camping Archives - The Great Curiodyssey

The End of The Road

February 18, 2017 By Sarah 16 Comments

Well dear readers, we are both wistful and excited to announce that as of yesterday at 3:20 pm The Great Curiodyssey has come to it’s official end as we rolled back into Berthoud. We parked in front of my sister’s house in precisely the same spot we pulled away from 315 days ago.

How do you sum up one of the craziest years of our lives? At times it has ranged from refreshing to tedious, terrifying to comfortable. We’ve both felt more like our true selves yet stretched beyond what we knew we were capable of. The truth is, it’s impossible to condense what we’ve seen and felt and experienced into a tidy package. Every time I try to do it, it sounds cliche and trite, so I’ll let the numbers sum it up:

The Great Curiodyssey By The Numbers:
32,279 – Miles Driven
315 – Days Travelled
88 – Blog Posts Written
138 – Blog Posts Unwritten
44 – States Visited (Including a 6 mile detour to add New Jersey to the list)
26 – National Parks Visited
3 – Canadian National Parks Visited
12 – Other NPS sites visited (National Memorials, Historic Sites, Battlefields, Seashores)
3 – Trailer Tires Replaced
1 – Broken Bone
6 – Black Bear Sightings
6 – Things we have mistaken for bears (deer, tree trunks, squirrels, a stroller, raccoons, and a marmot that we convinced 10 people on a trail that it was a bear in the distance but it was just a lot closer than it appeared).
0 – Moose Sightings. Boo.
2 – Nights Sleeping in a Cracker Barrel Parking Lot (1 in a blizzard)
5 – Nights Sleeping in a Wal-Mart Parking Lot
11 – Old friends we got to meet up with
2 – Graduations
1 – Wedding
1 – Funeral
Too Many To Count – Laughs, Stars on Clear Nights, Breathtaking Views, Mind-blowing Revelations, Amazing People, Miles Hiked, Moments of Bliss, Awesome Park Rangers, Mysteries of the Earth.

Man, what a ride it has been, and we would like to sincerely thank you for following along with us, offering your suggestions, encouragement and inspirations. On lonely days, it truly felt like we had a crowd of people supporting us. We are so grateful we were able to share our adventures and a bit of ourselves with you.

Happy Trails.

Florida State Parks

December 1, 2016 By Sarah Leave a Comment

We tend to mix it up where we camp overnight and have stayed anywhere from National Parks to County Parks, free sites on BLM land to the occasional Cracker Barrel. Since we’ve been in Florida, we have mainly stuck with their impressive network of State Parks and have not been disappointed. The Sunshine State showed us their hospitality as soon as we crossed the border from Georgia with free OJ at the roadside Welcome Center. I love how parking next to semis always makes our camper look comically tiny.

Our first stop in Florida was Tomoka SP just outside of Daytona Beach. It boasted the nicest Park Ranger checking us in, palm trees surrounding the campsite and a lovely camp store with a deck overlooking the river where we relaxed with an ice-cold beer.

Upon the recommendation of the park ranger, we headed to Blue Spring State Park to see manatees. This will be remembered as one of the most magical experiences that Florida gave us. The spring in the park pumps out over 100 million gallons of perfectly warmed 72 degree water year round. The manatees are very sensitive to water less than 68 degrees and as it gets colder in the winter, they head from the St. John’s River toward the warmer water. A boardwalk lines the spring and as you stand overlooking the clear, aqua colored water, you hear little snorts and see a nose peek out of the water. They breathe every 2 to 4 minutes, and if you can’t see them right away, eventually their snorts give them away.

They really don’t do a lot, but you can’t stop watching them. They glide like blimps through the water with what looks like minimal effort. It’s lumbering and graceful at the same time. We were mesmerized by them. The boardwalk continues to the source of the spring about a 10 minute walk from the river opening. We met another enchanting scene there. There were even more manatees at the source of the spring and apparently they were the rowdy bunch. They were swimming around and doing their thing. Check out the manatee cams for more manatee love here. When the manatees aren’t there, you can swim, snorkel and scuba dive in the spring waters.

We also saw a few manatees at the appropriately named Manatee Springs State Park. This park sits just on the Suwannee River, and the manatees were not as numerous here, but a fellow camper said that while kayaking one came up to her and rolled over for her to scratch its belly! The boardwalk goes through stands of Cypress trees and we saw lots of turtles, fish and one alligator.

