Having grown up a tent camper, the only places I ever camped in the summer in Florida was the keys or the Peace River, both of which had cool water and copious amounts of alcohol (in my younger glory days aka as my 20s lol).
I tried to conscript some of my friends, but none of them would have it in August and honestly, I can't blame them as I would AC and they wouldn't. Now that, I seemed to get the timing issue resolved with the ignition (won't bore you with the details, but I was getting about 4 mpg), I wanted to stretch her legs a little. Johnathan Dickenson State Park has been a go to spot of mine since the 1980s (above mentioned glory days) as it's only about 40 minutes away and used to be fairly remote despite it's closeness. Town has grown around it, but once in the gates, it hasn't changed too much.
The preferred campground is the river loop, but it's been closed for months and will re-open in October. As a last minute decision, I looked on Wed, and the Pine Grove campground still had about 30 or 40 spots open (roughly half full if even). The Pine Grove is a bit of a misnomer these days, as it used to be a grove of Australian Pines that was thick and lush. Unfortunately, they are also an invasive exotic species and after hurricane Wilma tore up the grove pretty good in 2006, the state removed all the exotic trees and as you can see it's pretty wide open space now...
I chose a spot near the bathroom/shower as the black water tank leaks, I'm lazy to walk so far, and campground was pretty empty.. This was the view walking back from the showers.
Not wanting to have my new pop up tent fly away like Mary Poppins, I decided we should peddle back and take it down (not to mention distant rumblings of the thunder gods).
While waiting for the rain to blow in, we amused ourselves with a ride around the campground and were impressed that there were at least 8 or 9 sites with tent campers on them! The majority of the rest were 3 pop ups, 2 Air Streams, and the rest were travel trailers, fifth wheels, or motorhomes. As usual, we were the only GMC in sight. Although there was a nice vintage 70s small trailer about 20 feet long (no one was around it though :( ). We didn't have to wait long and shortly after the above photo was snapped, a bolt hit less than a second away, so in we went.
The repairs to the roof are resounding success as it POURED and we were dry as a bone inside. We played cards and a board game until it let up about an hour or so later. As we had taken just about everything out of the coach while it was away, alot of stuff hadn't got put back in.....like the gas grill.
The stove is still disconnected as the counter isn't completed yet either.
So once the rain stopped, I was out there pretty quick lighting a fire so we could get some coals to cook our delicious shrimp over.
As you can see in the background it looked like more rain coming.
Naya develops her remote control shrimp cooker as this one got peeled
We ended up cooking the potatoes in the microwave due to the weather (was going to wrap in foil and cook in the fire), but despite the rain the dinner was very tasty.
After dinner fun was putting the top back on the pop up and watch the fire with a backdrop of lighting off in the distance. Unfortunately, the wind direction had the smoke blowing straight at us (and into the AC of the coach we found out when we went back in lol). We kept this up until it got dark and then the thrill of sitting in the rain tending a weak fire lost its thrill and we retired to the coach for the remainder of the evening.
As I went to bed pretty darn early, I was also up pretty early. Daybreak to be exact!
You can see how humid it is out at first light as the coach was about 75 degrees inside and the whole thing was wet with condensation.
She looks good in the golden morning light :)
I ended up taking a short walk around the campground looking for wildlife, then went back to bed for another hour and a half until others started to wake up. After breakfast it was good and hot, so of course lets take a bike ride!
On our travels we saw another gopher tortoise who was even bigger than the one from yesterday. This guy was in a hurry and made off pretty quickly into the scrub.
Once up at Hobe Mountain (86 ft above sea level and the highest point south of Lake Okeechobee) it was all about the shade as by 10 AM it was over 90 already.
There was a nice breeze up here blowing in off the ocean, I didn't want to leave.
It's amazing how clean the Intracoastal Waterway is up here, it's the same color as the ocean.
Back down on the ground and in the sun, the girls take in the view of the park looking west.
On the left you can see Hobe Mountain and the lookout tower. On the right you can see some of the ruins of Camp Murphy. During the war, it was quite a complex here!
Lucy got her second driving lesson in the coach. To date she has only driven it in this park. Got get her out on the road in it.
Nice comparison with a SOB (some other brand). Usually our coach looks little in comparison.
This guy is a Red Rat Snake that they took outside, but I missed the photo op (see our earlier posting with JD the snake in it). He was pretty cool and quite a nice specimen.
After the nature center we took a dip in the river, and stopped by DQ on the way home for a snack. We arrived home just in time to meet the afternoon rain (with lightning), so I didn't get a chance to wash her off yet...Until next time.
