Papaw meets Sidney

Jenny took Lindsay & Sidney to SA to celebrate Larsons 93rd birthday.

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We made it. All is well. Jenny will be taking Lindsay & Sidney to S.A. in a few days. I will go to Charleston to watch the boys while Jamie is at work. Our winter trip 2017 is over with. Davejennyjournal will be off line unless something particularly blogworthy happens. This pic is unedited. I took it during our Dry Tortugas adventure to show the water color. It's unreal.

Crooked River State Park GA.

This park is just barely in Georgia. We took exit #1 on I 95 to get here. The park is about 3 hours from Habersham. We've been out 5 weeks and are ready to get home. Naval submarine base Kings Bay is near here. I think "The Red October" was brought to Kings Bay after Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin figured out how to do it. Below is a pic of the base. There is also a pic of my failed attempt to jump over a tree that was laying across the trail.

Highlands Hammock State Park

We spent a night here on the way down so we had some experience with the set up. The drive was 6 hours. Combine that with an early start and we got here with enough time to do a few things. We did some bike riding and Frisbee throwing. I took this picture on the bike ride.

Last day in paradise

 It's February and we have been wearing shorts and worrying about sunburn. Paradise would be a good description, for sure, if you lived in Minnesota or Massachusetts. The lots in this RV Park are all privately owned. There are a few on the market for $600,000. They are certainly nice places to park a motor home but renting is, with out a doubt, more cost effective. The yearly fee for camping space ownership is $10,000. Most of the spots have one of those humongous, greyhound bus sized, land yachts parked in them. When we got here the guy guiding us to our site asked if we wanted to pull in or back in. I asked him who pulls in, and he said everybody. The big busses have an engine in the back and no window. Our bedroom in the back has a big window. We backed in. Anyway, we depart tomorrow. The next 3 days will be pretty much of a slog. Tomorrow will be our longest drive of this trip. Around 7 hours. Hello hemorrhoids.

Recovery

Today we unwound from our Dry Tortugas adventure. We got things dried out and put properly away. We needed some supplies so we did another seafood lunch and went to Publix. This post has some pics Jenny took on the island and a pic of a paddle board excursion I did, this afternoon.

Dry Tortugas camping trip

This was one of our bucket list trips. The ferry ride was 2 1/2 hours. After we got our camp established we launched the kayaks and paddled 3 miles to 'Loggerhead Key', and did some exploring. We met the island keeper and he told us that all of last month he only had 18 visitors. The water color here is azure blue.
You can get an idea from the pics what it looks like. The weather, day 1 was spectacular. It got windy that night and stayed windy for day 2. No more kayaking. The main attraction in the park is Fort Jefferson. It's a gargantuan structure. The largest masonry structure in the western hemisphere. 16,000,000 bricks. 30 plus years under construction. Not a single shot was ever fired from its walls in anger and it was not finished. It has a unique history. Jenny and I have visited some forts over the last few years. The hardships building this one were monumental. We got back to the MP at 5:30. We are going to check this off our list.

ATTENTION BLOG READERS!!!

Tomorrow we are going to load the kayaks onto a ferry and go to some islands (The Dry Tortugas) 70 miles out of Key West for an overnight camping trip. We will be completely out of touch until Friday afternoon. I will send a SPOT if I remember. Now, for today's adventure. We did a Gilligan tour (3 hours) in our kayaks through a mangrove maze on the Gulf side of the Overseas highway. Our guide, (Frank), was a long time resident of the Keys and very knowledgeable. It was a private tour so we got to know him a little. We saw sharks and stingrays and birds and coral etc. It was excellent. That blimp is on a tether and it has some surveillance gear attached to it. We paddled right under it. The water was crystal clear and the navigation was confusing. We were grateful for Frank's navigation skills.

Blue Water Key day 2

It's amazing how efficient we are at blowing an entire day. We do this, we do that and low and behold it's 6 o'clock. I should have been drinking an hour ago. Today I launched the Yak right behind the MP and spent an hour and 1/2 puttering around the mangroves. It was a little windy and a little early so Jenny demurred. We ate lunch at another funky restaurant and then drove into town and did the "World Famous Conch Train" tour. At least that's how it's billed. We don't normally do world famous stuff so this was a real treat. Tomorrow we do a guided kayak trip that gets spectacular reviews on a fake news site called TripAdvisor. I took the pics on my way out and as I arrived back at the dock.

Blue Water Key

This is a private RV resort on mile 14.2 of the overseas highway. That puts us about 10 miles out of Key West. Our spot backs up to the water. We have a dock and a thatched roof cabana. It's one of the nicest commercial campsites we have ever had. We drove into town and ate some fish and then strolled along Duval street. There are some really weird dudes in Key West. I believe it's the ALT left crowd, if there is such a thing. We have no firm plans for a couple of days.

Key Largo

On our way out we stopped at the park Hq and did a hike that was highly recommended by everyone. The conditions were perfect for viewing wildlife. The wildlife was used to being viewed so there were a lot of opportunities for phone camera pics. There was a gator convention underway when we hiked by. We are in a commercial  campground that has water access. The last pic shows our 2nd choice after Walmart.

Last day in the swamp

Nothing particularly blogworthy today. After 2 days of paddling we decided to try some hikes. This park has 2 developed areas. We are in Flamingo, which is the wetter of the two. The trail that had been recommended to us by our kayak guide ended up being a muddy mess. Most of the hiking trails are in sorry shape. There is a plant that only grows here, that is endangered. Trail maintenance can be destructive of this plants habitat apparently. We were able to poke around a little after eating lunch at the park's cafe. (A food truck). We move tomorrow for a 1 night stay in Key Largo. We will be back in Verizon's service area tomorrow afternoon.

Day 3 in the swamp

We had to set an alarm today. The tour started at a location 20 minutes away at 7:45. I thought that was bigly uncivilized. The tour was pretty cool. It wandered around a mangrove swamp. The route was marked with white Pvc pipes stuck in the muck. At the end we saw an enormous saltwater croc. It was 13 feet long. The pic isn't too good because my phone camera doesn't have a telephoto lens. We did a bike ride in the afternoon. Maximum speed was required in order to avoid the vampire mosquitoes.

Day 2 in the swamp

We spent this morning paddling on Florida Bay. The bay is 25 by 40 miles and is only 10 feet deep at it's deepest. Believe me when I tell you that it is only inches deep in a lot of places. Hint: if the seagulls are standing in the water, don't go there. Our afternoon adventure was a tour on a pontoon boat through some of the mangrove wilderness that makes up this part of the park. Tomorrow is a guided kayak trip into the interior.

Flamingo (Everglades NP)

This place is reputed to be the best place in the country to test insect repellant. It's fairly cool and windy so they haven't been a problem so far. I'm using the visitor center WiFi. We'll see if this works. We have no cell service. AT&T works apparently, go figure. We've booked a kayak tour on Friday. This will be mostly a kayak stop I think. I'm gonna hit send now, cross your fingers.