Patricia Borns

The (Fort Myers, Fla.) News-Press

SANIBEL ISLAND, Fla. — The sky turned spanking blue on the busiest Saturday of season for snowbirds soaking up their last winter rays, shark teeth hunters, weekend fishermen … and residents anticipating the arrival of Vice President Mike Pence.

Rumors had been flying for days about the vice president's visit. Was he staying on nearby Captiva Island? No, Sanibel Island. No, it’s changed to Marco Island, where former House Speaker John Boehner gave a speech Friday night.

No, it's really Sanibel Island, about 20 miles southwest of Fort Myers, Fla., and 130 miles west of President Trump's Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla.

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“There are all kinds of rumors going around. I think people just like to hear themselves talk,” Sanibel resident Craig Allen said Saturday morning while shopping at Jerry’s, the local supermarket.

Pence and Air Force Two touched down at at 4:27 p.m. ET at Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers. His motorcade crossed the Sanibel Causeway about 30 minutes later.

Where Pence is staying, where he might play golf and exactly how long he will be here is not being revealed. The Federal Aviation Administration issued a temporary flight restriction Thursday for private planes around the island from Saturday through Friday, so he appears to be spending Easter elsewhere.

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Year-round residents are 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 the island 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 asked.

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Yet traffic was surprisingly smooth for a day of the week 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 and even more so on a small 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 is the Pecking Order.

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Stone-Budd lamented that politics kept her from going gung-ho for Pence and the president, for fear of alienating patrons. After her tweet to the vice president, one customer said he’d 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.”

Sanibel Island, like Trump's Palm Beach on the Atlantic, is a wealthier enclave than most of Florida. The median household income is almost $100,000, just several thousand less than Palm Beach's $105,000; however, the median value of an owner-occupied home is almost $300,000 less than in Palm Beach: about $665,000 vs. $950,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

For comparison, the median household income for the United States is less than $54,000, and the median value of an owner-occupied house is less than $180,000. The median is a value in the middle of a set of numbers; half are higher and half are lower.

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

Did Pence’s visit matter to him?

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

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Bailey is especially sensitized to big-name politicians because he lives the rest of the year in Colchester, Vt., home of 2016 presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Closing on 5 p.m., 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 of Illinois, who was spending a few days visiting her mother.

Leone had come to the spot to show her support for the vice president, whom 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. U.S. Coast Guard boats churned up the water below, and helicopters patrolled the sky.

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

Did she know that Pence would be passing this way?

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

However, she does know about Donald Trump.

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

Follow Patricia Borns on Twitter: @PatriciaBorns