We pulled into Everglades National Park on Christmas Eve, with just enough time before sunset to walk around the Long Pine Key Campground and make all sorts of great plans for the two full days we had planned in the park.  However, the weather gods had other plans, and Christmas Day dawned, sort of, but not really with what we had planned for south Florida.  The entire day was in the 50s, pissing down rain for most of the day, and basically utterly miserable.  We ventured out a few times to walk the dogs around the campground, but only for a mile or so at a time before retreating to the camper to get warm and dry.  The day wasn’t a total loss; the ever-efficient Tom finished a project he’d been working on for a while, and we now have a charging shelf in the hall closet so we don’t have to shuffle cords from the bed to the counter and back every morning and evening, and they’re not in a constantly tangled mess, visibly, at least.  The nasty weather was also a good excuse to take advantage of the good AT&T reception at the campground, and we were able to watch Christmas specials on TV as I was making dinner.

Unfortunately, the next day wasn’t a whole lot nicer.  We managed to get the dogs out for a longer walk, and we managed to get out for an even longer walk on the Long Pine Keys Trail, but after an hour or so out in the cold and damp, we retreated to the camper and I made tea or figured out something to cook that required turning on the oven.

​After spending the two days we had planned to spend in the park mostly trying to stay warm, we decided to book another two nights in the park so we could do some of the things we had planned to do when the weather cleared.  The campground is exceedingly well run, so when I asked for two more nights, they asked if we minded moving, which, of course, we didn’t, and two more nights were easy to book.  We then spent our next two days doing what we had planned to do for Christmas Day and Boxing Day

The next day, we decided to get our new e-bikes out and take a ride.  First, I have to say, I love my new e-bike.  With my shit knees, I haven’t really been able to comfortably ride a bike for fifteen or 20 years.  I’m perfectly capable of riding the bike, but the recovery period made it not really worth it.  The e-bike takes just enough pressure off my knees that I can cruise along, and actually sleep that night and walk without limping the next day.  I hate to admit it, but we got e-bikes that are marketed to “older” people, and they’re absolutely perfect.

Anyway, we looked at maps and talked to the rangers, and decided to ride out the back side of the campground and head for the Old Ingraham Highway.  The whole ride ended up being about 25 miles, partially on roads, and partially on very clear trails.  We went towards the Nike Missile Site, which didn’t really offer much to see, then we went down the Old Ingraham Highway, which is closed to vehicles but open to hikers and bikers.  We pedaled nonchalantly along, until Tom heard a big splash on the side of the trail.  We stopped and were looking in the water at the side of the trail, not seeing anything, until I looked about 20 yards ahead and saw a very large - probably 8 feet or a little more - alligator sunning itself right beside the trail. We took photos, but then weren’t sure if it was safe to pedal by, but then we saw a truck maybe 400 yards up the track, so we decided to wait and ask somebody who obviously knew what they were doing.  

Finally, after lots of opening and closing of doors and running around, whoever was in the truck got in, shut the doors, and headed in our direction.  As he passed the 'gator on the edge of the path, it flipped itself back into the water.  We waved the guy down to ask if it was safe for us to pedal past alligators on the trail side.  He said it was, and told us to just go to the edge around them, and they would stay out of our way.  He then asked us if we had seen what he was doing up the road.  We had to honestly answer that we hadn't, so he explained to us that he was a paid-by-the-state python hunter, and he had just grabbed a python by the tail as it was trying to escape into the bush.  We were sort of sad that we'd been too chicken to pedal past the alligator, because if we'd done that we would have been able to watch the real-life python hunter, but in the end we had to just ask a bunch of questions and get a bunch of advice, wish him luck in his python hunting, and continue on our way.  We went another few miles, saw a few more gators - but no pythons - and finally turned around after carting our bikes through a few mud patches which didn't appear to be ending anytime soon.  

We decided to bike back to the Royal Palms Hammock, site of the Anhinga Trail, so we could hike the trail before heading back to camp.  We had our picnic lunch in the parking lot, and then hiked the trail, which did not disappoint.  It's a very well traveled trail with lots of tourists, but it's laid out so the animals don't avoid it, and we saw lots of birds, a few fish, as well as three alligators sunning themselves well within photographing distance.  

We rode back to the campsite, loaded our bikes back into the camper, and prepared to head out the next morning.

Our plan was to leave the campsite, stop at a market some camper neighbors at John Pennekamp State Park had recommended, do some grocery shopping, and head towards the Shark Valley trail for a bike ride to the observation tower before heading to our next campsite at Monument Lake in the Big Cypress National Preserve.  The day didn't quite go as planned, but it was close enough and turned out to be a good day.

