Sark9kev
Member
We set out in early January from our former home in Bloomington, Indiana. We headed south and one shot the trip to Ocala, FL through the night. After sleeping most of our first day in FL we went scouting for our launch point the next morning to swim with manatees in Crystal River, FL, at Three Sisters Hot Spring. View attachment 301581 View attachment 301581 Early the next morning we got up and went to the launch, after a short paddle we were there. Realizing how cold the water was, and leaving 4 degree F weather for sunny FL, we neglected to bring wet suits. This wasn't even a thought until we slipped out of our kayaks and in to the 70 degree water. We had come this far, had seen three manatees on our way to the spring, We agreed to be cold. View attachment 301582 The spring was one of the more amazing experiences of my life. Easily over 100 manatees in the spring. We were floating along next to them with our snorkels. The young ones were curious and the old ones tolerant. There was a disheartening point when a tour group came through and was touching and chasing these guys, to my amusment they were swiftly dealt with. Another was the guide taking pictures with flash less than 3 feet from them. It was my first time seeing these creatures. They were amazing and I will be contributing to their conservation whenever and however I can. Hopefully they will send me on tourist patrol with a trident, but they haven't called back yet. At one point I went to get more batteries out of the yak, and was stopped by the big old guy in the picture. I used the last few pics of battery life to capture this guy. I was swimming out of the narrow channel as he was swimming in, of course I stopped, he didn't have to but he did. It was very sureal staring in to this big guys eyes, and seeing the scars on him. When he had enough he slowly moved to one side and I the other. He then knocked over a inattentive fellow that had come in with the group. I turned to my girlfriend to tell her about what I just experienced, and found her looking at two young ones playing, and immediately reckognized she was in the begging stage of hypothermia. We were both reluctunt to leave this place, but agreed we should take the short trip back, have lunch, warm up then return. As we were eating, a storm rolled in, we called it for the day. As the last strap was getting cinched down, the sky let loose. It continued to rain for the rest of the day. We headed in to town, Crystal River, and got a good taste of old Florida. Much more appealing to our lifestyle than new Florida. We spent a few hours walking around and had some local brews as we watched the rain, and managed to meet a marine bioligist who clearly LOVED what he did and was full of information. As the sun began to set on day two of our still young trip, we got back on the road.
Still raining we continued south. After four full or closed campgrounds, and several wrong turns, we decided to get a hotel room for the night. We drug out almost every item we brought to dry out. After warming up in the hot tub, which made up for the cost, we turned in on our first full day of adventure.
Day three brought car trouble, fish, huge boats, and more fish. We started early heading towards St Petersburg. Along the way we managed to make a slight detour and check out the Florida aquarium. We made two trips around it including Lemurs, Gators, Snakes, and tons of birds. The highlight for me was seeing a red wagon pulling two penguins off to somewhere else. View attachment 301601 After the aquarium, we took a short walk to the port of Tampa. While most of it was off limits to us, we managed to see a WW2 shipView attachment 301602, and several View attachment 301602tug boats, and two tankers. After all this spirits were high as we made our way back to the jeep. We started the thing and re organized some things while the AC picked up. As we pulled out of the parking lot the temp gage bounced off the H. We scrambled to find a dealership for help. We pulled in to the Jeep dealership in Tampa, explained we were stuck 1200 miles from home, they were awful rude and refused to look at our jeep for ten days. This wasnt an option as we both had to be back at work, in Indiana, before they would even look at it. I've driven over 200,000 miles in two jeeps, and had never been treated like that. We will never go there again. We pushed the thing about two miles to a Home Depot parking lot and went inside to explain we may be stuck overnight. The mamager was wondrful. Offered help even. We declined and bought some coolant and back to the parking lot we went. After further inspection, we determined we most likley have a head gasket issue. The jeep had been running great, for about 1200 miles at this point. So we filled up the radiator, bled out the air, and off we went. We stopped that night at my girlfriends Dads house, dirty and a little beat from the day. He knew exactly what we needed. He took us to a resturant in St. Pete called Columbia. It was amazing. Albeit a lot fancier than what I'm accustomed to, simply delicious. I've only had one dish there, and I will recommend it to anyone I know heading to FL. The red snapper. It was listed as the signature dish, and was unreal good. After returning in a near food coma, we sat around talking and drinking until the eyelids would have no more.
