The Eagle Has Landed!

The day has arrived…. we took off from our home in North Port and traveled to the sunny Florida Keys. All the way up to the trip, we took special care to make sure we knew where everything we wanted with us was. Everything except the tow hitch, that is. We knew it was SOMEWHERE where we could store it and access it easily…. but neither of us could recall where that was. We spent about 30 minutes looking for it…. to no avail. So, instead of towing the car, we each drove a vehicle. Vincent drove the RV, Cheri drove the car. Not as much fun on long trips to not be able to talk to your spouse and share the road adventure… but, at least he didn’t have to watch me sleep… which is what I usually do after a while. I was wide awake the whole trip. There were a variety of wonderful sights along the way (that I probably would have missed). So, that was the upside of having to drive. Once we pulled into our spot at Curry Hammock State Park, I opened up the compartment where the electric power cord was, and there it was...sitting pretty, the hitch for the tow dolly. It was there all the time. *sigh* Always an adventure. I’m hoping that is our only *big adventure* with the RV this year. Usually, it’s something major that goes awry. The trip down was uneventful, scenic and pleasant but it was even better to see the sign to turn into Curry Hammock State Park. Once we pulled in, a huge iguana ran across the road and immediately my heart was filled with excitement and joy. I wondered what kind of wildlife I’d be experiencing…. and then we parked….and looked out of the window…. we were in heaven.

View from the bedroom

The view of the water is both breathtaking and soothing. Watching the sea oats lazily, gently wave in the breeze with the ocean in the background is mesmerizing and sweet. It’s even beautiful in a rainstorm. I was wondering if I’d see any more iguanas, other than the one I saw crossing the street when we pulled in…not knowing how many there are here….and I have not been disappointed. We saw one out the window behind our rig when we woke up…. I saw two in the tree right outside our door, three ran across our driveway while I was laying in a hammock…. and I’ve seen them in all stages of life… new baby, medium teenager and older adult sizes. The green coloration is brilliant in the younger ones… and bright with darker black bands around them as adults. They are cool. They are also invasive, which means most folks want them dead. I like them. I don’t care.

We also noticed on our site that there were burrows; larger burrows, like gopher tortoise burrows. We assumed they were for tortoises, until I saw a VERY BIG crab come out of it.

I went for a little walk past our site, into the greenery, and found the remains of one of the big crabs. I brought it back to the rig to show hubby and cat….and moments later, one of the living relatives of that crab came by to visit me. I wonder if I had collected his personal relative; and he was coming over to tell me to let his uncle go…. We wandered down to the beach area which was lovely.





 I saw a new creature in the water…some kind of anemone perhaps? Soft bodied and lace like…I’ve never seen one before. Upon doing some research, I discovered it was an upside down jellyfish. Not as venomous as some are, but it does have a burning sting to it. Luckily, I did NOT find out the hard way.

So far we have been kayaking…. which has been down two peaceful man made canals lined with mangroves that held a variety of young fish, crabs, birds and such. there was a cut that lead out on to the Atlantic Ocean, which sounds like it should be rough and filled with fury, but it was calm and peaceful and easy to paddle. We have lounged in our chair and hammock, we have enjoyed the salty breezes and we have been generally lazy and relaxed.

There is a lot of wonderful wild life right in our camping spot.  Birds, lizard life, butterflies.... in addition to the crabs and iguanas.  Haven't really had to go far to see my friends!













We had trouble with accessing enough internet to post this update....so we finally went out to the local library and bummed some internet off them.  Thank you, Monroe County Library!  You ROCK!