Fun in the Sun

The beach is very wide and quite hard -- hard enough to ride our bikes on. We put in about 10 miles round trip. Did you know that sand is very hard to pedal thru? We got a real work out. So, of course, we have to rest and lay out on the beach and soak up the rays! It is actually very nice out on Wednesday and Thursday and Friday and . . .

Since we are this close to fresh seafood we ride our bikes over the bridge back to the mainland and to the shrimping docks where there are several places selling fresh shrimp and scallops. Oh, they are so good! Wednesday afternoon we drive over to Sanibel to visit our friends Rick and Libet. They take us out to the end of Captiva where we watch the sun set into the gulf and then have a scrumptious seafood dinner. On Friday we ride our bikes to "Heavenly Biscuit" for breakfast and meet Rick and Libet for lunch after which we go kayaking in the bay. For supper we ate at the Blu Sushi & Martini Bar. Had a great evening!

Almost Disastrous trip to Fort Myers Beach

Yeah, we made it to Fort Myers Beach but it was not a good day! It started out okay. Only a 2 hour drive from Sebring so we have an easy morning getting ready and decide to take a scenic route on a two lane road. And then it gets scary.

We are cruising along when John checks his rearview mirrors and says, "Why can I see the Jeep? It's going down the shoulder!!!" This is NOT good! John very cautiously slows the RV and pulls over to the side of the road at a commercial driveway. One of the arms holding the Jeep to the hitch has come undone. The pin is gone that would hold it in place. We very quickly unhitch the car and then drive separately to the nearest hardware store. We get a new pin, re-hitch the Jeep to the RV and are on our way! We were very, very lucky that we did not flip the jeep off the road, or worse, into another car. Considering we were on a 2 lane road it was just a miracle that we still have a Jeep and there was no damage to it or the RV. John now has 2 locking hitch pins so this will never happen again.

The traffic onto Ft. Myers Beach is horrendous and it takes us another hour to get across the bridge and onto the island. Then we have to unhitch again so we can park the RV on top of the neighboring RV.

But we are right on the beach and it is lovely. The first order of the afternoon (3PM) is go for a walk on the white sand. We went about a mile and half, turned around and started back but the beach bars looked really appealing so we stopped to have a beer and an appetizer before continuing back. Then for dinner we found this dive of a seafood restaurant and had a great fried seafood dinner! Tomorrow we will try riding our bikes on the sand!

We are here (20 feet from the beach) for the next 7 nights.

Highland Hammocks State Park

We arrived at this state park without a reservation which was really hard on John -- he just knew we were too late to get any site at all. As it turned out, this is a huge park with lots of sites available.

This area is made up of tall trees, low ferns on high hills (hammocks) surrounded by swampy areas. The camp was built by the CCC in the late 30's, before WWII. It has several miles of nature trails and an 8 mile bicycle route, on which we rode for just 3 miles. It was a challenging trail because of soft sand. John cussed at me several times because it was my idea to ride it! Oh well, I thought it was fun. And we got to see our first alligator.

The weather has been delightfully warm until today when we woke to rain. Yesterday we worked on our golfing skills by playing on a 9-hole executive course. I beat John by 2 strokes!!

We are finally caught up with our blog using the internet at a coffee house. This is were we are right now.

Manatee State Park

We drove about 4 hours on Wednesday to this park near the town of Chiefland. We are pretty much out in the middle of nowhere. We have no cell service, no wifi and television is very spotty! Ah, the good life.

There is a large spring that is 72° year round (not like you will find in MO). The Manatees like to come here because of the warm waters and they have supposedly just arrived although we have not seen one yet. They swim up from the gulf in the Suwannee River. After we got here on Wed. we took the nature hike in the forest around the campground. There are about 8 miles of trails but we only did about 3.5. We saw deer, turkey, armadillos and lots of saw palmetto and long leaf pines.

Rain was forecast for Thursday. We got up late then decided to ride on a rails-to-trails bike path out of Chiefland before the rain started. We rode about 15 miles total and got back just as it started. The rest of the afternoon was spent doing laundry and catching up on emails. Still have not spied any manatees. But we did have an awesome dinner of fresh oysters (John likes them raw and I cook mine) and mahi-mahi grilled to perfection! Love that seafood!

