Chokoloskee Island Park

We are in our only private park of the trip now. A small park where most of the sites are full time residents and fishing is their goal. Nice folks, but not our preference for camping. We are camping in a trailer park. The marina here at the campground is a wonderful place to watch the sunset and we do that every evening. Chokoloskee Island is 4 miles south of Everglade City and as far south as you can get on the west side of FL. A nice perk here is the option of purchasing WiFi for our stay. We are here to March 5th.

A visitor center for the Everglades Nat’l Park is just up the road in Everglade City and we took a 4 hour ranger led kayak trip to get a taste of the 10,000 Islands area here. There is a 99 mile kayak/canoe trail through here where there are campsites placed a days trip away. What an adventure that would be. But not for us!

A day trip for us was to visit Shark Valley in Big Cypress National Preserve. There is a 15 mile loop trail that cars are not permitted to travel. So we took our bikes and peddled around. What a lovely trip. As you can see we saw lots of alligators! We even saw a nest of babies and other little ones. We took a picnic lunch for the trip. The weather was lovely. On our drive back to cg we took a loop road though Big Cypress, half of it was dirt but a nice ride if you don’t mind dusting your vehicle. We also checked out the dry campground available in the National Park. May try them next year?
Another day trip was to Marco Island. Too built up for us, you can’t see the ocean unless you pay to park and walk the few public access paths to the beach. But, thanks to a tip from my friend Lynn, I was able to do some nice shelling. I found the shell middens and did some good digging to get some nice shells.


This is a male Anhinga. What pretty birds. Along this trail we also saw the Green Heron, Black-capped Night Heron, Wood Stork, Double-crested Cormorant, Great Blue Heron, Little Blue Heron, Great Egret, White Ibis, Glossy Ibis and Louisiana Heron. We were also treated with viewing young Anhingas. Such a very nice trip. Anyone who doesn’t want to bike the trail, a tram runs it also.

Koreshan SHS, Estro, FL

We really enjoyed our short stay at Koreshan, a settlement from the late 1800’s, early 1900’s of a communal group. The campground is small and has nice sites with good privacy. The bathhouse was nice also. As for activities here at the park, the settlement was very interesting and well maintained. The staff/volunteers have activities for you such as bread making, antique motor demonstrations, musicals, and others. They are on the Estero River which is nice for paddling, but we did not get a chance to do that this trip, three miles to the Bay.

A day trip from the park is Sanabel Island where we spent some time at Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge. We were treated by a wealth of shore birds there and especially these spoonbills. Wow, this was the first we saw them and we were so taken by their colors. We did put our kayaks in there and did some paddling. It was so nice to “sneak” up on a couple yellow-crowned herons!

We were also able to meet up with our Aliner friends, Lynn and Forrest, who were also down here in FL enjoying a break from winter. We met in the Big Cypress area at Billie’s Swamp tours.

Of course, while we were there we had to take a Swamp Buggy tour. I’m so glad we did, we were blessed with a rare sighting of a FL panther! No picture, it crossed our path and disappeared into the hammock so quickly. But we got a good look at her and what a treat that was for all. On that trip we saw a lot of wildlife and birds. I added some new ones to my bird album that I’ve begun in my picture folder. I know have 41 photos of different birds we have enjoyed while on the trip. That is not all the varieties, just the ones I have pictures of.

This was the view out our trailer door while we were at Oscar Shearer last week. It was very nice being on the water. We are now in Chokoloskee Island south of Naples. I’m writing this blog the night before we move, so the next blog post will tell you about that area. This is the only private cg we are staying at on our trip in FL. It is targeted at fishing since it is at the edge of the everglades and on the ocean. I’m looking forward to the good kayaking I hear is down in this area.

Oscar Shearer SP second visit, Osprey, FL

We have had a good second visit to this park. It is a good park to stay in with a rails to trails bike path, some kayaking, and driving distance to three nice beaches. The weather has been nice, a bit on the cool side, but still great.

Tomorrow we leave to travel a bit farther south to Ft. Myers area and Koreshan SP. More posts to come.

Myakka River SP second visit

We are back to Myakka River SP for another week, site 14. This stay is much warmer. Temps are in the high 70’s to 80’s now, evenings in the 60’s. Our site this stay is much nicer. Bigger space and away from the water pump which is close to the bathhouse.


We are being treated with regular visits from a new sow here at the camper. She came a few days alone but when the babies were big enough they came with her. She stopped right behind our camper to feed them. That pig is one of the most photographed animals in the park!


We had a visit from Martin and Jane Reiff while here. They joined us on a paddle of the Myakka River. They took to kayaking very quickly.


Jane show skill in quick turning when she saw a particularly large gator!


We were treated with watching a family of limpkins at the lake. The parents were feeding about 5 young ones snails they found in the water.

Our site for the short 2 days we were in John Pennekamp in the Keys, site 31. This section of sites was pretty narrow. The sites as you enter the campground were larger. The park is small but is much quieter than Bahia Honda. The Visitors Center has a 30,000 gallon aquarium to view. We did a paddle and hear that the snorkeling is great here. It is still chilly and we are returning in March so we will wait to try the snorkeling then. I’m told that the no-seeums can be bad here. We’ll hope that we don’t experience that!

We are back to Oscar Shearer SP and WiFi! We will post again at the end of the week.

John Pennekamp SP, Keys FL

A quick note on this short stop before leaving the Keys for the month. This park is the most northern park in the Keys right in Key Largo. It is small but nice offering some mangrove kayaking, snorkling, a glass bottom boat ride, and scub diving. And the biggest thing: Away from the road! We don't miss that droaning road noise from Bahia Honda one bit. We return to the Keys in March for 2 weeks visiting this park and the other two SPs here. I'm sure we will have better weather for taking advantage of the snorkling then. We were surprised to hear that this park has WiFi connection. That is such a nice feature to have in a cg.

Tomorrow we will have a big driving day through the Everglades back east of Sarasota to Myakka River SP for a week. We enjoyed the park the first time we were there and will have a better campsite this visit. Hope all is well with our family and friends!

Bahia Honda SP, Florida Keys w/Pics

Well we finally made it to our first cg in the Keys. Bahia Honda is a beautiful park as you can see from the pic above. The weather for us is about 10o cooler than normal, but that means highs in the low 70’s. The wind is gusty so we didn’t do any paddling here since it is in the ocean and channels around the keys. BUT, we don’t think we will return here to camp. Notice in the picture that RT 1 (the bridge) runs very close to the campground, the noise is very loud and annoying! But, the beaches are beautiful and the road noise is very subdued although, every present.
We are getting some biking in, it is so pretty to ride along the pretty colors.


And of course, we are taking advantage of the sun and beaches. Notice the “sea grass” that is littering the beach. Actually, the sea grass is beneficial to the beach to help lessen erosion


There are lots of sponges here on this beach. I am holding a bowl sponge. There are no shells here to collect, the sea grasses catch them out in the water and they rarely come on shore.

We leave Saturday for 2 days in another Keys SP, John Pennekamp. I hear they have good paddling and great snorkeling, although I’m not sure if it will be warm enough for us to get in the water yet? It will probably be around Feb. 18th before we can post again