11/13 More Pictures of St. Lucie Locks & Campground

This is such a pleasant place to stay, even without the boats going by and the locks.  There is always something to look at on a river, especially because there are so many birds and interesting animals and plants here in Florida.  And there is nothing like a palm tree or two!  Here is my rig, here on the left.  I have managed to get this prime spot right on the river for each of the three times I have been here.

And here are only a few of the interesting boats that have gone by.  Most have waited right near my spot while the locks were ready for them to enter.

I have no idea what this is, but it looked like a couple of barges, each being pushed by some kind of tug boat.  As a whole, I think they might have had trouble fitting in the locks, but maybe not.  I did not walk down to see.

To get to the lock viewing area, you have to walk up the road and then into this fenced-in area.

This is looking downstream where the water level is about 15' lower.

And this is looking upstream with the lock doors open, towards Lake Okeechobee, where the water level is higher.

And the dam, of course.  You can walk across it to a picnic area on the other side.

I saw a bunch of boats go by but could not get to the lock in time to watch them enter.  There were a total of seven boats--six small fishing boats and one small pleasure boat. I imagine the fishing boats were headed to the Atlantic.

The upstream lock doors are closing. 

Once the doors close, they let you walk out on them.  Makes a good place to watch the water level go down.

The water is almost level with the lower river now.

And they are all gone!

You can see the fishing boats heading off in a group downriver.

This map shows the shortcut from Port St. Lucie on the Atlantic to Fort Myers on the Gulf.  The red arrow shows where we are now.  After a few days at Sebastian Inlet, I will be headed to the blue arrow--WP Franklin locks and dam.  And then later in December, I will be at Ortona South Locks and Dam, shown by the yellow arrow.  All have very nice U.S. Army Corps of Engineering campgrounds.

And this is the rear end of a gopher tortoise.  I accidently scared it and it hid in its burrow.  The next couple of photos show either its burrows or those of a friend.  These are big tortoises, by the way. They stand about 7" tall and are at least a foot long. This one just did not like visitors.

This is the only campground I have ever been to where they have free firewood.  And you can see another burrow here.

The locks close at 4:30 pm, and if you miss it, you have to wait for tomorrow.  Here are four fishing boats that tied up together on the river for the night.  They will be gone at 7:30 am when the locks open again.  They apparently all know each other because they were shouting across about what so-and-so had for dinner. 

 

11/12 Packing Up, Moving, & Setting Up Again

One of my friends recently asked me how hard it was to pack up and move my motorhome.  Actually, it is pretty easy, but I do most of it the day before.  First, I don't clutter my campground with everything including the kitchen sink.  You would not believe what some people find necessary to bring along for a weekend.  I have seen plastic grass coverings, multiple chairs and side tables to hold drinks, small extra refrigerator and table to hold extra refrigerator, tablecloth for picnic table, strings of lights, bug zappers, screen tent, bikes, lawn games, and so on.  I even once saw two guys unloading a small freezer from the back of a pickup truck.  (It was one of those 9 cubic foot chest freezers you can buy from Sears.) They told me it "came in handy" for camping, and they bought it cheap at a garage sale.  I am guessing they used it to hold beer???  They did have electric hookups, so that is my best guess.

One of these days I will have the nerve to take some photos of my fellow campers. 

The most I ever have outside is one chair and a doormat, and a couple of boards I use to level my rig since I don't have automatic levelers.  I sometimes will put a tablecloth on the picnic table, but mostly I put something out, use it, and then put it right back in. That makes it a LOT easier to pack up and leave!  And even then, I will put away most outdoor stuff the night before.

And I learned a very long time ago to NEVER leave my awning out overnight.  Had to get up at 2:00 a.m. once, get dressed, and put the awning back in on an extremely dark and windy night. 

So, all I have to do in the morning, most of the time, is toss anything loose on the kitchen and bathroom counters into the respective drawers or sink. I also make sure all doors and drawers are latched.  Then I start my engine and push two buttons to close the slides.  Then I turn the engine off and go outside to unhook the water hose, if I have a connection, and put it away, along with the electrical cord.  Five minutes, tops!  I do often have to stop at the dump station and dump both tanks, but that takes maybe another 10-15 minutes. 

And I am on my way!  When I get somewhere, I am usually tired, so end up just hooking up electric and maybe water, and occasionally boards I use for leveling.

All of this is one very big reason why I own a motorhome and not a trailer.  Trailers take a lot more time because you have to hook them up to your tow vehicle and unhook at a new camping spot.

