Sunday March 10th 2019

Today’s weather continued the streak of good days. It was a little cloudier than yesterday, but the temperature still managed to get into the low eighties. The switch to daylight savings time was the biggest change today.

When I looked at the clock beside my bed this morning it read 8:50. My sleep clouded brain added an hour for daylight savings and concluded I was going to be late getting the day started at 10AM. Once I was up I read the microwave clock at 8:02. The bedroom clock is “smart” it added the hour automatically. That was the most exciting thing to happen today. Since I managed to post my blog entry last night, I didn’t need to jump in the car and travel east or west in search of a cell phone signal. My day was spent at home reading and watching TV.

I walked around the campground pond a few times for exercise. I’m always on the lookout for the campground alligator or other interesting wildlife. On my last walk of the day I saw the gator taking a nap on the side of the pond. He had been out long enough that the campground hosts had moved one of the orange warning signs into the area. Every time the gator pops out of the pond they move one of several “Beware of Alligator” signs into the area. There are already permanently mounted warning signs around the pond. These seem to be a form of proactive anti lawsuit signs. I don’t think they are very useful.

Saturday March 9th 2019

Today was a weather clone of yesterday. The temperature was in the low eighties with a moderate wind out of the east south east. An occasional cloud blocked the sun for a moment or two.

I took a drive to the west this morning to find a cell phone signal strong enough to post yesterday’s blog entry. While I was out I stopped in at the Everglades City branch of the Everglades National Park. My timing was off for catching one of the boat rides into the Thousand Island area. I would have had to wait over two hours for the next available boat. It probably wouldn’t have been as good as I remember from 2013.

During the afternoon I caught up on a few chores around my RV home and grilled a couple of sausages for dinner. I took a couple of walks around the campground for exercise. On the second walk just before sunset, the campground resident alligator made an appearance. I spotted it swimming across the pond toward the bank I was standing on. It paralleled the shore for a short distance then turned and climbed the bank. Watching how quickly it moved onto land and headed in my general direction was a little frightening. I had plenty of space and it stopped well short of my location, but I did back up. It drew a small army of fellow campers taking pictures.

So far tonight the atmospheric conditions have allowed me to stay online. With a little luck I will get this blog entry posted before it goes away.

Friday March 8th 2019

The weather roller coaster is climbing toward another peak. Today was warmer and a little less windy than Thursday. The temperature peaked in the low eighties.

I continue have issues with internet connectivity. During my first four days here it wasn’t great but there were long periods of solid connectivity. The last three plus days it has been no signal with an occasional brief connection that sends my cell phone into a notification frenzy. To find out if any of the notifications required action and to publish yesterday’s blog entry, I drove west to the outskirts of Naples FL this morning. Naples is a little further away but the drive is less congested than the trip east to the Miami suburbs. I found my Internet connectivity in a Walmart parking lot.

The drive back along the Tamiami trail was an opportunity to stop at various places and check out Mother Natures wonders. It’s not the easiest road to play tourist along. The road is straight and level for long stretches. The speed limit is sixty in the western section and fifty five in the eastern section. You are either traveling along at the speed limit watching for oncoming traffic that may be in your lane to pass or you’re stuck behind slower moving traffic. Waiting for you turn to pass is an exercise in patience followed by a short period of exhilaration as you speed by the slow moving traffic. The problem the road presents to stopping at the road side sights is finding the places to stop. The road sign installers give you a quarter mile warning of a possible place to stop. Then they set the sign back from the road far enough that the foliage makes it impossible to see from a distance. Deciding to stop, slowing from sixty to turning speed and not getting hit from behind is the challenge to accomplish in a quarter of a mile. It’s a lot easier once you know where everything is located.

This evening at the campground there was a ranger lead presentation on the history of logging in the Big Cypress National Preserve. It was held at an amphitheater back in the woods from the campsites that I didn’t even know was there. The mosquito were out in strength, but so was an owl. Before the presentation began an owl landed in a tree beside the amphitheater area to check out the ruckus. I tried to get a picture, but it didn’t come out great in the low light. The ranger presentation was informative, but very disorganized.

End of Post

Thursday March 7th 2019

Today was a little warmer than yesterday with a few more clouds. The strong wind from the north continued, but the temperature managed to make it into the mid seventies.

