Friday March 18th 2022

I was up early this morning to get ready for travel. I should have slept a little longer. I was ready to travel by 9:30AM, but to time my arrival closer to the 3PM check in time I needed to leave close to the noon checkout time. Waiting around once you ready to go is very hard. I hooked up the car and moved to the dump station at 11AM and was on the road around 11:30AM.

My route took me down the main streets of Homestead Florida and Florida City. I think I could have avoided one or both with a little more study, but it worked out OK. It would have been better if the power wasn’t out at several intersections. Crossing four way intersections in heavy traffic when the traffic lights are dark is a little bit of a challenge. Luckily this is one time that being bigger than the average car seems to have a positive impact on the decision process the other drivers go through. When I was ready to proceed through the intersection everybody let me.

The trip west across Everglades National Park on the main park road to the Flamingo area on the Florida Bay was interesting. It has been about twenty five years since I’ve been this deep into the park. I visited the eastern area about four years ago on my Rambling Road Trip. The combination of grass land, trees and water holes is not what I remember. It deserves some exploring over the next few days.

The Flamingo area of the park is still in a rebuilding phase after hurricane IRMA in 2017. The visitors center is in a temporary facility and the lodge is undergoing a complete re construction. The campground is also under repair, but not because of the long past hurricane. The T-Loop of the Flamingo campground that I’m staying in is getting repaved. My understanding is it started earlier in the week on the fifteenth and continues until June. The campground sent an email about three weeks ago warning people with reservations and attempting to scare them off. I don’t consider three weeks enough warning during Spring Break in Florida so I didn’t even attempt to change my reservations. Other people must have taken the warning. This section of the campground, which is the only one with electric hookups, is only about a third occupied. I don’t know what kind of torture the paving work will represent during my stay. So far it looks like they have just set up a lot orange cones. I live with it for the ten days I am here.

There is no Verizon cell service and Over the Air TV is non existent. I have satellite TV and the AT&T prepaid mobile hot spot I bought last week is working to get me on the internet. The big thing is there are plenty of trails and natures creatures to keep me entertained during the day.

Thursday March 17th 2022

It was a foggy morning. The overnight humidity and still conditions allowed all the moisture from the last couple of days of rain to produced a layer of ground fog that lasted until about 10AM. Under the bright sun the temperature reached the upper eighties, but the afternoon was dominated by clouds. All around the campground dark clouds arrived with some rumbling of thunder and an occasional flash of lightening. Somehow it never rained here at the campground, but the National Weather Service did issue a severe storm warning.

This is my last full day here at the Big Cypress Preserve Midway Campground. I’ll be back again for five night later in the month. Tomorrow I’m traveling to the Flamingo Campground in the Everglades National Park. It is located about fifty miles south of here, but you’d get stuck in the water, grass and muck of the glades if you tried to go straight there. The land route is over one hundred miles long. It is necessary to travel east into the Miami suburbs, south to Homestead and then back to the west through the National Park. Flamingo is really in the middle of nowhere. I know I will not have Verizon Cell service. Hopefully, I’ll have internet access via AT&T.

Supplies and services are fifty miles east of the Flamingo campground in Homestead. I don’t want to make that run if I don’t have to, so I set out to fill up on provisions today. My choice for shopping was the Walmart forty eight miles west in Naples. The Walmart to the east in Miami is nearer, but harder to access if I recall my visit a few years ago. I also wanted to stop at a few more of the roadside stops west of here on the Tamiami trail. There were a few alligators to check up on.

I’m all set with supplies and I have most of the outside preparation tasks complete. Checkout time here is noon and check in time at the Flamingo campground is 3PM. I’ve read that they enforce the check in time, so I’ll need to find a place along the park road in the Everglades to stop and see the sights. The trick will be finding a place with enough room to park.

Just a reminder. If I don’t have internet access this blog will be delayed. My intent is to continue to write my daily blog and take a set of pictures every day. Every couple of days I’ll drive back to the east side of the Everglades National Park and post the blog while in the area advertised to have Verizon access. There is plenty of trails to hike and things to see in that area as well.

Wednesday March 16th 2022

Today started and ended sunny, humid and calm. In between it was rainy windy and wet. The rainy part of the day was the coolest part. The rest of the day was uncomfortably humid. The air conditioner in my RV home got turned on for the first time in a long time.

My day began with another attempt at booking a Florida State Park reservation for next winter. This time my computer and Microsoft got in the way of success. They conspired to pick this morning to upgrade the Windows software. My very limited internet connection was quickly overwhelmed. By the time I detected the issue and commanded the beast to stop misbehaving, it was too late. I missed the 8AM race for a site selection. It’s not a catastrophe. I still have many more options, but I’m starting to look out of the box.

