Living in the jungle
Has it really been 6 months of jungle life? Uuuhuuuh! The palm trees, wild and ungroomed, have done me in.
Love grew in record speed. Yes I love this place.
Fort Desoto.
The trails, the beautiful beaches, the abundance of birds. I can honestly say that I don't recall seeing such a crazy variety of large birds anywhere before.
While the actual Fort leaves alot to be desired (at least in my book) the rest of this luscious southern tip of the peninsula screams paradise.
We've encountered one mandatory evacuation this summer. Call us lucky! From what we were told, in 2020 they had 9 of these here! The downside of being surrounded by large bodies of water, I suppose. So yeah, we packed up and left to go an hour north at friends, who were kind to take us in. Then we turned around 2 days later and came back. The park was unharmed. Thank goodness 🙏.
I am proud to have mastered yet another level of simplicity since living here at Desoto. It's called "do whatever it's takes to avoid filling your gray and black water tank"! (For those of you that are not familiar with RV'ing: These 2 are the holding areas for waste water. Gray refers to wastewater from sinks. Black refers to wastewater produced by flushing your toilet). If you don't have full hookup for your RV then these reservoirs don't automatically drain and therefor have to be emptied manually. It's labor intensive unpleasant stinky work that nobody EVER enjoys.
Thats why the universe made wonderful husbands!
In order to avoid doing such chores as long as possible, you literally waste as little water inside your RV as possible: You use the campgrounds bath houses daily. Yep.
The sand.
I love the ruralness of this location. Unpaved park roads add to the charm of the jungle. Sand also means you track it inside. Always! Vacuum manufacturers should be beating our door down, begging us to test their product! And we would. Willingly.
Beach life.
A whopping 5 minute drive is all it takes to get to what seem endless white beaches ⛱. We often see dolphins in the distance. Sometimes in a certain secret spot a manatee.. Don't need to go on,
do I ??
Beaches equal humidity. Florida equals humidity. And that we have alot of.
Humidity also equals rust. And that we have alot of as well. My bicycle, once beautiful and shiny. Now rusty and always dirty.
But this rusty old bike brings the puppies daily joy of running alongside IT. And much needed exercise for 🐕-mom. On our daily bike rides we see hundreds of little lizard 🦎 families. Generations upon generations of these little cuties cross our path always. Sometimes there's a rare fatality and Ulrike (that's me) gets VERY upset 😡 and sad. But most of the time we avoid each other. After dark, on the ceilings of the park bath houses, we also get to watch geckos hunting for food. Cute and light tan in color with suction cup-like little feet.. All of this nature while taking a shower. Pure joy, if you enjoy this kind of nature.
We also get to see before mentioned birds. Boy are they beautiful. Snowy Egrets, Roseate Spoonbills, Great Egrets, Cormorants and the Tricolored Herons, to mention just a few. (Did you know that Fort Desoto is also home to a few Bald Eagles?) Big flying mullets, watched from along the shorelines are common as well.
We've learned about what high and low tide mean when we visit the beach ⛱. Lots of crawly creatures surface. There's a difference in smell and a difference in shells that can be found. No matter how frequently we go to the beach near us. The landscape never stays the same. What a phenomenon, right?
Sometimes I feel like a child that continues to learn about the world it lives in. Having moved here from Colorado and its totally different climate means just that. I learn new things all the time about what it's like to live here.
Fun fact for the Ulrike's of the world: NEVER leave the house without a generous layer of Picaridin insect repellent lathered onto every inch of your body. Or else you
w i l l suffer the consequence of being the place where the locals go for 24/7 open buffet style dining: Mosquitos 🦟, no-see-ums and flies that is.
Living in paradise has its price but it's so worth it.
For sure.
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