Five days ago, we headed to Homestead where we
stayed at the Miami Everglades RV Resort. Our friends, Dave and Donnie from Mona Black Marina (where we keep JULE) stay here each year for several months. We decided to join them for a week and see them in action. The first day with them found us playing bean bag baseball where Bob was the all time stinkiest player. Ann was better, but not much better. Yes we dragged Dave/Donnie and the rest of the team down and we lost. Sigh.
Cruising buddies Frank and Joanne of SV Fantasy Island drove by our camp site for a visit. We met them on our first trip South in 2000 We gave them a tour of our camp site (oh boy!), then they drove us to Key Largo for sights and lunch.
We ate at the Holiday Inn near the creek that
leads to Rodriquez Key, an anchorage that we both frequented. The we headed for a small boat yard not more than 1,000 meters away and saw the original "African Queen" being refurbished by a couple of steel workers. It is a lot smaller than we thought she should be.
We had a wonderful treat at this RV Park. The morning before we were to depart we heard a strange noise outside. It was 4 hot air balloons being inflated. They passed right over our RV. They were beautiful. Today we had coffee in the lounge with Dave and Donnie. We said goodby and then headed to Collier Seminole State Park along the Tamiami Trail. On the way we saw many large alligators on the road side.
Collier Seminole Park in the 10 Thousand Island
Mangrove reserve is a favorite of ours in the winter months. It
provides a undisturbed experience of the mangrove swamp and the
scattered hammocks. Visiting in the summer months is another story.
Just the roar of the mosquitoes is enough to have one scurrying back to
the safety of the RV. Fortunately for us the bugs are dormant but the
alligators may not be.
This park is more like Manatee Hammock without the
seasonal RVers as the park limits our stay to two weeks. Collier
Seminole is near Marco Island where we normally spend the July 4th week
at our time share. Naples and Fort Myer are not far away but we are too
lazy to unhook and drive there. This was to be our base to see some
cruising friends but sadly that did not happen.
This area has the distinction of harboring one of the
few natural stands of royal palms in the USA. The tree in the picture
is just one example of the naturally occurring royals here. It must
not freeze here as the royals are not happy with either a hard frost or
freeze.
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