Thursday, November 22

Hello from Florida!

As I type this, the four of us are chilling in our RV after a sunny, windy day in the Florida Keys. But before I dive into our day’s adventures, you might be wondering — why is our RV in Florida and how on Earth did we get it here?

The answer is pretty simple: As colder weather approached and we considered winter storage options for our RV in Minnesota or Wisconsin (near our lake cabin), Andi and I wondered, “Why don’t we store it somewhere warm this winter where we could actually use it?” A few weeks later, Andi spent the week driving our RV to a storage facility in Fort Myers, Florida. We’ll keep it there when it’s not in use and fly down to Florida when we can to use it this winter and explore a new-to-us area. Win/Win!

Andi and I decided our first Florida RV trip would be a loop around the southern half of the state. We flew into Fort Myers on Thanksgiving Day, and opted to stay in a hotel near the airport our first night in town. We thought it’d be easier than trying to mess with setting up the RV on a holiday, but there’s no way we could have known how smart this decision really was in the end. EVERYTHING but the hotel was closed by the time we arrived in Fort Myers on Thanksgiving night. The poor staff at the hotel restaurant were slammed with guests looking for some sort of dinner. Two choices: eat there or raid the vending machines! After waiting over an hour for food in the restaurant, we opted to take our dinner back to the hotel room & shared a hamburger, pasta, and a rice bowl amongst the four of us.

I’m not sure if it was the food or a 24-hour bug, but around 1:00am I heard the sound that causes every parent to vertically bolt from their bed: puke! Poor Aden threw up repeatedly from 1:00am - 7:00am in our hotel room. Never have I been so glad NOT to be in our RV! Yuck. Aden fell back asleep around 7:00am, so I decided to stay with him while Andi and Tory hopped in an Uber to pick up the RV. Somehow, like kids do, Aden bounced back to good health by the 12:00pm check-out time.

With that, our Florida RV adventure began! After stopping by Wal-Mart on the way out of town for groceries and knocking out our first day of homeschooling in the parking lot, we drove south to Big Cypress RV Resort on the northern tip of the Florida Everglades. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to expect of this area — we’d heard mixed reviews of it being a tacky alligator tourist trap and a fun, different side of Florida. The RV Park, for one, was a nice one! Our site was a clean, cement pad located right next to a mini golf course and the pool. I love sites where the kids can play in view of our RV. It’s usually a good way to find other kids, too!