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Last day at the beach

This was our final morning at Oscar Scherer.  We took our time eating breakfast and packing everything back into the van.  Our spot for the night was about 3 hours north, so we headed that way and went to Siesta Key for a few hours.  Such a huge and beautiful beach. Next time I’m bringing stuff to make a giant sand castle, this is the perfect sand.  So many people here, I bet the weekends are nuts. 


We left before lunch and stopped at a place so Joe could finally get some fish tacos. It was a fine lunch, but we could have made all the food just as good if not better for half the cost.  Maybe we will try again with some BBQ before we make it home. 


We stopped to fill up the propane tank that runs the fridge when we don’t have electricity.  This has been used anytime we camp overnight with no power (3 nights so far) and when we are parked, like at a store or the beach.  Without a scale it’s hard to tell how much we’ve used, and Joe was worried we were going to run out before we made it back home.  It turns out we’ve used barely any and could have made it home no problem, we have a 10# tank and used about 3#.  We also stopped at a Bass Pro to pick up a container of isobutane for the little stove we use to boil water for coffee/tea or cook on when it’s not necessary to get out the big camp stove. We also use this fuel for a lantern.  


We had a site booked at Mutual Mine Campground, which is part of the Citrus Wildlife area and managed by the forest service.  This was a really neat site, it was right next to a small pond that used to be a phosphate mine (that’s the white stuff).


  We went for a hike and the trail was clearly built up higher than the stuff around it.  The camp host said it was probably from the trams they would use to transport phosphate back in the day. This trail had at least some minor elevation changes (not like what we’ve been doing for the past week) and had some interesting trees and thousands of ant/termite/whatever hills.  I was chased by the same aggressive fly for half a mile.  Even if I ran ahead, he would catch up and fly directly into my face over and over again. What the hell. 


This was by far the buggiest place we have stayed on this trip, maybe because the water was so close.  Any lights were magnets for little tiny bugs, and then there are these other ones that look like miniature june bugs that seem to only land on their back and die immediately.  We ate dinner outside and then cleaned everything up and took some trash to the other side of the campground.  We heard so many animals: coyotes, birds and owls, and lots and lots of frogs.  There was this one frog that sounded like a woman having a conversation.  We went to bed early.  



Odometer trip start

293762

Propane

$2.50

Odometer day start

295127

Stove fuel

$11.28

Odometer end

295269

Campsite

$16.70

Daily miles

142

Daily total

$82.48

Total miles

1507

Trip total

$1,094.64

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