We continued our journey south, spending a night at Huntington Beach State Park near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. We spent some time here last fall, so we traveled on to Blythe Island Regional Park in Brunswick, Georgia, for the week-end. Hank discovered this park when he would drive to the Keys by himself when I was still working and would fly down to join him. I can see why he fell in love with this park. The shady, roomy pull-through sites have to be seen to be believed. And have you ever heard of Right Whales? See sign below.
We had planned to spend the next few days in St. Augustine, Florida, but changed our minds when we saw what was happening with Hurricane Ida. After making landfall, it was traveling across northern Florida before sweeping up along the east coast. Rather than put ourselves directly in its path, we decided to drive directly down to the LaBelle area in Florida where our boat is stored. It was a rough drive for Hank with all the gusty winds and sudden rain squalls. You can see what the skies looked like over Jacksonville and outside of Disneyworld. No sunshine that day at all.
We settled at Ortona Lock Campground, which is a Corp of Engineers Park located on the Caloosahatchee River. It’s a quiet, peaceful place and we always see all kinds of wildlife while we are here. This visit we spied an armadillo, bobcat, sandhill cranes and a bald eagle. We also spent an entire morning watching 4 river otters playing and splashing in the pond behind our motorhome, avoiding the alligator who shares their space with them.
The view out our front window is even more fantastic. We never tire of watching the constant parade of boats passing through the locks as they travel up and down the river.
We drove over to check on our boat. The framework Hank had built to hold the cover in place held up well. But our wheels are badly rusted and we will have to replace them before we take the boat out of storage and set off for the Keys.
Friday night we met Art and Jane at their place at Riverbend and then had dinner at the Alva Diner. They, like us, are happy to have left the coming Michigan winter behind.
We’ve watched, with horror, the weather reports as the remnants of Ida have made their way up the coast. We are certain that our Kitty Hawk campground, pictured in our last posting, was flooded and today we saw pictures of the area along NC12 that we told you was under water when we were there. Over 600 feet of that same highway have been completely washed away and many of the dunes are gone! We’ve heard from friends in Alabama, Virginia and New Jersey who have all suffered some type of damage from this massive storm.
I leave you with a picture of a busy day on the river. The smoke you see in the background is from one of the many sugar cane fields nearby being burned off.
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