Dec 27th - Out of Alligator Alley and into the Orange Orchards

The Orange Blossom Special

Beautiful, bright and bountiful

The Blue Road that led to Orange Grove

Smelled soooo good!

They tasted even better!

We left the lushness of the marshes, in the Everglades with the abundant life of flora and fauna for the more human inhabited areas of agricultural Florida the day after Christmas.  We stopped for the night in Arcadia and moved on today a little further north to settle down in Zephyrhills, Florida.  On the way from Arcadia this morning we once again took the Blue roads in our attempt to see the countryside and not just asphalt with 4 lanes.  Our route wound us through acres and acres - thousands in fact, of orange groves.  We were on a little county road surrounded by the pungent citrus scent of heavily laden orange trees on both sides of the roads.  There was nothing else in sight for miles.  We pulled off right in the middle of this fresh  scented orange land  to take some pictures and to pick a couple of the juicy looking oranges.   -
The following is a quote from the book titled "Oranges" by John McPhee He wrote an absolutely fascinating book on .....just oranges!

"Botanically, they are spectacularly complicated. They can be completely unripe when they are a brilliant orange and deliciously ripe when they are as green as emeralds. An orange grown on one side of a tree is better than an orange grown on the other side. Citrus is so genetically perverse that oranges can grow from lime seeds. Most California lemons grow on orange roots. Most Florida oranges grow on lemon roots"

If you get the chance pick up this book by Mr McPhee.  It is amazing how interesting a book can be on simply oranges!  He does explain how the fruit was brought to the New World and why and many other really interesting facts about oranges.

So my entry today is basically about oranges and how  fun it was to find ourselves buried deep in an orange grove with the bright fruit all around us.  The trees were so heavily laden that the branches on some of the trees were touching the ground.  The nights have been quite cool for this area for the last week and I think that the farmers are concerned about the fruit freezing but this particular variety that we were "sampling" today may be a bit more hearty then some.  I am not sure on this point but they were delicious and the cold has only enhanced their flavor.

Dec 23rd...There are Gators in that pond!!!

First peek !

Swimming this way

Food?

Just hanging around

I mentioned in yesterday's blog that we were told by the owner of this park that there were 3 alligators in the pond that is 10 feet from our motor home.   We have not seen hide nor scale of anything that even resembles a carnivorous critter since we have been here and thought that we were told that just to spice things up a bit.  Well.......this morning as I was gazing out over the little pond in hopes of seeing something, anything..there he/she was!  All 2 1/2 feet with two eyes and one of the back ridges riding high out of the water.  I grabbed my camera,and  slowly and carefully walked over to where it was in the water (didn't want to scare it away, right?)  I hunkered down, took aim with the camera and almost fell over backwards..  The little critter started swimming my way.  As I scrambled backwards I heard Richard laughing ....at a very safe distance in the door of the camper!  So here she/he is.  I am calling her Vixen after one of the reindeer that we should see flying overhead in a day or so!

Dec 22nd --In The Everglades!!

Three days before Christmas and it couldn't feel less like Christmas here in the Everglades!  88 degrees in the sun which is shining brightly here near Ochopee, Florida which is right in the middle of the Everglades.  I last wrote on December 15th from Key West when we stayed in Boyd's Campground RV park.  We are back up in the southern part of Florida now at an interesting older campground that caught our attention.  It is  named the Skunkape Research Center and Campground.  Out front is a larger then life Florida panther statute  along side a Silver back Gorilla.  It was just too much fun to not check out.  Very reasonable camping rates and we were lead right to our campsite by Skunkape Dave himself.   We are the edge of a marsh and next to a pond that is supposed to have 3 alligators in it.  We have not seen our resident gators as yet but have not gone wading in the pond either.  We did go for a bike ride yesterday on the highway that runs through the Everglades.  On one side of the road is a ditch which runs throughout the whole highway from Florida City to Naples and it is absolutely full of all sizes of alligators,  and many varieties of water birds - Great Blue Herons, Tri colored Herons, Egrets, Ibis, Osprey, Double Crested Cormorants, Anhingas (very interesting birds that after fishing need to stand with their wings outstretched to dry out before they can fly)   Many other kinds of birds that I have not been able to identify as yet as well fill the marshes alongside the road.  Literally hundreds were flying or perched as we rode by.  I would also like to mention that the pictures of the alligators were taken from a distance of about 12-15 feet.  They were all in the ditch along side the highway!!!

We were going to stay here for only a couple of nights but it is so peaceful here with the abundant wild life and non-abundant human presence that we are staying until the day after Christmas. 

Full Moon in camp in Ochopee, Fl

"Lilly" sunning herself!

A group of Gators

Getting ready to slip into the water

Night of Eclipse

Tri-colored heron and a Anhinga drying its wings

Here's looking at you 

Really big guys

Hitting the water

Big splash of gators

A Merry Christmas and Peaceful New Year to all!

