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Published: March 10th 2007
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Hi Everyone. I am going to apologise in advance for the vagueness of this blog. I usually write bits as we go along but at one stage we had no electricity or internet reception so I'm just getting around to it all now and dates are starting to get muddled.
On our 2nd last day in Tampa, Russ and I spent the day at Busch Gardens, a theme park with rollercoasters galore. I've attached a pic of 'Sheikra', a 3 minute thrill ride with a 90 degree drop straight down. That's right, straight down. The worst bit of the ride is when they dangle you over the edge for a bit so you're looking at the drop but the drop itself isn't too bad. We actually went to the park twice but the wait time for Sheikra was a bit long the 2nd time so once was enough for me.
The following day we packed up our stuff and made our way south to the Everglades and Miami. The trip went well with us arriving in Fort Lauderdale in peak hour traffic. We made our way to an area where we could park and find somewhere to stay the
Sheikra
3/4 of Sheikra as taken from the Skyride which freaked Russ out more then Sheikra did. night. We soon discovered that accommodation was pretty much impossible but we did manage to find a campground with 1 whole night available so made our way there. In the end I was glad we could only stay the night as we were 15cm away from the next RV that had kids in it and I don't know how I would have taken being awoken from them more then one day in a row. As we got into Ft. Lauderdale late we didn't have time to do much, but we did take a drive around and have a look at all the beautiful houses that lined the city, how depressing to then have to go home to your RV 😊
After our one night we made our way to our next pit stop, Gator Park in the Everglades. For $10/night we had somewhere to park and that was it. No electricity, no water, no sewer. We had filled up with water in Ft. Lauderdale and had our gas and inverter so it wasn't too bad. The closest neighbours were 20m away and we got to fall asleep and wake up with the animals. The mozzies though on the other
hand drove Russell crazy. They didn't seem to like my meat but he was constantly getting harassed by them. It's very hard to get to sleep when someone keeps jumping up to kill one buzzing by.
Whilst we were at Gator Park we decided to spend $20 and go on one of their airboat tours. We had been looking forward to this but were a bit let down afterwards. We were taken out into the Everglades where we sat and listened to the tour boat operator talk about the Everglades which was fine but I think we were expecting to see a bit more the Everglades then we did. The $20 also included a show with some animals and I was one of the lucky ones who got to hold a scorpion.
We touched on the outskirts of Miami a little but I wasn't that impressed and much preferred the outer regions.
The following day, the 27th February, we got up at 4.30am or thereabouts to make an early start on our trip down to the Florida Keys. We had done this trip earlier in the week but got there too late so we wanted plenty of
time to explore the area. Roughly 3.5-4 hours and a Macca's breakfast stop later we arrived in Key West where Russell promptly hired a scooter for us to explore the island. Our neighbours at Gator Park had told us to park at the 3 Mile marker and rent a scooter and Russ did just that. Talk about excited 😊 He has been harping at me for years to hire a scooter when we go to the Gold Coast but that has never really interested me as I know what the Gold Coast looks like but he was just so darn excited I couldn't say no. He was in his element scootering around the place and I must say, it is definitely the only way to get around the place. The streets are so narrow and there is nowhere to park in a car that if I lived there I'd be buying us scooters. Key West is so beautiful with it's white sand beaches and beautiful blue oceans. I never wanted to leave but leave we did early afternoon and we took back a souvenir, a nasty sunburn each. We hadn't considered getting burnt unfortunately but the red has made way
for a nice brown but I'll be white again soon no doubt.
After spending a week relaxing in the Everglades we decided to make our way north back to Orlando where we knew we had mail coming in for us. Our registration tags had expired and we didn't want to give the police any reason to pull us over. We booked in at East Lake Fishing Camp in Orlando for a week and spent our days eating donuts, checking our mail and doing research online about where our next destination might be.
Stay tuned for the next instalment, you don't want to miss it...trust me.
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Nikki
non-member comment
hi ya
Hi deb and russ Your trip sounds so great i wish i were in your shoes. I wish the sheikra was there when i went 11 yrs ago, i went on the kumba though that was great. You both look extremely happy and healthy its nice to see. Loving reading you blogs keep up the great writing. Nikki