Wheelin' and Rockin' with DIanE

Settle in. I have lots to cover. ☺️

After a busy few weeks, Long Pines Key campground in the Everglades National Park was beautifully calm and quiet. Mostly, we were alone to listen to the birds and crickets. The park itself is (from Wikipedia) “1.5 million acres of tropical and subtropical habitat with one of the world’s most diverse ecosystems”.

We didn’t see the endangered Florida Panther, but the road signs indicate there are at least a few around:

I did see this big guy, every day I went biking:

Tuesday: Touring the Florida Keys

The forecast wasn’t looking good for any day except Wednesday, so when we woke up to a sunny Tuesday morning, we headed out for a tour of the Florida Keys. Accompanied by a playlist of Jimmy Buffet and Jack Johnson, we stopped at a few places on our day trip from Key Largo to Marathon, about half-way through the Keys. The string of islands offers everything from kitschy art shops and monster lobsters, to beautiful beaches. We had lunch at a waterfront grill, where I passed on the local favourite drink, the Margarita. On our way back home though, my sweet tooth could not pass on key lime pie straight from “the factory”.

We got home late in the afternoon, happy to find the solar system working as expected, and, literally, keeping the lights on.

Wednesday: Airboat Ride

E booked us in for an Everglades airboat tour at Gator Park. Our very entertaining guide, Al, showboated a bit with some fancy spins in the canals, stopping often to show us wildlife (more gators, lots of birds, no venomous snakes today) and to explain about the vegetation (sawgrass is more interesting than I would’ve thought 😀).

We followed our airboat ride up with the Wildlife Show, where another funny guy, John, educated us on alligators, with a few along to help with the demos. ☺️

Again, we came home to find all good with the solar system.

Thursday to Saturday: Hanging Out and Getting Ready to Leave

Thursday and Friday, we had no scheduled outings. I wanted to do more biking, and E was going kayaking. With almost 6 weeks on the road, these hanging out days are good to refresh for the driving and touring days.

We did bike/kayak, but spent our mornings a little differently than expected. After two successful two days with the solar system, I woke up on Thursday morning to find us without power…lights out, fridge out, etc. After waking up E with the words, “We’ve got a problem”, he connected the RV to the truck to get some initial power. The truck is not supposed to idle for more than a few minutes, so after a small boost to the system, all we could do was wait for the sun to do its job. Let’s just say that I didn’t get my “morning” Keurig coffee until about 1 p.m. The system reached 100% within a few hours, but when the sun went down, we watched our voltage numbers drop quickly. After packing the refrigerator in ice, we had a quiet evening reading by light of the Kobos.

Friday was a repeat of Thursday.

Saturday morning was, again, the same deal. Since we were leaving that day anyway, we decided to pack up and hit the road by 8:00. We’d get to Tarpon/Clearwater by 3:30. As usual at this point, E went out to get power via the truck. I knew it was going to be a long day when he returned and said the words, “We’ve got a problem.” 😳

The truck had a flat tire. E had a very long, hard morning changing the tire in the hot sun, followed by a trip into town for air. On top of that we had a few problems hitching the RV to the truck. There was a frantic moment when the rear jacks started to raise before we were expecting them to.

We finally got on the road about noon, so arrived in Clearwater just after 6. It just so happened that E’s Leafs were in town playing Tampa that night. He had wanted to actually attend the game, but with the late arrival (not to mention the long day), that wasn’t possible. We made the best of it, unpacked and set up in record time, and found a great sports bar nearby.

Spoiler alert! We believe the solar issue was user-error. We’re not exactly sure what it was, but it’s working fine in St. Joe. 😊

Stay posted – Di