Bird
Jellyfish
Juniper Springs
Gator
Minnows
April 1-9
Peace and Quiet in Ormond Beach
A quiet week in Ormond Beach and the Florida portion of the trip comes to a close. Stayed in a nice RV Park, friendly neighbors, relaxing pool and shady spot to park Wanda and unwind.
Truck Keys MIA – twice
Getting ready to bike to Lehigh trail, we load up the bikes and our gear and jump into truck. Where are the keys? Ty usually takes charge of the keys so we begin the hunt for the keys looking in Wanda, in the ignition, tailgate, bike bags. After about 20 minutes Ty looked down in front of him and there where his keys tucked into the waistband of his biking pants (no pockets). We had a good laugh at that one and related it to the “Eyeglasses Incident”. Off to a great bike ride, 16 miles on a paved Rails-To-Trails that followed a canal somewhat, but for the most part was is a shaded grove. Great ride. Back to the truck to load up the bikes and then off to Ormond Beach to swim. Wait, where are the keys? Come on, we just opened the truck up where could they have possible gone? 45 minutes later and we completely pulled everything out of the front and back seat (looked like a yard sale), numerous rechecks looking in the biking gear bags, under truck, through the grass and in Ty’s pants, the keys were not to be found. We reasoned that we actually forgot to lock the truck that it was already opened and the keys must have dropped out on the trail someplace. Instead of retracing our entire bike ride we decided to split up, Ty would start to ride the trail and I would drive (using the spare keys we keep in truck) to the rest area where Ty used the facility and perhaps, they dropped out of waistband since that seems to be the new spot for keys. Good plan. Ty gets on his bike and I hop in car, move the water bottle out of way in cup holder and what do my little eyes spy? KEYS THE KEYS!!! How did they jump into the cup holder, then get topped off with the water bottle? Those old age elves!!!!!
It’s a shame
Florida is not the cleanest state we’ve been in; we even saw a person heave a bag of trash out the driver side window on the highway. Just too bad that people just trash where they live or visit. Case in point, we had taken a long hike in Juniper Springs and I decided to soak my feet in this pond in the area. Let me step back to tell you that Juniper Springs has a natural hot springs that bubble up in the streams. There is this one stream that was dammed up during CCC (Civilian Conversation Corps) era that created this wonderful pool now used to actually snorkel in or swim around. The water is warmed by the numerous hot springs that are bubbling up all around inside this pool. Anyway, I go down to soak my feet and right at the steps down to the pool someone has dumped a ½ tire into the water. Just a real shame that they ruined this sight of this beautiful pool with their thoughtlessness. But it is right at the steps so I sit down and put my feet in and let the minnows nibble at my feet and enjoy the surroundings. After a little while some movement in the pool by the tire catch my eye – the tire is moving. OH MY that’s no tire that’s an EEL!! Turns out they have 2 resident eels living in that pool. I swear it looked just like a tire!!
All By Hand
Did you know that they pick all those oranges by hand? Well they do! Then they pour all the oranges into the bins and load them into truck – see video.
Florida Residence Complete
Monday April 8, we drove 4 hours to Ft Myers to get the license plate for truck. You can only register truck in county where you are a resident. That accomplished, we drove back 3 hours to Orlando to fly out to Colorado on Tuesday to be with Amy, Scott, Ty, Tessa, Avery, and Jaden AND Lacey for the week. On April 10 we will be remembering the sad day that Beth left us.
Approximately 7200 miles of Florida fun!
Never expected to stay this long in Florida and we circled the state twice. Turns out I liked the warmth much more than Ty but he was willing to hang around Florida and besides, Ty and Tessa got to visit with us so that was worth hanging around for. When we started this adventure, we had a “bucket list” of things we would do in each state we visited.
- State Capital: Tallahassee not a very inspiring capital
- Federal and State Parks: Biscayne National Preserve, Everglades National Park, Juniper Springs, Big Cypress National Preserve (last week found the largest python of 21 feet with 72 eggs inside!)
- Nature Preserves: Bird Sanctuary, Turtle preserve, Naples Zoo, Sea Aquarium in Miami
- Theatre: Daytona Beach Theatre (say Man from La Mancha), Rodeo in Arcadia
- Visited numerous friends (some more than once) and family
- Saw numerous sunrises and sunsets
- Wildlife: alligators, snakes, geckos, all sorts of cranes, wild turkeys, fish, eels, peacocks, eagles, pelicans, seagulls, ospreys, the list just goes on
- Topography: we watch the area turn green and flowers start to bloom. Never realized that there are hundred different varieties of palm trees.
- Said our farewells to Polly and thanked her for being such a great trailer and said HELLO to Wanda who will take us on our Great Adventure.
Leaving Florida