The market, Robert Is Here, far exceeded expectations.  It's the first market we've been to since we left Mexico that actually felt like a farmers' market.  The prices were, of course, far (far, far, far, far) higher than in Belize or Mexico, but the choice and quality of the produce made us a little homesick.  We bought all of the produce we'd intended to buy at the grocery store, as well as a half gallon of honey, as well as the recommended key lime milkshake for me and strawberry-mango-pineapple liquado for Tom.  We also wandered the petting zoo, which, while I generally hate those things, wasn't too bad.  The animals all seemed happy enough, and even the house full of parrots seemed to be full of healthy, happy birds.  

We stopped at a grocery store in Homestead to finigh our shopping, and then headed towards Shark Valley with the plan of doing the fifteen mile paved bike trail to the observation tower and back.  We were a little surprised when we found, on a Thursday, that not only was the Shark Valley Visitor Center parking lot full, but that there were cars lined up on both sides of the road for at least a quarter mile before and after the entrance to the visitors' center.  Needless to say, we took a pass.  We may go back tomorrow morning or Saturday morning if the weather is good and we can get moving early, but if not we'll have to reconcile ourselves to missing biking on a path that was, today, undoubtedly like biking on I95 at rush hour.

Since we couldn't stop at Shark Valley, we decided to head towards the Ochopee Post Office, the smallest post office in the United States.  It had been recommended by a friend who lives in the area, and it didn't disappoint.  A few cars were there, but we were able to walk directly to the window, buy a few postcards to send to friends who had requested them, take a few pictures, and head towards our campsite.

The Monument Lake Campground where we are now staying is nothing like the Long Pine Key Campground in the Everglades NP.  This campground is more like a county park campground, with pull-in campsites around a small and seemingly manmade lake.  It's not bad, it just doesn't feel like anything remotely related to wilderness.  Also, as we drove along the Tamiami Trail/Rt.41, I was looking out the window at the many (many, many, many) alligators sunning themselves on the banks of the canal that runs parallel to the highway.  For all the alligators we didn't see in the Everglades, we're making up for it now.  It's great as far as wildlife viewing goes, but not so great as far as my peace of mind for taking care of our dogs.  The campground welcomes dogs, but has lots of signs saying where they should and shouldn't be walked, and just across the [very narrow] road from our campsite is a roped off area by the lake with instructions to not feed the alligators.  I don't think I'm super paranoid, but the dogs are going to be walked on very short leashes very close to the camper tonight, and all three nights we are here.  That said, the campground is very quiet and nicely set in the middle of a few different ecosystems.  Tomorrow we are planning to ride our bikes as far as we're comfortable going on the Loop Road, to see what we can see.

When we're done here, we're heading to the west coast of Florida, then north, then west.  

​After scoring an unobtainable campsite in the John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park for three nights, we settled in to do whatever there was to do in the area in two days.  The first day, we took the dogs for a walk down the Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail, which basically parallels Route 1 down the length of the keys.  We didn’t feel threatened by traffic, but we also had difficulty holding a conversation due to all the loud cars and trucks going by.  We also got our e-bikes out for the first time, and rode the Heritage Trail into Key Largo proper.  It wasn’t the nicest ride we’ll ever take, but it was a great place to figure out how our bikes work and get used to them.  We also took a walk around the park, which was pretty impressive in how many activities were crammed into a relatively small place in what is basically a busy city while maintaining the illusion of being immersed in nature.  But, walking the entire perimeter of the park takes about a half hour and covers less than two miles.  That said, we really liked the park. It is right off Route 1.  It is in the middle of Key Largo, which is basically a Florida city.  But, when you’re in the park, it’s all about the activities offered.  And, at night, the traffic subsides and the campground is very quiet and peaceful.

​For the second day we were there, we decided to make the approximately 100 mile drive to Key West since we wanted to see Mile 0 of Route 1 and the most southern point of the US.  I, honestly, wasn’t expecting much.  I was pleasantly surprised.  It was 100 miles from where we were staying, but it was a really easy 100 miles on a straight road with minimal traffic and nice scenery, and Key West was way nicer than I expected.  We found a great free parking spot at a small city park around mile 1.5 on Route 1, and docked the truck so we could follow Route 1 into the town.  We somehow took a wrong turn and had to use our phones to get us to the actual Mile 0, but with help, it was easy.  After taking the obligatory Mile 0 photo, we walked to the Zachary Taylor park, which had been recommended to us by a ranger at Timucuan.  We were really pleasantly surprised at the park, which, besides allowing photos at the very tip of Key West, also has a reconstructed turn-of-the-century fort which was fascinating in both its location and its history.  We walked back through the town and found our truck, and had an uneventful drive back to the campground where we spent one more night before departing the keys the next morning.

