Skip to main content

A (Very Pleasant) Day in Hell

Friday, February 25th – Tate’s Hell, Florida – Day 18 

 
We woke up and the weather was kind of crappy. Overcast but a reasonable temperature. It had rained a lot of the night before which wet the laundry I had hung the night before after not wanting to wait for a dryer. Mary took these back to the other campsite to dry and had to explain why we were using their machines. I bought tickets to Kennedy Space Centre for the March 1st rocket launch. At $60 for adults and $50 for children, they were expensive but I don’t care, I’m going to see a rocket launch (hopefully, I don’t want to jinx myself). When she got back, we decided to go for a hike and a beach day. 


The hike was the High Bluffs Coastal Hiking Trail. It was a good trail. Sandy with some interesting plants – a green mossy substance that was growing everywhere. We were suppose to go along a few interior lakes but they weren’t to be seen. It was hot by this time so by the time we got back everyone had a sweat on. The last hundred or two hundred metres, Gen started jogging to get some exercise so we all started jogging. I was carrying John so he didn’t have to keep up. I love the idea of family trail running. Yet again, need to build the kids up to the point they have enough fitness. 


We then went to Carabelle beach. Luckily there were some outlets there so we plugged in all the laptops to try to charge before we went back to the camp. There is no electricity or water supplied in Hell’s T’aint (sorry, Tate’s Hell). I blogged a little bit. I’ve started reading Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations so I read the intro to that. I’m looking forward to reading it. Everyone else went in for a swim and relaxed on the beach. After a while, I gave up on charging the laptops and went for a swim myself. 

 When we got back, the girls and I gathered wood for a fire. We ate a delicious dinner of leftover gnocci in a beef sauce thanks to Gen. After we had some marshmellows around the campfire. It was really nice. Gen and I stayed up trying to book campsites and this time we actually lucked on to some cancellations. We booked a campsite an hour from Cape Canaveral which is actually a pretty good option for the 28th and 1st. We also found a campsite near Boca Raton – the plan is to go see Gen’s Dad’s cousin Lois which should be great.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Desert Forest

Saturday, May 28th – Joshua Tree National Park - North to Joshua Tree National Park - South, California– Day 107 Our campsite was a large open dirt area with some scrub around the outside. In the dark we had managed to park beside the pile of horse poo and shaving. Horses were allowed in this site. Gen stepped in the middle of a pile.   The Joshua Tree National Park visitor centre was a five-minute drive away. The town of Joshua Tree was packed with college age millennials communing with nature. There was a market with kombucha, organic greens and a few small tortoises. It was all very pleasant but very busy. The laundromat was at the edge of the market, I charged the devices and did the laundry. Gen bought some produce from a guy loading a truck. I even snuck in to buy some watermelon kombucha.   The drive into the park was ten minutes followed by a ten-minute line to show our pass. A quick stop to fill up our water bottles and we were into the park. The amazing thing abo

Canyonlands is Another Planet - Pt 3

Thursday, May 12th – Moab, Utah – Day 91  Our day was shortening already, our next hike, the Grand View Overlook was closed due to a search and rescue operation. Apparently, falls and accidents happen quite a bit at National Parks; Gen looked up the top ten most dangerous parks and Canyonlands wasn’t there (it was number 12).  We got a recommendation to hike the White Rim Overlook trail, a 0.9-mile easy hike. The kids were running out of energy. They made it most of the way and then decided to stop to climb a rock. Gen and I continued the short distance to the canyon edge to see the sights. Canyon after canyon after canyon was what we saw. We stopped to sit and marvel at the scenery as the shadows started to lengthen.   On our drive back, we saw the sun set and we stopped at the visitor centre one more time to see the view from just across the road. I couldn’t get enough canyons; I was in love with the park and w

A Desert Forest - Part 4

We finally decided to move to our last destination before the sun set. The Arch Rock Nature trail was next. We reached the parking lot and saw the rocks in the distance, we were debating what we wanted to do. We just started moving and once we did, we found ourselves racing down the trail to the rocks. The kids wanted to play monster and once they started running, everyone else was running as well. We had another poo-mergency with no restroom in sight, the evidence is buried in the desert. There was more climbing on the rocks. We took pictures of the sun setting and took a quick look at the Arch rock before starting back to the car.  Gen was behind the wheel, an hour later we were leaving the park’s south entrance. We stopped at the Ranger station to freshen up in the bathroom and fill our water bottles before heading to our campsite. Luckily, the site was the overflow campsite for the park so was minutes from the outside of the park. We