Tin City Bike Ride

Tuesday the 1st

It's about 70 degrees under a blue sky, the sun is shining and there's a soft breeze blowing as I take the kids for their morning 'before breakfast' walk. With a forecast of 80 degrees later today, can this really be winter? Hee, heee!!

Once our morning chores are done, the breakfast dishes washed and put away we got out our activity list to see what we wanted to do.

Since it was so nice out we decided to go for a bike ride into town and explore a small shopping area called "Tin City" (http://www.tin-city.com/) which is just across the Cocohatchee River, next to the downtown core.

We have a really simple route to get downtown on our bikes. We leave Rock Creek and using the sidewalk along Airport-Pulling Rd we take the first right to ride through a residential area parallel to Davis Ave. Nearing the end of the stree we turn left to Davis and, again staying on the sidewalk, ride west on Davis to 5th Ave S and across the Cocohatchee River. Once across the river, we are able to access a pedestrian/bicycle underpass along the river to cross 5th Ave, coming out at Tin City.

We parked our bikes, locked them up and walked into the complex of shops and restaurants. With over thirty businesses we browsed our way through most of them. We found a Beauty Salon for Tina and a shirt place for me. Since we were on our bikes I snagged some business cards as reminders to return.

Since it was nearly 12:30 PM we walked back to the Riverwalk Restaurant (http://www.riverwalktincity.com/) for lunch. Walking in we were shown to a table on the deck overlooking the harbor. Turns out Riverwalk Restaurant is a sister to The Dock Restaurant so we expected good food and we weren't dissapointed.

I ordered a Cuban Mahi Melt, pan seared mahi mahi pressed with jack cheese, tomato and smoked bacon on Cuban bread with a dill pickle mustard served with Mediteranean Orzo salad. Tina had three Grouper Tacos, fried grouper, shredded cabbage and chipotle aioli in flour tortillas, with salsa, black beans and rice. Just as good as we had yesterday!!

After lunch we rode back through the 5th Ave underpass and over to a newly developed shopping and residential complex along the river.

A beautiful collection of three and four story buildings with retail and professional on the ground floor and condos/appartments above. With beautiful landscaping, fountains, public art and underground parking, this area was a great example of improved urban development. I took several photos then we continued on our way.

We were headed north on Goodlette-Frank Street which runs parallel to Airport-Pulling but on the back side of the airport. As we rode along the sidewalk (not all streets have bike lanes, so bicycles are allowed on sidewalks) we came upon a sign for the Conservancy of Southwest Florida (http://www.conservancy.org/) so we decided to check it out. Turns out they are undergoing a major expansion and redevelopment but they are open so we will come back next week.

Continuing our ride north we passed the Naples Zoo (also on our list) finally reaching Golden Gate Parkway, a cross street we could take over to Airport-Pulling Rd, for the last leg of our bike ride. We finally pulled into Rock Creek about 3:00 PM. Ahhhh, just in time to do a load of laundry. Tina usually does a small load on a daily basis in the coach. But for big loads like sheets and towels we do that at the camp laundry. So we loaded up the laundry bag, took our books and went to do a load. I had changed into my swim suit, so after dropping Tina and the laundry, I walked down to the pool for a refreshing dip and a little sun.

An hour later we were done with the laundry and pool so gathered everything up and headed back to the coach and dinner. Later I went down to the Sharks Den and shot pool for a couple of hours. I was in stroke as the owner watched me shoot a couple of racks. After setting up a couple of practice shots he came over and invited me to join one of his teams. I explained we were just visiting but thanked him for the offer. I left around 8:30 PM but plan to return for the 8-Ball tournament on Thursday.

To see all our photos, click on:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mjdolanski