The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The last 6 days were spent in a campground near Marco Island chosen for its proximity to friends Bill and Julie. 

The Good:

We spent several days visiting at their lovely apartment, going out to lunch and dinner (outdoors),and enjoying our new vaccination status as well as learning to socialize again.

Janet, Bill, Julie

Drinks on the lanai on the ocean

View from the 10th floor balcony

The Bad:

Because of our change in schedule due to our late departure this year, we found ourselves having to switch sites within the campground. Denny writes all of our reservations down in a book. So, the morning we were supposed to move to site 85, we kept driving down to see if the current occupants had left. Check out is 1:00 and we were packed and ready to move. But, site 85 hadn't even started to pack up. The park rangers came by at 1:00 to see why we weren't out. They told us to stay put until they got the biker dude and his woman out of site 85. However, the rangers were given a lot of grief and were told the couple operated on "island time." Meanwhile, the person who was supposed to move into our site began harassing us. We explained that we had been told to stay put and technically check in wasn't until 3 anyway. Finally, after they were threatened with the police, biker dude and woman moved out. We went and set up camp and then went to check in before we left to meet our friends. That's when we discovered that we were really supposed to be in site 86! So, all of this could have been avoided! Then we had to go break camp and re-set up on the adjacent site. Arrgh! No decision has been made about whether I told Denny the site wrong or he wrote it down wrong.😂

The Ugly: 

On the way to some Everglades boardwalk hiking we saw an alligator that had been hit by a car and was covered by about 30 black vultures. We decided to stop on the way back about 2-3 hours later and take a picture. By then, they had made a lot of headway and were inside the alligator!
Tis the circle of life! I just wonder how the car and driver fared that created this vulture meal?!

We did see a bunch of live alligators also!

Giant head and big teeth!

Sun time!

Juvenile red tail hawk (?) visiting our campsite.

Strangler fig and victim