Highland Hammock State Park

We did a lot of bike riding in the park and exploring the hiking trails. Today we moved the camper from one site to another since we couldn't string a week in one campsite. Gary and Bev are taking ownership of the camper for the next week, and when we get back from our cruise we will meet them in Flamingo at the southern tip of Everglades National Park for another week of camping.
Nancy and I are in Fort Lauderdale tonight at a Staybridge Suites Motel and will be catching a flight out of the airport here to fly to San Juan and board our cruise ship there. We will be sailing in the Caribbean for the next week and will get back next Saturday.
I am not sure if I will have access to the internet while on the cruise, so it might be a week before I can post again. Otherwise I will put a few pictures on the blog at my earliest opportunity.
This is the first time I have had to interrupt a vacation to go on a cruise!!

Happy days to everyone.

One of the few critters we have seen so far, this gopher tortoise was wandering around the campground on Thursday. He's about a foot long. We also saw a couple of armadillos on Wednesday evening, but I didn't get their picture!

Bev put in about six miles of trail  riding with us on Thursday.

The Florida treetops.

This old oak trunk is estimated to be a thousand years old. The top is gone, and there is a small palm tree growing out of the top.

Not quite the size of a California Redwood, but still pretty impressive.

There is a museum dedicated to the Civilian Conservation Corp at Highland Hammock State Park. The Corp was responsible for developing hundreds of parks throughout the country in the 1930's including Highland Hammock and North Higgins Lake State Park in Michigan.

Highland Hammock State Park near Sebring Florida

We moved again on Tuesday to Highland Hammock State Park. The weather finally seems like Florida with lots of sunshine and warmth. The temperature is in the upper seventies. Bev and Gary joined up with us yesterday and are spending the next couple of days with us. We are having fun together and doing our bike riding and exploring together.
We are in mid Florida here on our way to the ZEverglades after our cruise which we leave for on Saturday morning. Bev and Gary are using the camper for the week we are gone, and then we will spend time together at Flamingo and then in the keys.
Life is good and now snow.
Hope everyone is doing well back in the north country and wherever else they might be.

Relaxing the day away at Hillsborougbh River State Park

We are near Tampa today at HRSP and enjoying a nice sunny day. Temperature is about sixty five and calm. We did some bike riding and walking around the campground. It looks like a nice river for kayaking, but I am too lazy to unload the kayaks for one ride. We are moving to Highland Hammock State Park tomorrow near Sebring.
Yesterday we moved camp from Lake Louisa and when we got here we did a return trip to the fairgrounds and the RV show for the afternoon. We are trying to key in on a new camper for next year and it is easy to compare the brands at a big show like this.

One of the small lakes at Lake Louisa State Park. We did use the kayaks here!

A memorial to a WWII pilot who crashed into the lake during a training exercise in 1944. They recently found some wreckage from the plane when water levels revealed a portion of the lake bottom.

Rodeo clowns performing at the camper show.

Nancy doing her comparison shopping in one of the fifth wheels. These are a long way from tent camping!!

Who wouldn't mind roughing it in a rig like this!! All the conveniences of home plus a queen-size bed and flat screen TV's!

Catching Up

We enjoyed the  camper show and saw so many fifth wheels and trailers we got a good feel for the various brands and styles. Today we ran a few errands then relaxed around camp. We had a beautiful sunshiny day for a change. It looks like that will continue for the next week. Finally!!

Driving into St Joseph Peninsula State Park, the roads were deserted like we've never seen them. The park was two thirds empty.

 

Walking on the beach on the Gulf. White sand not snow!!

 

We saw dolphins in the ocean while on our hike on Tuesday.

 

One of the motorhomes at the Tampa RV show. $1,464,000 with $36,000 in options!!

 

 

Nancy looks at home in one of the fifth wheels we liked. (Priced a bit below the motor home shown above).

 

 

One of the lakes at Lake Louisa State Park.

Thursday at Lake Louisa

We made it to the new campground by 5:30 and got set up before nightfall. The park is nice and just about full. This camp is only a few minutes from Orlando and Disney World so a lot of people must use it for a home base while visiting the park. We are right off of US27 so it is easy to get anywhere from here. We can do our shopping and get the LP tank filled while we are here. We've got a lot of exploring to do.
Today we are driving in to Tampa to walk around the Florida RV and Camper Super show! It's at the Florida State Fairgrounds at I75 and I4. We want to take a look at the different brands of campers to see what we might look to buy this year. We are hoping to have a new unit for next years winter trip. (Just looking for now and not buying today).
We managed to get a little better weather here and it is supposed to be seventy for the next couple of days. Maybe we will get those kayaks in the water yet!!
Hope all is well.

Moving On!

We decided to shorten our stay at St Joseph Peninsula and we added a couple of days to our next stop. We’re hoping that by moving south to the Orlando area we will get better weather. Our next camp is at Lake Louise not far from Disney World. It is a new campground for us, but we have heard it is a nice park.

We’ve stayed busy here and took a long hike yesterday towards the end of the peninsula. It’s a long hike to get to the end (about eight miles each way), so we only went in about three miles and then walked the beach back. We did not see a single person the entire way, and only a couple of sets of human footprints. There were a lot of deer tracks and bobcat tracks in the sand. The white sand is so bright in this area it almost seems like you are walking in snow. By the time we got back at the truck near the entry to the wilderness area it was getting pretty warm out. We had lunch and then went down to the seashore from camp. I took a fishing rod and we each had our chairs. After sitting a while the sky darkened and the temperature started to drop with a new wave of clouds. Nancy had to go back and get some warmer clothes. Our neighbor came down with his fishing gear and we both soaked lines for a couple of hours, but to no avail.

