Into the Warmth and Back Again

We finally found that desired warm weather when we moved into Central Florida, and even more so in Southern Florida.  In all, we spent 36 days around and south of the Orlando area, and were mostly oblivious to the terrible cold, snow, and ice the rest of the nation was dealing with.  Our apologies.  We have to be honest, though, and say that the remorse is not all that hard to live with.  Again, our apologies.

Of the 36 days, we spent almost 3 weeks in central Florida near Kissimmee and briefly in the Tampa area.  We weren't interested in the usual attractions like Disneyworld, but did want to see the Kennedy Space Center.

We have many fond memories of the achievements from the Apollo space program, most especially the moon landing.  We took the general tour of the space center. We saw the vehicle assembly building, one of the launch pads, and transport vehicle used between the assembly and launch pad.

The tour bus stopped at the building that exhibits the sequence of Apollo missions and houses a Saturn V rocket (it's huge!).

Back at the main visitor center, a building honors the shuttle program, and houses Atlantis.  It's cargo bay is much larger up close than it appears in videos.

After the Orlando-Tampa stops, we moved even further south to Naples.  Our 2-week stay there was really lovely.  The weather so warm, shorts and air conditioning were the order of the day everyday.  The park was very comfortable, and was in an urban setting with several shops and restaurants within easy walking distance.

We had several items on our 'to see' list.  The first one was Key West.  We debated driving (6 hours each way) and spending the night, or taking a ferry out of Naples (3 hours each way) and making it a day trip.  The ferry option won.  It left Marco Island early in the morning.

We arrived in Key West in time for an early lunch.

We took a walk around the town, passing by Hemingway's house and stopping by the southernmost point in the continental US.

After some souvenir shopping and a leisurely cocktail at a sidewalk café, it was time to reboard the ferry.  The sun set on our return trip.

The second item on our sightseeing list was to ride an airboat in the Everglades.

The ride was fun, but the wildlife sightings were less than expected.  We did see one alligator and several raccoons.

Our RV route did not include the Miami area, but we did want to visit there.  We packed a small bag and drove the car to South Beach.  We rendezvoused with HeM's brother and sister-in-law who were there at the time, escaping the Ohio weather.  After lunch and short walk on the beach, we all drove to Hollywood,  just north of Miami, where we had hotel rooms.  The hotel was within a block of the boardwalk and beach there.  Very pleasant.

We left Naples and drove to the Atlantic coast of Florida.  Our stop was in Fort Pierce for 3 days.  We didn't expect to find much to do there, hence the short stay, but we did run across the Navy Seal Museum.  We spent an afternoon going through it.

The museum also houses the actual vessel from which Navy Seals rescued Captain Phillips when held by modern-day pirates.

So now our allotted time in the warm regions of Florida has ended, and we've moved north.  We'll be in the Jacksonville area for a few days before moving even further north.  We were greeted with rainy 40-50 degree weather as a welcome back to winter.  We could say that we were feeling guilty about not suffering with the rest of the nation, but who would we be kidding?