kayaking – Page 4 – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

3-05-2014 Manatee Morning and Snake Creek Afternoon

Blue Springs State Park Currently 56 degrees F High today 76

I have been thinking about what to write about yesterday for hours. The day all just blends together in my mind and words seem useless. Yesterday was a experiential visual delight, so much so that my senses are almost overwhelmed with the magic of it all and I am at a complete loss for words. I may just give up and resort to a string of photos to try to catch the magic.

We are at Blue Springs State Park, arrived Monday afternoon to sunny skies and a nice campsite. Of course, the big surprise of the day was that we were right next to Sherry and David, with no clue that they were even still here, much less in the site next to us. What a delight, especially since Sherry has so much knowledge to share about the local treats, including manatees, secret kayak places, and ice cream.

I was surprised as we arrived in Orange City at how big the area seemed to be, how developed. I somehow imagined Blue Springs to be as remote and quiet as Alexander Springs was, tucked away in the Ocala National Forest. Instead, Blue Springs is an oasis of state land in the midst of a well developed urban zone. Today I saw a sequence of aerial photographs that depicted the change in urbanism around the island of protected state land since the 70’s. Such a gift that this place was saved.

After settling in, we took Abby for a walk down to the boardwalk where dogs are allowed, a nice benefit at this park. Although Abby can’t go on the upper boardwalk to the main spring, we can take here all the way out to the St John River where most of the manatees seems to hang out anyway. On our first walk that afternoon we saw several manatees hanging out, resting and moving quietly.

Yesterday morning, however, I walked through the early dawn light to the boardwalk again, and to my delight found 8 manatees playing near the spring. As I watched they began moving slowly back toward the river, and I had the moments all to myself, with no sound but the gentle “whuff” of manatee breath now and then. As the morning progressed, a few more people showed up to visit the manatees, including Sherry, and we laughed at the serendipity of our chance camping choices and talked about manatees and kayaking.

Kayaking was a priority for us for the two days we had to spend here and Mo and I were on the river by 11, heading south into the St John toward the oxbow and then into the narrow channel of Snake Creek.

This is the point where words just completely fail. Mo and I decided that this paddle was probably our premier paddle of all time, just beyond perfect.

The weather was perfect, the skies were perfect, a bit of cloudiness to dress things up and then brilliant sunshine to illuminate everything.

Can you imagine being led into a wilderness by four great egrets, lifting in front of us, flying a bit farther into the channel, and landing. Waiting till we got close, lifting again to fly further down the river. They did this all the way to Dead Hontoon River, and then did the same thing all the way back to the St John River on our return trip.

We saw baby alligators and big daddy alligators, more turtles than I could possibly count, saw red shouldered hawks, and heard barred owls and saw wild turkeys on the shore.

Big Blue Herons, Little Blue Herons, green heron? night heron? cormorants, anhingas, cardinals, and what Carol Herr called “little brown birds”.

The water was so still, just barely moving, and the forest so silent except for bird calls. Not a single boat marred the perfection of our 3 hour paddle into that primordial place.

It felt exactly as if we were in some kind of prehistoric jungle place, a world only imagined and not even in the vocabulary of our gorgeous Pacific Northwest sojourns. I feel as though I am in a foreign land here in Florida, a magic place full of green and warmth and water and birds.

I am simply out of words.

02-22-2014 to 02-26-2014 Days in Key West

Current temperature at Sigsbee NAS Campground 83F Humidity 74% Partly Cloudy

At the moment, we are holed up in the MoHo with the generator on and the air conditioning running full blast. Being in the dry camping area at the NAS Key West (what used to be called Sigsbee Field) the air conditioner is imperative, even with our lacy shade trees overhead. At the moment Mo is trying to get our CO2 sensor to quit beeping. We don’t have a special stack for the generator as suggested, however even if we did, all the other generators going at the moment in these tight quarters might set that sensor off anyway.

Jeremy decided to add to the humid, quite warm ambience of the MoHo by adding something of his own. Albeit in the cat box, still requiring a nice kitty bath to make it all ok again. Very indignantly, he is trying to lick himself dry now. Nice to be able to not worry about him catching a cold. The last few times I have given him a bath in Mo’s collapsible bucket he seems to enjoy it, at least for the most part. I think his favorite part is getting all swaddled up in the bath towel and cuddled until he is at least partially dry. He doesn’t complain.

