Post 24 Mims, Apopka

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 Mims and Apopka Florida Feb 2-13

We're staging ourselves in mid Florida, where our little Caravan is stored, in preparation to drive her back to Massachusetts mid February.  We both have four yearly medical/dental appointments scheduled the last two weeks of February. Y'all know how hard it is to reschedule in a reasonable amount of time....

We read that NASA was planning to launch Artemis on February 6 so we booked a week in Mims, on the Canaveral Coast, to watch the launch.  For this leg, we stayed at a Hipcamp property.  These properties are not traditional campgrounds but rather extra space that owners have on their land for hosting campers at significantly reduced cost.  This property had three campsites.  For an extra fee, electricity was available along with a (free) bag/gel biodegradable toilet. It also came complete with friendly chickens to greet you in the morning while breakfasting under the beautiful Live Oak trees.









Unfortunately, due to the extremely cold weather, NASA was unable to proceed with all the tests required to launch and postponed until late March.

We made the best of the situation with a visit to Merritt Island.  The whole island is actually part of the Kennedy Space Center, but only the southern part is used for official NASA business.  The whole northern part of the island is a wildlife preserve.  We hiked some of the trails and drove along the coast road.

As always, the birding in Florida is amazing and Merritt Island was no different.  As we drove along the causeway onto the island, literally every single light post had a perched osprey eating breakfast.. Cindy stopped counting at 26. 









From the coast road, we could see the launchpads at the space center a few miles away.






While we were visiting the area, there was a local Vanfest happening over the weekend.  We spent a day there touring other vans, checking out the vendor tables and attending workshops about van life. We received 2 tickets each to vote for the van builds that liked the most. There were two categories - van conversions and schoolie (school bus) conversions. Their owners were easy to talk with and loved showing their vans off.



We left Mims and headed to Apopka to finish our time before heading to MA.

On our way we stopped to have lunch with Anne's cousin, Kathy, who lives in Winter Springs.  Her other cousin, Peggy from Celebration, drove up to join the party.  It's always great to see family.  We had great fun reminiscing about our childhoods. 



Here's a bit of trivia: Did you know that in Florida, many celebrate Rodeo Day instead of President's Day? 

In Apopka we spent our time shopping for new van furnishings.  It needed some storage pieces and a few things to make it more homey.  We mostly hung around the campground.  We did manage to find a couple of small puzzles (250 pieces) in the community room that fit on our little table.  We hadn't done a puzzle since we left home.  One afternoon we set out to find the local brew pub and found a sweet little downtown area we wished we'd discovered earlier. 









We left Apopka on Friday, February 13.  We picked up the Caravan from storage, replaced her with the new van and headed to Massachusetts.  We're planning on a four day trip to get home.  We fly back to Orlando on March 5 to resume the journey!



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