Koreshan SP

Our time here south of Ft Myers has been very nice. A few late afternoon rain storms with cold fronts did not dampen our time here. We were camped at Koreshan SHS which has very nice camp sites and a very interesting historic area of a turn-of-the-century communal group. As you can see from the above picture, we are also close to the beaches for some shelling opportunities: Bonita Springs beach and Lovers Key SP beach.

We visited Lovers Key for a day. The picture above shows a fallen tree on the beach whose roots have been decorated by us shellers. We also walked a 3 mile nature trail seeing lots of birds and one alligator. We were treated by an osprey with a fish attempting to take lunch back to the nest. Unfortunately, the fish was just a bit too big or the wind just a bit too strong and it couldn’t quite get it to the nest. The mate was very frustrated by this turn of events and tried to encourage it to try again. The bird sat on a branch just a few feet from the nest refusing to let the catch go. We did not wait to see the result. Hope he made it up! We planned to kayak the water trail there but the wind picked up and the clouds darkened, so we did not put the boats in.

This settlement has some good living history re-enactors here. This is a bread making demonstration of rising bread done in a dutch oven with charcoal. Yum! A local tropical fruit grower brings her preserves for us to put on the bread also, double Yum! We also attended a session of cowboy cooking with the cast ovens and pots of beans and ham, cornbread and mango crisp. Oh so good. An evening of stations where characters from the settlement were portrayed to give us some history on the group was a treat. And then there are the Sunday afternoon musicals in the Art Hall taking advantage of the 1885 Steinway piano.

Just 3 miles away (biking distance) is the Estero Bay Preserve. Above is a mocking bird (FL state bird) who sang to us as we began our walk and there was a gopher tortoise also (see slide show). The 3 mile walk was nice but much of the trail in the salt flats area was under water.

We were treated with a day visiting with our friends, Lynn and Forrest at their place in Naples. We toured Naples and Rookery Bay, and then topped the day off with a sunset tour of the Corkscrew Sanctuary. During that walk we had a juvenile barred owl fly in to the boardwalk calling for it’s parents. A few minutes later the parents called and he flew off to them where he was either soundly dressed down or enthusiastically greeted by them. ;-)

We move Sunday to Myakka Rive SP. Another park we enjoyed last year. No internet close to there but we will travel to some on the 17th because we must make our next reservation for 2011 that day.

Bahia Honda State Park, Keys

A storm coming at us from the bay side. Batten down the hatches. Actually, it looked worse than it was. We have had very little rain so far on this trip. I believe only 2 partial days of wet stuff. As you can see from Les’s tank top, it is tropical weather here now. Unfortunately, it has been too windy for us to put in the kayaks here, but the biking along the beach road is beautiful. And of course the beach walking for treasures is very good here. I purchased a book to educate us on what we are seeing. So interesting!

A trip to Key West was very interesting. We parked at a shopping center and rode our bikes into the old town. That was very nice. We toured the Mel Fisher treasure museum, a collection of salvaged treasure found recently. The trolley ride around the island gave us good information on the history and highlights. There was a key lime pie chef tempting us with his pie and the sponge monster gave me quite a fright. Then there was the jazz trumpet player outside entertaining the café customers. Nice day. Pictures of these on the slideshow.

We have been blessed with some super sunsets here at Bahia Honda SP. The portion of the orginal railroad bridge makes the pictures even more special. And, we were able to meet up with our new friends, Bob and Kathy, at a very nice restaurant in the Marathon area called Key Colony Inn.
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Here is the invasive iguana that is trying to take over Southern FL. These two were fighting on the road by the camper and the one on the slideshow was just at our camp site. They are pretty but should not be here. The iguana are eating up the foliage and hurting many other native species. Unfortunately there are not any predators for them so they are multiplying very fast.
We move Sunday, 31st, out of the Keys and to the West Coast. Our first stop is at Koreshan SHS for 2 weeks. We’ll have to find the WiFi around that park.

We are in Koreshan SHS now and have found a wonderful library here. It is rainy here and cool. That will force us to explore inside things to do for a few days. I will post another time next week on our stay here. God Bless!

Jan. 23, 2010

We spent some wonderful time in Long Key SP. This is a picture of a sunrise we woke to enjoy. Only one of course! What a blessing to have this opportunity. The only negative was the smell of the decaying fish from the cold snap. That is all along the beaches now. It should not last too much longer we hope.

A wonderful benefit to camping is the opportunity to meet and make good friends who share common interests. This is Bob and Kathy, a couple we met last year here in the Keys and we crossed paths here again this year. We did some wonderful paddling trips and some good nights. Bob actually made their kayaks!

The sunsets are also wonderful here. God sure did a wonder when he blessed us with sunsets like these.

