Farewell Florida

It takes some dedication to drive more than 100 miles onto a narrow chain of islands, with nowhere to go once you get to the end but back the way you came. Whilst we were driving down Route 1 watching the milemarkers count down, there were several occasions on the way where I kept thinking ‘why don’t we stop here? One tropical island is like any other?’, but thankfully we persevered and got to Key West. The beaches are nice, the bars and restaurants are great, there are a few nice parks, and some interesting museums, but what makes it really great are the people that live there.

We are always prepared for a knock on the door and a polite ‘f*ck off’ when we park somewhere that we probably shouldn’t; and so it started on Key West. Having been asked for $100 a night for a spot in an RV park, we spent an afternoon wandering some quiet residential streets looking for free places to park near the town centre. We found a shady spot outside a municipal building on a narrow residential street and settled down, waiting for the knock on the door. After the second night, nobody had complained but on our third day we came back to a note on the door. Almost anywhere in England, the note would have variously made threats of violence or police action, but in Key West, the note was an invite to wine at a house a few doors down. I’m sure Jack and Sydney, who invited us over, felt that the gesture was normal, but to a couple of Londoners, it was a first. I’m not sure if either are reading this blog, but a heartfelt thanks from Naomi and me for making us feel so welcome in your awesome house!

As it turns out though, this hospitality is not limited to Key West, since arriving in the states, we've had beers bought for us at a bar in the Keys, we've been taken out for dinner (thanks to William and Mary in Sanibel!), we've been given a lift home at the end of a night out (Thanks to Nick and his Yolo trike in Captiva Island!), and have had several offers of a place to stay all over the US. America is a great place in many ways, but this is one aspect I'd not anticipated when I arrived a month ago.

Sadly after nearly a week of living on cocktails and ice cream it was time for us face the music and leave the Florida Keys. We stopped overnight near to Sombrero Beach on Marathon Island, before heading for the everglades along the Tamiami trail; we parked in the Midway Campground in the middle of Big Cyprus Swamp. The everglades is a great place to visit, but for the love of god, if you are sleeping in a truck, either have fly-screens on the windows or a working air-conditioner. Not having made a cable to adapt our new 30a American mains cable to the 32a ceeform type incoming socket on Jim, we had no means to run our air conditioner, and not being sensibly prepared in many ways, we also have no flyscreens on the windows. Not wishing to die of dehydration, we were forced to open the skylights overnight; we were still hot, but had the added discomfort of being bitten to pieces by a plague of mosquitos. I have now made up a cable to get 120v (via a 30a socket) or 240v (via a 50a socket) into the truck, and I hope that we won’t spend another night fattening up the local mosquito population.

America has done a great job of eradicating most animals at the top of the food chain during the last two hundred years, but there are still a few great predators left in the vast wildernesses. People spend a lifetime hiking in the wildernesses without seeing a bear, a puma or a wolf, but you literally can't spend 30 minutes driving through the everglades without seeing an alligator.

As well as being the home to the first alligator sighting of our trip, the everglades were also home to our first mechanical problem of the trip. With 485,000 km on the clock, I was expecting problems, but was hoping to get a little further than we had.



After a 50 mile dirt road through the Big Cyprus Swamp, the calliper on the drivers side brake disc failed to release after being parked. I drove 15 miles, before pulling over, by which point the disc was glowing bright red. The hub and wheel got hot enough to melt the wheel nut indicators, but thankfully after cooling down, there was no major damage; miraculously, no air lines were damaged, and even the ABS sensor and cable survived the heat. The disc and pads were both almost new, and both still have plenty of material left on them, but I suspect that the disc is slightly warped as I can now hear a tell-tale squeak under braking. We have since driven more than a thousand miles, and the problem has not reoccurred; the brake still operates fine, and the truck does not pull to one side under braking, but when I can find a garage who have worked on air operated disc brakes, a will get them to take a look. The air chamber (part that uses the compressed air to move a linkage) may need replacing, or the calliper (part that clamps the pads to the disc) may need a refurb, but unfortunately US domestic trucks have only recently started moving away from drum brakes and so most truck garages aren’t qualified to do a diagnosis.

After leaving the everglades, we continued gingerly up the west coast of Florida, stopping regularly to check on the troubled brake. On the way up the coast we spent time on Captiva Island, Sanibel Island and Siesta Key, all of which have great beaches, bars and restaurants. We wasted a morning trying to find a truck garage to look out our toasted brake disc in Tampa, before giving up and continuing round the coast. Between the everglades and Tampa, we saw more species of birds than in a lifetime spent in London.

In keeping with our policy of avoiding paying for parking, we avoided the $20 camping fee at the Black River State Park near the Alabama border and found a great overnight spot along a maintenance road serving a power line. The astute will notice in the picture below that some bikes have appeared on the roof of the cab; these were bought these ex-rental from a shop on Siesta Key to help us cope better in a country founded upon minimising the time spent outside of your car.

Continuing round the coast we did not find a great deal to see in Alabama or Mississippi without heading further inland than we wanted to go.  We skipped Mobile, but visited Ocean Springs in Mississippi; it’s a small town but has more than its fair share of bars, restaurants and art galleries. Leo’s provided us with the best selection of draught beer we’d seen so far, and the town got us in the mood for some drinking and good music in New Orleans which was our next stop.

Anyone tracking our progress on the Spot Tracker (link beneath the banner) will notice that we’ve now left Nawlins and have driven all the way to Austin, but more on that in the next blog post.