A Room With a View

~Sunday, February 21, 2021~

Day 252 (Travel Day)

Heading back to Long Pine Key Campground in Everglades National Park.

Sad to be leaving The Keys and the welcome paradise that it is, especially during the winter months. But we’ll be back. In fact, while breaking down camp, Jeff met Tom once again (our camp greeter when we arrived) and had a chat about their experience hosting at this kind of RV resort. He and his wife love it, and the process of working at Fiesta Key was quite simple. He simply called up, they went through an interview process, came up with a schedule, and were hired. They do pay for their site (about $450/month) and work a paid position at about 40 hours/week where they work 6 months during the winter months here, then head northeast during the summer months to be with their family. Sounds like a sweet deal and something for us to think about down the road.

Heading back to Long Pine Key Campground in the Everglades, it was quite nice seeing all the familiar things we experienced just a few weeks ago. Something about the familiar is refreshing since so much of the trip has been about the unfamiliar. And of course, a day won’t go by without visiting “Robert is Here” with those amazing fruit shakes and produce. When we arrived at the campground, we had just a little gray water to dump but mainly stopped to fill up our fresh water tank enough to get us by for the next 5 days. The guy in front of us was from Charlotte, North Carolina, so we all were shootin’ the breeze while waiting for water. The dump station seems to be a great way to meet people and exchange RV experiences with your fellow travelers. He was very intrigued about our slides and the Lance brand in general. Another topic was the amount of people RV’ing this past year, especially during COVID. He’s also seen a surge in Californians moving to North Carolina which many of these east coast states have. So with that, we were a little gun shy to explain our situation of trying to find a new place to move. So many people are getting out of expensive cities with the luxury of working from home. It’s becoming less and less about living close to the office and more and more about living anywhere away from the office. The technology was there. It just took a pandemic for people to realize working from home could be just as efficient, if not moreso, than working from an office. The pandemic and the workplace has definitely affected home prices. Jeff and I are hearing that the inventory is really low, and that the minute a new home comes on the market, it is snatched in 24-48 hours. It’s crazy. And the prices are becoming insane. In fact there are bidding wars going on for homes. So who knows, our plan of buying in the next 6 months may be delayed as we’d be foolish in purchasing an overpriced home. We simply won’t do it. Sorry for the side note.

Anyway, back to our lodging. Our campsite is right across from the lake this time, so through our large, front window we get quite the view.

Nice! It’s nice having options of orienting the trailer as we do at this site. Should we be parallel or perpendicular? Most people orient themselves perpendicularly that follows the line of the concrete pad. But to get the perfect front window view, perpendicular it will be. Sadie is happy to have a large lawn area back and a little more freedom. Since we just came from an RV park, with little to no lawn, along with their stricter leash rules, Long Pine is a welcome change. They are pretty lax here.

After we set up, we needed to get propane and a few groceries. Propane wasn’t cheap….💰3.00/gallon. The lowest we’ve seen on the trip so far is 💰2.00/gallon. But we’re talking not needing much with the 2 tanks. We have a total of 3, but leave 1 connected to keep running the refrigerator, especially when we’re off grid. We have found great deals at Publix grocery stores though. Love their selection, friendly staff, cleanliness and pricing. They are everywhere in the South.

When we arrived back to the campground, we decided to try our hand on another bundle of firewood from this campground, not as starter wood, but to add to our already dry, hot wood we got a week ago at Lowe’s. We still have 2 bundles left. A few weeks ago while we were staying here, we purchased a very poor selection of firewood as it was too wet, wouldn’t light and frustrated the *!%^ out of Jeff. We’re crossing our fingers that we made a good decision. Stay tuned…..

We considered going to the campfire talk tonight, but instead, opted to cook an amazing dinner. I made homemade guacamole, roasted potatoes and asparagus, while Jeff prepared salmon for me and a marinated flank steak for himself, that he said was one of the best he’s ever made. Chillin’ and grillin’ was a good decision. 🥘🧑‍🍳.