Early in the AM we were off again. Heading towards 275, I saw a sign that I recognized from doing jeep research. "Just Jeeps" We pulled in and met the owner Dee. After explaining what had happened with the jeep and what were doing, then our mutual love of mountain biking. He hooked us up big time. This guy is the best jeep mechanic I've ever met. If you live anywhere near here, and have a jeep, you need to go there. So we were back on the road with our jeep behaving and headed south. We got to the skyway bridge and had to stop and see. We parked just past the fee booth and unloaded bikes. It was a nice ride down the fishing pier, with the salty air and pelicans stealing bait, ending with a magnificent view of the bridge. View attachment 301608
Our next stop was in Sarasota, where my biological family lives. We rolled in mid afternoon and they were all there waiting. We grabbed a quick lunch and then to the liquor store as usual. That night we drank and ate like kings, my girlfriend passed out sometime around midnight, and my brother in law and I drank entirely too much whiskey in to the wee hours of the morning. At some point during the night we had all agreed to go kayaking the next morning. To no ones suprise, my two year old neice was up and ready at 0600 like a champ. She was the only one. We set out to Lido Key with the whole bunch and paddled through the mangrove tunnels all day. Other than my middle sister taking a swim it went off with out a hitch. We managed to see a ton of star fish, but to my suprise, we didnt see a single dolphin this day. The dolphins were a common sight this close to Sarasota bay. As the day went on, we all headed back. My family headed back home and we went to Lido Beach, only to realize it was sand instalation time, didnt know they did that. Then to Sait armonds circle to walk around a bit and see the art. I also managed to find my neice a very loud bamboo flute. Whats a good uncle for? We turned in for the night and thanks to the remaining hangover were out for the count.
The next morning we headed to Myaka State Forrest.
We spent the morning and early afternoon hiking and taking a bike ride around the park. We went up the canopy walk, which is a suspension bridge over the canopy. it was neat to see the canopy from that vantage point. On our bike ride we finally spotted two aligators, and big ones. One was close to 12 feet, and the one basking with it 14 feet. As we got further off trail we found several more, but none quite as big. The day was getting later, and we got back on the road.
Just before aligator alley, we began to overheat again. Luckily we had purchased extra coolant and supplies, because this time we landed in a veternarians office parking lot. They were kind enough to let us use their facilities and work on the jeep in their parking lot. While waiting for the jeep to cool down enough, we had a very important discussion. Do we start heading back, anticipating more car trouble? Or go for it? Being that we had both just spent all our time off work, and were this close, we went for in. We started down aligator alley as it began to get dark. We took another detour and stayed the night in Everglade City, FL. Finally another piece of old FL! Everything except one little resturaunt was closed, but I didnt care, because I finally got some deep fried alligator. We turned in early and grabbed some travel pamphlets to go over that night. We found a air boat ride for the AM. We woke up to what looked like a classic, sunny, FL day. Our tour guide was named Gary and he had his pelican mascot named "BBQ" BBQ rode on the bow of the air boat until we were pulling back to the dock, much to the dismay of my girlfriend who is terrified of birds.
Towards the end of the ride, that sneaky FL rain came back. It didn't really let loose until we were back on land, however, we still had to ride our bikes back to the jeep. We started back on the road but quickly had a stop at a small private zoo that Gary had given us tickets for. Small, but full of characters. After making our round, seeing several big cats, a Zebu, a small venomous snake collection and three very playful otters, we headed to the gator show. This is where we met Dylan. Dylan was new at the zoo, it was the first day of his second week, and his first fay doing the alligator show by himself. He was visibly nervous with the big alligator. It was very entertaining, but I think everyone there was nervous for him. 