This is our second full day in the campground, having arrived in late afternoon on Saturday. The campground office was closed, but after reading several accounts of the procedure, and an emergency call to John (our recent new friends at “Our Trip Around the Sun”, we had an idea where to go and how to proceed.

Within minutes of calling the phone number posted on the office door, a campground host showed up in his little cart and went over the process of signing up officially on Monday morning and led us to what was to be our site for the weekend. We were tucked back in a circular area with several rigs around us, all running their Honda 2000i’s to ward off the heat. I guess one of these generators will power a 30 amp rig, but it takes two to power up the big guys with 50 amps. Only planning on dry camping for 5 nights, we were content to use the generator on board the MoHo.

Camping here is an experience at what is most definitely an inside culture of folks who know how to do it, how it works, and those who don’t. Lucky for us, most of the folks know how to do it, and we have communicated enough with blog friends who have camped here that we had a basic understanding of the rotation system and didn’t give our host too much trouble. He wasn’t so lucky with some folks arriving just before we did, with a lady waving her arms and looking disgusted trying to wangle a better site on their first night here. We did know better than that, and Walter, the host, told us that the rotation at the moment is about 4 weeks with more than 200 rigs signed up on the rotation list.

Trumbo Annex, at the Coast Guard facility down the road, is completely full with long time sites that have been filled since Christmas. We were told there is no chance of getting into that part of the family camp. Dry camp in this part of camp is mandatory rotation, but with only five nights here, that isn’t an issue for us. Tired from our journey across the keys, and the traffic and surprising heat and humidity, we settled in with the air conditioner and the generator going full blast.

We had a bit of a hiccup with the generator, being set for high elevation, and no doubt a bit moist from all the humidity, it coughed a bit and died. Unsure what the problem was and with darkness falling, Mo decided to wait until morning to check the oil and the altitude adjustment. All was fine after that, but our first night here was a bit of an adjustment for us as well. With normally balmy temperatures in Key West, we weren’t expecting mid 80’s and little breeze. From what I have learned, it happens sometimes, but not usually this time of year.

During our evening walk around the campground, we ran into the camp host and asked what exactly you had to do to draw one of those primo waterfront sites. He said, “Well, I have one coming in tomorrow that is too big for the site, so you could move in there after ten AM”. OK then!

We went to sleep pretty tickled, got up early to go explore town and get our bearings in the car before our scheduled move. Back at ten sharp, we checked the site as instructed, and with it empty, we made our move. No sooner had we dropped the jacks and opened the slide that another camp host arrived to tell us, “Sorry to tell you this, but you have to move. This site has come up in rotation and you can’t be here.”

Instead of staying in our very hot, very fume filled site however, Buzz led me to a shady site that was a bit smaller and was right by the garbage cans. Oh thank you for a small rig. Garbage cans or not, this site is shaded with two lovely, lacy trees that are actually nasty invasive species that are overtaking the Keys. At the moment, with the shade from those trees, we can sit outside in our site and enjoy the cooling breezes, and the MoHo doesn’t get all that hot during the day with just the Fantastic Fan running and the windows open.

There are several hundred RVs on site at this moment, and as I said 200 or so are waiting to rotate into a full hookup site. Generators are allowed to run between 7am and 11pm, and there is a dump and water station. We learned that if you try to dump during the dark there is a $15,000. fine. Yup, you read that right.

With all the complexity, it might seem easier to just go to a regular RV park, but at the current rate of $147 per night at the local KOA, and no other parks around, we decided that paying $13.00 per night to camp here was worth it. Thus far, after about half our five day stay, we have used about 1/4 tank of gasoline to run the generator. Pretty inexpensive digs to stay in Key West.

Next post: Some of the more delightful aspects of staying and visiting in Key West and why we decided it was worth it.

02-17-2014 Florida Magic Morning

Fort De Soto Campground; Clear sunshine 70 degrees F

It is the morning magic thing. Florida brilliant sunshine, balmy air, light and shadow through the oaks and cedars and palms. Birds singing, a few voices here and there as folks leave the campground. Actually Mo and I snagged a waterfront site this morning for our anticipated move. Mo just said, “This is privacy without privacy!” What she meant was that we are in our private campsite watching the activity beyond the little bayou as people pull out of the park

Most entertaining was this huge rig pulling a huge trailer that hauls a huge Escalade. The rig was in site 137, trailer and all. It took them at least an hour to get set up to pull out, and then watching them pull out was incredibly entertaining. I think there must have been more than a million bucks tied up in that get-up and you couldn’t give it to me for free! And according to a park volunteer watching their late exit, they were only there one night!

