Our 10 days in California came and went. We got a chance to borrow a car to go home for a day and Ava got a chance to have several play dates with her friends and cousins. Having been gone for nearly 2 months, we didn’t know what to expect. The answer is… Nothing. Everything is still exactly the same as they were two months ago.
Our last day in Boca Raton before our intermission trip we decided to head out to a cool place by the beach called Gumbo Limbo Nature Center. Just like Sugar Sand Park from yesterday, this is another gem of a place for kids that runs off of visitor donations. This time, Marlene stayed back to tidy things up in the Airstream and to magically pack everything the 4 of us will need for 10 days into one check-in suitcase. Good luck.
For the second time on our trip, we are sleeping on a friend’s driveway. Our last courtesy parking was only for one night in Arizona right before we headed out to Bisbee. Here in Boca Raton however, we are staying initially for 2 nights and Yoda will be holding down the fort alone in the trailer here for another 10 days while we fly home. Of course Paul has graciously agreed to keep an eye on her.
We left Larry and Penny Thompson Park this morning to continue on to the next phase of our trip. Even though we planned on heading down to the Keys, we are actually headed north for the next 2 days to stay at our friend Paul’s house in Boca Raton. If you have been following our trip, you might remember Paul and his family when they met us at Sanibel island a couple of weeks ago. He is letting us park the van and Mali Mish on his driveway when we fly back to California for 10 days to attend Easter and other family events.
Our last full day in Miami we decided to checkout another county park that is on our side of town. Florida has some very interesting and creative county parks that are very worth visiting if you are looking for something not along the mainstream. Today’s stop, Miami-Dade County Fruit and Spice Park.
Today the forecast calls for thunderstorms in the morning. And they weren’t kidding. We took a gamble and went to the zoo yesterday and the weather held up the entire day. We didn’t want to try our luck two days in the row so we planned on a day at the campground today which turns out to be a good idea.
Most of you by now have already figured out that our April Fool’s day post was indeed just an innocent little hoax. Sorry if we alarmed any of you who questioned our sanity for a moment. Of course we would never even think about selling our little mouse. I think once you officially give something a name, it is your responsiblity for life. At least until April 1st 2011.
Well, the time has finally come. We have been thinking about this for awhile but this is the first time we are blogging about it here. For the last 2 months since we have been full time traveling in our beloved 25 foot Airstream. As much fun as we are having seeing the country, we have always felt a bit of emptiness. Having such a large tow vehicle like the diesel van towing around a big travel trailer just didn’t let us into some of the more interesting campsites we wanted to see. Ultimately we decided that the rig is just gonna have to go to allow us to get closer to nature.
The federal lands-to-parks program is credited for turning the former orchard to the county park we are currently staying at. The same program also segmented another portion of the same land just behind us to what is now the Miami Metro Zoo. That is where we went today.
We wanted to avoid the most popular area of Miami on a weekend. Especially the weekend that kicked off Spring Break down here. But the weather guy told us that Saturday was going to be our only beautiful day during our stay. So to South Beach we go. On a Saturday. Of Spring Break. Yikes.
As soon as we woke up, we packed the kids into the car and took off for South Beach. We were hoping most of the Spring Breakers would still be in bed, hungover, by the time we got to the beach. And we were right. Still hungover because traffic wasn’t too bad. We grabbed some breakfast and we listened to Ava beg for “hamburger ice cream”… which she was doing since she woke up. Hamburger ice cream, you say? We had no idea either. It took us a few minutes to realize that she meant ice cream sandwiches. Dan and I were so proud of unlocking the Ava mystery. But not as proud as the time we unlocked the mysterious “elevator ABCs” (a.k.a. a calculator). Hehe.
The forecast this morning called for thunderstorms in 80 degree weather. It is now definitely feeling like vacation weather with this high humidity. We were getting a quick fast food breakfast when it suddenly started pouring. It came down so fast and so hard, we didn’t even want to chance getting drenched running across the parking lot to our car.
It feels nice to know that we will be settled down in Miami for a week. It’s not that I love Miami or anything. I have never spent any time here outside of one work trip to South Beach a long long time ago. But it’s nice to know where we will be for the next few days. Something I think all five of us needed.