We took off heading for homestead to jump on US 1. In the last few miles of Alligator alley, we had to stop at the Everglades NP visitor center and stretch our legs. We spent a while watching the gators swim around and headed back out. Several miles after turning on the long, long stretch of two lane US 1, we encountered trouble again. One of our kayaks had come loose, and after hearing a loud bang, I looked to my left and saw our kayak, airborne, then crashing down the road. My first thought was that we just killed somebody. After coming to an immediate stop we got out and saw it laying in the middle of the road. As we ran back to get it, My enthusiasm dwindled, as I was happy no one else was involved, I was dreading how bad the kayak I've had for years faired in the aerial show it just put on. We grabbed it and dragged it out of the road, and much to my suprise, it only had a small scuff. Impressive for a 60 mph dive. We spent a lot of time re securing everything, and a few field repairs. Then we were off again. We were heading to Mile 0, and nothing was going to stop us. We had planned to get to the southernmost point at sunset, and after the delays in the day, we were going to be cutting it close.
We managed to see a Key Deer, critically endangered on the side of the road. We laughed, our german sheppard is bigger than this little one. We were feeling lucky and believed our bad luck was behind us. The scenery was beautiful as we reflected on the rough winter back home. We were getting closer to Key West as the sun began to lower. The closer we got, the hotter the jeep was running. Now stuck in traffic and watching the temp guage climb, we had the heat on full blast, a pointless attempt to draw heat off the motor, we were going for it. Just as the sun dipped below the horizon we came to a steamey stop, after I made a wrong turn, in a abandoned parking lot near the Navy Base. We missed our goal, but it was still a spectacular sunset. The jeep was too hot to drive, so off came the bikes and we went for a ride around the island. After seeing the brightly colored night life Key West is known for, we got some mangoes, more coolant, and headed back to the jeep for the night. After several hours the jeep had cooled down, and we had refilled the radiator and it still ran. We took a quick drive to the southern most point. After dark, with a street light illuminating it, and waves breaking over the sea wall was a satisfactory way to see it. We had made our destination. We then returned to the parking lot and set up camp. We made dinner and downed a bottle of wine leftover from our stay in Sarasota. We ended the night with some ukulele and to bed we went.
We had agreed to get up before the sun and make our way to whites pier to watch the sunrise. The wild chickens that roam Key West made absolute sure we would not be late. I got up and managed to get the girlfriend up with a promise of coffee. We got our brew and headed to whites pier and watched the most spectacular sunrise I've ever seen, mixed with all kinds of fish swimming around the pier.
After enjoying this amazing start to the day we were back on the road and headed north. We made another impromptu stop to kayak again. This time in a state park in the keys. The water was crystal clear, as we went from mangrove to mangrove with the open ocean to our side. I had spotted something red in the distance, back closer to the road. I had heard of the wild iguanas in the Keys, but had not seen one until now. We spent the next several hours chasing them around and almost got tail slapped. Some were the normal green, but we also saw some very vibrant red and even a blue. We made our way back and loaded up, dreading the long drive home. We spent the next two days on the road. We drove at night to avoid the heat, but still needed to fill up the radiator a few times. We arrived back in Indiana just in time to sleep for 6 hours, then I had to return to work to knock out a 48 hour shift, as agreeing to that is what made most of our vacation possible. On my way home from that shift, the jeep died, would not go another foot without a major rebuild. Success.
I will post more pictures later, I've hit the ten picture max on this. I have about 400
Still raining we continued south. After four full or closed campgrounds, and several wrong turns, we decided to get a hotel room for the night. We drug out almost every item we brought to dry out. After warming up in the hot tub, which made up for the cost, we turned in on our first full day of adventure.