11//6 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center

I read about this in some brochures, but was a little hesitant to go on a Sunday.  I ended up going anyway and discovered that because of the local airshow, the place was almost deserted--just how I like it!

There is a large fish pond in the middle--with very large fish and sharks!

 

 

 

 

They had some turtles in the far end in adjacent ponds.  I asked, and no, the turtles cannot get out and the sharks cannot get in. 

After viewing the ponds and some touch pools near the main building, I decided to go for a walk. 

Can you imagine living in this area and trying to walk through this, as the Native Americans did?  Can't imagine the heat and bugs.

This sheltered from the sun, but not much else!  Again, because I have been so badly bitten by bugs in Florida, I think of how hard it must have been to escape the hoards.

Part of the nature trail went along the bay.  I am certain there was no one else on the walk, so I was glad I had my cell phone to call for help if I fell. Would not want to spend the night here.

Quiz Question:  Who made this pile of poop on the boardwalk?  Hint: Those are undigested berries. Check at the end for the answer.

 

I was really glad to get back after my mile walk, but this little guy was not too sure of me.

Quiz Answer:  That was raccoon poop on the boardwalk.  I was surprised, but apparently raccoons don't chew their food much because the berries looked like they passed through whole.

11/5 Stuart, Florida Boardwalk

I took advantage yesterday of Enterprise's $9.99 a day weekend special and rented a car.  When I started out on this adventure, I considered towing a car, but decided that it was not worth the cost or the effort of hauling something around.  Yes, sometimes it does make it a little difficult to go somewhere, but I usually call ahead and have mostly very good luck in finding places to park a big rig.

However, there are some places such as in cities where it is a little more difficult, so I occasionally will rent a car for a few days.  So this weekend, I had it from Friday noon until Monday noon, and they came and picked me up, as they promise in their ads.

I had some errands to run today, but before I did them, I headed out to do a little sightseeing.  One of the places recommended was the old downtown area of the nearby town of Stuart where there is a boardwalk along the bay.  I parked in this pleasant park under the highway underpass, and entered the boardwalk here.

This is the fishing pier under the bridge.  The boardwalk goes left and right here, but after chatting with someone walking her dog, I headed right. 

Today was windy and slightly cooler than it has been here.  Southern Florida has been horribly hot and muggy since I have arrived--at least to my northern sensibilities.  Today it was a pleasant 81 during the day with a very stiff breeze, as you can tell by the waves here and the palms in the next photo. Not too windy to walk, however.  

This little blue heron was fishing just a couple of steps away from me. 

There is no beach here on the bay and a lot of private homes, so it was nice to have this boardwalk. 

I spent an hour or so walking around downtown and looking in the little shops. I have taken my motorhome down streets like this, but it is not easy and parking would be impossible, so I was happy to have the rental car.

The best part was that there were golf-cart shuttles so that I did not have to walk all the way back to where I had left my car.  Nice fountain on this roundabout.

11/4 Boat Watching at St. Lucie Lock & Dam Campground

I've spent most of the last couple of days working indoors, but watching boats go by outside. Mostly, they are cruisers with couples doing much as we RVers are doing, enjoying a few days of vacation or travel.  Today, I took some photos of a few of the boats waiting on the river just in front of me for the lock to be ready for them.

This is one of the four waiting boats. 

 
And another waiting near the boats parked for the night in the campground mooring area.

 
And a third.

And a fourth!  They will all fit into this large lock as soon as it is empty of boats coming the opposite direction.

Lock is emptying and here comes a little tugboat!

And the line of boats head into the dam.  I'll take more photos tomorrow.

And here are the local vultures, roosting for the night in a nearby dead tree!

 

To end, I have to tell you about a vulture I once met.  I was visiting a bird sanctuary near Sarasota.  It was very quiet there with no other visitors. I stopped by a cage with a pair of black vultures. They are all black and smaller than the more common turkey vultures above. I stood close to the cage and the one bird kept looking at me and cocking his head.  Finally, he dropped down from his perch, walked over and picked up an orange squeaky rubber pumpkin, brought it over to me, and dropped in on the ground right in front of me!  Really.  He had brought me a toy.  I think I must have resembled one of his keepers, but it showed me he had more than the usual "bird brain."  I need to go back there when I am in Myakka before Christmas. Lots of cranes there with artificial legs. 

