Once the kids were gone, we got ready for our next shake down trip. We choose Myakka River State Park. Can you see a theme here with our RVing escapades? Yup, that’s water. We’re always going to try to be on or by the water. We can just pretend we’ve beached our boat while we explore these places.

This place was a little more expensive at $25 a day. We couldn’t use the National Park pass but because we are old farts, and live in Florida, we could use the Florida Senior pass and get a discount that way.

Another difference was this camp site was on sand instead of a concreate pad. That makes for a dirty RV which we all know Captain Gary won’t stand for, so there was a lot of sweeping of shoes and sweeping of floors. Good thing one of our “must haves” was a little broom (to bad the head came off it )😢

Oh, and did I tell you? Apparently you have to NAME your RV. So, because there is a frog in an airplane on the side, we decided to name it

Setting up for the second time was a little easier and quicker. I only forgot one thing….trash bags. Only an essential item while ruffing it away from civilization. Luckily we were parked real close to the camp dumpster (or maybe not so lucky)

Not only that but as we were leaving for a walk one morning, something was thumping around in the dumpster, and it sounded big. But no way was I going to see what it was. I could just picture a racoon or something jumping out of the dumpster right at me! AAAAAAAH!

Well this place was much bigger than the lock and dam we stayed at. The first day we got up early and went for a trek to check the place out

Lots of fuzzy trees here

Right down the road from us was a bridge that went over the Myaaka River. Look at this pink bird with the big bill

And there were 10 or 12 alligators all swimming around the bridge

The railing on the bridge was barely knee high. I think they were hoping one of those silly tourist would look over the side too far and fall in…….”Lunch is served!”

We contined on our walk and found a few great paths to go on. One had this tree with this pink stuff on it

What do you suppose that is? Great! Now I’ll have to take some botany courses.

One of the trails even had this dock over some swampy land. See! You can even walk on docks while you are RVing, just like boating!

Hopefully there aren’t any alligators in that swamp cause the railing is not that high on this little dock and we are getting old and don’t run so fast anymore 😉.

On the way back there was a guy fishing on the bridge. Next thing we knew he got a bite. The alligator that had been watching figured he had a free lunch and started swimming real fast to the guys catch. Gary is yelling “Reel faster, reel faster”, the guys “I’m reeling as fast as I can!” Apparently not fast enough.

LOL, the guy was so excited, even if he did loose his catch.

That was the excitement for the day. And I mean the only excitement. We had no internet and no cell service. Oh Oh! What are we going to do? I, of course, was very content. I just took out my KIndle and started reading. Gary, not that big of a fan of just reading, started puttering around the RV, making notes of more things we had to have LOL. That night, with no TV service either, I got him to play……………….Chicken Foot (what did you think I was going to say? This is a G rated blog😉). Hay Mikey! He liked it!

The next day we got up early again (seems the rest of the people at this park are late risers which is good for us. By the time we are heading out of the trails, eveyone else was just coming in). This new trail went closer to the actual river

No alligators here.

One of the trails had this suspension bridge that we went on

I don’t know, I think they might have to do some tree trimming pretty soon.

This bridge was suspended between two “towers”. One was about 35 feet high and the other was about 70 feet high. You walked from the 35 foot tower to the 70 foot tower. After we walked over the bridge, they had put up a sheet of plywood so you couldn’t get up the stairs on the 70 foot tower. We tried to figure out what that was all about, we figured maybe something happened and they needed repairs. Later that day we saw a Park Ranger and asked him. He said the week befor it was still Spring Break and the place was very busy. All these 20 something kids going thru the park, climbing to the top of the tower and it was packed! A Supervisor of some kind happened to be visiting the park that day, saw all the kids in the upper section of that 70 foot tower and had them shut it down. Ya just never know what all those kids could do.

We continued our walk and I saw this colorful fungus. When was the last time you saw orange fungus? Such cool stuff in Florida.

So we enjoyed that spot, even if it was a little dirtier, had no cell service, no TV service….come to think of it, that was really roughing it. Maybe I better do a little more research on the other camp sites 😉

Next stop, Franklyn Lock and Dam. The closest spot ever.