FABULOUS DAY IN THE EVERGLADES

Tuesday, September 29 – We had a super adventure this morning in the Everglades National Park. We reached the Everglades after a short 30-minute drive from our campground on the Western edge of Miami, Florida. Up FL-997 North (The route we missed yesterday when driving to Miami.) and then west across the Tamiami Trail to the Shark Valley entrance. Admission was free with our America the Beautiful pass – what an amazing program!

We arrived for the first scheduled tram tour through the saw-grass prairie. This 2-hour tour ranks among our “Top Ten” experiences for the year. It cost $17.75 for seniors. We were one of two couples on the tram. The other couple was from Poland. We were lead by two charming tour guides who did a fabulous job pointing out wildlife the entire trip.

We spotted dozens of alligators, birds, turtles, and an unusual sighting in this part of the Everglades, a crocodile, the only one in this part of the park.

Our tour guide taught us how to till how long an alligator is…measure from the
eyes to the end of the nose. That number of inches equals the number of
feet long the alligator is. She guessed this one to be 12 FEET!

Most alligators have there babies the end of August-September. We saw
lots of babies. They are so dang cute.

Our guide counted 11 babies in this area.

Alligator nest.

Soft Shell turtle.

Anhinga drying his wings.

Great Blue Heron showing off for us.

We learned how to identify some the birds in the Everglades.

Little Blue Heron…yellow/green legs

Snowy Egret…yellow feet, black legs

Midway through the tram tour, we stopped at the 65-foot tower for spectacular views of the area. This is really the only area where we were swarmed with mosquitoes. The other times were fairly free of those pesky bitters due to the breeze of the moving tram.

String Lily

Oh yeah, and hundreds of mosquito – don't forget your spray if you decide to take this tour!

All the park employees we talked to complimented us for arriving early to take the first tour. They said that this is the best time to see the wildlife before the heat of the day.

Even though we felt we saw a great deal of alligators and birds, they did say that the migratory bird population is significantly higher during the winter.

The only crocodile this park of the Everglades.

We truly enjoyed today's adventure and highly recommend to others contemplating a stop in Southern Florida.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

MISSED EXIT….YUCK!

Monday, September 28 – Before heading to our next destination, we took a few hikes around the Jonathan Dickinson SP. Most of the trails are sand and sea shells. Much different than the trails out west. We recommend this park to anyone staying in the area. Everyone is so nice and there are activities for every age group.

Some of the roads in this area are just so lovely.

Tiger Woods and Michael Jordon both have houses here. We took at drive and found them, but you guessed it….tall hedges to protect their privacy.

Monday morning we headed South out of Hobe Sound, Florida, around 8 a.m. heading to Miami, FL. We had a stop along the way in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, to meet up with an old friend, Harry,  from our teaching days. We arranged to meet him at a strip shopping center near his home. Harry was there waiting for us when we pulled in. We went out for a bite to eat and to rehash old times.

It's funny how you can go years since seeing an old friend, and in a matter of minutes it seems like it was only yesterday that you were together. We enjoyed our time with him but unfortunately, Bella, our cat, was locked in the car, and it was getting HOT outside. We checked on her several times and she was doing fine, but eventually we felt it best to call an end to the visit for her sake. It was so awesome seeing Harry again.

Harry, Marsha, the shrimp,  and Paul

We continued on toward Miami, FL, but missed our exit and ended up in bumper to bumper traffic on a 3-lane road that was only wide enough for two lanes to travel safely. What's wrong with this city. The only way to get around is on expensive toll roads or clogged city streets.....JEESH! After traveling about three hours we arrived at Larry and Penny Thompson Park. It should have taken less than two hours to travel from Ft. Lauderdale, but we took the scenic route. We don’t recommend it!!!

Larry and Penny Thompson Park has paved streets and campsites. The campsites are in a circular configuration they call pods with 15 campsites in each pod. It does provide for more space between the sites, but unfortunately the sites aren't very deep. Paul was concerned because he could not find anywhere but the street to park the truck. The host told him to simply pull on the grass and drive over behind our 5^th wheel. Well, that was a simple solution!

That little guy in the upper left-hand corner is real. Marsha
didn’t even see him until after she took the photo.

We have a 50 amp, full hook-up site, with shade trees and a picnic table. The bigger sites are on the outside of the each pod. There is a pool, laundry, shower rooms, and some athletic courts and fields, but we won't be using any of them. Marsha did do the laundry. She said the dryers are great! We are also permitted to wash your vehicle.

Pod 6 Site #13.

Looking right.

Looking left.

We had a little frustration on the drive in but that quickly disappears once we got set up and relaxed a little.  While out exploring, we found the correct highway for missing Miami traffic.  We'll be here at least four days.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day.

ANOTHER BEACHY DAY

Saturday, September 26 –  We spent another day chilling out in 90+ temperatures at the beach today. A little reading, walking on the beach and relaxing. The waves were really HUGE here at Hobe Sound, Florida.

There were numerous fisherman trying to hook a Tarpon or some Blue Fish. We saw one guy get a Tarpon on line, and man was it jumping out of the water. It appeared to be 4-5' long. The fisherman was hootin' & howlerin' buy unfortunately lost it. He didn't seemed too upset. He just enjoyed the thrill for a few minutes.

Lots of fishermen this morning.

Lots of paddle boarders.

After a pretty long walk on the beach, Paul decided to head into the water to cool off. As mentioned above the waves were really pounding ashore. He was careful not to go out too far, but before he knew it a big wave knocked him on his fanny, and the undertow wanted him to head deeper. YIKES!

Can you see Paul’s head?