​Christmas Eve morning, we visited Biscayne National Park.  Unfortunately for us, we did this during the country’s bomb cyclone weather event, which, while it didn’t bring blizzards and horrible weather to southern Florida, did bring weather in the low 50s with high winds which made enjoying what is primarily a marine park impractical.  Most of this park is under the surface of the ocean, and the best way to see it is by diving or snorkeling or kayaking, all of which would have been unpleasant.  So, we walked through the very nice visitor center and wandered the board walk along the ocean, looking at both the marine life under the boardwalk and the distant view of Miami, before heading to the Everglades National Park, which is where we are now camped.

We left Poinsett State Park with our next planned stop in Heathrow, FL, where we had a few old family friends to see since Tom’s parents had lived there for close to 30 years.  We also had the plan to stop at a restaurant in Pooler, GA, which is co-owned by a friend from Belize.  So, we got up early, took a last 5 mile hike in Poinsett SP before a stick-to-our ribs breakfast of delicious goat sausage from one of our Harvest Host stops and apple cranberry pancakes with maple syrup from another Harvest Host, and figured that the big brunch would get us to Pooler.  Our plan worked, and we got to the Pooler exit around 3PM, although it took us another 45 minutes to go the one mile to the restaurant because of all the traffic getting off 95 to go to the shopping centers.  We found the restaurant, and had a yummy lunch.  The restaurant is a franchise, Tin Drum Asian Fusion, which was great because I really like Asian food while Tom is a little less enthusiastic, so it was a treat for me to get Asian food that Tom also enjoyed because of the experience.

We left Tin Drum and drove another hour south to a Walmart in Brunswick, GA.  If you are ever overlanding, you probably want to avoid this Walmart despite what the overlanding sites say.  Yes, it’s RV friendly and neither management nor law enforcement cares if you park there.  However, they have some passive aggressive thing going on where they have a parking lot cleaner which is a big diesel truck with a jet engine turbo vacuum which spends two and a half hours between midnight and 2:30AM doing laps around the parking lot.  Plus, not to be snobby or anything, but the other campers were a little sketchy, and there were a number of people just sleeping in their cars which made me very nervous because it was cold, so they were running their engines off and on all night, so I spent the entire night tracking the jet turbine and wondering if we were going to wake up to a car full of dead bodies parked next to us.

When the sun came up, we were ready to get on the road, so we had a quick breakfast and headed south.  We were only about 3 hours from Heathrow, and didn’t have any reason to get there too early, so we decided to stop at the Timucuan National Park in Jacksonville.  We thought it was a small park, and we walked around the trails near the visitors’ center and had a nice 5 mile hike.  When we were done, we talked to a really nice park ranger named Herb Hutson, who informed us that the park is actually quite large at close to 50,000 acres, and that it not only has the highest point in Jacksonville, but also encompasses 5 ecosystems.  We also talked about traveling in general, and got lots of good tips for other places to see and stay as we tour the US.

We spent another night at a Walmart, this time in Melbourne, FL:.  We were wracking our brains to figure out who we knew in Melbourne, when it dawned on us (somewhat belatedly) that it was our friends Jon and Mari, whose house in Belize we lived in for six months before leaving on this trip.  We contacted them because we were thinking of them, and Mari mentioned that if our animals needed any veterinary attention, the practice she left when she moved to Belize was very close to where we were.  Our three dogs and cat were due for their annual vaccinations in the beginning of January, so rather than trying to figure out how to take care of that from wherever we are on the road in a few weeks, I took Mari up on her offer to contact her (and our) friend Katrina to get them in the next morning.  It all worked out, and we had a quick visit with Katrina, and the three dogs and the cat are now fully vaccinated for another year.

We got on the road out of Melbourne shortly after noon.  Our original plan had been to get to Key Largo, but we knew that wasn’t happening, so we set the goal of getting to the Walmart in Homestead.  We pulled off the highway for a late lunch and a hike at the St. Sebastian River State Park, which is mostly pine savannah and which reminded us a lot of the Mountain Pine Ridge in Belize.

