and there weren't many safe opportunities to park and explore.

i came upon the southernmost populated gulf coast town - marco island, florida.

i drove around for a few minutes feeling like an intruder.   the cost of living around there must be quite out of my league.  but a visit in my own van to look around was free. : )

next i stopped in naples, florida.

here's the tourist/shopping strip.

i found some non-metered parking and walked a few blocks to the beach.  had it not been so crazily windy, it would have been pleasant.   the wind blew me back to my van pretty quickly.  sadly, it was just too much to handle.

as i continued north i stopped to treat my faithful van to an oil change.

i still wanted to get to tampa by night-time and had a lot of miles to go to get there.  i quickened my pace.  seeing the sunset over the gulf was at the top of my list, so i looked for a place to do that along the way...  venice, florida.

i like tree-arched streets.

venice-esque?  kind of.

somehow, like an ant following an invisible path, i managed to navigate through venice to the perfect place to watch the sunset!    i love love the rich rich colors of sunsets.

the waves where launching high off the jetty.

it was still super super windy, and it was chilly enough that i had to get in my van periodically to find relief.  near my head in this picture you can see a kite that someone was using to kite-skateboard.

i'm happy with this shot.

i continued to brave the chill to get some post-sunset twilight slow-shutter pictures.  this photo is kind of what i was going for.

with a sigh at the satisfaction of watching the sunset, i then continued up to tampa where i met mike again to stay at his apartment overnight.