January 11th 2016- Goodbye to Hopkins Prairie/ Hello to Middleton's Fish Camp/ Francis meets a snake

And it is another chilly morning! Not quite the Florida weather we were expecting.We need to break down our site and get on the road but the temperature has us wanting to crawl back into the tent. We tried to warm up with a walk to the swimming hole. It didn't work (although it was a beautiful walk). Our hands were freezing when we packed up the car. We moved our car into the sun which helped a lot and Irene poured us fresh cups of strong french press coffee with cinnamon and a hint of lemon peel which helped even more. We were sad to say goodbye to our wonderful neighbors. We would have loved to stay here a few more days but it was not warm enough for us and we needed more sun to keep our electronics charged. Despite the chill, we decided to stop at the swimming hole for a bath before we got on the road. Showers can be hard to come by unless you stay at the expensive campgrounds with lots of amenities and that is not our preference nor in our budget. Boy was it cold! We could not decide where to stay. We looked at a few places but the weather forecast was still too cold so we kept going south. We ended up at Middleton Fish Camp on Blue Cyprus Lake near Vero Beach, Florida. We found it by accident when another campground we called referred us there. It is a lovely place that offers free tent camping and free hot showers ( yes I said free!) for up to 7 days. It is run by a very nice Christian family. While washing his hands, Francis saw a snake come in under the men's room door. He used to brag to me that his faith in God has grown so much that he could even be part of the Christian denomination that handles snakes!As he watched the 12 inch snake slither away from him under the closet to avoid the cold, he realized that he was sadly mistaken. He still has his phobia of snakes. The snake was keeping his eye on Francis the whole time he was slithering away but little did he know he had nothing to fear because Francis was paralyzed! Once the snake was comfortably inside the closet, Francis quickly left the bathroom and warned the other neighbors. We met two of our sets of neighbors. One was a husband and wife couple from Wisconsin, both teachers. The other neighbors were a nice young couple from Poland. We were very surprised to meet another group from Poland. They are planning to drive around the United States then drive to South America through Mexico. They have no true destination or time constraint. They plan to travel for at least a year which has us feeling very envious. We are already realizing that 3 months will go by very quickly and we have lots of places we want to see.

Sunset at Middleton fish camp