Hillsborough River State Park: November 13-18

 We arrived at Hillsborough State Park on Sunday. Our site was muddy from the rain. Our neighbors were in tents and loud - always yelling at the kids and enjoying a lot of weed. We found out that they were living in the tents and had no home. They were working on buying a camper to park somewhere, as their home. Having them as our neighbors made for an interesting few days.

We went for supper at The Great Catch. A fun place. I had shrimp and scallop linguine and Kurt had fried haddock. His was a little over fried, but good. Mine was great!

We did go on a few hikes that were very nice. Parts of the trails were closed due to Hurricane Ian and Nicole.

Finally saw a gator!

We also took our bikes a couple times to the Flatwoods Loop Trail. A very nice loop! 

Wednesday night I had a very enjoyable time FaceTiming with my Aunt Pat and mom. They are so techy and we did a lot of laughing!

Friday we moved to Rainbow Village RV Park to clean the camper.. We found a nice hike Saturday morning at 

A very BIG spider!

Beauty Berries

Sunday, November 20, we dropped our trailer off to be stored and headed back to Michigan - back to the cold.

November 11-13 Bradenton/Hunsader Farm KOA

 Friday we left Naples and went to the Bradenton/Hunsader Farm KOA.  Our site in Hillsborough was still not available due to Hurricane Nicole. 

This KOA is a working farm and there were fresh fruits and veggies in a market there. Kind of a cool place!

We decided to stay and eat leftovers the first night. We were treated with a beautiful sunset.

Saturday we went for a 3 mile walk at the Nathan Benderson Park in Sarasota. We were pleasantly surprised how much we enjoyed this walk! It was a little cooler (still very warm) with a nice breeze. We saw so many birds even though we were near a busy road. There were also rowers out on the lake. Very cool.

A Limpkin

A Mottled Duck

An Ibis

Great Blue Heron

Anhinga

A very little bird 😁

Ibis in flight

American Coor

Wood Stork

Anhinga drying its wings

Tricolored Heron

Great Egret in flight

Ibis

Ibis

Great Egret

Limpkin

After our hike, we relaxed and later decided to make dinner. We stopped at the market to buy a carrot to go along with our steak and garlic bread from SEED TO TABLE.

It was a Guatemalan size carrot!!

Dinner was awesome and afterwards we enjoyed another beautiful sunset.

Steak seasoning

November 9-11 Staying Away From Hurricane Nicole

 So Wednesday morning (the 9th) we were evacuated from Oscar Scherer State Park due to Hurricane Nicole. We had to figure out where to go to avoid strong winds. We decided to go south and got a spot in Naples.  

It turned out so good! We were able to spend dinner with my Aunt Pat at her condo. We had a delicious meal and a lovely time!

Thursday I spent the morning cleaning - which Beauty needed! We touched base with the sisters in Coco Beach. They were good and weathered the hurricane. We did not really get very much wind or rain. We were very thankful!

Pat at recommended going to a supermarket called SEED TO TABLE - so we went and had so much fun! It was the best grocery store we have ever been in! Lots of samples to taste and some unique and fresh food - produce, meat, seafood, cheeses, olives, spices, wines, homemade soups, guacamole and so much more! A great way to spend a rainy day.

We put away our groceries and went to Spanky’s for dinner.

Spanky’s had a LITTLE RASCALS theme. Our server, Michael, was awesome. Kurt had the early bird prime rib and I had the duck special per the recommendation of Michael. It was delicious! He then highly recommended the carrot cake - the best anywhere. Well, carrot cake is Kurt’s favorite so he had to get a piece!

Yup! Best carrot cake ever!!

Friday morning we left Naples and are headed to Bradenton.