Day 63: Bye, Keys
We wrapped up our final morning in the keys with a low tide walk before packing up and getting on the road. Today marks our last time in the Atlantic Ocean. It’s also the start of our trip toward home.
The drive was beautiful, crossing all the keys bridges and through the Everglades again. It had been over a week since I have driven the RV, thanks to Rob taking it for the recent short site moves. The driving skills all came back as we traveled over bridges, busy freeway onramps/merging, and a handful of these crazy southern rain clouds. When driving on the freeway down here, you can go from sunny skies to pouring rain and back again in just minutes. Nicholas summed it up by saying “in Seattle it just rains.”
Apparently, doing the drive day thing again was an easy transition for the family. We stopped for gas and Rob offered to take the next shift, covering just over an hour. When I mentioned I had just finished three hours, all of them agreed that it went fast and were excited our destination was so close.
On Rob’s drive we had more beautiful scenery as we were along side the Big Cypress National Preserve and then the Florida Panther National Preserve. During his drive we saw a turtle in the highway lane next to us crossing the road; we have our fingers crossed he made it. A little bit after that a hawk flew in front of us with a fish in its talons that was still squirming.
We had purchased some tire pressure/temperature monitors for the RV and car to help give us piece of mind on this trip. They helped us track, monitor and later fix the slow leak in the car. Today, we got an alarm on the right front tire of the Motorhome, where we had previously heard the wheel squeak. The tire temperature had reached 165°F (the others were around 105°) so we slowed down and looked for a place to get off the freeway safely. Using the infrared thermometer we, discovered the brake rotor on that side was over 400° (compared to around 200° on the others). We waited a little bit to let everything cool down and let the boys get some energy out by running laps. It seems like the brake must have been sticking, but with the stop it didn’t heat up again the rest of the trip.
We had one more stop to pick up a package before hitting the campsite. We had ordered a new vacuum bag after we tossed the old one, post maggot incident.
After that, we made our way to the Club Naples RV Resort campground. Most people here stay longer term, so we were with just a handful of others in their transient parking.
We arrived mid-afternoon, and the boys had an awesome day doing work/calls on the road, so we celebrated with some pool time. After telling me it was freezing outside of the water they didn’t understand why I wasn’t interested in getting in, too. We got back to the RV and they showered before wrapping up the school day.
Rob made another delicious Instant Pot dinner, taking advantage of our full hookup site by using all the dishes. During the dinner prep and cleanup I tackled the laundry. This place’s laundry machines take credit cards only, which is mind-blowing since we’ve been managing our supply of quarters very closely. There was a table in the room so I opted to do all the folding there before wheeling it back to the RV. It also might have been an extra moment of quiet for me, away from the RV. This round I ended up with an extra sock from someone else’s load; last time it was a pair of underwear. I triple check the dryers when I unload them, but looks like I should do that before I load them too.
