Lizzy's Second Trip to Sanibel Island
March 2026, I decided slightly on a whim to take a road trip down to Sanibel Island, Florida. This trip was just going to be Lizzy and me visiting my parents for two weeks. Now if you are an active reader of the blog or know Lizzy very well, she is very active, very adventurous and very much a three-nager.
Now to get down to Sanibel Island is quite the road trip. Luckily, we got down there with the help of Taylor Swift, Audible Harry Potter series (we listened to the first 3 books), and the Birmingham Museum of Art in, Alabama.
Birmingham Museum of Art was a great stop though the area oddly busy, the day we got there. Lizzy enjoyed looking at various artwork, especially anything that had yellow, which is her favorite color. There is a section at the art museum for just kids to create their own artwork. I will say my favorite part was the garden section where Lizzy pointed at a statue saying it looked like daddy. I might have laughed too hard but you can be the judge if it looks like Michael or not.
Birmingham Museum of Art Michael
We arrived in Florida late and had to stop at the welcome center though it was closed. Lizzy was quite demanding of photos. When we started going over the Sanibel Causeway. Lizzy started shouting out she saw dolphins. Now I was sceptic but yes there were dolphins. She was very excited about staying in a tent and going to the beach.
Before our trip, Lizzy had looked at photos from the last time she was in Sanibel which was March 2024. She was determined to recreate photos, especially of Shackee the Shark of the ice cream, hot dog place called the Shack. She was over the moon but got quite upset when Grandma left to deliver Papa’s hotdog to him. This was because she wanted to eat there at the yellow table.
Lizzy’s other requirement for the trip to see an alligator, a snake, and a turtle. So, one day we rode our bikes to Apple Pond with a stop to the Bailey’s Homestead. Now Lizzy wasn’t a fan but made the most of it. She was excited for the birds; she became an avid bird watcher. She also was able to identify an anhinga, sometimes called a snakebird. She watched one at the campground struggle to eat a fish. Sadly, on our first visit we didn’t see the required animals but one of the last days she did basically all-at-once.
If asked what her favorite beach was, she would answer the sparkly Lighthouse beach. The sand at the Lighthouse beach is imported due to the hurricane in September 2022, so it’s different than other sand found on beaches on Sanibel. Of course we made sandcastles which Lizzy decorated with this sparkly sand. We visited the Lighthouse beach twice both afterwards got ice cream. Now Lizzy, much like me her mother, likes ice cream a lot. However, unlike her mother, Lizzy goes for the insanely colorful ice cream or as she calls it no matter what its actual name is Rainbow Ice Cream. Most of the time this is vanilla ice cream dyed different colors. Luckily at the Magic Bus Ice Cream shop their Rainbow Ice Cream was for the first visit Superman ice cream, which was strawberry, lemon, and blue moon, the second visit we got Rainbow Sherbet.
The other beach we visited frequently was a beach access at Nerita Street or as Lizzy called it the shell beach. We visited this beach almost every day to make sandcastles and collect shells. Lizzy didn’t so much build the sandcastles but decorated them. She also enjoyed watching birds.
One thing Lizzy asked grandma and myself early on before we even left for the trip was if she could go on a boat and use a paddle. We ended up at the beginning of our second week going to Tarpon Bay Explorers to rent a kayak. My mom sat in front, Lizzy in the middle, and me in the back. The first time my mom and I used a kayak together which was in also in Florida, going through mangroves we became very friendly with the mangroves and constantly ran into them. Luckily this time years later, we did better. Lizzy was fascinated with the fish we were able to see as well as “helping” to paddle. I would give her my oar, when we weren’t at risk at becoming one with the mangroves, she was as good as a three-year-old can be. She hit grandma a few times. On our way back to the start, we saw a bunch of jumping fish, a stingray, and a manatee.
We took Lizzy to Ding Darling where I let her use her camera (Yes real digital camera) her photos included the scenery, picture of grandma, picture of me, a picture of herself, and my butt while I rode the bike. The idea behind going to Ding Darling was to once again find an alligator (at this point we had yet to see one). Sadly, the spot where we always saw one there wasn’t one. She was greatly upset about it but learnt to look at the scat sculptures and laugh at what certain animal poop looked like. She was deeply excited an alligator’s poop resembled hers and told Papa and Grandma and later Michael on the phone that evening.
Every time we went to the library, we had to take a picture at their photobooth and take various coloring pages back to the grandparents’ popup. On our final visit we had missed storytime but not the craft time afterwards. Lizzy got to make a dragon egg. She believed the entire time afterwards it would hatch.
Lizzy was very sad about leaving Florida and not seeing Grandma or Papa every single day. As we left, we stopped at Sun Harvest. She had seen a picture of me by a giant orange before we left and wanted a picture of herself and then me too. She enjoyed the free orange juice and free orange slices. She told a stranger which were the best oranges.
In Alabama, we stopped at Buc-ees but more importantly Alligator Alley. This is our second visit, our first was when Lizzy was around 7 months old. She was very excited to see the alligators. Since it was a cooler for the alligators that day, a lot of them were sunning on the shore. Lizzy was convinced they were statues until she realized they weren’t. Also at Alligator Alley, are snakes and tortoises. Lizzy thinks snakes are cute until Michael told her one night on the phone he didn’t like snakes, so therefore, she was scared to touch a snake. The snake, named Charlie, did get multiple visits by us and Lizzy did end up petting it. Then going around thinking the giant yellow snake was great, most likely because it is her favorite color. Now being oddly “terrified” of snakes, she was overjoyed about petting and then holding an alligator.
Was it hard to go on a two-and-a-half-week-long vacation with Lizzy? Yes. Was I very happy with having good cellphone service to call Michael nightly? Also, yes. Is Lizzy ready to go back to Sanibel soon and bring Michael? Also, yes. Lizzy absolutely loved being outside every day, biking every day, going to the beach, camping, and coloring with Papa.
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