A Sundowner View

~Tuesday, January 26, 2021~

Day 226

I must say it’s been nice giving the ol’ electric fireplace a break these past few weeks. Now we get what all the hype is about. Florida is the “it” place to be during the winter. Lower humidity (there’s still humidity), fewer mosquitoes, wonderful temps (mid to upper 70’s), hurricane free, and very few lightning storms/rain. It seems so strange to be experiencing “summer” in Florida when the majority of the country is blanketed in rain, snow and cold.

This is by far the busiest we’ve been on the trip, trying to pack in as much as possible. In fact, we decided just today, to return to Long Pine Campground after our short stint in The Keys, to see more of The Everglades. This really is a fabulous campground if you don’t mind being hook-up free.

We finally needed to step away from a day of excursions to a day of accomplishments. Laundry duty calls. The plan was to get laundry done, and get Jeff a haircut in Key Largo while we toured around the area. Though the haircut didn’t work out (no Great Clips in Key Largo where Jeff feels most comfortable), the laundry did. Man, this was a long way to go for laundry. We found a place called Coin Laundry where the wash was $3.50/load and $2.00/load for dry. Lots of machines and low laundry traffic which always makes for getting 4 loads done at once, a breeze. Rule #1-never do laundry on a weekend. Very nice staff too! Nice that it was right next to a deli with outdoor seating (perfect while waiting between loads), and only minutes from the John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. While I tackled laundry duty and my writing, Jeff headed over to the state park with Sadie. It was perfect as they found a great walking trail in a jungle like setting. The park is also home to one of the best snorkeling/scuba diving areas around, and the beach…...stunning, but small, a bit crowded, and not dog friendly. However, as a nice alternative, they also offer glass bottom boat rides that do allow furry friends. The jewel of this place is definitely touring the underwater world so we’ll just have to circle back around another time.

With laundry completed, and it being “5:00 somewhere”, we found a local joint called Sundowner’s.

This is the ideal place to be to watch a tropical sunset and since we were on the late lunch side, we were seated at the perfect table, right on the water, in perfect view of pelican feeding and boat excursions.

Right off the dock were huge Tarpons (5-6 feet) and baby sharks. Jeff’s beverage of choice was an IPA first and me a mojito. Food selection….me a delicious Mahi Mahi burger and Jeff, a cheeseburger followed by a shared coconut/rum Sundowner. With the Sundowner, you have a choice of #1, #2, or #3 all referring to alcohol amount. Based on my Mohito selection, if we had ordered a #1, we would not have tasted a hint of rum at all, so we opted for selection #3. It was the right choice.

We ended our day with a grocery trip to Wal-Mart for a few items, a nice walk in the campground (temperature….an amazing 70 degrees) and putting away clean laundry. We also needed a fresh water fill to get us by for the few more days we have here at Long Pine Campground.