Home Again, but a bit early.

We were forced to come home early this year due to the rampant spread of the virus. The Florida State Parks were the first to close, then after we switched a reservation to a private park they also closed and refunded our money. We were able to finish our camping at Fort Desoto county campground at St Pete Beach, but then Fort Pickens national park closed their camps. We finally gave up and started for Michigan.
The drive home and the three campgrounds we used were fairly quiet, but the traveling was easy and gas stations were opened although also deserted.Gas prices were lower than we've seen them in decades at just $1.25 per gallon in Kentucky!
We are now home and trying to get acclimated while self quarantining for a couple of weeks. The weather was beautiful when we got back, but after a couple of days it cooled off quite a bit and now were seeing highs only in the thirties. We are sooo waiting for a warm-up!!

Even more pictures...

It's been a while since I've been able to post pictures with a good signal. I had a lot of catching up to do!

This is a picture of the beach in front of our resort at low tide. It was near a six foot tide and the water would disappear at low tide. Six hours later it was all water again right up to our resort.

A picture from the strand that was built from the dredging of the new canal locks. The connected the mainland to one of the near offshore islands.

A skyline view from the causeway.

A view from the balcony of our room at the last resort we stayed at in Panama. 

The same view after dark.

Now we return to the states and Myaka river state park. 

I'm ending this post with some Florida critter pictures.

Gators, gators everywhere at Myaka River,

Raccoons were abundant too. They raided a fishing cooler I keep at camp and stole all of my fish bait!

We saw turkeys strutting and calling.

The pink Roseate Spoonbills are always a crowd favorite.

A couple of black necked stilts and a willet.

Feral hogs are taking over the park despite traps set everywhere to try and re-locate them.

A bald eagle on the shore of Myaka River.

Paddling Lake Myaka 

More pictures from Panama. (see the start of this post below this one)

More pics....

A rainbow toucan. These are the best!

Here we are on the ferry we took through the Panama locks. We are cruising the canal through the continental divide. The canal enters from both oceans, the Pacific and Caribbean and rises through three locks on each end into Lake Gatun. This lake spans the Isthmus of Panama and was created by damming the rivers that flow down from the higher elevations to the north and south. 

Here we are entering the locks with a 61 foot catamaran and a small ship. The canal autority tries to maximize the use of the locks by filling them with smaller boats in between the large vessels that fill a lock all by themselves.

This is the same lock after letting the water out to lower us just over thirty feet. Lake Gatun is 85 feet above sea level and the three locks at each end of the canal raise and lower the ships from sea level.

One of the shipping docks along the canal. They unload the container ships here.

The museum of Biodiversity in Panama City. This was part of our tour and we learned a lot about the world and the country of Panama.

The city skyline. This city has one of the biggest number of high rises in North America.

The skyline behind one of the sea side resorts.

We saw three anteaters below our balcony in the rainforest.

Another ferry ride on the lake. Going to see the native people.

We visited a village and saw how the people lived here decades ago.

A poison frog at the visitor center of the Eco park.

And another! Poison darts, anyone?

A sloth at the Sloth rehabilitation center.

Our resort on the Pacific.

Catching up Finally!

Hoping to I finally have a Wi Fi signal and can start getting some pictures posted. We are at Oscar Scherers State Park near Osprey Florida just south of Sarasota.

Ruins of the old city of Panama from the early 1500's. The old city was abandoned in the 17th century and much of the building materials scavenged to build new dwellings in the new city.

The modern skyline behind the tower in the old city.

The ruins and original city site have been preserved as Panamá la Vieja

A cruise ship entering the Pnama Canal locks.

This enormous cruiser filled the lock completely. We were told that a cruise ship like this will pay approximately $400,000 to pass through the Panama Canal.

The bulk of the traffic through the canal consists of cargo ships such as this one, that transport goods across the globe.

The huge container ships pay the highest tolls to use the canal. To date the highest toll for a single ship was in excess of 1.2 million dollars!!

Here we are getting ready to take a ferry onto the lake at the high point of the canal system.

We saw white faced monkeys and the guides were feeding them grapes to get them to come aboard.

Tamirin monkeys liked papaya

Another tamarin monkey. 

This is our group getting ready to board the tour bus. Caravan uses comfortable new buses for their tours,

This is the grounds of our hotel in the rainforest of Panama. We were near Gamboa Eco park.

One of the species of toucans we saw at the rainforest hotel.

My travelling companion.

Back to Camping in Florida

We ended our trip to Panama last Wednesday. Flying back to Miami took most of the day since we had to coordinate a shuttle to the airport and our 2:45 flight and then a shuttle back to the hotel in Miami.We started from our resort in Panama at 10 am and got to our hotel in Miami at 7pm.  All this for a two hour flight!
Panama was a great experience. We had a cruise through three of the locks in the canal (we shared the locks with a 61 foot catamaran and a small ship. They try to fill up the locks so as not to waste time and water). When we flew in to Panama I counted sixty ships anchored at sea waiting to enter the Panama Canal!
We stayed at a beautiful beachfront resort for a couple of nights and a resort in the rainforest for a couple more. The other hotels were in Panama City and were very nice although not a lot to do around them.
Our tour was good and the food was great, but we were a little disappointed that we didn't see more of the country of Panama. Our tour concentrated on the canal and we were confined to the sixty miles between the Caribbean and the Pacific oceans.
Panama City was very impressive with almost two hundred high rise skyscrapers making up the skyline. About two million people live in the city and it was quite busy.
The rainforest was beautiful and we saw monkeys and sloths. One of our days we took a boat ride on Gatun Lake and visited a tribe of indigenous people. One had t wonder though how much of what we saw was a nostalgic recreation of how the people lived decades ago. They now made their living from selling trinkets and crafts to the tourists who came to see them.
We left Miami and picked up our camper on Thursday and spent two nights at Highland Hammock Sate Park near Sebring, and are now at Myaka River State Park for five nights. I have a WiFi signal at the cafe here at the park, but not strong enough to post pictures from our trip. I will catch up as soon as I can.

The Florida Everglades

This is our fourth trip to the Everglades and we're spending seven nights at Flamingo. The last time we were here was in the spring before the 2017 hurricane came through. There was some damage that we could see coming in. Some of the mangroves have been choked out by salt infiltration and sediment build-up. Areas looked dead and quite sad. The campground was intact, and we have a nice site. The restaurant and visitor center at Flamingo lost their roof and mold became a problem. The are both closed down pending renovation. The conscionaires that run the boat rentals and tours and the cafe are building a new facility where the old resort was west of the current boat launch. They are scheduled to open in two years.
Everything else is as always, and we have been touring all of the attractions in the park. It's always nice to be here. The bugs are quite scarce and its no problem to be outside. Last time we were here nobody ventured out of their campers!
We have only a few more days and wee fly out of Miami to Panama City for our tour of the Panama Locks. Probably will not be posting for a while, but I will be taking pictures to post on our return.

The roof blew off of the visitors center and restaurant at Flamingo.

The gulls were waiting for a tour.

This american crocodile was guarding the entrance to the boat launch on Florida Bay

New eco shelters at the campground on the bay.

This hawk was patrolling the campground.

Hurricane damage at West Lake's boardwalk.

Kayaking out to Coot Bay

This was a mini-croc. Only about eighteen inches long.

Dwarf Cypress forest in the glades.

A heron at Royal Palm visitor center. Not as much wildlife this year. Probably since there is more water and they are dispersed over a larger area.

Air plants blooming.