Friday 28 June
After a leisurely set off from Perry, we drove ALL day. Our goal was just to get down the Florida coast as far as Ross could cope with, to get us closer to the sightseeing destinations we are aiming for of Key West and Miami.
I served snacks and supervised homework as Ross drove, so our first stop was lunchtime. One thing we think Australia does better than the US is roadside rest areas and playgrounds. We have had trouble finding them along the way, and the couple of times we have asked the Navman for suggestions, it has taken us to dead ends! After finding such a dead end today, we turned down a nearby road and saw an oval and a parking area ahead so stopped there, planning to park under the shade of a tree, eat at the picnic table there, and play some soccer (with a soccer ball purchased at our outlet shopping day).
As we set up, a man drove up in a golf buggy to ask us were we the missionary family they had been expecting! We then discovered we were not at a local park, but were on the grounds of Ruskin’s First Baptist Church. He kindly let us use the space to have our lunch rather than remove us for trespassing. I suggested to Ross he had just missed his calling for a new career – it might have been an opportunity to live in another country and escape the embarrassing circus that is Australian politics! 😉
We reached a KOA RV park in Naples at 4.30pm, where Ross called time out. The kids were able to spend a good hour in the pool and time at the playground, I had all my laundry washed and dried and folded before dark, and we enjoyed a delicious dinner at the local Cracker Barrel restaurant. Recommended to us in Kentucky by the KOA manager who sat up talking to us half the night, we have looked for the restaurant since. It has even inspired me to try and recreate a couple of the dishes when I get home – shock horror! 😉