Dec 15th WE HAVE ARRIVED!!

Title says it all! - Key West, FL

Bridge to Key West

Our new home for a couple of days

Out our back window!

We are at the furthest most point of Florida - Key West and are staying at.......Boyd's Campground!  We were hoping for warmer weather but 66 will do just fine for now.  Long underwear is off and hopefully put away until next winter or September in the UP.  The sun is shining brightly and glinting off the water in the Gulf of Mexico which is 2 feet from our back bumper of the camper.  Crystal clear and we are able to see the sandy bottom.  Now I just have to find the Margaritas!!!!!

Dec 13th - No snow but no heat wave either!

We have continued to move south since last I wrote but the weather seems to have followed us as we drive south.  We had a great visit with Richard's friend from middle and  high school back in Southfield, Mi 55 years ago.  I met Gordon and his wife, Jill and two of their many critters.  Barney, the Hound/Doberman and Squeaky the kitten that Barney brought home to them in his mouth when the kitten was only a couple of weeks old.  She is now 5 months and really a little beauty.  On their farm up in Clayton, Georgia they have a few donkeys and a horse.  Over the years they have had chickens, sheep, and cows as pets.  I have finally found another human who refuses to kill animals for food!  All their "pets" have died of old age and they have given them a good pet burial in, what I would imagine a huge pet cemetery.  Gordon and Jill took us all over their area in Crystal River, Florida and were excited to show us the Manatees that come and go in the river that feeds out into the Gulf of Mexico.  Big gentle Sea Cows as they are sometimes referred to swam back and forth under us as we observed them on a bridge overlooking the river and the Gulf.  They also took us out in the "old Florida" as they like to call areas that have not been built up for the influx of tourists that have moved down to Florida.  We drove by (at a distance of about 5 miles) from the Crystal River Nuclear Power Plant that came on line in the 60's.  I got a definite eerie feeling as we stopped at a distance to get out of the vehicle to take some photos.  It was a grey day and it just looked sinister in the distance belching out thick grey smoke from the multiple stacks of the facility.
After leaving Gordon and Jill we drove on south and stopped at a couple of different RV parks.  As we continue to drive south we have noticed that the country side is filling up with urban sprawl from the surrounding cities.  As I have mentioned before, we try and take the Blue Roads - non super highways as we travel so we can truly see the country side and the people.  We were able to drive through some beautiful orange groves the last couple of days that bordered the road like well ordered scrubs, almost close enough to reach out and get our supply of Vitamin C for the day!
DECEMBER 14th
We camped last night on Chokoloskee  Island Park.  Right on the Gulf; cute little tent and camper park.  We didn't do much outside other then walk around taking pictures as the wind was blowing so hard.  25 mph constant with 40 mph gusts.  The water was the color of cocoa from being churned up by the wind.  We left from there this morning and drove through the Everglades.  We stopped several times to take pictures of the abundant wildlife all through the area.  It was like being in a zoo and aviary without bars.  We also discovered several parks throughout the Everglades  that we could have camped in had we known about them that  were part of the National Park system . Not everything is on the internet!!

Pair of ducks outside of Arcadia, Fl

Gordon, Richard and me

Jill, Richard and me

Manatee near Crystal River, FL

Snowy White and a Blue Egret

Two Buzzards taking off in Everglades

Richard's organges

First Alligator in Everglades!!!

Pier after Hurricane Wilma on Chokoloskee Island

Tonight finds us just north of the Florida Keys with a little warmer temperatures than yesterday.  The increase isn't much but just enough to take off one layer of clothes (long underwear)!  The sun is shining brightly and we were told at this RV park that there is a Christmas party in the club house tonight.  Whoopie!

Brrrrrrr.....The U P or Florida??

Well, here goes!  We are all set up for camping and in O'Leno State Park in north central Florida.  I pushed Richard out the door so I could scrub the floors of the motor home this afternoon and he sorted and organized all the storage compartments of the rig.  We are one of a very few brave campers in this northern park tonight.  A ranger just came by to instruct us to remove the hose from the water line outside and to let the water drip from the spigot as it is supposed to get down to 20 degrees here.  We are somewhat protected in the heavily wooded area of this park but are keeping our fingers crossed that lines do not freeze.  Little heater aimed to our pipes under the sink in the kitchen.

