Florida

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Well here I am again, way behind in the blogging, so will try to catch up to things we have seen and been doing. We moved further into centre Florida just after xmas to a campground near lake Okeechobee. The campground was very nice and people much friendlier. They had a New Years Eve Dance , everyone just brought an appetizer and your own drinks. We were probably the youngest ones there by at least 7 to 20 years, music was not very good but a good time was had by all. This is sugar cane, orange groves and cattle country as well as the fastest growing college sport in the US, nope you would not guess it, it is Bass tournament Fishing. All along our travels we have seen alot of road kill mostly racoon and deer, but in Florida there was a first for us turtle, armadillo and an otter. Ok back to travels. From Lake Okeechobee we went south and west to Fort Meyers on the gulf of Mexico. Here we went to an RV place to have the brakes checked (a lot of squealing going on) and sure enough we need new brakes all around so its going to be 5 days to wait for parts so we find a campground where chuck said he fit the 5th wheel in with a shoe horn. Here we left the trailer for 2 days and travelled further south into Everglades City, which is not very big but all tourist oriented. We went to the "world famous" Oyster House and had one of the worst meals ever. The next day we took a jungle airboat tour through the swamp where pelicans landed on the boat starring at us waiting for food, we saw lots of other birds and a family of racoons as well as a couple of huge alligators. One of these alligators was on a little beach and he was about 10 feet ong I walked down to get a better picture and he turned and started walking to me I left in a hurry. And I must not forget we saw the nostrils of a manatee, so exciting. Then we did a swamp board walk and I actually held a 4 foot alligator (with a rubber band across its jaws) still I felt I was very brave,ok well for me. Our guide told us there are hardly any deaths by alligator probably only one or two a year, sheesh. Then it was back to Fort Meyers and move to a better campground. Still waiting for parts so a trip to Captiva and Sannabel Islands. Here we were surprised to find a place called Doc Fords Rum Bar and Restaurant, this is a character in books from one of our favorite authors Randy Wayne White and he lives there. We bought a couple of books and had an excellent lunch. The Islands are very narrow with huge mansions and not as interesting as we had hoped they would be. Finally the parts are in and we waited from 8 am to 3:30pm and we are on the road again. We drove 4 hours to Bushnell and were hosted by WalMart for the night. Next morning we are on the road early at 7:30 and by 8:00 we were sitting on the side of I 75 with a dead truck. Here i have to say that when we were in Tennessee I bought a road side service through Good Sam for $79.00 as I figured we were going to be in the states for quite awhile. Well it certainly paid off, after waiting and numerous phone calls as well as having to have the firetrucks come out and tell them we were not a danger to a tow truck, we were finally towed to a garage about 3:00pm. The tow cost us nothing but I cringe thinking about the phone bill. Yeah that was a fun day. However, the towtruck man was very nice and had a great sense of humour and a wonderful sergeant from Florida Highway Patrol helped to put a little sunny perspective back into the day. Then the garage people where great letting me open the 5th wheel slides and all as we did not know how long it would be he even offered to take me downtown if I needed anything. After all this time it turned out to be a fuel filter that had cracked they replaced it and we were back on the road at 4:30pm. This time only down the road a half hour to another Walmart for the night. We left Inverness in the morning and headed up the coast past Tallahassee to Defuniak Springs in the Florida pan handle. This was a beautiful campground on the lake and we stayed 2 days just relaxing. We were not sad to be leaving Florida the next day and it was certainly not one of our favourite states, as well as being one of the most expensive. We were surprised to note the country side is not all that attractive for the most part and very flat, There are lots of trees and a very noxcious vine called Kudzu which can grow up to a foot a day in ideal conditions and it covers alot of other trees and shrubs choking them out. So now it is on to New Orleans and Louisianna. This next part of the trip will follow promptly, I promise. Travelblog has changed its format for adding pictures and I can't figure it out so no pictures here you can go into my facebook and see them though.

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