NEWS

Vice President Mike Pence is not your ordinary Sanibel Island tourist

PATRICIA BORNS
pborns@news-press.com

The sky turned spanking blue on the busiest Saturday of season on Sanibel Island for the snowbirds soaking up their last winter rays, the shark teeth hunters, the weekend fishermen … and the anticipated – “Is he coming? He’s coming!” -- arrival of Vice President Mike Pence.

Rumors had been flying for days about the VP’s visit. He was staying on Captiva. No, Sanibel. No, it’s changed to Marco Island – just kidding.

Businesses had been alerted to the arrival well ahead, but that didn’t stop a rumor that the causeway would be closed for an hour and a half for a land arrival.

“No,” the Lee County Sheriff’s Office corrected midday, “it will be very brief,” just as long as it takes the motorcade to cross the bridge.

Air space had been cleared earlier this week for an afternoon fly-in, but while shopping at Jerry’s, the local supermarket, Sanibel resident Craig Allen, heard the VP was already here.

The plane (Air Force Two) of U.S. Vice President Mike Pence lands Saturday at Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers, Florida. Pence is believed to be visiting Sanibel Island over the weekend.

“I heard a guy say he couldn't get back on the island at 2:30 this morning because the causeway was closed, so Pence must already be here," Allen said. “There are all kinds of rumors going around. I think people just like to hear themselves talk.”

Little secrets at Southwest Florida's biggest resorts

Pence and Air Force Two touched down at Southwest Florida International Airport at 4:27 p.m. His motorcade was crossing the Sanibel Causeway approximately 30 minutes later. Where Pence is staying and how long he will be here is not being revealed. The FAA issued a temporary flight restriction on Thursday for private planes around the island from April 8 through April 14.

A matter-of-fact air prevailed among year-round residents used to seeing celebrities like Eric Clapton show up at George and Wendy Schnapp's Sanibel Seafood Grille; Johnny Depp at a Tween Waters Halloween party; and, regularly, NBC weatherman Willard Scott, for whom Sanibel is a second home.

Resident Anita Smith wore a slightly irritated air as she went about her chores.

“We don’t have enough traffic without the Vice President visiting?” Smith said.

Yet traffic was surprisingly smooth for a day when rentals all over the island were turning over. A police officer stood outside Royal Shell calming traffic as half the real estate company’s 500-plus rental properties were taking in new guests.

Many business people were afraid to share feelings about the visit because of sharp political divisions being felt across the country; even more so on a small island.

Bridgit Stone-Budd serves up an order of her famous fried chicken and waffles and fried pickles at Pecking Order Fried Chicken Saturday on Sanibel Island. Stone-Budd tweeted Vice President Mike Pence offering him dinner on the house when she heard about his Saturday arrival on the island.

But Bridgit Stone-Budd wasn’t one of them.

Stone-Budd, who opened Pecking Order Fried Chicken with her husband three years ago, wasted no time posting to Facebook Friday when she heard the news:

Oh, hellz yeah.
We've got your chicken & waffles and fried pickles waiting for you, Mr. Vice President <3
#mike_pence

Then she tweeted to @mike_pence inviting him to dinner on the house.

“I know Mike Pence is from Indiana, and Indiana is famous for fried chicken and waffles and fried pickles,” she said.

So, deservedly, is the Pecking Order.

Stone-Budd lamented that politics kept her from fanning out for Pence and the president, for fear of alienating patrons. After her tweet to the VP, one customer had said he wouldn’t be following her anymore.

“Some of my customers replied, ‘Goodbye, we’ll miss you,’” she said.

How do islanders keep it friendly with each other in these political times?

“One of my staff’s parents have completely different feelings about the president,” Stone-Budd said. “We’re friends, though. We just don’t talk about it.”

Across the causeway Dave Bailey sat beside the bay with a slack fishing line in the water and a News-Press crossword puzzle in his lap.

“Anything that will bite,” is what Bailey, who lives in Florida eight months of the year, was fishing for.

Did Pence’s visit matter to him?

“It depends on what he does while he’s here,” he said. “The political furor of this country has been so ramped up over politics. In Florida, we’re like, ‘ho-hum.’”

Bailey is especially sensitized to big-name politicians because he lives the rest of the year in Colchester, Vermont, the home of 2016 presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders.

It was closing on 5 p.m., when police cars began stationing themselves on either side of the causeway. Sirens wailed in the distance. The base of the causeway was almost empty of onlookers, save two women, who had been waiting patiently for Pence to drive by.

“This is everything,” said Tamara Leone from Illinois, who was spending a few days visiting her mother.

Leone had come to the spot to show her support for the VP who she admires because, “He’s not afraid to show his faith," she said.

On the other side of the causeway, an excited Amanda Wilcox rushed to the side of the road as a police car screamed by. Coast guard boats churned up the water below, and helicopters patrolled the sky.

A Cape Coral resident who was here enjoying a birthday picnic with friends, Wilcox wondered if a rescue was in progress for a man in a green kayak who’d been missing in these waters since late Friday night.

Did she know Mike Pence would be passing this way?

Coast Guard searching for missing kayaker

“I have no idea who that is,” Wilcox said.

She does know who Donald Trump is, however:

“He’s so controversial. Of course I do.”

Follow this reporter on Twitter @PatriciaBorns.