#8 Florida; East to Key West

As we roll over the Florida/Georgia border, the thunder rolls too and brings an abrupt end to the hot and sunny Floridian weather we’ve enjoyed over the last three months. How apt! Our journey north has begun. Most snowbirds don’t cross this line until mid April, but with seven months left on our US visa and so much more to see, we best get going.

Forida did not disappoint. We’ve been exploring the Sunshine State up and down, east and (Key) west, from Panhandle to Miami, Okeechobee to St. Augustine. We’ve indulged in oysters, stone crabs, clams and key lime pie and embraced Florida’s awesome beef. We’ve seen an abundance of wildlife, swam in many waters and formed wonderful friendships along the way. I guess we’ve had too much fun, that might explain why it’s taken so long to write another blog post..but here we are again.

Panhandle: A quieter and less touristy corner of Florida with pristine white sands, charming towns and great seafood. We sure were glad to explore this region. Sadly, however, towns like Mexico Beach and parts of Panama City got destroyed by Hurricane Michael back in October 2018 and are still struggling today. Our highlights though were fishing on the grand pier in Panama City Beach, slurping Apalachicola oysters in the ‘Up the Creek’ raw bar whilst chatting to fellow travellers who arrived by boat, and getting ‘the knock’ from the police in Apalachicola’s main parking lot telling us; “You can’t camp here!”…well, perhaps not the latter. At least the police didn’t catch Richie doing the oil change a few hours prior on that very same spot.

Our journey through Florida following our Panhandle visit very much depended on where we could stay. January, February and March are the most busiest months in Florida and we soon discovered that in order to stay in a State Park during this time, you need to be ahead of the game and book 11 months in advance! No kidding, people do that! We can’t blame them, those state parks are really cool. We were pretty glad though to be members of the Boondockers Welcome community. This allows us to stay in people’s driveways, go to places you may not necessarily check out and meet fellow like-minded travelers in their home. How cool is that! Other nights were spent near boat ramps, primative forest camps (thanks to the Florida Water Management), Cracker Barrel Restaurants or Walmarts, and wild camps tucked away in a cosy bay. Being small and nimble, we never struggled to get a good night’s sleep.

Some of our favourite destinations were: Suwannee River, Fort Desoto Park, Manasota Key Beach-Venice (where we had fun finding ancient shark teeth), De Leon Springs, Cape Coral and the Overseas Highway to Key West. We also enjoyed spending a few days in Titusville, from where we would have had a good view of a rocket launch. Unfortunately, during our stay, the scheduled launch of a SpaceX mission kept getting postponed due to high winds. Maybe we will see it another time.

Another highlight was seeing our good friend Lucky (Zoe’s Godfather) in Miami. We spent four days camping together in Okeechobee and after his 3 week English language course had come to an end, we reunited. This time with his wife Franziska. We partied at his host Connie’s house and devoured plenty of Argentinian meat….mmm!

Much of our time these last three months have been spent with friends. Visitors from Switzerland and new friends we picked up along the way. We enjoyed a feast in Lakeland with travelers, Dave and Lynn, overnighted with our first ever Boondocker hosts, Sue and John, and finished our Floridian stay with Mike and Ruby (a couple we randomly met on Fort Desoto fishing pier) in St Augustine, the oldest city in the USA. Thanks to them we also managed to bag a cancellation at Anastasia State Park. What a treat!

We have gotten used to our new life on wheels and we love it. Every morning, Zoe crawls to the window on Richie’s side of the bed to see what our new backyard looks like. We must admit, it is pretty cool to wake up to either crashing waves, a squirrel climbing up a mossy oak tree or a big ship sailing by. We find it to be a fairly active lifestyle, with lots of walks and day trips as well as checking out the local library, playing in the children’s park or running errands such as laundry every ten days. Richie likes to fix and maintain everything himself, which keeps the costs low and gives him a good challange. Oh and we mustn’t forget to mention the grilling. We look forward to the end of the day when we set up camp, make a fire and put some meat on the coals. Zoe loves having Mum and Dad around all day and everyday and is truly one happy camper. She gets so many compliments everywhere we go.

We can’t believe Zoe will be turning one next week. We are excited to see how we will celebrate this major milestone on the road, on Friday 13th March! It will be in Georgia, the state that’s on our mind…(Ray Charles).

Thanks for reading…”meat you guys around the world!”