We get to watch another big rig trying to pull into these gorgeous private waterfront sites. Two guys are waving their arms around and Mo is here talking to herself saying, “Why in the world don’t you go around and pull in the right way?!” Unlike folks in our rv-ing life who have no qualms telling us what to do, she won’t go over there and tell them how to do it better. There are two guys waving their arms while another guy drives and three women standing around taking photos. Six people in one rig? No matter how big it is that seems a bit tight for me.

Abby is snoozing on the grass in front of us as we sit in our chairs sipping and reading. Although the entertainment across the pond definitely has superseded reading for the moment. Jeremy is back in the rig after thinking he was spry enough to catch a pesky squirrel that was trying get inside the rig to eat whatever he could find.

When I watch these rigs trying to manuever, I am so grateful for our 26 foot length and especially for our 11.5 foot height! Mo just went to get the binoculars so she could check out the new folks more easily. Tell me where you can find entertainment like this when you don’t have TV. Now THIS is what rv-ing is all about, right?

NOT!

THIS! is why we are in Florida, once again, I know why we are here. After the sun gets a bit less intense we will launch the kayaks nearby for another paddle on Mullet Bayou. We originally planned to go explore a section of the park that we missed before launching the boats, but when we moved the rig we saw a huge line of cars at the entry station just south of the campground. Some kind of biking/running/swimming thing called a Duatholon. Do you bike and run or bike and swim? No clue, but biking is definitely part of the agenda.

We have no need to go anywhere but right here in our perfect spot, with entertainment provided across the way by accommodating big rig folks.

But that sort of entertainment only last so long. With scarcely a breath of wind and those bright sunny skies, the boats were calling us. Instead of leaving the campground to launch, we decided to use one of the unoccupied tent campsites. It was very quiet there, and we parked in the site, launched, and then moved the car to a quiet nearby spot to park.

On this trip, we were again in Mullet Bayou, but on a different shore. Decided to paddle east, and hopefully go under the bridge toward Tampa Bay. Before we were out even ten minutes, suddenly there was a ruckus in the water in front of us and sure enough, it was a pod of dolphins. I think there were at least three and they were cavorting and jumping and playing. I didn’t have the camera…having decided that I didn’t need more photos of herons and egrets. Can you believe it?

Thankfully I did have the iPhone, so grainy as the photos are, you can at least see that the dolphin was right in front of my boat. With all the jumping around they were doing, Mo and I both wondered out loud, “Do you suppose they could dump us over?” I suppose that could happen, in fact I think it did happen to someone with an Orca whale not long ago, but I wasn’t too worried. It was great fun to see them playing so close.

We paddled under the bridge, north into the edge of Tampa Bay, and back around under the Pinellas Bayway making a perfect loop. Passing up our launch site to slide into the bayou by our campground was fun, with another phone photo of the MoHo site on the water from the kayak.

By the time we returned, it was after 4 and we needed to get a few groceries. Google sent us back out of the park to the north and east over the Pinellas Bayway again toward a decent Publix about 7 miles from the campground. Somehow with all that water and all those bridges things seem much more distant than they actually are. We were back home and had the grill started up by 5:30.

To celebrate our great days here at Fort De Soto, we decided to have a campfire. Here in Florida, that seems to be a rather pricey celebration. We put down a $20. deposit for the fire ring which cost $3.50 per night, and bought an orange net bag of firewood for $9. The wood was some kind of cypress or cedar and was stringy and damp and smoked a very long time before it finally caught.

Still was great having a fire and a sunset to accompany us as we enjoyed the balmy evening on the waterfront. Tomorrow we head south toward Fort Myers, and plan to take the slow route along the coast rather than jumping on 75. Who knows who we might see along the way. I guess we will find out tomorrow.

02-13 to 02-18-2014 Five Days in Fort De Soto

Current Location: Fort De Soto Campground 67 degrees F and sunny

The front door is wide open to the dappled sun coming through the trees here in our campground. It feels very much like some kind of tropical jungle, with lots of palms and thick vegetation surrounding the campsites. The temperatures are cool but the sun is absolutely brilliant.

