Naples, Florida

 

Naples, Florida (high 88, low 65)

We didn’t leave Sunshine Key until 12:20 yesterday.  That was probably the latest start we have ever gotten.

We had to take the boat down to the storage facility and that took a little extra time.  It probably would be smarter to do that a day earlier.  Oh well.

We breathed a sigh of relief when the slides retracted, the engine started and everything appeared to be running well.

By the time we got going, there were some big patches of red showing on the radar.  We hate driving in rain, but we didn’t have much choice.  The nice thing about the weather app is that you can see where the rain is in relation to your position.   Several times, I would tell Al to slow down a little bit because it looked like the approaching storm was about to move out of our way.  No sense driving in hard rain, if you could slow down and avoid it.  It worked well and we never ran into any hard rain.

I took the obligatory pictures along the Overseas Highway while we were driving down the road.  Despite the clouds, the water looked pretty, clear and calm.  It made it that much harder to leave!

 

These pretty flowers were outside of some hotel or attraction.

Good-bye Florida Keys.  Hope to see you again in November!

We ended up missing the station where we usually fuel up after leaving the Keys.  Fortunately we had plenty of fuel, so we’re okay and could actually make it all the way to Tampa if necessary.  We prefer to not let the tank get very low, so we will stop at a truck stop in Fort Myers and fill up.

We arrived at Club Naples Rv Resort about 5pm.  It’s a Passport America park and right off interstate 75, so it’s a good overnight stop.  We had stayed here last year and liked it fine, but when we got here yesterday it was a muddy mess from the rain.  You could tell exactly where the snowbirds had parked and had their outdoor mats, because the grass was all dead and of course it was very muddy.  I wish everyone would use the type of mats we use that don’t kill the grass underneath.

We were both pretty tired, so I went to watch some Tv in bed and Al planned on watching some football draft programs in the living room.  He made the mistake of laying down on the couch, so of course that was where he spent the night.  He didn’t see any of his program either.

We got up this morning to a pleasant surprise.  Cool weather!   It’s 65 degrees, so we are able to sit here with the windows open for the first time in weeks.  Boy, does it feel nice!

We only have 187 miles to drive today, so we’re not in any hurry.  It feels nice to be able to have some coffee and computer time before we have to get moving.