Day three brought car trouble, fish, huge boats, and more fish. We started early heading towards St Petersburg. Along the way we managed to make a slight detour and check out the Florida aquarium. We made two trips around it including Lemurs, Gators, Snakes, and tons of birds. The highlight for me was seeing a red wagon pulling two penguins off to somewhere else. View attachment 301601 After the aquarium, we took a short walk to the port of Tampa. While most of it was off limits to us, we managed to see a WW2 shipView attachment 301602, and several View attachment 301602tug boats, and two tankers. After all this spirits were high as we made our way back to the jeep. We started the thing and re organized some things while the AC picked up. As we pulled out of the parking lot the temp gage bounced off the H. We scrambled to find a dealership for help. We pulled in to the Jeep dealership in Tampa, explained we were stuck 1200 miles from home, they were awful rude and refused to look at our jeep for ten days. This wasnt an option as we both had to be back at work, in Indiana, before they would even look at it. I've driven over 200,000 miles in two jeeps, and had never been treated like that. We will never go there again. We pushed the thing about two miles to a Home Depot parking lot and went inside to explain we may be stuck overnight. The mamager was wondrful. Offered help even. We declined and bought some coolant and back to the parking lot we went. After further inspection, we determined we most likley have a head gasket issue. The jeep had been running great, for about 1200 miles at this point. So we filled up the radiator, bled out the air, and off we went. We stopped that night at my girlfriends Dads house, dirty and a little beat from the day. He knew exactly what we needed. He took us to a resturant in St. Pete called Columbia. It was amazing. Albeit a lot fancier than what I'm accustomed to, simply delicious. I've only had one dish there, and I will recommend it to anyone I know heading to FL. The red snapper. It was listed as the signature dish, and was unreal good. After returning in a near food coma, we sat around talking and drinking until the eyelids would have no more.
Early in the AM we were off again. Heading towards 275, I saw a sign that I recognized from doing jeep research. "Just Jeeps" We pulled in and met the owner Dee. After explaining what had happened with the jeep and what were doing, then our mutual love of mountain biking. He hooked us up big time. This guy is the best jeep mechanic I've ever met. If you live anywhere near here, and have a jeep, you need to go there. So we were back on the road with our jeep behaving and headed south. We got to the skyway bridge and had to stop and see. We parked just past the fee booth and unloaded bikes. It was a nice ride down the fishing pier, with the salty air and pelicans stealing bait, ending with a magnificent view of the bridge. View attachment 301608
Our next stop was in Sarasota, where my biological family lives. We rolled in mid afternoon and they were all there waiting. We grabbed a quick lunch and then to the liquor store as usual. That night we drank and ate like kings, my girlfriend passed out sometime around midnight, and my brother in law and I drank entirely too much whiskey in to the wee hours of the morning. At some point during the night we had all agreed to go kayaking the next morning. To no ones suprise, my two year old neice was up and ready at 0600 like a champ. She was the only one. We set out to Lido Key with the whole bunch and paddled through the mangrove tunnels all day. Other than my middle sister taking a swim it went off with out a hitch. We managed to see a ton of star fish, but to my suprise, we didnt see a single dolphin this day. The dolphins were a common sight this close to Sarasota bay. As the day went on, we all headed back. My family headed back home and we went to Lido Beach, only to realize it was sand instalation time, didnt know they did that. Then to Sait armonds circle to walk around a bit and see the art. I also managed to find my neice a very loud bamboo flute. Whats a good uncle for? We turned in for the night and thanks to the remaining hangover were out for the count.
The next morning we headed to Myaka State Forrest.
We spent the morning and early afternoon hiking and taking a bike ride around the park. We went up the canopy walk, which is a suspension bridge over the canopy. it was neat to see the canopy from that vantage point. On our bike ride we finally spotted two aligators, and big ones. One was close to 12 feet, and the one basking with it 14 feet. As we got further off trail we found several more, but none quite as big. The day was getting later, and we got back on the road. Just before aligator alley, we began to overheat again. Luckily we had purchased extra coolant and supplies, because this time we landed in a veternarians office parking lot. They were kind enough to let us use their facilities and work on the jeep in their parking lot. While waiting for the jeep to cool down enough, we had a very important discussion. Do we start heading back, anticipating more car trouble? Or go for it? Being that we had both just spent all our time off work, and were this close, we went for in. We started down aligator alley as it began to get dark. We took another detour and stayed the night in Everglade City, FL. Finally another piece of old FL! Everything except one little resturaunt was closed, but I didnt care, because I finally got some deep fried alligator. We turned in early and grabbed some travel pamphlets to go over that night. We found a air boat ride for the AM. We woke up to what looked like a classic, sunny, FL day. Our tour guide was named Gary and he had his pelican mascot named "BBQ" BBQ rode on the bow of the air boat until we were pulling back to the dock, much to the dismay of my girlfriend who is terrified of birds.