Park location.

St. Joseph Peninusula

We left Destin late morning and took our time driving to St. Joseph Peninsula State Park. This is a very narrow and long piece of land and feels more like an island. You will notice on the map that it is positioned north and south. There is a trail down the middle and one that goes all around the northern tip. The park covers about 6 miles in length.

We walked along the shore on Sunday when the waves were still really huge from the storm. Then on Monday we rode our bikes into the nearest populated area (can't really call it a town as there was only one store) which was a 14 mile round trip (my butt is still sore!!) then walked the center trail about 1mile and cut over to the shore on the inland side to walk back.

Then today we rode our bikes around the camp grounds until it warmed up enough to sit on the beach and enjoy the warm weather finally!! When it started cooling down, we hiked about 3 miles along the beach. White sand, shells, seagulls, wind and the ocean air -- jealous yet?!

Here is the park on the map.

Henderson State Park in Destin

The entrance to this park is right across the highway from a huge Walmart and shopping center but to experience the place you would never know they were there.

We pulled in around 2 PM on Friday and jumped out of the coach so we could take a walk on the beach. The gulf is so nice and the sand is so white! It's still a little on the chilly side but a whole lot better than MO weather. Unfortunately on Saturday it rained cats and dogs. Not much to do in the rain so we took off in the Jeep exploring after lunch and then took in a late matinee. Yes, you heard right, John stepped foot into a movie theatre! We saw Avatar -- what a cool movie. We highly recommend it to any who has not yet seen it.

The park is here.

Destin

Here is Pam in her Mardi Gras Prop. We left New Orleans Friday morning having gorged ourself with more po'boys and drove over to Destin. We are staying at Henderson State Park. Very nice, right smack in the middle of Destin. Unfortunately the weather has been very rainy. We took one walk on the beach Friday afternoon before we were forced inside. At least it's not that cold, in the high 50s. John got so bored that he voluntarily went to the movies yesterday. Even he was impressed with the 3D movie Avatar.

This is where we are currently camped.

The sun has finally peaked out of the clouds and the weather is supposed to be good the next few days. We are breaking camp now to head about 2 hours east to St Joseph State Park. There they have one of the top 10 beaches in the USA. Hopefully it will be warm enough to enjoy.

New Orleans -- FOOD!

I think the only reason John wanted to come to New Orleans is so he could eat! I guess he didn't get enough over the holidays!

We rolled into town on Monday, Jan 11 and found this great campground just 2 blocks from the French Quarters. Our first stop in town was Johnny's for gumbo and shrimp po'boy sandwiches! Melt in your mouth delicious!

For suppers we have eaten at Antoine's, Irene's, and Jagerhaus. Lunches and breaks at Napoleon House and Acme Oyster Bar. Tomorrow is Cafe Du Monde's for beignets and back to Johnny's for a great po'boy sandwich.

I played tour guide and made John walk all through the French Quarter with the AAA guide book. Today we hiked out to Blaine Kern's Mardi Gras World where 80% of all the parade floats are made. Tomorrow we are going to explore the St. Louis #1 Cemetery. And of course, we had to wash the RV.

Got back from sightseeing this afternoon to discover wet carpet. Our water pump had sprung a leak. John was able to determine what part needed replacing but after several phone calls no luck. We did find a mobile repair service that will be here at dawn tomorrow for only $150, just for the mileage. Hopefully they will have no problems repairing the leak.

Sorry there are no pictures -- we kept forgetting to take the camera with us.

Click here for our a map of our location.

Happy New Year 2010

Happy New Year to all our friends! We had a really hard time getting our of the snow and cold. Not because we waited too long but because the snow and cold settled in on Christmas Day and didn't go away!

We were pretty lucky to get a nice warm day (20°) to pack the RV. We had an electric heater keeping the rig 30 degrees warmer than the outside temp and when it was only 5 that wasn't all that warm! Then we had to use a hairdryer to get the ice off the bumper to get the Jeep hitched and then the wiring for the lights on the Jeep were so cold they wouldn't work!

We couldn't wait to get out of MO! And down to New Orleans where its warm!

But the cold followed us south! More on that next.