11/1 Leaving the Keys, Driving to St Lucie South

I have not written much about it, but there has been a big problem with a screwworm infestation of the Key Deer population on Big Pine Key and No Name Key, which is just south of Bahia Honda Key and Marathon Key. Key Deer are very small, about the size of German Shepard dogs, and are endangered.  There are only about 1,000 total, with 200 living on Big Pine and No Name Key.  In the month of October they lost over 20 deer to these worms which are laid on open wounds by a species of botflies.  The larva burrow into their victims. A lot of bucks get injured this time of year because of the rut and get infected in the wounds that result from fights. 

They are trying to control the outbreak by dropping sterile male botflies from helicopters and enlisting the help of volunteers to feed the deer medicated bread.  There are quite a few homes bordering the sanctuary on those two islands, so the deer have become accustomed to begging food.  There is a coding system where volunteers who feed medicated bread to a specific deer are supposed to spray a fed deer with dye in a particular color.  A week later, if they are able to give a deer that has dye on it more medicated bread, it gets sprayed with a different color to prevent it from being given too much medication, but getting two doses about a week apart.  Here are a couple of articles explaining the infestation and the treatment:

• http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article110871382.html
• http://wsvn.com/news/local/volunteers-work-to-save-key-deer-from-screw-worms/

On my way out of the Keys this morning, I saw this animal inspection checkpoint.  You were warned to stop or face a large fine if you had any animals at all in your vehicle so that they could be inspected for screwworms.  The concern is that they could escape the Keys in pets and cause cattle and other animal populations to be infected, as happened 60 years ago.

Now, you may wonder what this is.  This is the hood of my motorhome with muddy raccoon tracks on it.  They are a little hard to see, but they are definitely raccoon prints! 

I had parked under a small tree last night and suspect something jumped on my vehicle. It has been raining a lot lately, hence a lot of mud.  This looks like where a raccoon or something else slid off my vehicle!

Finally, I made it to one of my favorite campgrounds, the St. Lucie South Corps of Engineering campground next to the lock and dam that allows boats to travel from the Atlantic Ocean near Port St. Lucie to Lake Okeechobee and on westward to Fort Myers.  Later on I will be staying at the two other Corps campgrounds at locks and dams along the river to the Gulf. 

There are only nine sites here and only three are along the river, so I had to make my reservation 11 months ago!  It was well worth getting up at 4:30 am California time last October 1 and making this reservation! 

Besides the RV camping spots, there are several watercraft camping spots.  Boats must be self-contained and have sleeping cabins to qualify to tie up here overnight and use the electric hookups. There is also a large pavilion with picnic tables, grills, and a couple of campfire spots for boats to use.

Past the boats, you can see the dam on the left and the locks on the right.

10/26 Long Key State Park

Long Key State Park is about 25 miles north of Marathon, and only about 13 miles north of Curry Hammock, so I did not have to drive very far.  That was good because I returned from my trip to Key West with a horrible migraine headache and vertigo bad enough that I could barely walk.  Not sure what caused it, but I only get a really bad case of vertigo a couple of times a year.  Last time was in March in Arizona. 

Anyway, I managed to return the car the next morning, dump my tanks, and drive the 13 miles to Long Key.  The ranger was very nice and brought my paperwork to me instead of making me park and walk into the registration booth.  The big problem was that when I got to my site, a car was occupying it. Luckily, the camp hosts were next door, so they got into their golf cart and headed to the ranger station to try to track down the illegal parker while I waited while running my cab AC and staying cool.

Once she moved and I was able to pull in and hook up my electric, a two-hour nap made me feel a lot better.  Unhooking and hooking up takes a lot of bending over, so that part was not pleasant, and I was glad to relax and keep my head still.

Long Key State Park is strange because it is really a very long state park, as you can see from this scan from Google maps.  The sites are in one long line with all sites facing the ocean and the small beach. Although the road behind the sites does produce noise, it is worth putting up with because of the view. 

Because there is little wave action in the Keys, beaches do not build up.  This is about a good as it gets--a little sand at low tide, and a few birds. 

By the way, most of the birds that will spend the winter in Florida and what makes it such a birding paradise have not yet arrived from northern states.  They are on their way, but it will not be until December or January that the larger numbers will arrive.  Of course, some birds, especially wading birds live here all year, so they are here.

One nice thing about the campsites here, other than the views, is that there is so much greenery between them. 

 

I did not take a lot of photos here or at John Pennecamp State Park where I stayed next because it rained almost all of the next five days!