BACK ON THE ROAD

It's been nearly a year since we took a camping trip; COVID changed ALL our plans.  A lot has happened in the past year.  As you know our plans to travel full-time in our RV came to a screeching halt last March when COVID hit.  We hunkered down at Eleanor's place, thinking we'd start our full-time RV life once COVID got better.  Well, when COVID didn't improve, we decided to settle down and buy a house, near Eleanor, in Inverness, FL.  We love our home and Florida, but we still want to camp, so we put our fifth wheel up for sale, and looked for another smaller RV that would be easier to pull, and would be more geared towards occasional camping trips, rather than full-time living.  My brother Mike, found us one like his, while he was visiting us in March.  So we now have a 2019 Grand Design Imagine 2500rl.  Since we received our 2nd coronavirus vaccines, we felt safe to travel.  George, El, and I took our initial trip last week--we went down to the Everglades.  Glad to report the RV checked out just fine!  

Here George is enjoying our 1st campfire in a long time.  That's our new rig behind him.

We stayed in Big Cypress National Reserve.  This is right by the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge.  

Although we did not see any panthers, we did see magnificent tropical foliage.  

The photos above are bromeliads and/or air plants.  It's amazing how these plants live off nutrients in the air and sunshine!

We also saw lots of alligators in Shark Valley, which is part of the Everglades National Park.  

"Who did you say is behind me?"  Oh, he's just sunning himself!

These guys were at a roadside park.  They were everywhere!  Luckily we didn't see any gators in our campground.

We had magnificent sunsets every night.  Then the mosquitoes came out with a vengeance!  Note: If you go to the Everglades, bring plenty of insect repellent.  Well, it is a swamp, so that's to be expected.  

It felt so good to be on the road again.  While we won't be full-timing in our RV, we still hope we have many camping trips ahead of us to see this beautiful country of ours.