Candid Florida

For fresh, local wild-caught crab, Peace River Seafood, a funky little shack along US 17 north of Punta Gorda will have you wishing you could eat here every evening. It’s an unpretentious place, an old Cracker house with a talkative parrot on the porch, dollar bills stapled on the walls, and a nautical theme like you’d expect in a seafood house.

But this is no ordinary seafood house. The menu comes direct from the local catch, and the owner himself is a crabber. That means fresh stone crabs in season, blue crab, jumbo shrimp — all of the bounty of the nearby Gulf of Mexico, with a little ‘gator thrown in for good measure, and a fresh fish market to stock your cooler for the drive home. Every evening there’s a different seafood soup or stew, and entrees range from $10-35. If you don’t like seafood, go somewhere else and save the space for us! Open Tue-Sat, closes 8 PM.

Peace River Seafood
5337 Duncan Road (US 17 north), Punta Gorda
(941) 505-8440

Shiny antiques at Muscle Car City

Now here’s a new attraction worth a roar down the interstate:  Muscle Car City, which opened this spring in the old Wal-Mart just south of downtown Punta Gorda along US 41.  It’s the only example I’ve witnessed of a former Wal-Mart being put to use – fixtures and all – to become something entirely different.

It’s the rows and rows of sleek, high-powered driving machines, however, that’ll catch your attention. The demographic of visitors is undeniably male, and yet that didn’t keep me from admiring the cars I grew up with and around – Dad loved a good muscle car.  Many have their well-detailed engines open for inspection, like a 1967 Corvette Stingray sport coupe in deep green. Each vehicle is immaculate and identified, enabling visitors to form loose social networks as they gather around their favorite memories. Muscle Car City also includes a diner, open at 7:30 AM, a massive gift shop with auto memorabilia and classic car parts, and even a handful of restored beauties for sale. Brought to you from the personal collection of Rick Treworgy, with assistance from his wife April, this is one sleek museum.

Muscle Car City
Open Tues-Sat 9-5, $10 admission
3811 Tamiami Trail, Punta Gorda

This female urinal in the Dairy Queen off the Kings Highway exit of I-75 at Punta Gorda was quite the surprise when I happened across it earlier this year. This visit, I brought my camera with me.  It’s not meant to be functional … anymore … but it was when installed.

The “She-inal” was created by Kathy Kidder Jones, who founded a company in Pensacola in the early 1990s to create and market her patented invention, where women are supposed to use the hose to stand while relieving themselves. Her idea got enough traction that these contraptions ended up in quite a few Dairy Queens around the country, and a few other places as well.

This is the only one I’ve happened across, and it’s now a modern museum piece. No, it’s not in any of my guidebooks.

Take aim, ladies!

Some folks know where to place a porch, and Mr. Fred Babcock was one of them. His Cypress Lodge is deep in Babcock Ranch, set on a creek draining into the Telegraph Swamp. On a visit there, I watched a gator sunning on the shore, wood storks and ibises winging their way above the dark water, and a squawking little blue heron in the shallows. This is one fine porch with a view.

Cypress Lodge is a treat within the Babcock Ranch, open for groups – family reunions, business meetings, corporate retreats – to rent. Formerly a hunting lodge, it now caters to a more laid-back crowd, but you’ll still see trophies on the walls and hunting-related artwork in the simple, sunny rooms.  Casey Bruni, resident chef and manager, can cater your breakfast or your meeting … and imagine sipping coffee in this setting. It’s marvelous.

Learn more: Cypress Lodge

I’m adventuresome when it comes to food. So when Jennifer Huber suggested we meet up over dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant, I was all for it. After all, I grew to love Greek food hanging out with my sisters in Corfu. Imagine my surprise, then, to discover the Downtown Hookah Lounge. True, Lebanon is on the Mediterranean, too, but it doesn’t pop to mind as a cuisine. The restaurant is largely outdoors, since one of the prime draws (no pun intended) for patrons are the hookah pipes, which my sister calls “hubble bubble.” Flavored tobacco is drawn through water and inhaled for effect: and we’re talking flavors like sour apple and bubble gum. Not my cup of tea, but certainly popular.

I was impressed, however, by the kebabs. That’s the focus of the Lebanese menu found here: chunks of meat and veg seasoned, skewered, and roasted. The portions are massive, and come with seasoned rice.  We ordered some of my favorite dips as well, like hummus and baba ganoush, and it was simply too much for the three of us to eat. My steak kebab was outstanding, and I liked Rob’s chicken version, too.  Well worth a try – and if you’re a non-smoker, sit inside!

The Downtown Hookah Lounge
307 E. Marion Avenue
Punta Gorda, FL 33950
941-639-0004

Ponce de Leon, it seems, was a short fellow. Or so the folks who crafted the statues (or are they statuettes?) of him at Ponce de Leon Park would have us think.

Now we know people centuries ago were short. Just take a look at antique beds and pioneer cottages. I’d be hitting my head on the lintel every time I ducked through the door! I had that trouble in Nepal, in fact, in every cab, bus, and shop. And I’m only 5’5″. Still. Ponce de Leon Park is Punta Gorda’s secret beach. It’s where everyone goes to see the sunset, to walk the short boardwalk through the mangroves, and to do a little fishing. It’s the home of the Peace River Wildlife Center – where they rehab injured birds and mammals – and a frequent field trip destination for CHEC, for wading out into the harbor to scoop up tiny critters.

But then there are the Ponces. They’re everywhere you look! I counted three, maybe four. All adorably sized, for a would-be conqueror. In 1513, the famed conquistador landed on these shores looking, as one did in those days, for gold. While he didn’t take any home, when he returned in 1521 to establish a colony on this coast, he suffered a wound at the hands of the Calusa, who understandably didn’t like the Spanish Armada snooping around their cities in the mangrove islands. Ponce died far from home in Havana, Cuba, in 1522, from complications related to that injury. And we have these pint-sized Ponces to remind us of his footsteps here.