Andy & Gillie's Big Adventure!: What next?

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas and New Year and our best wishes to any of you who had to fight the floods. Hope the waters are receding now.

Since our last post we have entered a new phase of The Big Adventure – the trip home is only two months away, so we are kind of in a temporary endgame. Feels a bit weird, but we still have the South American Adventure to look forward to…a rough estimate has us spending about six days travelling by bus through these countries. But that’s all in the (not too distant) future!

Christmas 2015 was a very subdued affair, although our neighbours at Fort Myers, Ken and Janet, very kindly invited us to join them for drinks in the afternoon, before we went back to our barbequed turkey. With sprouts and stuffing, we hasten to add (but forgot the gravy!).

We spent a lot of time on the beach at Fort Myers in the time between Christmas and New Year and found out about the fireworks on New Year’s Eve. Well, who can resist fireworks? So we scrubbed up and caught the trolley bus to the beach, where we proceeded to have several snifters at beach-side bars during a long and pleasant evening. Just before the witching hour, our hostess handed round a variety of sparkling hats and noisy things, which we happily blew on. Then we walked/staggered the 15 feet from bar to beach and watched a spectacular firework display from the pier less than 100 yards away.

Now, in terms of scale, I’m sure people (not least Holly and Emily) would argue that Sydney, or even London, would outdo the humble offerings of Fort Myers Beach, but by golly, they were completely awesome and in a great setting. Certainly one of the best firework displays we have seen.

Unfortunately, we had to move on the next day. That was fun. As it was a Friday, we didn’t particularly want to spend it in Walmart, so had booked a night at Flamingo campground, deep in the heart of The Everglades National Park. It was very hot, but we arrived about 4.30 and as soon as we stepped out of the camper were assailed by swarms of mosquitos. Needless to say, Gillie spent as little time as possible outside the vehicle.

We spent some time the next day exploring bits of the Everglades and saw several wild American Crocodiles – only about 1500-2000 live in the ‘Glades and are quite rare, but protected. Fascinating to get up close to these relics from the age of the dinosaurs.

As Walmart wasn’t going to welcome us with open arms the next night, we stayed next door – in ‘Home Depot’ – the B&Q of the US. Same colour scheme too. The next morning, a chap in a truck told us he wouldn’t ‘even let his wife shop there’ as the neighbourhood was very rough and we were lucky to still be there! !! !!! !!!! (still trying to deconstruct the comment – ‘even let his wife…’)

Anyway, we are still here and made our grateful way onto the Florida Keys – more specifically Key West, as far south as you can get in the ‘contiguous’ USA, to arrive at Boyd’s - by far the most expensive campground we have encountered in more than 15 months of travelling. Gird your loins TripAdvisor…

It is kind of iconic to be at The End of the Road near the end of our ‘marathon’ (also a town just up the road from here) drive around large parts of the English-speaking world, so, at risk of getting all whimsical and welling up, I’ll just take the liberty of imparting some fondly-meant observations of things we have noted during our travel across this mighty continent.

To all our North American reader(s), we hope you will read these in a spirit of amused comment, not of criticism. We have loved North America and hope to be back to see much more of it in the future. This isn’t the last post before S America, by the way, just thought I’d make a few non-itinerary related comments early.

Beer. Now, I think I can speak from a position of some authority here, having sampled a wide range of local brews, not only in Australia and New Zealand, but also in Canada and the US. As commendable as some of these efforts are, particularly in relation to the much-overused term ‘craft beer’, there’s still something about cellar-temperature, flat British real ale. And no one will convince me that even the best efforts of these New Worlders are preferable.

Boating/fishing/outdoor pursuits. Everyone either does it or wants to do it.

Diet. There seems to be a preponderance of fried and fast food, which can’t help the nation’s drive against obesity.

[Direction] indicators. To paraphrase the song by Edwin Starr: ‘what are they good for? Absolutely nuthin’. Say it again'. Drivers in the US by and large don’t seem to realise what that other stick on their steering columns is for, as they rarely use it, preferring to simply pull out in front of you or turn without warning.

Cellphones (and using while driving/pumping fuel – I refuse to say gas) – ubiquitous and very disconcerting/annoying/alarming (delete as appropriate).

Friendliness. With very few exceptions, we found people across the country to be friendly, helpful, polite and solicitous of our well-being. We were particularly struck (no pun intended) by the gentleman on the N’Orlinz streetcar suggesting that it wasn’t worth walking to the French Quarter in the middle of the day ‘you don’t want to get knocked on the head for the sake of a dollar’. In the middle of the day FFS!

Gillie’s name – it’s surprising how difficult many Americans found Gillie’s name! We had Ginny, Jenny, Julie, even Jimmy, plus as many variations as you can put on those. Even when we told people her full name – Gillian – they still struggled to comprehend that anyone could have such a strange name…

Interstates – as rarely as possible, but when we did travel on them we found the experience mutually stressful. The rule of give way to those already on the carriageway doesn’t apply and braking Molly Too at 55 mph is NOT the same as braking in a saloon car. Trust me, I know.

Language – Yes we all know the Oscar Wilde quip about ‘two countries separated by a common language’. Nuff said.

Public/Campground ‘restrooms’. Still find the idea that you go to the loo to relax or ‘rest’ quite novel but…Having experience of a wide variety of public conveniences across North America, the most common concern/fault is the lack of privacy they afford. Almost all have walls and doors that end about a foot from the floor, allowing all and sundry to check on the state/colour of your underwear, while many have doors that barely reach shoulder height, enabling any who feel so inclined to check up on you during your daily act of worship. Not good.

Shuffleboard. Sort of a warm weather curling without the excitement.

Sport on tv. Also ubiquitous – even at the petrol pump. But alas, no real sport such as cricket and rugby.

Trump D – see comment on indicators

Walmart. Although the Walton dynasty is eye-wateringly wealthy and apparently pay their employees slave wages, by and large we found these people (Walmart employees, not the Walton family) to be charming, cheerful and helpful in the extreme. And we were very grateful that all but one that we asked allowed us to stay overnight in their car parks. Imagine asking at your local Tesco or Sainsbury!

PS. Hello from way out in the middle of the sea (ocean!!) I can’t get my head around the fact that we drove for two hours after leaving mainland Florida, across a series of islands joined together by bridges, to get to where we are now. In the middle of the sea but still in the US, wow!! The Keys have got a definite Caribbean feel, down to the chickens and roosters running all over the place.

However instead of muddy tracks and shanty type houses, there are motorways and plush hotels. Downtown Key West is quite funky though, with a beautiful waterfront to admire the sunsets, two theatres and loads of bars and restaurants. As it’s now Friday we will shortly be catching a local bus into town to sample the wares at the many ‘happy hours’ on offer! We’ve been using our bikes to get around as it’s so flat here and nowhere is far away, but we thought it wiser to catch the bus!

We head on to our next site on Sunday, not far away but nearer the beach and the town, also it’s $20 a night cheaper than this place, paradise comes at a price here. Next Friday we head back to the mainland to begin our longest stay yet, three weeks in a beautiful town by the sea called Naples!

We decided on this long stay, as we need to sell Molly during this time and thought it would be easier if we were in one place for a while. So fingers crossed we get a good response, we’re putting her on Ebay on Sunday…eek! Just before I finish I must tell of the most amazing thing we found at our lovely Christmas campground… you won’t believe it but it had a WASHING LINE!!!!!!!! Bliss. In our experience the only campsite in North America to provide one!

Happy washing.

Bye for now, much love to all. G xxx