My muscles feel like jelly in that good way that happens when they are getting properly used. Mo is reading and napping in the back of the rig while I process photos and try to condense our days into something readable. Mark Johnson, over at the Box Canyon Blog, is lately one of my favorite writers. Last night he wrote about how so many of us, RV bloggers specifically, talk about all the wonders of this lifestyle and none of the downside. Problem is, I can’t at the moment find a downside. I think it might be like labor…when it is over, you forget. Especially when the sun is shining.

Because of the mix-up in our original reservation, we had to move after our first night here, and tomorrow will have to move again to another campsite. It isn’t a big problem, though, and we like the new spot we are moving to as much as the first one. This site, 147, is huge and is one of the few pull through’s in this part of the park. Even though it is also private, it is so big that it feels a bit like a road and we are just plopped down in the middle of it. Still, the shade on this warmish sunny afternoon is lovely.

Fort De Soto is actually a Pinellas County Park, south of St Petersburg. It consists of five offshore keys, or islands, lying to the city’s south-southwest: Madelaine Key, St. Jean Key, St. Christopher Key, Bonne Fortune Key and the main island, Mullet Key. All are connected by either bridge or causeway to each other. The island group is accessible by a toll road from the mainland. Water everywhere! Many of the campsites are waterfront, and half the park is dog friendly. Campsites become available six months before your intended booking date, and when I attempted to book our sites, I had a bit of difficulty getting one, much less a waterfront site. I keep forgetting about little things like holiday weekends.

It is a truly beautiful park, with gorgeous white sand beaches, calm bayous for kayaking, mangrove swamps and sea oats on sugar sand. The campground is thick with palms and life oaks that hang over the roadways, with warning signs saying to watch for low hanging branches, yet I have seen many very large rigs parked in the private, spacious campsites. It is a bit spendy. I keep forgetting what we paid for this park, maybe on purpose…maybe because it was prepaid six months ago. With taxes and such, I think it was a bit over $40 per night, probably will qualify as our spendiest camp for the entire three months.

It is worth every single penny. As I said, water everywhere, even a large off leash dog beach and a huge doggie park with a cooling wash station for hot summer days or getting out the salt water after doggie swims.

A paved bicycle trail runs the entire length of the key from end to end and past the campground with workout stations placed here and there and an occasional sign naming trees or plants in the area.

The park is named for Fort De Soto, located at the point where Mullet Key intercepts the channel into Tampa Bay. It was first surveyed in 1849 and Union troops were stationed here during the Civil War to aid in the blockade of Tampa Bay. It wasn’t until the Spanish-American war however, that the fort was built. It operated as a strategic defense from 1898 to 1910 and was decommissioned after that time.There are a few cannon and some ramparts to view at the site of the fort, but the most interesting exhibit are one bunker with old photos of the history of the fort and old maps of the surrounding keys.

I don’t think many people come here to see the fort, however. This place is all about the water, with a large boat launch area to the north, and countless spots where a kayak can launch. On one of the blustery days when we explored North Beach, we saw kite surfers doing their thing on the wild water. The winds were over 10 mph and watching those guys fly across the water was almost as impressive as watching them fall. Neither of us could figure out how someone would go about learning this crazy sport.

Wildlife is everywhere, the small variety, especially raccoons. They are so dang cute, and of course they raid the garbage cans and campsites. Signs everywhere proclaim, don’t feed the wildlife!. And the birds! There are birds everywhere, especially shore and water birds. Mo keeps saying…oh another egret? How many photos of egrets and herons can you take? Egrets here seem a bit like robins in the north country in springtime.

We have so enjoyed our time here. With good weather most of the time and several days to enjoy it, we have biked the trail, walked the beaches, kayaked the bayous and taken Abby to the dog beach. I do not remember when we did what at all, everything is running together. I think that is how it is supposed to be when relaxing at a great camp, right?

All the spacious restrooms are an open design with round buildings and open drains around the inside edge. Interesting and functional. At each restroom there is a washer and dryer for a buck each outside on the breezeway. There are also a great number of garbage cans, almost a pair for every few sites, and it seems they are emptied quite often. There is a boat launch, and a small camp store. Getting back to town for any kind of shopping requires a bit of driving and two bridge tolls of less than a dollar each, so it is better to come here with all that is needed for your stay.