I wasn’t successful uploading my blog entry yesterday, so after breakfast this morning I headed off to the east to find a cell data signal or an internet connection. In the Miami suburbs I found a parking lot with a little shade that I could establish a WiFi hotspot with my phone. The only problem was the computer I brought with me didn’t have everything I needed to publish the post. I finally got it posted when I got back to my RV home in the afternoon. The atmospheric conditions or the tower congestion weren’t a problem this time. I had a good connection.

Once in the Miami region I decided to continue south to the main area of the Everglades National Park. The traffic and road construction were terrible. The average speed was around twenty miles an hour. About an hour after turning south I was headed out through farm land to the National Park. You’d think the approach to the park was supposed to be a secret with all the twists and turns with minimal signage required. I finally arrived at the park, but it was later in the day than one would normally started exploring the park and I wasn’t well prepared. I didn’t have extra water or binoculars.

I toured the main visitors center and then spent a couple of hours on the Anhinga Trail near the eastern edge of the park. I took the following pictures as I walked the trail. There were lots of visitors, lots of scenery and lots of wildlife.

End of Post

Wednesday March 6th 2019

What a difference a day makes. The last few days were humid with the high temperature in the upper eighties. Today the temperature barely made it to seventy degrees and a strong north wind made it feel even colder. On the positive side of things, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

I continued exploring the Big Cypress National Preserve. Today I drove to the west side of the Preserve to the main visitors center. It has some nice exhibits about the history of the Preserve and the wildlife that inhabits it. Behind the building is a short boardwalk along a canal.

The cool temperature kept the number of alligators I saw down. Between the three stops I made I only say two gators. Included in that was stop I made on Sunday that had many alligators to see. There are still plenty of things to see like birds in flight and random plant life. It is hard to catch pictures of the flying birds. I saw one rather unique black and white bird with a split tail that turned out to be a Swallow-Tailed Kite. At least that’s what my internet search concluded.

Internet and cell phone are really a puzzle at the this campground. The number of bars for the voice connectivity seem to be one or two most of the time. The data connectivity goes from great to zero. It can be fine for a few hours then non existent for the next few. So far I’ve been able to post a blog entry every night, but tonight may be the exception. As I’ve been writing this entry, I have had no connectivity. I don’t know when I’ll get the pictures and text uploaded.

This blog entry was uploaded on Thursday afternoon. I didn’t have internet access on Wednesday evening.

Tuesday March 5th 2019

I expected to get rained on today, but it didn’t happen. The day started sunny and warm. The temperature eventually made it into the low to mid eighties. Shortly after noon the expected front arrived with some wind and lots of clouds. It didn’t take long for the wind direction to change and the sun to return. Tomorrow is forecast to be ten degrees or more cooler.

The resident campground alligator has been hard to find. To get my gator fix I drove up to the Oasis Visitors Center. There are always plenty of alligators to be found in the deep water canal along the road in front of the visitors center. I was not disappointed. Along with plenty of tourists from all over the world judging by languages, I found big gators, little gators and all the sizes in between. The big reptiles are fascinating to observe.

End of Post

Monday March 4th 2019

Today’s high temperature was a near record high for the area. It got up to near 90 under bright sunny skies, lots of humidity and a gentle breeze. Tomorrow is forecast to be the start of the transition to cooler temperatures with cloudy skies and the threat of rain. By Wednesday the temperature is forecast to be a little below normal in the low to mid seventies.

Late this morning I drove east from the campground. My plan was to visit the Shark Valley, the northern most unit of the Everglades National Park. On the drive east I noticed that I had less than half a tank of gas. Staying in the middle of nowhere that could be an issue, so I continued by the park another twenty miles or so to the outskirts of the Miami metro area. I found gas after only getting lost in one housing subdivision. The transition from Everglades to suburbs then retail to housing was rapid and dramatic. I really wasn’t prepared for navigating in the congestion. I only had to turn around twice and I saw some interesting homes in the process.

After filling the tank I reversed course back into the Everglades. The road seems to serve as a dike. There is plenty of water to the north of the road complete with a canal that parallels the road. At regular intervals there are gates that control the flow of water in canals under the road to the south. Three area a few tourist attractions offering air boat rides and other tours. In general there is far more commerce on the eastern side of the Tamiami trail across the state than on the western end.

When I got back to the Shark Valley Park entrance my plan for the day was foiled. The parking lot was full. The overflow seemed to be along the road with a lot of walking required. I had only planned a short visit that didn’t involve taking the Tram ride. Later in the week when the weather is cooler I plan to take my bicycle to the park and ride the Tram road at my own pace rather than taking the tram to the observation tower. I turned around at the full parking lot sign and returned to my RV home. My adventure for the day was a long round trip to fill the gas tank.