The rain got in the way of my activities today. I was getting ready to get in the car to head for one of the trail heads west on the Tamiami trail, when the sky opened with another tropical deluge. While I waited it out I prepared some lunch and had an early meal. The rain let up and I started to prepare to depart again, but mother nature had other ideas. The second wave of rain arrived. Between the two downpours the road in front of my RV and the grass across the road were flooded under a couple inches of water. It was late in the day for exploring by the time the sun returned.

The extent of my exercise for the day was several loops around the campground pond. It was an interesting exercise to see where the alligator was hiding out each time I ventured out. I now suspect there are two gators in the pond. I haven’t seen them both on the same loop, but one looks smaller than the other. The other thing that I find odd is the absence of other wildlife. There are no water birds or turtles present along the edge of the pond.

Tuesday March 15th 2022

Today’s weather ranged from partly cloudy to semi tropical deluge. The first half of the day was dry with the potential for a change in the wet direction at any minute. From early afternoon on it was off and on rain with the biggest thunderstorm level downpour happening at the supper hour. The temperature maxed out in the upper seventies.

Walking the campground loop around the pond this morning I had my first visit on this stay with the resident alligator. Just to be sure the tourists knew what he was, he was camped out under the alligator warning sign. This is a fairly big gator that I think has lived in this pond for several years. People are repeatedly warned not to walk their dogs close to the pond.

After lunch I set out in the car to explore the area along the Tamiami trail to the west of the campground. I went less than half way to Naples, but stopped at three areas with gator viewing. The first stop was the visitors center with a boardwalk along the roadside canal. The canal is very popular with the local alligator population. I counted about twenty gators, but there were likely more at the bottom of the canal. I got a couple of bird pictures as well.

My other long stop was at the Kirby Storter Roadside Park. It was a popular stop today. I met a number of people on the half mile boardwalk trail into the Cypress Strand. Given that this is the dry season, the water level was low. Most of the boardwalk passed over dry grassy ground. Along the tree line portion of the trail there are a lot of Orchids or Bromeliads growing high in the trees. Some are getting ready to blossom. At the end of the trail there is a “gator” hole. It is a deeper portion of the creek that passes through the cypress strand. I spotted several turtles and a few very young alligators. They were under two feet in length.

Monday March 14th 2022

This moving day began a little chilly, but not nearly as cool as Sunday. The morning at Ortona South Campground as I packed up was sunny in the sixties. Later in the day as I reversed the process one hundred miles south at the Midway Campground on the Tamiami trail it was cloudy and warm around eighty degrees. This evening the cloud continued with a strong breeze out of the east. Rain is possible the next couple of days.

My travel day began a few minutes after the 11AM checkout time. I spent over half an hour waiting in line behind three other RVs at the dump station. By the time I departed there were still two behind me. Quite a few RVs departed this morning.

The first order of business was putting some gas in the motorhome. I arrived two weeks ago with only a quarter tank. Finding a station that I could get in and out of easily on my arrival day proved impossible. During my stay, I scouted out two or three easily accessible stations on my exit route. I put in almost 57 gallons of gas for $250. The tank was almost full, but I didn’t want to do a third credit card pass for only a few bucks. I plan need to fill more often to keep the dollar value from being so shocking.

Around 1:30 I arrived at my destination. For the next four nights I’ll be staying in the Big Cypress National Preserve at the Midway Campground. I stayed here once before in 2019. The facility is about twenty five sites around a little pond formed from draining and filling the swamp to make the campground. The name Midway campground comes from its location halfway from Naples to Miami. In many ways it is in the middle of nowhere, but so far, I have internet access.

Sunday March 13th 2022

The temperature got down into the forties overnight. It was fifty one inside at 7:30 this morning. A strong northeast wind kept the overall temperature down all day. The mercury crossed the seventy mark briefly in the mid afternoon, but is in the process of returning to the fifties for the night time hours.

I don’t know if it was the time change or the cold weather, but the campground seemed much less active this morning. I didn’t see the usual complement of walkers and bicyclists. Unfortunately, I had to get up early to attempt to make another winter of 2023 campsite reservation. The odds were against me this morning. Only two sites were available at the state park I’m interested in booking. I hoped to get some more experience with the crappy reservation software if I didn’t have success with the booking. All I got was frustration. I still haven’t found an easy way to use the software and I didn’t get a site. It still takes me two or three mouse clicks once the booking window opens. That leaves me at the mercy of the response time from the server for each mouse click. Somehow other people are getting it done quicker. Tomorrow there are eight sites available. Maybe I’ll get lucky instead of frustrated.

