Good bye Key Largo. Hello Venice, Florida

Sadly, we had to put Key Largo in the rear view mirror this morning. The drive was a little difficult owing to high winds, but we made it with one stop in the Big Cypress Indian Reservation for gasoline.

By the time we are done with this trip I will have literally driven every mile of I-75, except for miles 1-5, which we bypassed this morning. The scenery along the southernmost part of I-75 was beautiful and we saw many interesting wild birds.

Drivers in Florida, to be charitable, are terrible and dangerous. I told Joan in my next life I am going to teach a school on how to merge into traffic from a freeway on ramp. First lesson will be a description of what a gas pedal is for and how to properly press down on it to increase your speed to equal those driving on the freeway already. It seems so simple, yet…… Just love those folks who mosey out on the on ramp and wait until their lane is disappearing to look and assess the traffic situation. Arrrrrrgh!

Our campground is full and we only have a space for four days, so starting tomorrow I need to find our next destination or we will be sleeping in a rest area come Tuesday. We are currently at Camp Venice Retreat and it is a very nice park with friendly managers and campers. At least so far.

Joan mentioned today that she had a taste for pizza and I’m always up for pizza so after setting up camp, which means leveling and plugging in. (Aside: Today we were completely level, but after we opened the slide out and after I had unhooked the trailer settled just enough so that we are on a slight, but not critical angle. One of these days, I’ll get this leveling thing down).

Not knowing the area we punched up OnStar and asked for the nearest pizza restaurants. “Well, there’s a Domino’s….” No, thanks. “There’s a place called Luna Ristorante about 8 miles from where you are.” That sounded good so they downloaded directions and we were not sorry we made the trip.

We ordered a large pepperoni and sausage pizza and decided we would like to have a salad. We ordered the Antipasto Salad for $14 and basically ended up with enough salad for six people. My stepmother Janet has a pet peeve about meal portions and she would have been pretty disgusted over this one. We literally came home with more than half the food we ordered. So guess what’s for dinner on Saturday?

But to get back to Luna’s, it was great. The pizza was outstanding and the salad was equally good. Joan had a beer, which her daughter Elin can attest from previous experience always ends up interestingly. There’s just something about beer than makes Joan just a little goofy. Not so much tonight though.

Anyway, we’re going to watch a DVD (we are roughing it without cable TV for the next few days) and probably go to bed early tonight. No big plans for the weekend so far but stay tuned. (The picture is of our new campsite here in Venice).

Departing Mileage: 55343
Departing Time: 10:07 a.m.

Arrival Mileage: 55597
Arrival Time: 2:55 p.m.