Towards the end of the ride, that sneaky FL rain came back. It didn't really let loose until we were back on land, however, we still had to ride our bikes back to the jeep. We started back on the road but quickly had a stop at a small private zoo that Gary had given us tickets for. Small, but full of characters. After making our round, seeing several big cats, a Zebu, a small venomous snake collection and three very playful otters, we headed to the gator show. This is where we met Dylan. Dylan was new at the zoo, it was the first day of his second week, and his first fay doing the alligator show by himself. He was visibly nervous with the big alligator. It was very entertaining, but I think everyone there was nervous for him. We took off heading for homestead to jump on US 1. In the last few miles of Alligator alley, we had to stop at the Everglades NP visitor center and stretch our legs. We spent a while watching the gators swim around and headed back out. Several miles after turning on the long, long stretch of two lane US 1, we encountered trouble again. One of our kayaks had come loose, and after hearing a loud bang, I looked to my left and saw our kayak, airborne, then crashing down the road. My first thought was that we just killed somebody. After coming to an immediate stop we got out and saw it laying in the middle of the road. As we ran back to get it, My enthusiasm dwindled, as I was happy no one else was involved, I was dreading how bad the kayak I've had for years faired in the aerial show it just put on. We grabbed it and dragged it out of the road, and much to my suprise, it only had a small scuff. Impressive for a 60 mph dive. We spent a lot of time re securing everything, and a few field repairs. Then we were off again. We were heading to Mile 0, and nothing was going to stop us. We had planned to get to the southernmost point at sunset, and after the delays in the day, we were going to be cutting it close. We managed to see a Key Deer, critically endangered on the side of the road. We laughed, our german sheppard is bigger than this little one. We were feeling lucky and believed our bad luck was behind us. The scenery was beautiful as we reflected on the rough winter back home. We were getting closer to Key West as the sun began to lower. The closer we got, the hotter the jeep was running. Now stuck in traffic and watching the temp guage climb, we had the heat on full blast, a pointless attempt to draw heat off the motor, we were going for it. Just as the sun dipped below the horizon we came to a steamey stop, after I made a wrong turn, in a abandoned parking lot near the Navy Base. We missed our goal, but it was still a spectacular sunset. The jeep was too hot to drive, so off came the bikes and we went for a ride around the island. After seeing the brightly colored night life Key West is known for, we got some mangoes, more coolant, and headed back to the jeep for the night. After several hours the jeep had cooled down, and we had refilled the radiator and it still ran. We took a quick drive to the southern most point. After dark, with a street light illuminating it, and waves breaking over the sea wall was a satisfactory way to see it. We had made our destination. We then returned to the parking lot and set up camp. We made dinner and downed a bottle of wine leftover from our stay in Sarasota. We ended the night with some ukulele and to bed we went.
We had agreed to get up before the sun and make our way to whites pier to watch the sunrise. The wild chickens that roam Key West made absolute sure we would not be late. I got up and managed to get the girlfriend up with a promise of coffee. We got our brew and headed to whites pier and watched the most spectacular sunrise I've ever seen, mixed with all kinds of fish swimming around the pier.
After enjoying this amazing start to the day we were back on the road and headed north. We made another impromptu stop to kayak again. This time in a state park in the keys. The water was crystal clear, as we went from mangrove to mangrove with the open ocean to our side. I had spotted something red in the distance, back closer to the road. I had heard of the wild iguanas in the Keys, but had not seen one until now. We spent the next several hours chasing them around and almost got tail slapped. Some were the normal green, but we also saw some very vibrant red and even a blue. We made our way back and loaded up, dreading the long drive home. We spent the next two days on the road. We drove at night to avoid the heat, but still needed to fill up the radiator a few times. We arrived back in Indiana just in time to sleep for 6 hours, then I had to return to work to knock out a 48 hour shift, as agreeing to that is what made most of our vacation possible. On my way home from that shift, the jeep died, would not go another foot without a major rebuild. Success. I will post more pictures later, I've hit the ten picture max on this. I have about 400
