May 20, 2025 – The Casita Adventures Begin!

While taking refuge from the heat in the air-conditioned Casita, it’s difficult to imagine that in less than 3 weeks, we’ll be above the 45th parallel ferrying our truck and trailer across the Gulf of St Lawrence to Newfoundland. A couple days after that, we’ll be as far north as the 52nd parallel and as close to Greenland as we are to the Maine-Canadian border.

The best of all, we’ll be traveling with our Casita trailer from southern Florida to catch our ferry in North Sydney, Nova Scotia, approximately 2500 miles away. And that’s where our adventures begin!

But first, we need to get through Florida. Florida has some beautiful parks that should not go unnoticed. Our first night, only 80 miles from home is Ortona South, an Army Corp of Engineer (COE) campground. I can’t say enough good things about COE campgrounds, including the fact they save us a lot of money.

The campground is adjacent to the Ortona South Lock and Dam, one of three on the Caloosahatchee Canal that allows recreational boats to cross Florida between the Atlantic and the Gulf.

Next, we take a detour to West Palm Beach (to have window tinting installed on the Casita) and eventually get to Kissimmee Prairie State Park. To get there, we left the east coast congestion behind and drove the Martin Grade Scenic Highway. This 12-mile stretch of road known to the locals as “the grade” is thickly lined with cabbage palms, maples and arching oak trees. It is a tunnel of lush Florida Hardwoods and worth going out of the way just to drive it.

The Kissimmee Prairie family campground is a hardwood hammock oasis surrounded by a sea of palmetto landscape speckled with cabbage palm islands and oak hammocks. This is an out-of-the-way dark sky park, well worth the 4 miles of gravel road to get there. I had every intention of capturing the milky way over a descriptive palm tree or two, but as is typical of Florida, clouds prevailed on the one evening I had available.

Our final stop in Florida is Tomoka State Park, another wilderness oasis surrounded by intercoastal development. It’s one of Florida’s urban area gems and despite not being directly on the Atlantic coast, it receives those cooler sea breezes.

While we love parking at Florida state parks and enjoy the specialness of their locations, the heat was overwhelming us – a constant reminder that we overstayed our welcome. Adding insult to injury – you stay here long enough, you get to experience love bug season.

Our final afternoon in Florida was spent removing the evidence. Ughh! Clean and fueled up, we are more than ready to head north! Stay tuned as our Casita makes its way to the Canadian border.