What I do remember is early yesterday morning, rising before sunrise to get over to Pass a Grille Beach south of St Pete Beach for my little ceremony for Bel. I had promised her I would take her to the beach, so after almost a year since her passing, I finally was able to keep that promise. Bel was honored with a setting full moon over the gulf as the sun rose in the east over the bay.

Pass a Grille is a tiny treasure, a peninsula less than a mile wide south along the gulf with a long lovely beach. Unlike much of the Florida coastline, here the houses are less than two stories and are on the other side of the road from the beach walk and access to the beach is completely public. Much of the town is on the National Historic Register. No dogs again, but that wasn’t a problem for us on this early morning since we left Abby back at the MoHo to keep Jeremy company.

Afterward, Mo and I decided that a good breakfast was in order and driving north past the gorgeous Don Cesar Hotel toward St Pete Beach, we found a funky little place called the Toasted Monkey. With friendly down home waitresses in shorts, mimosa’s on the breakfast menu, and several menu items with gravy, we had a great breakfast. One shared plate was plenty for the two of us. We even got a touch of TV. I think there were at least a dozen in the restaurant and we could see 4 or so from our table. Maybe it was a sports bar. We did get to see the US hocky team playing Russia and were glad to hear that they won.

We then tried to find somewhere to buy our traditional Sees chocolates, with the official Sees website stating that a kiosk was available in St Petersburg. Suddenly we were in Florida hell, the Florida that all the westerners cite when they say they would never come to Florida because it is too full of people and traffic. It was nasty. I kept thinking about how awful it would be to actually live here.

I found the Sees at Dillards, my favorite department store, but I wasn’t in the least bit of a mood for shopping and got out of there fast…in time to get back on a busy road and try to find our way across a busy town back to our idyllic little island campground. Whew!

More excitement came on Saturday as we waited for the month’s mail to arrive USPS Express. With a guaranteed Saturday delivery, we were a bit anxious when nothing had arrived at the campground by 4 pm. Finally the desk help, and old southern boy, said, “Well, I don’t think anyone went to get the mail today.” Seems as though the mail is delivered in a box on the other side of the bridge and the post office refuses to come out to the island. (Sure wish they had told us that when they insisted we should have our mail sent directly to the campground!)

The help decided they could make the 15 minute run to the Post Office to pick up mail after all, and after another half an hour I returned to the office to find that the expected packet of mail did NOT come with the Saturday delivery. UhOh. There is a lot of stuff in that packet, including a big refund check for our Michelin tires and all our income tax papers. Sheesh. With the holiday I was in a panic thinking we would have to figure out a way to wait around until Tuesday afternoon for the mail to be delivered.

Home to the rig to check the tracking number which said the packet was out for delivery on Saturday at 10 AM. ??? I went back up to the office, where the old southern boy sheepishly held up our packet saying, “I guess someone delivered it this morning and it was on the desk. No one thought to look on the desk”. Ok Then. All is well that ends well and we got our mail. I am glad we only have to do this one more time on this trip and hopefully the mid March mail delivery will be without incident.

I used the crock pot again to make some carnitas beef and as it was cooking, instead of those wonderful smells wafting through the MoHo we kept thinking, “What IS that smell?!” I had purchased a carnitas spicy sauce slow cooking packet at Whole Foods, one of my few luxury purchases. After several hours it was so bad that I had to put the crock pot outside and turn on the fan. I can’t even give the meat to the animals because it is too spicy. I have no idea what the weird flavor in that sauce was, but I hope I never encounter it again.

See, Mark Johnson? All isn’t perfect in the RV world.

Tomorrow the forecast is for even warmer temperatures, clear skies and no wind. That calls for another kayak, another walk on the dog beach, another bike ride and hopefully something tasty for supper. Tonight it will be tasty cheese quesadillas, with lots of jalapenos and no meat.

02-05-2014 Finally Florida…and whatever was I thinking??

Current Location: Destin, Florida 44 degrees F with a low tonight of 34 and a high tomorrow of 43?

I have visited northern Florida during every month of the year except July and August, and nope, it has never been this cold. Or maybe I am not remembering it properly. Looking back at the blog, I see some complaints now and then during my Ocala visits about frosty nights and cold windy days.

