Monday 4th March: to Miami

It’s a 250 mile drive to our next campsite near Miami. The Miami area is a huge metropolis so we’re in dense traffic for the last 50 miles of the journey, even on the toll road.

The Florida toll road system is complicated. There are cash-only automatic booths that take only quarters (4 quarter coins in a dollar). So you need a load of these. Then you can pay a person at some booths: coins, notes, or plastic. But you can avoid this with a Sun-Pass. Here you set up an account, put credit in, and buy an electronic device that automatically identifies you at each toll stage and deducts the due amount from the credit in your account. That’s too complicated for short-term users like us, so we drive armed with quarters and notes. 

Never be too confident you’ve got it sussed! Motoring around Miami, an overhead road sign informs us that we are now being “billed by plate”. So they clock you between points by photographing your licence plate and then billing the registered owner. Which isn’t us as it’s a rented vehicle. However, a call to Cruise America confirms that they will pay the charges and we settle up at the end.  

We arrive in good time at the Miami-Dade County Larry and Penny Thompson Memorial Campground.  Plenty of room as you can see.

County and State sites are much cheaper than private sites but generally offer fewer facilities. This one’s pretty good and it’s got all the hook-ups, bathrooms and washing machines.

We did have a small problem at check-in. They had lost our booking so were given a temporary pitch the first night while they sorted it out. The campground is part of a pleasant County park next to the zoo, with walks set in lush foliage.

Florida is all about year round hot weather which in the Miami area, the southernmost tip, supports coconut palms. Falling coconuts are big enough to cause serious head injury, as demonstrated by Jane.



The coconut palms and posh marina in the background are on the edge of the Biscayne National Park that forms the upper part of the Florida Keys, a string of islands stretching for 80 miles, now connected by road.

The section of the park here consists of a set of mini islands joined by a path jutting 1½ miles out to sea. It’s lined by mangroves and small trees with numerous water birds like pelicans, herons, cormorants and even an osprey. Uncommon species, too, like the great crested flycatcher, anhinga, and yellow crowned night heron. It was a beautiful walk and nicely shaded from the hot sun.

Next, just some of the wildlife that was good enough to pose. Most creatures were too fleeting for the camera.

Alligator, Great blue heron, coot. Next a brown pelican.

On our first day here we were fortunate in meeting a couple from Illinois who overwinter here. We hit it off right away with Lou and Machiko and passed some pleasant hours chatting in their motorhome. They also took us to a guitar concert held in a Spanish-style church near Miami. The soloist was classical guitarist Adam Holzman, someone I was not familiar with, but who turned out to be probably the best player I’ve heard. Naturally, photos were banned during the performance, but here’s a shot of him practicing beforehand taken through a stained glass panel that gives an unintended surreal effect.



We did discover that it would take four bus changes and 3 hours to get to Miami centre, so we didn’t. Not sensible to take the rv there either due to lack of suitable parking and dense traffic. Tomorrow we head for the Everglades National Park.