Sunday 11th December – Arrival in Florida

When it comes to long drives, today wins!  We had booked a couple of nights at a very sought after State park on the Ocean road, A1A, down the East coast of Florida.  We had booked the only two nights available for the whole of December and even then we would have to move campsite for our second day to make way for a booking!  It was an opportunity for us to park the RV right by the water and it appeared that it may be the only chance we get in Florida because of the December craziness.  What we didn’t factor in was that it meant driving across the majority of Georgia and half the length of Florida in one day and passing locations that we still intend to visit at some stage!  It would be about 6 hours driving in total!

As soon as we entered Florida we saw signs advising motorists to invest in a ‘Sun pass’ which is a way to pay automatically for tolls in Florida rather than having to queue up.  We didn’t buy a sun pass.  Looking at the map I reckoned we could try and do the whole of Florida without using any toll roads.  Most of them appeared to be in or around Orlando which we were avoiding like the plague due to the money pit that is called ‘Disneyland’!  Let’s see how it goes….

The skyline of Jacksonville, Florida

The majority of our day was spent travelling down Interstate 95 (not a toll road) that, in Florida, extends all of the way from the border with Georgia down the East coast to Miami (the I95 can be traced all the way north to where Maine borders Canada, so it’s not just a Southern thing….).  It got a little boring and we knew that just to the East of us were the coast roads with uninterrupted views of the Atlantic Ocean.  So, despite it being a slower route we decided to beat the tedium by heading to the A1A a little earlier than we needed to.  The views were well worth it and we debated which waterfront property we would buy to live in when we win the lottery! So much water everywhere.  If you didn’t want to live right on the Atlantic coast, here you have the choice of a home on the protected waterfront behind the chain of ‘islands’ just away from mainland Florida.  All with stunning views.

We’d finally made it to Florida, our home for the next three weeks at least.  But as we neared Sebastian Inlet State Park the clouds began to look ominous.  Sure enough, when it was time to check in the heavens opened and blustery winds appeared from nowhere.  It may have been raining but the humidity made it feel like we’d arrived in a completely different country.  We pulled into our site for the night and it was as good as we’d hoped.  We were barely 10 metres from the water’s edge and as soon as we arrived what did we see in the water?  Dolphin fins breaking the surface, heron’s fishing at the water’s edge and pelicans diving repeatedly into the sea after their prey.

Spot the dolphin....

I refused to move from the water’s edge until it was too dark to see and even then we put the awning out so that we could enjoy sitting outside in the warmth and play cards.  This place was awesome!  Unfortunately, the bugs also liked it there and gradually we realised that we were being eaten alive.  This had not been an issue anywhere in the US up until tonight.  We retreated into the RV being as careful as possible not to take any of our new winged friends with us.