Waiting for Thanksgiving

We had a couple of days to kill boondocking while we waited for Thanksgiving to come.

We had plans with a family from Fort Myers and it wasn't time to arrive yet. 

We were finished with the Everglades, so we started working our way up the coast - truck stop to truck stop, parking lot to flourescently brilliant parking lot.  And one lone BJ's in Miami where the police told us we didn't want to park at the Walmart anywhere near that part of the city. 

Oh...and did I mention we had ants?  A giant. invasion. of ants.

Maeryn drew this picture to reflect:

Those are the worker ants bowing to the queen.

Along the way we watched tons of movies, played lots of video games, read several books, played numerous rounds of Go Fish, and toured a few playgrounds and parks.

Our favorite was the day before Thanksgiving in Naples, FL.

Here are some scenes:

There was a spray park and we ALL go wet.  Even me.

This park also had a super cool bike path.  The kids and I took advantage.  We also bought a bunch of ant traps.  And wiped their trails with vinegar.  And tried to pretend they didn't exist.

At the end of the day we settled in for the night in a local parking lot and ate some homemade pizza.

It was really freaking delicious.

And by the time Thanksgiving Eve rolled around... our ant friends were mostly gone.

Thank God.

But that's Florida for ya.

Migrating

Maeryn likes to compare us to birds, because we need to go South for the winter.

And it is time to move farther.

We left Great Wolf and started south, stopping to boondock at a Walmart on the way.

It is getting cold at night.

When boondocking, we have no heater, since our heaters are electric.  We've just got blankets and snuggling and waking up when it's really cold to let the bus idle while we get a little warmer.  There's also baking...sometimes with actual food in the oven... sometimes not (don't worry, we don't "bake" while we're sleeping).  The kids also have zero degree sleeping bags.

We like to boondock because the way we have it figured, we get to drive 70 extra miles for every night we choose not to stay in a campground.  And that's a lot of miles as we move across the country.  And so we do it.  Until we don't.

And tonight we will not be in a Walmart parking lot or a Flying J.  We will be in a cozy state park in the state of South Carolina. 

As we drove into the park I felt that old air of excitement.

I'm still mourning Asheville a bit, but driving into the park and seeing the salt blown trees and the wooden playground and the sunset over the ocean...  I just might be able to get back into the swing of this nomadic lifestyle.