Another great park back on the Atlantic Coast was Sebastian Inlet. Sadly, we won’t be remembering this park for the beautiful beach, stellar fishing or colorful sunsets. It will be remembered as the park where we were introduced to the most horrific insect of all time – the Noseeum. They devoured us in the evening and then got through our screens at night. After they had their way with us, we looked like we had broken out with a deadly pox, and the intense itching over the next week kept us up at nights despite gallons of hydrocortisone and liberal Benadryl use. Sorry Sebastian Inlet, we would have loved you had it not been for these miniscule agents of evil.

Lastly, St George Island State Park is located on a barrier island on the Gulf side of Florida. The beach there was amazing, and had it been warmer we would have loved to bask for a few days on that beach, but we ended up only spending one night here. We got to the beach around sunset (at the early hour of 5:30 pm) and the wind whipped us as thunderstorms were building in the distance.

We can tell the pride that the state takes in their parks. For the most part, the facilities were in top shape and the scenery and views were nothing short of spectacular. It’s hard to go wrong with any of these locations for a few nights or even a few weeks!

Everglades National Park

November 29, 2016 By Marc 1 Comment

Any time I imagined the Everglades, I pictured only a few things: water, alligators, those air boats skimming the grassy water, and mosquitos. Well, the Everglades has those things, some in much larger quantities than others, but it is SO much more. After a four-day visit it secured a spot within my top five National Parks.

Upon first entering the park from the East (the irritatingly busy Miami area), the first thing we notice is the seemingly endless sea of what appears to be prairie grass. Upon closer examination, the sawgrass blades actually have sharp saw-like edges which retain moisture and prevent animal grazing.

The sawgrass stretches to the horizon and appears to be growing straight from the solid ground like on the Great Plains, but the entire landscape instead is covered with about a foot of water. The Shark River Slough (pronounced “slew”) is actually a huge, slow-moving river which is the lifeblood of the Everglades. Because the water is continuously moving, it is not gross and stagnant like I always imagined. The sawgrass marsh’s water is actually crystal clear and it smells like a fresh meadow. This is the heart of the Everglades.

The sawgrass grows in a very thin (maybe 3-4 inches) layer of nutrient-poor soil made up of decaying plant material. Below the loose soil is a vast and very flat deposit of limestone, which prevents any larger plants from taking root. The limestone foundation throughout the park may vary in elevation by as little as one or two feet across a hundred miles, but that tiny variance in elevation is extremely important to the many contrasting ecosystems within the park.

Looking across the Everglades we can see what appear to be islands among the sawgrass—clumps of trees resembling desert oases. Some of these islands are areas which, as we expected, the earth rises up above water level by only about a foot, allowing a deeper soil and drier ground for stands, or hammocks, of large hardwood trees like mahogany, cocoa palm, and slash pine. The largest mahogany tree in the US resides in one of these Everglades hammocks.

What we certainly did not expect was how other tree “islands” are formed. There are clumps, or domes, of cypress and mangrove trees that, from outside the dome appear to be the same as hammocks where the earth rises above the water level, but from inside the forest, you realize they are actually growing in deeper water than the surrounding sawgrass.

In these dome forest areas, the limestone actually dips down and forms a pool of water that may only be a few inches to a foot deeper than the sawgrass prairie, but allows a thicker layer of soil beneath the water where the cypress and mangrove trees can take root.

We had an incredible experience on a Slough Slog, a hike through the water-logged sawgrass prairie and directly into a cypress dome forest. Trudging in mud through water above our knees in the Everglades, the home of many birds, insects, fish, trees, plants, and yes, alligators (it’s okay, we were guided by a park ranger), was one of the most amazing experiences of our entire trip!

Amongst the cypress trees we were engulfed by a towering canopy, just as most of our hikes, but the calm of the knee-deep water and the abundant wildlife concealed within the forest created an indescribable tranquility that no other conventional hike could match.

We spent a little time at West Lake and the Flamingo area where freshwater meets the saltwater of Florida Bay. Here we saw mangrove forests and a few alligators and crocodiles intermingled with manatees and the fresh ocean breeze.

On our last day in the park we went to the north side and biked the 15-mile Shark Valley Loop Road, a path which leads along a manmade canal with literally hundreds of alligators sunbathing along the shore a few feet from the trail.

Despite not seeing any elusive Florida panthers, but having seen and felt many mosquitos, which really weren’t so bad after we bathed regularly in bug spray, we thoroughly enjoyed Everglades National Park and would highly recommend it for your bucket list.

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