Koreshan State Park in Estero, FL January 17 – 31, 2025

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We left Trimble Park around 10:15 am on Friday, January 17, 2025 for a 4 1/2 hour drive to Koreshan State Park in Estero, Florida to enjoy a 14-night stay.

Koreshan State Park

Koreshan State Park is partially located on land that originally belonged to a group of people who called themselves “Koreshans”, believing they were the new Christianity. Their founder, Dr. Cyrus Teed, was a 30-year old physician from Chicago who, believing he was the new Messiah, changed his name to “Koresh” (the Hebrew form of “Cyrus”) and founded the Koreshan Unity in Estero, Florida with his wealthy followers.

You can read the fascinating history of this community at Florida Traveler. Briefly, the group had some forward-thinking beliefs, such as the equality of the sexes and races, but also some rather strange beliefs such as their insistence that the Earth was a hollow orb containing continents and oceans on the inside. They also believed in celibacy (hard to keep the community going that way, I think) and that Koresh, when he died, would be resurrected after three days. When that didn’t happen they placed him in a mausoleum on the beach and kept watch over it 24 hours a day until it was washed out to sea during a hurricane 13 years after his death.

In 1961, the last four members deeded 305 acres of their land to the state. What remains of their community are 11 historic structures that date from 1882 to 1920, and landscaped grounds that include unique ornamental exotic vegetation from throughout the world.

The Koreshan Unity Settlement Historic District is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The last member of the group, Hedwig Michel, died in 1982.

Today, the Koreshan State Park campground offers 60 sites with water and electric. Twelve of those are specifically for tents and are located near the Estero River. Four of them are “Glamping” sites with oversized canvas tents. When Cindy picked our site the map looked like we would have no neighbors to our left, but there were. They were just around the corner, but they backed up against our left side. There was foliage in between the sites, however it was not very thick. In fact, we discovered the day we left, that our neighbor had also enjoyed our watching “Modern Family” and our laughter, lol. Oh well.

Otherwise, our site was typical Florida sand and JUST large enough that we could put up Cindy’s screen room.

Out and About

Saturday morning we took Bella out for a hike to the Estero River, which runs along part of the park. Then we took a quick run out to Michael’s and Joann’s so Cindy could get some thread she needed to finish a project.

When we were still in Orlando I went to Costco and bought some Glucosamine with Chondroitin for my knee joints. I have found, as I approach my 7th decade on this earth, that my knees, in particular my right knee, do not always want to do their job. So, I thought I would try some Glucosamine to see if it would help them do what they’re supposed to do. So, when we got back to Nomad I took my first dose. Fingers crossed!

Then I worked on our blog post about our stay at Magnolia Park. Now that our schedule isn’t so hectic I have more time to catch up on writing about our recent stays in Central Florida. It occurs to me that if I left out editing photos and videos for each stay that I could quickly write up posts. After all, during each stay I write up notes and/or keywords to remind me what we did and when, so when I write I just have to expand upon those notes/keywords. But I feel like the photos and videos help to tell the story about each of our stays.

What do you think? Should I leave out photos and videos and post words only for our stays?

The West Wing on DVD

Saturday night we started watching The West Wing on DVD for the first time. We’ve had the full series and have been meaning to watch it for the past year. Given what will be happening on Monday, it felt like this was the right time to watch it and remind ourselves of what could have been.

Cindy and I both liked “Newsroom” when we watched that and it was written by the same guy (Aaron Sorkin), so we think we’ll like what he does when he writes a show about the executive staff of the White House.

However, in the 20 years since it aired, we’ve heard great reviews and reports from folks we respect, so we were pretty sure we’d enjoy it. And what we watched Saturday night was very good, as far as we were concerned.

Rattlesnakes!

Sunday morning we took Bella and hiked over to see the Koreshan Community. On the way, a couple coming from the opposite direction on the trail warned us that there were two Diamondback Rattlesnakes up ahead on our left. Sure enough, about a quarter of a mile later we came upon them. What we actually saw first was a Gopher Tortoise at the mouth of its nest. As Cindy moved into position to take a photo of it she actually came within about 4 feet of the two rattlers without seeing them. I wanted to scream but instead spoke in an even tone and told her to move back because she was about to get within range of them. Thankfully she did. One of the rattlers had raised its head in Cindy’s direction, but never acted like it would strike and didn’t shake its rattles.

The rattlers looked like they might have been mating, but I’m not sure. They were entwined around each other, so it’s possible. But whatever they were doing or planning to do, the Gopher Tortoise was defiantly guarding its nest and possible eggs inside. As we stood there taking photos and video, one of the snakes decided to take its leave and began slithering into the tall grass. We thought it was time for us to leave as well.

We enjoyed our tour of the Koreshan Community building and grounds. You can see some photos in the album for this post.

In an abundance of caution, we opted to take a different trail back to the campground. You know, just in case the rattlesnakes were waiting for us to come back by their ‘hood.