To make things worse, Paul reported that when the huge wave hit him it nearly took his swimming trunks off. Before he could try to stand up he had to get himself presentable.

Here he is trying to stand up. Good grief. Marsha thought
she was going to have to go out and haul him in.

Fortunately, things worked out and Paul survived. He walked out of the ocean huffing & puffing but no worse for wear. He really wasn't in any real trouble, but he wasn't going back in those waves. After returning to his chair, we noticed there were no other swimmers in the water except several surfers. Guess that's what that red flag and purple flags flying at the beach headquarters meant. :-)

We had a great time at the beach but four hours in the heat was enough for us. Again, the weather has been great but temperatures in the 90's coupled with very high humidity force you to seek out air conditioning eventually.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. have a great day!

LOXAHATCHEE RIVER KAYAK TOUR

Friday, September 25 – Well, Paul's alive and well. That means he didn't tip the kayak and cause Marsha to take a dip in the river.

We met at the boat doc at 9:45 and low and behold we were the only ones on the tour. We had two tour guides, Scott, a volunteer here at the Jonathan Dickinson State Park in Hobe Sound, FL, and Celeste, is an intern with the park service. Both are in their early twenties.

We are first time kayakers so they gave us a quick lesson in kayaking. We've been canoeing many times and found this very similar to that experience. We went in a 2-person kayak at the recommendation of the gal at the rental office. The 2-hour tour was $20/for both of us which included the kayak rental and equipment plus the tour guides. Pretty good deal!

It was an absolutely gorgeous day! We paddled up the Loxahatchee River which is a tidal river.

Marsha…would you ever recognize her from the back?

The upper portions of the river are fresh water, but do to dredging and building along the coastal part of the river, the tide pushes salty ocean water up stream causing a high tide/low tide effect and mixing the salt water with the fresh water.

The river was so calm. We love the reflection of the sky in the water.

The rivers depth can raise by 3-6 feet during high tide. This has caused an impact on trees and other plant life growing along the river and a similar impact on animal life. For example, Cypress trees that at one time filled the park, can now only be seen on the upper portions of the river. Both salt water and fresh water fish can also be found in the river including an occasional porpoise and manatee.

Scott kept saying how great we were doing and how fast we were traveling. He thought he would challenge us by leading us through this very tight area along Kitchen Creek. Marsha was a bit scared, but Paul had on doubt we could do it. He did a great job guiding us through the narrow opening. We also had to come back that way. WOW…was that ever a neat experience.

Unfortunately, our wildlife observations consisted of a lonely turtle sunning himself on a log. But wildlife sightings wasn't the purpose of our trip. We were here to experience kayaking for the first time and to enjoy the river.

The river experience was very enjoyable and so was the kayaking. We actually did quite well in the paddling, although we may be singing a different tune with sore muscles tomorrow.

Clark Rambling left a comment on our post yesterday that we would like to share with our readers. He wrote….JD State Park was hit by a hurricane a few years ago and most of the trees were wiped out. They rebuilt the campground and upgraded the electric at that time. Thanks so much Larry for the info. We meant to ask why so many bare trees when we visited the VC but totally forgot.

We really enjoy this state park. Everyone is so helpful. If you like to hike and do some guided activities, this is the place for you.

Sunset here at Hobe Sound.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back again real soon. Have a great day!

JONATHAN DICKINSON STATE PARK, HOBE, FL

Thursday, September 24 - We traveled a little over 200 miles this morning down I-95 to Hobe Sound, Florida. We are about 75 miles north of Ft. Lauderdale at Jonathan Dickinson State Park. This is a huge park – over 10,000 acres. It is one of Florida's largest and most diverse state parks.

The park is named for Jonathan Dickinson, a Quaker merchant whose vessel shipwrecked nearby in 1696. His party became victims of Indian wars and disease and died shortly thereafter.

During World War II, the land the park now occupies was home to Camp Murphy, a top-secret radar training school. It became a state park in 1950.

There are two campgrounds available. One is designed for smaller RV's and tent campers with water and 30-amp electric. Those sites are grass and have fire rings. The other is newly remodeled and predominately designed for RV's including being “big rig” friendly. This is where we are parked in Site #73. The streets are paved with compacted gravel sites. We have a 50-amp full hook-up site. This surprised us. Our research showed the site to have only water and electric, but we were pleasantly surprised to be told we had a sewer hook-up as well. There is a very large attached patio of gravel with a fire ring and posts to string up a clothes line. There are large grassy areas between the sites making it nice and private. The price is $27/day + tax. This does include entrance to the park each day. Possibly a disadvantage to some is that there is no shade in this bigger camping area. With 50 amp, we are plenty comfortable even in the 90 degree weather.

Looking right.

Looking left.

There are cabins available to rent, canoes, kayaks, motorboats and bicycles also for rent. There is a picnic area and a playground. There is also a network of over 20 miles of hiking trails maintained by the Florida Trail Association.

The Hobe Mountain Observation Tower offers awesome views of the park, the Intracoastal Waterway and the Atlantic Ocean.

Hobe Mountain (should actually call it a hill) is an ancient sand dune that rises a whopping 86 feet above sea level, making it the highest natural point in South Florida south of Lake Okeechobee

That is the Intracostal Waters in front. The Ocean blends in with the sky in the back.

There is a very nice nature center and Visitor's Center with exhibits of many of the animals calling Jonathan Dickinson State Park home. They also have many programs including guided hikes, night hikes, guided platoon rides on the river and guided canoe and kayak tours. We've signed up for a kayak tour tomorrow morning – our first experience in a kayak. So ya'll come back and experience a first kayak trip with Marsha. This should be an experience!

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!