Later in the evening we played games with Jack and Mary O’Brien from Grandville, Michigan, and then went back to camp for the night.

 

Today is Elizabeth's interview to get accepted to college in Pittsburgh! Let's all wish her the best!!

Camping at St Joe

We are getting into the camping mode and enjoying being outside most of the day. We have been doing a lot of walking and are also starting to get our biking legs working again. We haven’t had much sunshine, but it’s in the sixties so being outside is still nice. We have met some folks that we have seen at St Joseph Peninsula before, including some volunteers that hail from Grandville, near Muskegon. Jack and I did some surf fishing yesterday, but the fish were not biting. I am trying to learn what equipment I’ll need and am looking forward to getting some use out of my first annual Florida saltwater fishing license. Nancy is enjoying her walks and biking and just being able to stay active outdoors.

We are getting things organized in the camper and doing little projects to fix problems and get things cleaned up in our old cabin. Everything is working (so far, knock on wood!), except for the battery charging system, but I replaced that with a new battery charger and it looks like that will get us through. It is so quiet here since the campground is quite empty. We spend time on the beach and there is no one in sight a lot of the time. I suppose all of the crowds are further south where the temperature is warmer. We have had a lot of fog yesterday and overnight. I’m hoping for some clearing today.

I hope this note finds everyone well and having a good winter.

Camping at St Joseph Penninsula State Park

We crossed the Florida state line at 11:30 yesterday morning and got into our campground about three. It's pretty quiet here with only about a third of the campsites occupied. When we drove to the park it was eerie that the road was so deserted. Most of the crowds must be further south where the weather is better. The temperatures here are in the sixties for highs this weekend and touching seventy early next week. They aren't predicting much sunshine until late next week, and possibly a few showers, but at least it should be liquid and I won't have to shovel.
We will take time to get into the camping groove again and get everything organized in our small house this week. So far everything is working OK in our 21 year old trailer. We are looking closely at all of the other campers and trying to figure out what to look for in a new unit for next year.
Our WiFi signal at the campsite is pretty weak, so I can't post any pictures today. I will as soon as I can get more power.
Hope everyone is well. Send us and e-mail when you get a chance. It's nice to hear from you.

Almost to Florida

Our first night in the camper!! We had two heaters going to warm everything up and defrost all of the cupboards and closets. Everything that was liquid was frozen including mouthwash, cooking oil, and juice.
We spent the first two nights in hotels, but tonight we are at Frank Jackson State Park in OPP, Alabama. This is a really nice park with campsites on a lake. The only problem is it's only 34 degrees out, going down to 25 tonight.

Tomorrow we move to St Joseph Peninsula where it's supposed to be a balmy 50 degrees. Travelling has been very good with dry roads and lots of sunshine. Its been an easy and scenic drive on I65.

We heard there is about ten inches of new snow at home. Pease keep it there. I'm glad we left when we did.

 

 

We had sunshine and dry roads until the last hour when we drove through enough rain to wash the salt off of the truck and camper.

 

Cotton growing in a field near our campground.

 

The first camp of the trip at Frank Jackson State Park just north of the Florida border in Alabama.

 

The campsites all faced the lake here. This would be a great place in warmer weather!!

 

The park was about two thirds full although we hardly saw anybody outside. It was 34 degrees when we arrived here.

 

 

 

Forging South through the Cold

We left our hotel this morning when it was two degrees out. We drove through Indiana and into Tennessee, and are now at Decatur Alabama. We lost the snow about an hour south of Indianapolis but any water has ice on it. We got in to our hotel at about five thirty and the temperature was 30 degrees. Quite an improvement from the past two days, but not the warmth we are hoping to find. We had sunshine and dry roads all day today which made for a very nice drive through some picturesque country. Driving through the hills in Tennessee and Alabama was quite scenic. Beautiful vistas especially if you are into the color brown! It looks like November in Michigan. We had a nice dinner at Red Lobster and are relaxing at the hotel for the evening.
Not much in the way of pictures today since all we did was to drive on the freeway.

 

Sunny skies and dry pavement made for smooth sailing and good time. Traffic was steady but not overwhelming.

 

The rocky sides of the freeway had icicles hanging from the ledges where water was seeping from the rock and freezing.

 

It was a nice drive today, but we are anxious for warm weather and to hit a campground.

Back on the road again!!

We took a huge leap of faith by leaving home on the icy roads this morning after finishing packing the camper and shutting down the house. I knew the roads were bad because I drove into Cedar to drop off our recycling collection. I told Nancy I would try the long haul to Indianapolis if she would promise to not climb on the dashboard each time the back tires slipped on the ice.
We drove on snow and ice packed roads all the way to US131 south of Cadillac. Even M115 was completely covered with snow! It was a long journey to Indy and our hotel for the night, but (thank God), we made it without incident. Even the new kayaks behaved themselves on the roof and didn't make a peep.
The temperature when we left home was 3 degrees. When we got to Cadillac it was four degrees. When we hit Grand Rapids it was 10 for a minute, but at the Indiana border it was 4 degrees again. We hit Indy at 3 below and are wondering if this trend will continue all the way to Florida?!? It will be funny to see the Gulf frozen over.
Here are a couple of pictures from the day. Don't say we are afraid of a little adventure!

Getting ready to get out of Dodge in the Dodge.

 

A view of the roads we traveled for the first two and a half hours. Now I know how the Ice Road Truckers feel.

 

Hope everyone is well. We will keep you posted of our trip when time and WiFi connectivity allow. We are looking forward to a fun filled four months of vacation.