Modern Family

Monday we went shopping and tried to avoid any newscasts. We also decided to continue watching “Modern Family” because we desperately needed something to laugh about.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were cold and rainy. We only went out enough to walk Bella around the campground. Florida weather was NOT living up to its reputation.

Friday I had some kind of 24 hour bug that kept me either in bed or on the toilet.

Caloosahatchee Celtic Festival

Saturday I was back to my normal, ebullient self so we decided to go ahead with our plan to visit the 21st annual Caloosahatchee Celtic Festival in downtown Fort Myers at the amphitheater in Centennial Park.

This music festival celebrates Irish and Celtic music, food and culture. Musical groups included Albannach, The Screaming Orphans, West of Galway, Ally the Piper and others. While we were there we heard The Screaming Orphans and I really liked their performance. You can see some of it in the video for this post.

We, of course, visited the vendors who were selling food and Irish/Celtic items. We got a new Celtic bedspread (never knew there was such a thing) that Cindy liked and she also got a new purse because you can never have too many purses. We arrived around noon and it was pretty crowded then, but by the time we left around 2:30 the place was crawling with men in kilts, women in armor and all kinds of other people either celebrating their Celtic heritage or enjoying those who did.

Unfortunately, Cindy seemed to have picked up the stomach bug I had the day before. Hopefully it will also be over as quickly as mine.

And I know I said I was back to my normal, ebullient self, but that was far as my stomach was concerned.

You see, Saturday morning I awoke with my left knee slightly swollen and in pain. It’s usually my right knee that gives me problems. Where did this come from? No idea. It’s hard to believe it would have anything to do with the stomach bug I had, but who knows? I was still able to walk Bella around the campground twice and walk around Centennial Park that day, but my left knee did not like it.

That night we watched three episodes of “Modern Family” and heard reports that, after six hours of competition, Abby’s high school dance team won First Place in School Spirit and Fifth Place in Hip Hop at the regional school dance competition that day. Go Abby!

Sunday I was pretty much immobile most of the day and y left knee was more swollen, but I again managed to walk Bella twice around the campground. Cindy’s stomach bug is lasting longer than mine did, poor thing. But, we got to watch Maxwell and his team play in a soccer game from Washington State through the Interwebs, so we both enjoyed that.

“Urgent” Care

After a sleepless Sunday night because my knee pain kept waking me up, I finally decided to listen to my wife and go to a local “urgent” care facility. It took up most of our day. You can read all about that on my personal blog.

But I walked away with some much-needed meds for infection and pain.

Lovers Key State Park Beach

My knee was feeling a bit better so Tuesday, January 28th, we went ahead with our plan to drive over to Lovers Key State Park Beach. Cindy wanted to collect some shells and get her feet a little wet in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Their beach was pretty much destroyed by hurricanes last year, so for the past several months they had been dredging sand out of the Gulf with an offshore dredging platform. Then they would shoot the sand through underwater pipes onto the beach in an effort to replenish the beach sand they had lost. That part was completed a couple of weeks earlier, but the pipe has not been removed from its last placement. You can see photos of the pipe coming out of the water and onto the beach in this post’s album.

But going to the beach was a bad mistake for my knee. Walking in the beach sand put my knee in agony again and by the time we left I could have used a wheelchair, lol.

Thankfully, pain meds that night and keeping my leg elevated while we watched TV helped to take the edge off.

Lunch With Gene

Wednesday, January 29th I met an old friend and former FEMA colleague for lunch. Gene and I have known each other for at least 15 years and he retired several years ago to Cape Coral. Since that was just up the road from Estero, I was hoping we could meet for lunch to visit in person. Gene found a place, Dixie Fish Company, that was about halfway between each of us. His son-in-law Don also joined us so it was a pleasure getting to meet him as well.

We had a good time remembering deployments we were on and the good (and sometimes not so good) people we worked with. Thankfully that second number was small. It was really good to see him after all these years and to get to meet Don. And the food was good and the atmosphere great as we dined and visited on the water’s edge. Even saw a dolphin playing in the water.

On the way back to Nomad I stopped and filled one of our propane tanks that had emptied during the cold weather we had earlier in our stay when we were running the furnace to stay warm.

Then I spent the rest of the day in my recliner with my leg elevated and my knee seemed to be feeling much better by the time bedtime rolled around.

Thursday my knee felt oh so much better. We ran several errands to the post office, grocery store and Costco to get ready to move the next day.

That night I watched the Star Trek Section 31 movie. Was not very impressed. If they hadn’t played some of the traditional Star Trek music or mentioned Star Fleet a couple times, I would have never guessed it was even a Star Trek movie. The story was very ponderous, predictable and poorly executed. Performances were sub-par and overall this just never rose to the level Star Trek fans have come to expect.

That’s two hours I’ll never get back.

But we hope you’ll be back for our next post when we visit Myakka River State Park.

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