We have been incredibly lucky on this journey. During our first month traveling south through Texas, through country that is known for sudden snow storms and cold snaps, we had gorgeous weather. We missed the worst of the cold in Corpus Christi by a week, and then when it turned cold again in the south, we headed out on a Caribbean cruise. Amazing timing!

I should be grateful…I really am…but yup, I am cold tonight. We are settled in at Destin Army Recreation RV Campground, something called MWR….meaning Morale, Welfare, Recreation. Unlike most military family camps, this one isn’t on a base and required no military ID to enter. It was built for the morale, welfare and recreation of military folks in need of respite. Of course, retirees like Mo still benefit. Just today we were talking about what an incredible benefit these camps are for people who have served in the military.

Where else in the very expensive Destin area could you stay for just $19. per night with full hookups, including sewer, and an extensive list of cable tv channels. The laundry costs a measly .75 a load and the showers are clean, again with roomy private dressing rooms and unlimited hot water.

There is a beautiful swimming pool, supposed to be heated, but as of this writing it wasn’t, but it was still quite pretty. The kids splash park looked like it would be fun in warmer weather and the fishing pier extended far enough out into the bay that we actually saw flounder through the clear waters below us.

When we arrived back in New Orleans from our cruise on Sunday morning, the skies were laden and cold, with heavy fog warnings. The fog never lifted all day. Disembarkation was incredibly easy, but the shuttle that we had prepaid managed to do a switcheroo and changed the pickup zone without letting us know. By the time we were picked up an hour late we were not happy. The guy got no tip!

When we picked up the fur kids at the Canine Connection in Uptown New Orleans, they were in great condition, clean and happy and well fed. With a minimum 7 day stay, Abby was given a free bath and Jeremy got his toenails trimmed. They were of course happy to see us, but we could tell they weren’t at all stressed out. Although Jeremy did stick to me for a couple of days like a little fur ball of glue. Once back home to the rig, we found everything in good shape, with our small solar panel keeping the batteries charged up and all the food in the freezer still OK. It was a test…and it worked.

I planned for a full day to regroup in New Orleans before our planned departure. Monday dawned dank and damp and foggy and again, that fog never lifted. New Orleans seems to be a fairly dank place….while we were there everything was damp and wet and moldy. I didn’t develop a great love for the city, or the outlying areas we traveled when we were there. Unlike the magical bayous of other parts of Louisiana we have visited, the sprawling, unplanned messy communities with bone jarring pavement on the Westbank didn’t impress me in the least. I was glad we were leaving and had no desire to explore anything further.

Erin has posted about some wonderful sights in New Orleans, especially the murals, but in that dank fog and after being tired from the cruise, a day of laundry and vacuuming out the car and MoHo were all I wanted to manage. It was good to get everything all freshened and ready to go for the next leg of our trip. We did manage to navigate 12 miles across town to find an Office Depot for some printer ink (that wasn’t in stock), found a WalMart next door (where the ink WAS in stock), and spontaneously stopped at a veterinary clinic where I bought another case of what my vet calls Ensure for old kitties, since it is from veterinarians only and my supply for Jeremy was dwindling.

The three month trip we have planned is basically a three part adventure. Part one is behind us, with the southward journey through West Texas and the Texas Gulf Coast topped off by our Caribbean cruise. Part two will be a month in Florida, something I have dreamed of for years now. Part three will be the unknown route of the trip back west.

We crossed Mississippi and Alabama on I-10, with dark fog and rain discouraging any side trips. I knew from blog reading that there was a lot to see on the Gulf Coast of both of these states, but I was Florida bound and the day was dang ugly. I just wanted us to get from point a to point b. It didn’t help that I had the first real killer headache I have had during our entire trip. I tried to go back to the bed to rest a bit while Mo was driving. (Yeah, I know…no lectures please) The pavement was so rough that I almost got bounced completely out of bed, so that solution lasted all of ten minutes.

Once we arrived in Florida though, things started to feel better. I have no idea why. Just something about the Florida landscape, the clean white sands among the pines, the feel of it. I have no clue. Must be all in my mind I guess, but eventually the headache lifted.

