Florida Everglades to central Florida

12-9-14 to 12-20-14

We loved being right on the ocean at Long Key SP but it was time to move on to the Everglades.

We drove north over the Overseas Highway up to Homestead, Fl (just south of Miami) and then headed south to Flamingo campground in the Everglades NP.

It's a very large park with two campgrounds. We decided to camp at the southern most one, Flamingo.

There was still a lot of damage from two hurricanes in 2005. The campground, however, was very nice and had been restored since the hurricane. The visitor's center, cafe and marina did suffer quite a bit of damage, and a hotel was destroyed.

The sites in the CG were quite large, had paved pads, and were spaced fairly far apart. There were sites with no hookups and sites with hookups. We decided to take a site with hookups in case we needed to run our air conditioner. The weather was quite pleasant and we never did need to run it. You never know in Florida.

The Everglades are unusual in that they are the only place in the world where alligators and crocodiles live in the same area. We went down to the marina and listened to an interesting talk by one of the rangers on alligators and crocodiles. While she was talking both a manatee and a crocodile surfaced right by the dock. A very large crocodile, probably 12-15 feet, was spotted sunning itself on the opposite shore. We walked over on a bridge and got within about 15 feet of it.

Now for the adventure part of our stay. We had read on-line that they have had trouble with buzzards, the size of turkeys, eating the rubber off of car's windshield wipers and windows. When we drove in we saw cars with tarps over the top of them that had been secured with bungee cords. So we asked if they had had any problems with buzzards in the CG and they said no. Well, you can guess what happened.

We went for about an hours walk and came back to 6 large buzzards tearing up the rubber on the top of our motor home. We packed up and left in a hurry even though we had paid for several nights stay.

So a large blue tarp covered the top of the motor home until we could get it repaired. It has now been repaired.

We next headed north of West Palm Beach to Jonathan Dickenson SP outside Jupiter, Fl. The last time we had been there was in 2006 and it had been extensively damaged by a fire. Everything has been restored and replanted so it's a very nice park. The camping spots have full hookups, paved pads and nice restrooms.

The park has boat launches, hiking trails, a visitors center and boat rides on the Loxahatchee River.

We took a boat ride up the river and ended up at reclusive Trapper Nelson's property. He was quite a character who lived completely off the land. He has since died but the park includes a visit to his old homestead.

It was a nostalgic return to Jupiter, Fl for us. We lived in Jupiter in the first year of our marriage. John worked at Pratt Whitney Aircraft testing rocket engines and I taught biology at Jupiter HS. There were our first jobs after graduating from college. The town of Jupiter has certainly changed from when we lived there in 1964.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone. We will be off line or off blog until the end of February as we settle in for a relaxing stay in central Florida.