Retirement Travels: South Florida

Wed, Feb 12

This morning I was very concerned about finding a place to move to.

We very seldom make reservations, but after doing some checking around for a site to move to, I was finding that everywhere was filled up - for the whole month of February.

Luckily, I found a site on line in the Big Cypress National Preserve, which adjoins the Everglades National Park, so I quickly made a reservation yesterday and this morning we headed out.

When we arrived, much to my embarrassment, I found that I had made reservations for next week rather than this week. And they were completely filled. But they recommended another of their parks about 8 miles away which is first come - first served. So off we go. And Wow! We've lucked into another gem.

Monument Lake Campground is up there with the top places we've ever stayed. Almost as soon as we got here, I immediately made reservations for another day - and we may stay more. It's beautiful.

Monument Lake Campground, Big Cypress National Reserve

It's really difficult to comprehend what is happening back at home - both Spruce Pine and Beaufort are receiving nasty winter weather tonight and tomorrow. We may get some rain tonight and the forecast is for it to cool down a little for a couple of days - to the upper 60's and lower 70's.

Thurs, Feb 13

Today we had a chance to do a little exploring.

We drove to Everglades city. This is a little relatively isolated community on the border of Big Cypress National Reserve and Everglades National Park.

Soon after arriving, we decided to take a boat tour into the Everglades National Park. We did not know what to expect.

Everglades National Park should really be called Everglades Ecological Park. It isn't very scenic and doesn't have any of the features that make other National Parks special places. It was established only to "save the glades".

It is the second largest park in the lower 48, exceeded only by Yosemite.

I guess I should have suspected what we saw when we saw that the name of the area is "Land of 10,000 islands". That is indeed what we saw (although only a very small portion). The 1 1/2 hour narrated tour took us meandering through mangrove islands. We did enjoy it, but it's not something I would do again.

We took the tour out of the Town of Everglades to the "Land of 10,000 Islands". There are supposedly 40,000 islands in the area.

These tour boats are run as concessions for the National Park. I suspect that the vessels that will run out of Beaufort to Shackleford Banks will be much the same.

Mangrove Islands in the Everglades

Clara had heard that the Stone Crabs here are good. We asked the guide/Captain of our tour boat where we might have a nice lunch of the crabs. He recommended Triad Seafood and it turned out to be great.

It's in an out-of-the-way place and indeed looks like a fish house. We had a lunch of coconut shrimp and conch fritters and bought a pound of Stone Crab legs to take back to the motor home for supper.

Stone Crab and Corn.

Boy they were good. But I certainly understand why they are called Stone Crabs. We had to use the hammer to crack the shells.

This afternoon we drove to the Oasis Visitor Center on the Tamiami Trail (the road that runs from Tampa to Miami the the Everglades). They have a pond (I guess that's what it's called) in which there are numerous wild alligators lounging. They are certainly ugly creatures.

We are finishing up watching the first three seasons of Downton Abbey, anticipating ordering and watching season 4 when we get home. Tonight we watched next to the last show. We've really enjoyed re-watching the entire series.

Moonrise over the motor home on Monument Lake, Cypress National Reserve.

Fri, Feb 14

We have reservations, which we've already changed one, at an RV Resort, so we pulled up the anchor from this lovely location and drove a couple hours to North Fort Myers and Upriver RV Resort. It seems rather nice, and we especially like the pool and hot tub.

Sat, Feb 15

After a very slow start, we headed out for groceries and just checking things out. First we dropped the laundry off at a place that washes and folds it for us. Then we started for the beaches. On the way, I decided I needed a haircut, so we stopped at a small beauty parlor to see if they did haircuts for men. There was only one lady there and she happily agreed to cut my hair (she did a good job). Then Clara decided that she needed a haircut. So this was a first for us - both of us getting a haircut at the same place at the same time.

We finally got to the grocery store and bought the ingredients to make coconut shrimp tonight.

After a nice swim in the pool, we came back to the motor home and we really did make a great meal. I think coconut shrimp will often be on the menu from now on.

Clara working diligently on coconut shrimp

We've found the RV Resort to be very nice. There are a lot of people from the North down here and they have formed some great social events. Who knows, we may join them next year.

Sunday, Feb 16

I never know what's going to happen while we're traveling.

Today as we were driving out of the RV Resort, Clara spotted a kayak for sale. To make a short story even shorter, we are now the owners of "another" kayak. Clara uses the excuse that it's lighter. We'll see. Hopefully tomorrow we'll get a chance to check it out and kayak with the manatees.

She's ready to go!

We made our way across town (which was no easy task - terrible synchronization of traffic lights) to a little island named Matlacha where we had heard there was a arts and craft festival. Traffic was really bad, so we assumed that it must be a huge show. Turns out that it was only an arts show, with very expensive art (some of it nice). But there were some craft shops in this eclectic little island village.