Nov 12th to 14th - FL, Florida Keys

Nov 12th - Wed - to Clewiston FL
Didn’t get many pictures on the internet last night as the signal was just too low. Tried again this morning but not much better luck.
Said farewell to Frank & Marion and left about 10 for a short drive to Okeechobee RV Park in Clewiston which is on Lake Okeechobee. We were surprised to see what we identified as sugar cane fields as we neared Clewiston. Set up, had lunch and set out for a little exploring. Lake Okeechobee is very different. It is the second largest freshwater lake wholly in the United States, has an average depth of 10 feet, is entirely surrounded by a 104 mile long dike that averages 34 feet above the water level of the lake and is one of the best bass fishing lakes in the world. Stopped by WalMart for a couple of steaks for the barbeque and headed back to the campground. We also found some large, cheap candles to use in buddy burners.
We unloaded the bikes to ride around the park - couldn’t see any alligators in the park lake. The pool felt good and the weather was very warm (80’s) so a swim sounded like a great idea. When we got back to the pool, another couple (Paul & Vicki) was there and we had a great time talking to them. They asked if we wanted to join them for dinner at a local barbeque restaurant so we put the steaks back in the fridge and tagged along.
It was still early when we got back so they went to make a phone call and then came back to our site. Terry had a buddy burner set up which really intrigued them. Paul knew about, and had considered buying, the free-to-air satellite system that we have so we tried to give him as much information about it as we could.
We sat out until mosquitoes got too bad and the burner ran out of wax.

Nov 13th - Thurs - Clewiston FL
I had to use up some over ripe bananas in muffins this morning and decided to do a couple loads of laundry. We were just finishing the laundry when Paul & Vicki came by. They were going to WalMart for a prescription and for candles so they could make buddy burners and asked if we wanted to ride along. After WalMart, we stopped at Goodwill for some tins and scrounged some cardboard boxes from dumpsters. They also wanted to make some “business” cards and needed computer help to do so.
Back to the park and over to their place where the guys got the cardboard in the tins and Vicki & I worked on the computer. She has an air card so we had internet access but it seemed slow and would not download a program from Avery to create business cards. I could not figure out how to use MS Works Word Processing to get a picture on the card so Terry made several trips back to our rig to get our computer & CDs so I could get creative and move files from our XP computer to Vicki’s Vista machine. Kind of frustrating but got it done.
They had already thawed steaks for dinner yesterday so we got together to barbeque at our place for dinner. Again, the mosquitoes drove us inside - this time just as we started to eat dinner outside. They arrive very suddenly when it cools down just a bit.

Nov 14th - Fri - to Marathon FL
Left about 9 for a 3 ½ hour drive to the Florida keys. The keys are a string of islands (connected by causeways & bridges) stretching in a curve from the southern point of Florida.
We drove past miles & miles of huge sugar cane fields on the trip today. Then acres of swamp, part of which is Everglades National Park. A sign directed us to a different road than Wanda wanted us to take so we followed the sign which led us right past a casino. We were ready for a pit stop and something to eat so had to check it out. Signing up for a player card got us $20 each that we could only use on certain slot machines. I ended up with just under $10 in “winnings” that I could then use on any machine and Terry had somewhat less. Terry lost his and another $20 while I cashed in $40 to cover his losses and give us $20. We did not like the casino so were ready to go back to the rig where I made a sandwich and we carried on.
There was some type of organized bicycle ride going on so we had to travel many miles passing bike riders on a narrow shoulder with brave (ignorant?) riders right on the white line of a narrow road with a lot of traffic.
We are in the Jolly Roger RV park. We had booked 5 days with PA at $30 a night. There were very few campers when we got here with most of them on the water. The park had a $40 a night special for any site so we went on a tour and decided to “upgrade” from the PA site near the road (and with no neighbors) to a site closer to the water. After we decided to make the change and the paperwork was done, we discovered that if we had stayed near the road we would have received wifi at our site. Now we have to go near the office to connect.
It was after 3 by the time we were set up so we relaxed in the shade, walked around and chatted with a couple from Vermont, checked out the lobsters living by the docks and were then ready for dinner. I updated the blog but was too lazy to walk to the office to post it.