Category Archives: Everglades National Park

Bahia Honda State Park

IMG_3716I spent the better part of March 2014 trying to make any kind of camping reservation in the Florida Keys, without any success. I resorted to what I thought were some clever IT tricks, but they didn’t work out, and as a result, no reservations were obtained. I signed up with a group that promised to find camping cancellations in the Florida Keys and then let you know. For that they would charge double the cost of a campsite. It was still a deal. That didn’t work out either. The campsite in Long Pine Key, in the Everglades, is about an hour and a half to two hours from Bahia Honda, so we drive instead of camp. Continue reading

Long Pine Key Campground – Day at Camp

workingAfter getting in late last night, around midnight, we, slept in. We got up around 9 o’clock had breakfast and we took a walk up to say goodbye to Harold and Martha they had already left. We came back to the campsite, and I figured today was as good a time as any to look at the battery solar maintenance panel that came with the RV that had been initially set up to keep a charge in the house batteries. I moved the panel to allow for the installation of the two renogy solar panels we currently have on the roof, figuring that the more energy going into the he batteries the better off I would be.

I was able to start the RV twice early in January but wasn’t able to run it for long period of time, so by the time he came for us to leave the trip on January 9, the truck wouldn’t start. I thought that moving the maintenance panel from the house batteries to the chassis battery might be a good idea. The view has the ability to flip a switch and have the house batteries start the RV. Continue reading

To the Everglades

We woke up early, for us, to a beautiful clear blue sky, a moderate breeze, and a temperature of about 56° outside. There were several generators running, so I didn’t feel any guilt in running hours to make coffee and toast. We had a nice breakfast of cheese omelettes toast and coffee, and took very little time after breakfast the cleanup and get organized. By a quarter after 10 were tooling down the highway, East towards Miami, with the intent to dumping our tanks at the Midway Campground. I attempted to make reservations at Midway while we were at Collier Seminole, but I wasn’t quick enough on the trigger and reservations were unavailable when we looked again. Continue reading

Biscayne National Park

We got up at 7:30 AM, figuring that since it was Sunday, and we had a kind of schedule in mind so we figured that on the way we would check out Eco Pond.  When we arrived at the pond the parking area was just about full, so parking the RV was a challenge. WE finally wandered over to the pond we found more cameras than birds. The assumed professional who needs teenagers to get good wildlife photos from the day before at Mahogany Hammock was there taking shots of one of the roseate spoonbills.  Continue reading

Flamingo to Homestead & Back

We started the day slowly and straightened up and organized things before we left the site, after we packed everything up; didn’t know if we would be back, we needed fuel, propane, and water.  The gauges for the levels seem to be incorrect.  We had a full load of water before coming out to Flamingo and the grey water and black water tanks were registering a flicker over empty by the time the water was indicating gone.  Later in the day, after we filled up to the point that the tank was overflowing, the gauge reads 2/3 full. Perplexing. Continue reading