I had long pants and a sweatshirt on for walks today. The birds seemed to be in hiding during my first walk in the morning. I didn’t see any birds in the usual locations. On my second circuit of the campground shortly after the noon hour I spotted a few of the usual birds in the creek, but the snowy egret was nowhere to be found. The time change and the need to eat confused the timing of my evening walk. I was back in my cozy RV home when the sun was setting.

This is my last full day at the Ortona South Campground. I’ve enjoyed my two weeks here. I got the outside travel preparation tasks completed this afternoon. The 11AM checkout time can come fast in the morning. I have about a little less than 100 miles south to travel tomorrow.

My next three stops are in poor cell phone service areas. I will be in the Big Cypress National Forest and Everglades National Park for the rest of the month. I will continue to write my daily blog, but it may not get published every day. Since my last visit to the area, I have added an external antenna for my Verizon hot spot device and today I invested in a prepaid AT&T mobile hot spot as a backup. It still remains an experiment in connectivity. Don’t be surprised if a new blog entry doesn’t show up every day between now and April 2nd.

Thursday March 10th 2022

Today was a muggy day. The humidity has increased and the wind has decreased. The result was a high temperature around 90 degrees, even with a mostly cloudy sky. Tomorrow is forecast to be similar. On Saturday the rain associated with a cold front that has been hovering over central Florida is expected to extend south into this area.

This was lawn maintenance day at the campground. The service is preformed under contract to the local Goodwill organization. I don’t know what the circumstances of the workers are, but they perform the task with the enthusiasm and speed of a sloth in the hundred yard dash. Each worker has a task and a piece of power equipment. One guy gets the riding mower, another gets the push mower, one gets the weed wacker, one the edger and finally one the leaf blower. There doesn’t seem to be any coordination between the workers from that point on. They scatter through the park working and taking many uncoordinated breaks in out of the way places. The bottom line is they get the work done, the park grass is well manicured and it looks great.

The Ortona Lock was very busy today. I watched about five lock openings most with multiple boats in the lock. Ten boats from a Naples Yacht club passed through going upstream toward Lake Okeechobee for the weekend. The group was divided into two separate lock rises. Six boats seems to be the limit for this lock. I also watched one boat from Canada with a language issue understanding directions. The lock master wanted them on the opposite side of the lock than they were setup to use. The hand signals were wild.

Getting the boats into the lock, changing the water level and getting the boats out of the lock takes about half an hour. It seems to be a little quicker lowering the water level. They can open the downriver gate wider without worrying about the turbulent created. Watching all the traffic pass through the lock combined with walking to and from my campsite took a large portion of my day. It was an interesting day.

Wednesday March 9th 2021

The rain storms were even more scattered today. Once again the storms went by to the east and the west. The strong breeze out of the south and southwest kept the humid upper eighties temperature in check. Tomorrow and Friday are forecast to be similar with highs right around ninety. These temperatures are about ten degrees higher than normal for this time of year in this area.

I was up early this morning to make another reservation for next winter. This mornings attempt was unsuccessful. There were only two sites to choose from at the state park I was interested in booking. The cumbersome Web interface software and I suspect an under powered server got in the way. I was met with the dreaded “Site is already booked” message. Not surprisingly my attempts to find a site at other state parks in the central part of the state proved unsuccessful. I’ll need to book a commercial campground to fill in the gap once I get a state park or other public park site booked.

Getting the next few weeks for next winter booked is going to be difficult. Late February and March are prime season. I will have to get lucky at 8AM on the start of each 11 month booking window. The complication is internet access. Once I leave here next Monday, I’ll be staying at places in and around the Everglades that have very poor cell phone service. I’m not sure how I’m going to pull off the necessary minor miracle.

Working on plans for this summer is also full of questions. The ever increasing price of gas is adding to the cost. The increase in gas cost over the last week represents an increase of fifteen cents per mile of travel in my motorhome. Considering that the price of gas hasn’t peaked yet, it is likely the cost per mile will be twenty to twenty five cents above last year. That is between one and two thousand dollars for the year. The price of a night at a campground has also increased over the last two years. Just about every campground has gone up a few dollars. Some commercial campgrounds that were in the low fifties per night in 2019 are in the mid seventies per night this year. The pandemic produced a need for the limited supply of campsites that resulted in an increase in the cost per night. The campgrounds are getting it, they remain full most nights.

I don’t like the increase in cost, but I can adjust to it and absorb the costs. My bigger concern is the availability of fuel. If shortages develop and long lines or worse rationing come into play, I don’t want to be thousands of miles away from places I can hole up with minimum travel. For the winter, those places are in the south. The question becomes should I risk going all the way to the Dakotas this summer? If I don’t go that far north, where do I go?

For today’s activities, I broke up my walks to take pictures of the birds with a run to Walmart for groceries. I’m good with food supplies for another week.