Fall was awesome …
… until it quickly turned into a winter nightmare.
We were in Tennessee at the beginning of November in 2019. We had just spent a daytrip going up to Nashville and visiting the LDS Temple there, and the leaves were something else. They were red, yellow, orange, and everything in between, and it was a thing to behold. And that was on a rainy day.
I don’t have anything against the rain.
Actually, I love the rain–Gwen and I moved away from Colorado and headed back to the Pacific Northwest because we wanted MORE rain, and there was TOO MUCH in the Rocky Mountain State.
The next day was even better. It was 65 degrees with hardly any cloud cover, and we couldn’t have asked for better weather. But we weren’t ready for the cold front that hit us the next morning.
It was cold.
The thermometer said 16 degrees Fahrenheit.
Our water pipe froze, and the black tank pipes froze too. We decided we’d spent enough time in Tennessee (3 days) and got the heck out of there …
… after melting the ice in our hoses of course …
… with a blowdryer.
Then we got out of dodge; but the cold weather followed us all the way to Atlanta, GA, and then to Gainsville, Florida. But that’s where it all stopped. That’s when the sunshine started.
Now, the first thing you’ll notice about Florida, unless of course you see a bunch of lakes, palm trees, or alligators first, is that there is sand EVERYWHERE. Somehow, the biggest producer of citrus fruits in the country is able to grow everything in nothing but sand. And the sand gets in everything.
We have to sweep our rig every day, multiple times, and it never goes away. (There are some ways you can mitigate this, but I’ll talk about that in a different post.)
The second thing we noticed was that there were a lot of dilapidated buildings, everywhere. It seemed like everywhere we drove, we saw an old and boarded up home that had been abandoned 20 years ago and could have fit in every scary movie ever created. Then there were the fire ants.
If you’ve never experienced fire ants before, then you are a fortunate person. I am still amazed that such a small animal can hurt so much, and it’s impossible for you to get just one bite. Then, when you get bitten, right in the middle of the bite, you’ll get a small oil blister, and the lesion from the bite itches like crazy.
So, I guess you could say our first month and a half in Florida wasn’t our favorite …
… but this post is really about trying to convince you to visit Florida. So the natural question is “how can you recommend Florida with all that stuff you didn’t like?”
And that’s where this story takes an unexpected turn.
We kept moving south.
After we stayed in Orlando for a couple of weeks, and then hung out in Daytona for another couple of weeks, we headed down to camp next to the Peace River, and that’s when things started to change.
First, the area we were camping in was beautiful. There were amazing trees and elegant Spanish moss all over the place. It was really picturesque. Then there was the Peace River. We floated down the river in our inflatable kayaks for a couple of miles and we saw a TON of alligators. There were really cute babies and bigger adolescents. I also got to go largemouth bass fishing. By the time we left the campground, Florida was really starting to grow on us. But before we left, we were able to do one more crazy thing.
We started digging around in the banks of the river and we were able to find a bunch of shark teeth in the freshwater river, and they were millions of years old. It was so much fun. We found lemon shark teeth, great white teeth, and even some megalodon teeth. We all came away from the experience wowed and ready for the next part of our trip–the Florida Everglades.
For Christmas, Gwen gave me a swamp boat ride, and it was the most amazing experience we’ve ever had. Our family jumped into a swamp boat that could seat over 20 people, and we were able to blast through the water highways in the everglades at 20-30 miles per hour. We also got to see a bunch of gators, and I lost my brand new hat.
Then we took a tour of the park there, and we got to see another 40 gators, and the first and only crocodile we’ve seen since we’ve been here. It was probably one of the best Christmas presents I’ve ever had, and we were just getting started.
After the Everglades, we went to two other nations parks/recreation areas, our kids got three more junior ranger badges, and we hadn’t even been to a fruit orchard yet. That was a trip for another day.
When we went to the orchard, a local city park, we took a tour, behind a tractor, and then we got to eat real star fruit–not the kind you buy in the grocery store–but the yummy, juicy, ripe kind. Our kids at fruit after fruit we left that place knowing we wanted to grow our own star fruit trees …
… whenever we settle down.
But we don’t know when that will happen.
After the southern part of the state (we didn’t have a chance to go to the Florida Keys) we came back up to Orlando; and this time we decided to go to a couple of theme parks: Legoland and Universal Studios. Those two parks sealed the deal for us.
Even with all the sand, the bugs, the gators, and the creepy houses, Florida won us over.
And we’re coming back next year.