We didn’t make it all the way to Homestead.  By 6:30, it was dark and raining and fairly miserable, so we looked for a place to stop near the south end  of Okeechobee Lake.  We tried to go to a county campground, but they had closed at 4:30 and didn’t take after-hours reservations.  But, they recommended a truck stop just down the road, which wasn’t the most scenic stop we’ve ever made, but which was safe and relatively dark and quiet.  

In the morning, we got on the road, headed for Key Largo.  We had a sort of a loose plan of seeing if we could find some place to stay on the keys, which was doubtful, and if that didn’t work we had a couple of other parks in mind which would have involved backtracking to Homestead, and if that didn’t work we would Walmart it again.  We made a couple of phone calls in the morning, and then drove south.  When we crossed the last causeway, we thought we would head for the first state park campground, but Kismet decided she needed to stretch her legs sooner than that, so we ended up stopping at one of the information centers.  We owe Kismet a big thank you, because that stop made the timing for out next stop just about perfect.

We left the information center and took the short drive to John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park on the off chance that they might have a campsite for a night or two.  We pulled off Route 1 into a 20-minute line of cars to get into the park.  I was on my phone looking for mainland alternatives for the next few nights, getting my head around yet another night in a Walmart parking lot, and we finally pulled up to the booth.  Tom said, “I know this is a long shot, but do you have any open campsites?”  The ranger sort of snickered, and said, “This is your lucky day.  We just had a cancellation.  Pull over and come on in.”  Tom and I had a quick conference, and decided that anywhere between one and three nights would be perfect, and Tom went in to talk to them.  Turns out the cancelled reservation was for three nights, which was perfect for us.  So, we’re in a state park campground right on the beach for tonight until Saturday morning.  We took a nice walk around the park this afternoon, are planning on walking, swimming, snorkeling, and bike riding tomorrow, and we’re going to drive to Key West on Friday before leaving Saturday morning.  We figure we must have done something right to make the travel gods smile on us for this one!

​Today we hiked in Congaree National Park, which is the home of the largest stand of old growth timber (aka big trees) in the east. After living in the jungle for 16 years the trees didn’t seem all that huge - big, yes, astoundingly huge, no - but given the constant hum of planes, trains, and automobiles in the background, it’s pretty impressive that the Dept. of the Interior has managed to maintain wild land for the trees to grow until they get so big they die and fall down on their own.

We hung out at Del and Vicky’s in Georgia while we waited for things we’d ordered to arrive.  We got Georgia driving licenses, so we had to wait for them to come in the mail.  Tom also ordered some truck parts from Rock Auto, so we had to wait for them.  And, the big item was a couple of e-bikes, which were, of course, the last things to arrive.  They arrived Monday afternoon, so we put them together, got them packed in the truck, and were ready to depart Tuesday afternoon.  We made it as far as Augusta, GA, and stopped at a Walmart just outside of Augusta about an hour after dark.  Fortunately for us, the Walmart was near a few other stores we needed, so before heading for Columbia on Wednesday morning, we hit Tractor Supply to restock with dog food, Home Depot to get a medicine chest for our bathroom since our current bathroom closet is about to be taken over as a charging station, and an Academy Sports to get bicycle helmets and locks so we can cruise around on our new e-bikes.  We stocked up on groceries at Walmart the night before, so even with these stops we were heading for Columbia shortly after 10am, and arrived around noon.

The South Carolina Capitol is very stately and is set in the middle of a multi-block garden with a maze of paths and lots of old trees.  We walked around the interior paths an let the dogs enjoy the many squirrels, and then we walked the entire perimeter on the sidewalk near the streets, which was almost a mile by the time we walked all the way around.  We encountered many people out for a lunchtime walk, and while the city around the capitol wasn’t the nicest we’ve seen, it had a lot of ethnic restaurants and was the kind of neighborhood where I’d want to work so I could walk for good food every day for lunch.  We also found parking to be easy in an open surface lot right across the street from the capitol, although it was a little expensive at $8 for two hours.  We fit with no problem, and it was easy to get in and out, so it was worth it.

When we finished at the capitol, we ate a quick lunch in the camper and headed for Poinsett State Park.  Our next planned stop is Congaree National Park, but their campgrounds are tent only, so we decided on the state park where we could plug in for a few days since the weather is pretty gray and rainy and dismal and our solar isn’t fully charging the batteries.  This park has lots of nice hiking trails, so we are planning to get out and hike in between rain showers.  And, when it’s raining, we have a few camper projects to finish so we can make good use of our time.  Tomorrow’s weather is supposed to be nicer, so we are planning to make the hour’s drive to Congaree then and hike around, and then come back to this campground for a night so we can do a Saturday morning hike and then head south.