January 3, 2022
Slept in the morning until 8 am. Then got up and got going. Left our campsite at 10 am and headed across the bottom of Florida. Drove through tribal lands and the Everglades. At times it almost had a ghostly feel to it.
We headed down to Everglades City and went on Captain Jack’s Airboat tour. We flew through swamp on the airboat. I am not one who likes boats much but I had a blast.
The mangrove trees we flew past were called walking trees by the Indian because of how their root system looks. The seeds from these trees were believed to have been blown over from Africa thousand of years ago. They grow in the salt water but each tree has a few yellow leaves which are the sacrificial leaves. They soak up the salt from the water allowing the rest of the tree to flourish. The water has a dark muddy look due the chemical the trees release. We did see one alligator on our airboat tour.
After our tour we ate lunch in the RV before heading out. We had planned to boondocks either at Wal-Mart or one of the rest stops because we could not find an affordable RV park as we started up the West side of Florida. As we were driving I keep looking up stuff and found an RV park off the beaten track. I called and they were reasonable priced and had one spot left with water and electricity only. We took it and what a delight this campground is.
We didn’t arrive until 5:30 pm so the office was closed but they have a place where they keep your reservation information. I jumped out of the RV to get it. While I sorted through to find our reservation Frank decided to follow me out. He left the keys in the ignition and shut the door behind him. Apparently one of us had hit the door lock and so the door locked behind him. When locked this way we can’t use our keyless pad to enter the RV. So we were stuck outside, it was cool and windy and no one was around. So we had to get creative. The campground had rockers sitting in front of the building and Frank had left the driver’s window open. So we dragged the rocker over to the window, due to my short arms I held the rocker steady while Frank climb up on the arm of the chair stretched through the window and was able to get one finger through the ring of the keys and pull them out of the ignition. We both agreed no more leaving the RV without the keys in hand.
Got to our campsite and there were all sorts of animals across from our RV. We had to go out for a walk immediately and see them before it got dark. There were deer, zebras, buffaloes, ostriches and more. We took a stroll around the campground. This one is on a working farm and truly a gem. We finally got dinner about 7 pm and just zapped some frozen dinners.
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