It has been a hectic four days in Speedy as we took on the friends and family section of this year's visit to Florida and we still managed to fit in a life bird.
On Tuesday we made an early start to Marco Island (just down the road from Collier-Seminole State Park) to visit my oldest friend, Rod, and his wife, Ellen. They moved to Marco Island from Massachusetts several years ago and enjoy this part of Florida.
On the way to their house, we took some time to search for Burrowing Owls. Marco Island is known for its vacant lots with resident owls. The last time we visited we searched at least a half-dozen locations without success. We were luckier on this trip. Armed with the latest sightings posted to eBird, we made a stop at Mackle Park. One of the recent locations was at a corner lot just outside the park. As we drove past the lot to park, Ellen said she saw what she thought was an owl. We walked over and there it was, a tiny Burrowing Owl sitting just outside its burrow swiveling its head and looking at everything nearby.
As we were walking towards the site, a man walking a dog saw us with our binoculars and asked if we were looking for the owls. When we said yes, he told us that there was one just a block further up who comes out every day. We walked up to that location and, sure enough, it was there. Mission accomplished, it was off to visit Rod and Ellen. As we drove, we saw three more owls including one standing on a sign post. Ellen (my Ellen) wanted to stop again but we were running late and there was a large truck on my bumper.
It was a wonderful visit with Rod, Ellen and Ellen's sister-in-law, Jane, who was visiting from England. We caught up on the happenings from the last time we'd seen them and admired Ellen's gardens. Their yard was just a grassy lot when they bought the house four years ago, but now it is lush with exotic fruit trees (at least to New England eyes) and flowering plants.
Rod, who also spent his career immersed in the depth of operating systems code, now spends a fair portion of his time immersing a baited hook in the local waters. He has become an avid fisherman. He hadn't caught anything in the last couple of days, so we went off to get fish for lunch and hooked about two pounds of Tripletail (in the form of fresh-caught fillets from the local fish market).
Ellen and Jane prepared a terrific fish curry kapitan (a Malaysian curry with spices, tomatoes and coconut milk, normally made with chicken) with coconut rice for lunch from our catch. The Tripletail was a tasty firm fish and the curry really made it special. A great lunch was had.
After lunch and a bit more talk, we headed back to Collier-Seminole State Park for the evening. We had not made a reservation since we were not sure what we were going to do after our visit, but finally decided that the park was the closest place to try. They had no sites available but, without even my asking, the ranger offered an overflow site. It wouldn't have power and it would be cheaper and it would be down by the boat ramp, our favorite place. Without hesitating, we took it.
This was actually what we had hoped for. We had spent a night parked there the last time we stayed at the park as I described in the last entry. It is much quieter, the view is more attractive and it is darker after sundown. So we couldn't plug in? Speedy was made for "dry" camping! We got in touch with Harry and Sally, who were still at the park, and they came over to join us for dinner. They also decided it was better there and stayed the night. Harry and I tried a bit of fishing from the dock. He didn't catch anything; I caught another tree and lost another fly.
It started to rain on Wednesday morning as we began to pack things up to leave and it poured as we drove to Naples to visit Ellen's cousin Kathie (at least much of Speedy's road grime was rinsed off). We arrived mid-morning to be greeted by Kathie and her brother, Wayne, also Ellen's cousin, and the very exuberant Tina, Kathie's dog.
We hadn't seen Kathie since our last trip to Florida, two years ago, and Ellen hadn't seen Wayne for several years, so there was much family news to catch up on. The perfect endeavor for a rainy day. After a full day's worth of family talk (with not a lot of input from me), we went off to a local restaurant, Cracklin' Jack's, for dinner. While not as good as Ellen's curry, I ate way too much ribs and pulled pork and Ellen had the fried oysters. Kathie has an enormous yard and her house is well set back from the road, so there was plenty of room for Speedy and after dinner we retired to the van for a very quiet night.
After having coffee (and more family talk) with Wayne and Kathie on Thursday morning, it was time for our next visit and we headed north, destination St. Petersburg. We made a short detour to the Audubon Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, a prime birding spot, which is just a few miles northeast of Kathie's house. We had already planned to visit my mother and brother in St. Pete on Thursday so we only spent a short time there and didn't walk the trails (it would have been a bit pricey for the half-hour we were there), but we will definitely plan to spend some time there on our next trip.
It was then off for the 180-mile drive to St. Petersburg. After a short stop for lunch by the base of the Skyway bridge, we arrived at my brother David's house. He moved to Florida a couple of years ago and bought a four-bedroom house, large enough to have my mother stay with him each winter. His daughter also lives there and that leaves still an extra bedroom for guests (we didn't need it, we have Speedy). He works at home as a system administrator for a major airline reservations service. With everything online and "in the cloud", there isn't any need to be at an office. Unfortunately, there was a significant problem with their systems when we arrived, so we didn't get much chance to talk with him.
It was good to see my mother and it was our turn to spend time talking about family gossip and Ellen got to be the listener. We went out to dinner at another local spot, the St. Petersburg Ale House (now called Miller's Ale House). We tried to wait for Dave, but his all-day conference call was still going on at 7 PM and he told us to go on without him. My mother likes this restaurant as it has a good Osso Buco, although it is made with pork rather than the traditional veal shanks. I had the grilled fish sandwich and Ellen had a tasty Cobb Salad. After the previous night, we both wanted something a little lighter.
After dinner, we parked Speedy in David's nicely flat driveway for the evening. Ellen retired a bit early (after three days of visiting she was spent) as I brought my mother in and finally had a bit of a chat with Dave, who finally was off his call (only to be back online at 7 AM this morning).
After having coffee with my mother early this morning, Ellen and I left for the next 250-mile drive to St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge in the big bend of Florida. After a stop at the local WaWa for fuel (for both Speedy and us), we drove into a numbing 50 miles of traffic and malls of US 19 north from St. Pete. After about four hours, we took a break in Perry for lunch. It was the last large town before St. Marks.
Ellen was also hoping for a haircut (I think it looks fine, but she thinks it is on the verge of "big hair"). We found the most highly rated place in town right next to the park where we stopped for lunch. It was in a house and Ellen said it reminded her of "Steel Magnolias". It was also very busy and totally booked. I guess it lives up to its on-line reputation and a very disappointed Ellen will have to wait a bit longer.
We pulled into the Newport County Park at about 2 PM. It is right outside the entrance road to the refuge and, by far, the closest place to stay. As we drove in the sign said "Vacancy" and we were relieved as it was Friday and we had no reservations. This relief was quickly dashed when the campground host, who looked to be about 90, came out and said there were no sites available. The place was nearly empty. When asked he said he hadn't had time to change the sign. We left and decided to go to the refuge visitor center to try to figure out an alternative.
One of my iPad campground apps had the listing for the county campground with a number to call for reservations. So I decided to call it just to make sure. The woman who answered said that there was no problem, they had sites open and we could have an electric site for two nights. She took our reservation information and said she'd call the campground to relay the confirmation. It was back up the road to the county park.
When we arrived, the campground host, who we'll call "Old Bill" asked if we had a reservation. We replied yes we did, for site #20. It was as if we'd never been there before, much less about 20 minutes earlier. He gave no indication that he'd gotten a call from the county office or that we had just left. He just said okay and took our $44. It seems like he just didn't want to bother earlier to see if any sites were available and the easiest response to our first stop was to say "nothing available".
We moved into site 20, fired up the air conditioning, took showers and had a good dinner. Tomorrow, it is off to St. Marks to find some birds.
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