We had an excellent dinner at the Barracuda Grill in Marathon. No we are not being eaten!

Jan. 16, 2010

This is a white heron, relative to the great blue heron. We were told this variety is only found in this area.

We are out of the freeze! At least for now. ;-)
Yes, the temp this morning was 70o and it is now 78o. Les is wearing his shorts and sandals which is the offical sign that warm temps are here.

Of course we had some excitement when Aaron called us to tell us of the earthquake in Eureka! So glad it was not harmful. But sure looks like it shook things up quite a bit.

We are preparing to move on soon. Leaving tomorrow or Monday if they have a spot here for us to extend one night. We checked for cancellations this week and found 3 days in a SP south of here called Long Key. It is the park where every site is on the beach. We booked Mon, Tu, Wed there and then we will finish out the week camping at Key West. We are excited that those dates opened up for us. The friends we made here in Pennekamp are going to be there and we will do some more kayaking with them if the weather permits. I believe there will definitely be a good meal for us to share one night.

I will post next when I can. WiFi is not going to be easy to get for at least a week.

Jan. 10, 2010

Yes, we are experiencing the deep freeze in the Florida Keys. This morning (Jan 9th) at 5am the temp was 59o, noon the temp is 48o and dropping with rain. Yesterday (Friday) was the best day we had so far with a high temp of 67o and sun. But we are not complaining. We have been able to do some walking, biking and kayaking so we are happy. Today we meet with friends, Sid Stepler and family, who are here on vacation for the weekend. Next week’s temps are to get warmer each day and forecast is for sun.

We read a book last year on a pioneer couple in these keys and they told of an unusually cold snap that killed the fish so that they could just go out and scoop them up. Well, we are experiencing that now. The shores are littered with dead and dying fish; along with weakened and dying ones in the shore waters. It is a shame but it gives us a chance to get an up close look at them. The fish eating birds are having a feast! It is interesting to see them sitting among the fish so full they can’t eat another one.


There is a remnant here in this park of one of the Keys biggest industries, an orchard. To plant these trees; guava, mangoes, avocado, and of course, key limes; they had to dynamite holes in the coral and ship in dirt. The bigger trees are original trees and small ones were replanted. Some of the trees were blooming and some had fruit.


Here is a barracuda that we found on the beach. Those teeth make me glad I’m not bite-size to them!


Waiter, I would like that one.

Winter Escape 2010

We are off again for a winter escape. The picture above is Brett and Emily getting in a load of wood after our big snow. That was a huge help along with helping us shovel out. The snow came early this year and made Les even more anxious to go south.


Even the welcome bear looked pretty cold. We stayed toasty with the woodstove and the snow melted enough for us to be able to get the camper up the driveway and head out on schedule Wednesday, Dec. 30th.

The drive south was uneventful, but chilly. Our furnace does a good job warming up our camper. We stopped again at my cousin Jan and Jerry’s and were treated to a wonderful day, New Year’s Day, with them and their family. A meal of pork and sauerkraut was prepared by Jan to usher in the new year properly. Of course seeing granddaughters, Stacia and Savannah was a wonderful treat.


We pulled into John Pennekamp SP, Key Largo, Jan. 3rd. The temps here are lows in the 40’s and highs in the 60’s. Chilly for this area, but OK by our standards. The radio said that this is the longest cold spell in 10 years. Think it is following us? Les is enjoying getting out to walk and ride the bike. We will wait for the temps to warm a bit before getting the kayaks down though. We are scheduled to stay here until the 17th. This park has WiFi and laundry along with the water and electric hookup, what more could we want?? Oh, I forgot the most important thing, hot showers! I should update the site next week.

Manatee Springs SP; Chiefland, FL

This park made us feel more like we were in our home environment. Much more wooded with oak and maple trees. A few palms but not the number we have been use to. The springs have super clear water and are deep, which gives the water a very blue color. We missed the manatee though. The water temps in the bigger river, the Suwannee River, have gone up so they are out there and not in the small springs now. The cg is nice with OK bathhouse and most sites are good, a few are small.

We saw lots of wildlife here. There were deer, raccoons, and owls at our campsite; and lots of birds including pilated woodpeckers, quail, sign of wild pigs and more on the trails in the park. This park also had good trails, 8.5 miles, that were for the most part good for biking. I think we hit all of them on bike or foot while we were here.

This boardwalk through the cypress to the Suwannee River was a great stroll from the campground. A nice park for a short visit but not one I would want to spend a lot of time in. Having to drive 6 miles to town to make a call is bothersome but hey, we are camping!
We move to Skidaway Island, GA then to Huntington Beach, SC. Hope the weather doesn’t chill down too much as we move north.