We took a route south from I-10 that went through Navarre and toward the east along 98, avoiding any toll bridges to our location on Okaloosa Island, the location of Destin and the Destin Army MWR where we had a reservation. We knew to expect tight quarters, so the campground wasn’t a surprise. Our spot works for us with room to park the car, open the slide, and still have a tiny bit of privacy from our neighbors, but not much. With the cold temperatures, we are glad for full hookups and our little electric heater. I heard a rumor today that propane fuel is more than doubling in price in some places. We filled our propane tank back in Corpus Christi and shouldn’t need more for a long time as long as we don’t use the furnace.

This morning I woke up, excited to get my boat into Florida waters at last. Watching the weather, we knew that the winds would be rising as the day progressed, but the sun wasn’t going to show up until later in the day. Lucky for us, we decided to go kayaking early, and were in the water at the MWR boat launch by 9am, to partly cloudy skies and a stiff breeze.

I spent quite a bit of time researching the route along the southern side of Chocktawatchee Bay that winds around toward Destin Harbor. It was only about 2.5 miles or so to paddle under the bridge and into the harbor, and we hugged the shore to avoid the worst of the choppy water. As we rounded the point before the bridge, the current through the channel was creating some crazy conditions and I was glad for a stable boat and a buttoned up life jacket.

Once we were under the bridge and into the harbor, however, things calmed down considerably. With the season not yet in full force, we didn’t have to fight too many big boats, but a couple of them passed us in the confines of the harbor and they looked very big from the water level of the kayaks.

We paddled about a mile or so to a small beach where the Boshamps Seafood and Oyster House is located. They have patio dining and allow dogs, with even a special doggie menu, so we thought it might be a nice place for lunch. Problem was, it was only 10:15 and of course, they weren’t open yet. I thought maybe we could paddle the bay for awhile and then go back, but Mo was feeling uncomfortable about the increasing winds and that channel we had to get back through.

Good thing we left when we did. We got through the channel ok, but those big waves were pushing us along from behind and the current was coming downbay toward us. I kept thinking…I am a good swimmer…I have on a life jacket….my camera is locked up in the Pelican case. I even put my glasses in the pelican case before we tackled the point.

Once around the point, though, things got even worse, with a strong north wind coming directly toward us and making some pretty dramatic whitecaps on the bay. Mo was ahead of me and she saw a small marina and headed in, hollering something at me that I couldn’t hear. Yup…I was ready to go in as well. We landed on the tiny little beach and managed to get out of the boats without getting rammed too badly against the rocks.

Finally got the boats up on the dock and hauled ourselves out of the cold water and onto land. The marina was closed with only one lone rather grumpy man around who didn’t seem to think much of two tourist ladies emerging from the water at his boat marina. He was a bit of a jerk actually.

Mo stayed with Abby as I volunteered to walk back to the camp to get the car. Lucky me, it was only a mile and a half and by then the sun came out in full glory, and away from the water there was barely a breath of air moving. The walk was actually quite nice, and would have been better if I hadn’t been next to barefoot in my thin water shoes. I got to see all the houses we had viewed from the water from the roadside. The luxury of those waterfront houses can be seen fully from the water, but isn’t at all evident as you peer down the long driveways from the road.

It all turned out just fine, and we loaded up the boats and drove back home to the rig, happy to be warm and dry and in one piece.

The rest of the afternoon was pleasant, with a short drive to the town part of Destin to find PetSmart for some good dog food and a visit to the Destin dog park, well reviewed by people who have been in this area. I couldn’t believe the shopping in Destin. The main shops along the highway are just a tiny front for hidden corridors of outdoor malls that go on forever.

We saw a huge Bass Pro Shop and decided to check it out, without realizing we had parked in an area called Destin Commons. Almost like a city within a city, it is possibly one of the best shopping venues I have ever seen! Good thing I wasn’t in a mood for shopping. I simply wanted to get back home and out of the cold wind and make a toasty quesadilla for supper.

As I was walking along this afternoon, while Mo waited cold and wet at the marina, I thought, what an introduction to Florida kayaking. The Florida part of this trip is mostly my idea, my little dream, and Mo keeps saying she hopes I get it out of my system. I am pretty sure she would rather stay out west, or travel up to the New England states we have yet to visit in the MoHo and maybe continue into the Maritime Provinces. Hopefully the weather here in Florida will warm up a bit and the kayaking won’t be so dang difficult!