After a couple blissful days in Ocala National Forest we pressed westward. We rolled into St Petersburg for some urban camping. Blanca seems so huge at a glance but she is actually quite nimble. The navigating was interesting, most of the roads are one way, but not originally. It seems the city had to adapt to an influx of population with four lane, one way streets, right through the neighborhoods. Hardly anyone gave us a second look while sitting downtown with the top popped. Mostly anywhere we stop in rural areas the van will spark a conversation, but here In the city she did not seem to stand out. We strolled around and hit up the Taco Bus for dinner. The city is bustling and has a decent art scene. The idea of urban areas always seems inviting, but it never takes long for the anxiety to kick in. Claustrophobic in a city but not in a van housing 4 large beings? Yeah, that makes sense! After only spending one night we moved on again.
The nice thing about urban areas is the availability of organic groceries. We loaded up on groceries and supplies and headed north. Chassahowitzka Bay seemed like a decent place to spend Christmas, at least on the map. Upon rolling into the campground Christmas Eve we claimed a vacant spot. This turned out to be a very chill location. You could kill a lot of time here exploring by canoe. There were also several manatee here in the spring fed bay overwintering. Such neat-o creatures. We spent Christmas wandering around and hanging by the boat ramp on the bay. Normally quite awkward introverts, we found it easy to converse, and enjoyed meeting all of the personalities at the river. Rasta grew up a farm dog and never got out much, but dang, do people make a fuss over him! We are thinking a remix of all the different voices “hey where’s the saddle!?” is in order.
Just around dusk, as we began to prepare our Christmas feast, some visitors stopped by our camp and caused some alarm. They came rustling in through the forest and took us by surprise, holy shit, a pack of wild hogs! The dogs ran them off pronto, snorting and squealing! There was evidence of their rooting all over the grounds. Not much space left unturned. We also had two large pileated woodpeckers pop in for a visit and the owls made sure the night was not silent. The Florida wilderness has proven to have all sorts of interesting characters. We need practice quickly drawing the cameras!
Although we missed our families, it was in fact a Merry Christmas.