Cape Canaveral

Banana River off Merritt Island.  3 miles wide 4' deep

Greens Cove Campground

 Cape Canaveral

11/2 - 11/7

No launch.  As we got in late to Merrit Island, home to Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral, we spent the first night at the Wall Mart parking lot and the next three nights at   Green Cove RV Park on the banks of the Banana River.   A broad, to the horizon, but shallow body of water.  The river’s surface was wind tossed most of the time and a permanent resident flock of buzzards spent hours riding the winds back and forth along the damp shores.

We waited through one cancellation after another for the space shuttle launch untill  news came on the morning of the 6th that they finally scrubbed it for good.  At least for the month of November, hydrogen fuel leaks.  Too bad because from our vantage point on the beach we could clearly see the launch towers.

We tried to kill time by going to the beach but it was too cold even under  a cloudless blue sky. 

The Everglades

Nov. 7,8,9

 So we packed up and left yesterday, the 7th, for the Everglades.

After a 5 hour drive going by a very clean looking Palm Beach and a ritzy looking Miami Beach we arrived at Everglades National Park and Lone Pine Campgounds.

Not sure about staying though as the bugs are pretty active this time of year and they drove JoAnn nuts with their constant biting inspite of two types of repellent we used.  They mostly went for my ankles.  We are even seriously thinking of bagging heading down to the Keys.  Too bad as visiting Key Largo always interested me ever since seeing the Bogart movie “Key Largo” with Lauren Bacall and Edward G. Robinson.  But I too can not stand the constant biting of the gnats, no seums and the mosquitos small and slow though they are.

I also really looked forward to an air boat ride through the swamps but I have to accept that I don’t do well when being consumed by insects.

What Florida needs is a good freeze and what we need is dryer warmer weather.  Not too dry though.  Have you experienced the gentle hydrating and scented airs of  Hawaii or Moorea ?  

We will decide this morning where to go. 

This morning we decide to hele on down to the Southern most Everglades park mainland at Flamingo Beach before the mangrove dotted seas of Florida Bay.  A cool breeze seems to have modified the presence of skeets and gnats so we took the two lane road down at 55mph and a high 3’ above sea level !

Flamingo Park was huge.  Huge but only two other people were camping.  White power posts at each site stood like a field of open cemetary markers or like lonely speaker posts at an empty drive in theater.  I mean there was essentially nobody here.  We are talking about a site that could hole 300-400 campers ! Beyond the Bay of Florida lay with white egrets flocking by the hundreds among the tide flats.  The camp grounds were under the domain of vulture birds.  They were trashing one of the only two occupied sites because the campers had left food on their picnic table.   A warning to us.

This afternoon the glorious sun came out and a steady breeze swept along the everglade flats washing through the Airstream and kept the area clear of all insects.  And the solitude was heady.  The golden light was soon to be of low angled shafts and long of shadows lighting up blades of grass along their sides feathering the open grounds with wide drifts of irridescent chartreuse.  Again these vast fields of light we had to ourselves.  Tomorrow perhaps we’ll boat through the mangrove seas of Florida Bay.

Sunset  was a Florida one sinking into the Everglades and flashing the horizon and coloring the underside of low clouds the color of torn peach skins.

Flamingo Beach National Park.  Nobody but us.