2018-02-25 - 27 Still at Collier Seminole State Park

On Sunday, we hung around the park. I went down the road to a bar called Gator's to use their WiFi. Of course, I had to have a couple of beers while I was there. 

Monday, we went to Germain Honda of Naples for an oil change. I had a 1:30 appointment. I got there at 1:00. It was done at 2:30. Not bad! Better than Honda of Illinois - where I bought the truck! After the oil change, we came back to the park and did laundry. The washers and dryers were "credit card only." First time we've seen that! No coin mechanism, no coins to collect. Makes sense! 

I needed to make a camping reservation in Florida for February 27 of next year, so the plan was to go to a WiFi location just after midnight Tuesday morning (one year ahead of the arrival date) and get the jump on others trying to book a site for the same day. Long story short - looks like Gator's and Walmart (10 miles away) shut their WiFi off when they close. I called the campground at 8:00am and they had no sites available for a year from today. I called our second choice, Long Point, where we stayed a week ago, and they had a few sites, so I booked one.

After a breakfast of omelettes in a bag, we drove about eight miles in the opposite direction from Walmart to Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park where we walked their boardwalk back into the swamp. It was about a mile, round trip and we saw lots of birds, snakes, and a couple of big gators.

Back at Collier Seminole, after lunch and a nap (Hey! I was up late!) we took a bike ride around the park. Had to take some picks of the Bay City Walking Dredge even though I posted some the last time we were here. Pretty cool technology for 1924!

Tomorrow, we'll be heading for Oscar Scherer State Park in Ospre, one of our favorites. See you there!

2018-02-21 - 24 Collier Seminole State Park, Naples

We arrived at Collier Seminole State Park at about 3:30 on Wednesday after leisurely 212 mile drive across the state. As we walked around the campground on Thursday, we saw an old Aliner with a design we hadn't seen before. The license was from Ontario, but there was no one around, so we're not sure what year or model it was, but it had to be among the first of the breed, manufactured in the mid 1980's.

We've seen evidence of Hurricane Irma all over the area. Lots of houses and commercial buildings with light to heavy wind damage, but I guess the worst damage was caused by the storm surge.

The campground here has more trees than Long Point did, but it's still kind of like camping in an urban area. The other, smaller loop where the Aliner was, had much thicker vegetation. We were going to try to get a site there after seeing it last time we were here, but the campground was closed for renovation last year and we weren't sure what they did to that area. Turns out, it would still be the preferred  area for us. The sites are more secluded and too small for the big rigs.

On Friday, we walked the trail in the 10,000 Islands National Wildlife Refuge. The refuges is about 35,000 acres and virtually surrounds the state park. There are several pictures of the wildlife we saw there.

Saturday, we went to visit our camping friends, Lynn and Forrest who have a condo that's about 15 minutes from the campground. They spend most of the time at their home in Virginia, but like to come down here for a few months each year. They took us on a tour of the area, including Marco Island where we ate lunch. After lunch, we split up. The girls went to tour an open house that included a bunch high end (2 to 4.25 million bucks) houses while Forrest and I drove down to Everglades City to see a presentation about the Florida "cracker" cattle keepers.

Forrest and I beat the girls home, so we took a short nap before they got there. We stayed for dinner. We had quiche that was the best I've ever had. After dinner and some conversation, we headed back to camp. Thanks, Lynn and Forrest, for a great day!