FL activities

2010 Jan. 2, Saturday.
We arrived at Ft. Myers RV Resort yesterday about 2:30.

WEATHER REPORT : We had not seen the sun for 3 days - we left Mazon on Wednesday with clouds, hoping to beat the snow, but by Saunemin it was snowing. Not heavy, but off and on all the time. Then it changed to rain south of Champaign, and it rained off and on all the way to Ft. Myers. We did see the sun for about 15 minutes on Friday. The temperature was in the 40’s until southern GA, and then it went up to low 60’s. It was about 70 when we got to Ft. Myers, but the front came through and dropped the temperature last night to about 40. The high yesterday was 77, but for the next 5 days it will be in the low 60’s, with nighttime lows in the upper 30’s. The paper says “… unseasonably cold air starts today. … an unusually long cold snap for us.” Looks like we brought some northern cold to FL with us - but cold is a relative term. Would you say ‘low 60’s’ was cold?

FL NEWS : Today’s headline on the top of the front page was “MORE PANTHERS DIE, AND THAT’S GOOD”. The idea is that more FL panthers are being killed on the roads because the population is increasing. Last year a record 17 were killed by vehicles. The total population is now estimated at 100, while in the 1980’s it was estimated at about 33. FL panthers are a sub-species of the cougar, and once they ranged throughout the south. Now they are confined to a relatively small area in southwest FL. The population has been hurt by inbreeding, which led to genetic abnormalities. The biggest reason for the increase in population is that in 1995, eight female cougars were introduced into South Florida. They mated with the FL panthers, and that improved the gene pool.