It feels really good to be out of motels and into the motor home regardless of the temperature.  Motels are all beginning to look, feel and smell the same.  It is good to be out of them at last as we continue our way down to the Florida keys.  As we left the motel in Lakeland, Georgia yesterday we decided to slow down, get off the four lane highways and take the Blue roads the rest of the way down.  Charles Kuralt, the travel journalist once quoted "One is now  able to travel from coast to coast on the major Interstates of the United States  and never see a thing".  So true!  As we began yesterday we took a breath and slowed down, relaxed and stopped frequently to take photos, visit with local people and ask questions about Spanish Moss which is draped on most of the Live Oaks of Florida.  We learned that it doesn't kill the trees as had been rumored.  However, it is home to the southern Chigger which is a little red tick like bug that burrows under a person's skin and causes all kinds of problems.  As we drove we came upon a couple of local farmers selling produce, and, oh yes..boiled peanuts.  I purchased a bag of regular and a bag of Cajun peanuts.  Once again I ate too many but, oh my, are they good!

Unpicked cotton fields -southern Georgia

Spanish Moss

Draping Spanish Moss - Florida

Yummy Hot Boiled Peanuts!! - Florida

O'Leno State Park - northern central Florida

Watching the temperature head south, and layering on our recently stored winter clothes and hoping for warmer weather tomorrow.

Are we there yet?

This morning found us in Madison, Georgia but it felt like Madison, Wi!  Once again the sun was shining brightly but the air was more then cool.  As we  continued to head south through Georgia the air became warmer.  I was on the outlook for more boiled peanuts -  but none to be found.    We did find a little produce stand right on the roadway with a friendly woman selling everything from pecans - onions, grapefruit to....T.O.E. jam and Frog jam.  She had "fried" pecans and peanuts but no boiled peanuts.  I know boiled nuts sound kind of mushy and they are!  But, in a really good way.  We did get a token amount of fried, salted pecans and continued on our way.

Still searching for warmer weather and we thought we had found it in Lakeland, Georgia.  80 degrees as the high on Dec 4th.  Not too bad......but....another cold front is moving in and by Wednesday the highs will be in the 40's and lows 29degrees at night!  Still a bit too cold for comfortable camping.  We will look for an RV park on Sunday to remove the antifreeze from our plumbing and continue on our southward journey for warmer weather.

Sunday is my grandaughter's 5th (Golden) Birthday - Happy Birthday Safia!!

A little bit closer

December 3rd and we are slowly making our way south.  The last entry was made from Charleston, West Virginia . We continued from the tip of West Virginia into Virginia and stopped for night in Marion, Virginia on the edge of the Smoky Mountains.  The next morning it was only 27 degrees!  We kept pushing south in hopes of finding summer or at least spring like weather, and in so doing we moved through three states in one day!  From Virginia we drove into Tennessee and then North Carolina.  The sun was still with us but the temperature was  not conducive to camping.  We stopped in Dillsboro, North Carolina along side a beautiful fast moving river.  By this time we were in the heart of the Smokies and were fortunate that it was dry and not freezing rain.  The sun was once again with us this morning as we wove our way through the Smokies into Georgia.  We were hoping that by the time we reached the Clayton, Georgia area where Richard's friend has a home we would be able to blow the pink goo out of our plumbing in the motor home and set up house keeping!  A little premature thinking on our part. We did find his place, stopped to check it out.  I say "checked it out" because we were not able to negotiate the drive into his place.  Extreme narrow mountain lanes were at the beginning of each resident's property and to reach their homes we would have needed something a lot smaller then the 30 foot camper; something closer in size and speed of a mule!  By this time my knuckles were about at white as they could get and decided that we would just push on south.  We drove on out of the Smokies and into more gentle rolling hills in the Madison, Georgia area just a few miles south of Athens.  This is our stop over for the night and we are sharing the motel with a few wrestling teams that were playing a tournament here in Madison.  The ceiling is vibrating!

PS  Forgot to mention that I had my first taste of boiled peanuts today!  Yummy, but definitely received my month's quota of salt!  We came out of the mountains today and into the land of peanuts and peaches!  Its gotta get warmer......and soon! " Goodnight ya'll"

Edge of the Smokies - TN

Clouds over the TN Smokies

North Carolina and snow!

Wine tasting in Clayton, Georgia

Eight days into trek south!

A slight break from our trek south to the Florida Keys was for me a stop in Dexter, Mi with my son and his family as well as my daughter  Anne and her husband, Daniel for the celebration of Thanksgiving.  I am grateful for the ability to be with my children, their respective families for this holiday and for the chance to slow down the count down to Christmas and concentrate on all that we are grateful for in our lives.  Richard was with his son and family in Howell, Mi which we discovered is only about 22 miles north of Dexter.  We ate well, played games and I was able to become hoarse once again reading books to Safia and Lio.  Little Lio was  adding new names and words to his ever expanding vocabulary while I was there with them.  Fun to watch them grow and expand their personalities.
Richard picked me up on Sunday, November 28th to once again turn the nose of the motor home south.  We stopped for the night on Sunday in Lima, Ohio.  Large stretches of flat land for as far as the eye could see heralded the Midwest grain belt. 