The campground was filling back up for the night when I arrived. During the weekend there were many Florida RVs in the park. Last night and tonight the mix has turned in favor of the travelers. My guess is they are here for a couple to three nights to see the Big Cypress National Preserve and the northern part of the Everglades. I don’t thing there are many people that are staying here for two weeks like I am. It’s a long drive to just about everything.

Sunday March 3rd 2019

Today had a high temperature in the high eighties with plenty of humidity. The clouds and sun had a battle for dominance which ended in a draw. The clouds deposited a tiny bit of rain, but the sun evaporated it before it had a chance to get anything wet.

There isn’t much to do at this campground. You can only walk around the pond looking for an alligator so many times before getting bored. Today I drove back to the west a few miles on the Tamiami trail stopping at some of the Big Cypress National Preserve roadside pull outs. I enjoyed another deep water area with lots of alligators and a hike along a boardwalk into a Cypress Swamp. Here are some pictures from my adventures.

Saturday March 2nd 2019

Today’s weather is pushing the summer weather a little. The temperature was around 90 degrees with high humidity, lots of sunshine and very little wind. Luckily with the setting sun the temperature dropped to good sleeping weather.

As I expected before I got here, this area is not the best for modern electronic conveniences. I have intermittent Verizon Cell service. The voice service seems to bounce between 1 and 2 bars. The data service can be 4G level one minute then non existent the next. I managed to get yesterdays blog entry posted. It only had a couple of pictures and it took an extra long time to complete. I don’t know what will happen tonight with all the pictures in this blog entry.

The over the air TV signal is also intermittent. I can have as few as one channel or as many as 50 when all the sub-channels are included. Most of the time I only have an NBC, PBS and Spanish language station. All of the channels are out of the Miami and Fort Lauderdale area. It is a good thing that my DirecTV satellite is working. I’m watching a lot of HGTV and Food Network shows.

I spent most of the day at the campground. The pond in the middle of the campground is reported to have two resident gators. So far I’ve haven’t seen two at the same time, I’ve only seen an alligator in two different places at two different times. One was last night across the road from my site and this morning was near a group of picnickers at the end of the lake. The gator was very interested in what they were grilling.

To got my alligator fix for the day at the Oasis Visitors Center for the Big Cypress National Preserve. The center is a mile or two west of the campground on the Tamiami trail. It has a deep water section of a canal between the road and the visitors center that is great habitat for alligators. The canal has many gators to observe and most of them were active.

Friday March 1st 2019

It was a long travel day. I was up early to prepare for an early departure. Still, it wasn’t until 9:30AM that I pulled out of Payne’s Prairie Preserve State Park. With one stop for gas along the way, I was on the road for seven hours. This was one of the worst travel days I’ve had on the Rambling Road Trip.

Traffic was very heavy along the entire 350 mile journey. Getting through the Ocala area was the first slow down, but it was minor compared to the congestion ahead. Just north of Tampa the traffic slowed down and got heavier. It didn’t let up much south of town. Just before the interstate 275 beltway returns to Interstate 75 north of Bradenton, traffic transitioned into stop and go mode. I didn’t track the mileage, but it took well over an hour to travel to the south side of Sarasota. Previous trips through this area as recently as January usually took less than thirty minutes. Other than two exits in Bradenton under construction, I could find no reason for the congestion other than the volume of traffic.

The next major slow down was only a four mile stretch in the Punta Gorda area for an accident. It took half an hour to get past the scene. All that remained when I passed was the hazardous waste clean up crew. After driving in heavy traffic through Fort Meyers I had to slow down for another accident. This one was a box truck that drove off the road into a tree. It didn’t look like it was very bad, but it did slow my speed down to a ten mile an hour or so average. Once I was south of Naples it was a steady sixty mile an hour drive on the one lane in each direction Tamiami trail across the state.

My destination was halfway across the state at the Midway Campground in the Big Cypress National Preserve. I arrived at 4:30PM and got setup before the threatening clouds to the east arrived. I saw plenty of lightening in the clouds, but they didn’t produce any rain in this area. This campground has about twenty five sites around a small pond. They warn you when you arrive and with many signs that alligators are the natives in the pond and bears in the woods. So far I’ve seen a gator on the band of the pond across from my site. If I see a bear, I hope it’s further away.