June 16, 2007

We are now the proud owners of a 1990 13' Casita "The Pearl". It had a lot of work done to it before we bought it but Jason has already started adding more stuff. He has already replaced the ice box with a refrigerator and some other small stuff. We decided to take it for a test drive so we loaded up and headed out to Meaher State Park on the causeway. There is a new fishing pier and boardwalk. We saw 5 aligators and a scavaging racoon while walking on the boardwalk Friday night. The camper worked pretty good and we would have slept good if we had remembered to bring pillows.(We always forget pillows) We also discoverred that the curtains the came with the camper are very thin. There was a light just outside the camper and we kept waking up and thinking it was morning and getting up. We were up at the butt crack of dawn, we have got to get new curtains. It was so nice to sleep in air conditioning, eat dinner without flashlights and brush our teet inside. The next morning we did some fishing off the pier and I caught a catfish.

As you can see we brought the kayaks. I have been wanting to check out the Five Rivers Center that just opened on the causeway. We put in at the floating kayak dock which was an adventure. The did a good job of making a dock that was environmentally friendly but it is a pain in the you-know-what to get in and out of a kayak. I didn't think I was going to be able to get out and Jason had to help me. Anyway, we went under the causeway, through some grass pathways and down to the bayway. We went under the bayway and followed it to Daphne and went under Hwy 98 up D'Olive creek. We saw a bunch of alligators, tons of birds ( I can identify seagulls and pelicans but that's about it), Giant flying grasshoppers(lubber grasshoppers), snails, and fish. This is the most animal life I have seen on a kayak trip since we got back from the Everglades. I took pictures but they did not come out:-(