When you do Alaska, take a day trip to Point Barrow, the northernmost point on the continent. You can't drive there, but it's worth the hop on a plane. We took a small tour with an Inuit guide and even gave out samples of his favorite food, raw whale blubber marinated in its own blood in the permafrost for over a year. Leilani tasted it, I declined.

Barrow has 35 miles of road that don't leave town, a great Mexican restaurant, and looking north to the Arctic ocean it changes color from dark blue to the lightest pastel blue as the sun goes around in the spring and never sets.

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When you get to Florida, the Everglades National Park is nice but only in the dry season. Besides for few mosquitoes, the 'glades is a 50 mile wide, 2" deep river. During the dry season it dries up except for the deeper areas (sloughs, pronounced slews). Where the water is, the fish are, and where the fish are the gators, birds and other wildlife are.

I like February and March best. Long Pine Key in the National Park has some nice campgrounds, Flamingo has some more. Near Flamingo if you are lucky you can spot an American Crocodile. They are making a comeback from about 300 in the 1980s to thousands today. For gators go to Royal Palm - almost guaranteed. In the northern part of the park are the gators. The difference is salt, the fresh/brackish in the north is where the gators are and the salt in the very south is where the crocs are.

On the way in stop at "Robert Is Here", a fresh fruit stand where they sell the best fresh fruit milkshakes this side of heaven.

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The Florida Keys are nice. Key West has gotten 'touristy' since the cruise ships started docking there, but it's still worth a visit. Park your camper in one of the keys north of Key West and drive in. Stock Island might have an RV park, and Bahia Honda has a State Park.

Oh, I could go on and on. I love traveling. We live in a 900 square ft cottage with no kids, no pool, no pets, no debt and spend all our money on experience rather than possessions. No Cable TV, no jewelry, buy moderate cars and run them until they are unreliable, and don't even run the AC. That's not for everybody, but it works for us.

Notes


Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com

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