Not only did we have to contend with the twisty roads of southern Ohio, fog rolled in to make it even more challenging!

White Birch trees in the foggy hills.

This bridge stood like an alien against the West Virginia sky line.

West Virginia, Mountain Mama!

It is great to not have to be anywhere at any particular time so we are taking our time and taking time to go a bit out of our way to see things that are interesting and perhaps never to be driven by again.  We continued our trip on Monday from Lima, Ohio to Chillicothe, Ohio.  We left Chillicothe in rain and fog on Tuesday and drove from the open farm land into the truly hilly hillbilly country of southern Ohio.  We turned left from Jackson, Ohio and found ourselves suddenly in the hill country of southern Ohio.  We passed beautifully landscaped, painted sparkling white homes of Amish homes and then within the same view, the ill kept trailer, yard trash and run down shacks that evoked images of the movie Deliverance albeit without the music of dueling banjos.  All this and over a hundred year old log cabins that people are still living in without electricity!   I would have enjoyed all of the scenery except for the very narrow, winding, no shoulder roads!  Trying really hard to just relax but, wow, those roads are really really skinny!  We came out of the hills onto the freeway of the very southern tip of Ohio to cross the Ohio River into Huntington, West Virginia! My second time back to the hills of West Virginia since we moved from Morgantown to Crystal Falls in 1976.  We continued on the non scenic roads (think four lane highway) to Charleston, WVA for the night. Fog shrouded, but 60 degrees!!  We are getting there!

On The Road Again!

Seven months almost  to the day since my last entry.  I had a wonderful summer in the one of the greatest areas of this country - Home- The upper peninsula of Michigan- Crystal  Falls, Mi to be exact.  The months between April and now November have flown and here we are back on the road again.  This winter we are leaving  almost 6 weeks sooner than last year.  We wanted to get out of the cold, snow, freezing rain before it hit.  Well, we didn't quite make it.  Yesterday we awoke to a sparkly frozen yard, trees and driveway.  A light coating of drizzle had fallen and frozen into place.  I decided we were going to make it out of the county as planned so sprinkled about 3 gallons of ice salt onto my rather steep asphalted driveway so that Richard could drive the motor home up and into the drive.  I do believe I put enough salt on the ground to probably start melting the icebergs.  No ice  on the driveway this morning but mist continued to fall as we pulled out of Crystal Falls.  We are  now in Mackinac City below the Mackinac Bridge for the night.  As we began the crossing it was pouring rain.  I do not like to cross that bridge in a car let alone the motor home and I was prepared to white knuckle it the whole 5 miles.  Richard, bright, sensitive  man that he is, ( who has experienced my panic on mountain roads last winter) suggested I take some pictures of the lighted bridge at dusk .  I hauled out the camera and was so engrossed with the act of picture taking that I never had time to even think about my fear of crossing the bridge.  We are safely and comfortably settled in a motel for the night and will see what the morrow brings as far as continuing the drive south to my son's in Dexter, Mi for Thanksgiving.  Our initial destination to begin camping will be in the Florida Keys. 

Texas - Hill Country

100 miles north west of Dallas in the area of Texas known as "The Hill Country".  Texas is so diverse in topography that there are 7 regions, one of which is Hill Country where we have been for the last few days.  Suffice to say it reminds me so much of home - the UP.  Rolling hills of multi-green colored trees and grasses.  This year the wild flowers are absolutely out of this world.  I have never seen Texas before but all the people we have talked with say that because of the wet winter it is especially  green and flowered.  It feels surreal driving through this area with the flowers laid like wall to wall carpet everywhere. There are fields, acres of poppies - white poppies.  Everywhere are the famous Bluebonnets with other yellow, pink blue flowers thrown in.  Mother Nature is by far the best gardener - we humans certainly couldn't do better then She has done here in Texas.  We dropped down into the Hill Country about 100 miles south of San Angelo in an area with the little city of Brady, Tx.  By the time we had reached San Saba (Pecan capital of the World!!)  we had entered Oz!  Truely the land was ablaze with wild flowers.  No picture can do it justice ,it is just too beautiful  We started our northward leg toward home in Llano, Tx and have been heading north since then. 

I have always thought of Texas as Tumble Weed, flat arid country and that is true of parts of it.  However, there is so much more here then tumble weeds.  The state is huge, the people who call Texas home are so friendly and welcoming. They remind me very much of our small communities in the UP - only with a very heavy accent!  Whenever I have visited with the people they immediately state "you are not from Texas!"  So, I guess we must have a little bit of an accent, eh???

Wild flowers in San Angelo State Park

Richard's Park - Brady, Tx

Relocated turtle - Brady, Tx

Fields and fields of Bluebonnets

Texas Bluebonnets & other Wild flowers

More wildflowers

Tonight finds us just outside of Graham, Tx.