Sunny and I finally left house our rental house on Pat Boulevard in Tamp around 11 am. About two miles into the three mile drive to my old office to say goodbye, I had the feeling I never closed the hitch on the ball and left the padlock sitting on the tongue. With deliberate caution, I carefully proceeded the last mile, making sure not to bounce the trailer off the ball. I arrived safely and was amazed to discover the padlock was still sitting on the tongue! Lesson number one under my belt. Good start. I closed it down and hit the road after saying farewells.
Crossed the Sunshine Skyway Bridge pulling the trailer on my way out of town. About three hours into the trip, I pulled off the expressway for gas. At the first stoplight I was flagged down because the trailer door was swinging open. Being forewarned of this somewhat common issue, I had even specifically locked the handle before leaving, but not the deadbolt. A quick jog around the trailer at the red light got us to a safe stopping point. Lesson number 2 and we’ve barely begun!
Unfortunately the safe stopping location turn out to be a very crowded supermarket parking lot. I did my best to strategically park for exit but when it came time, it just wasn’t gonna happen. Backing the trailer up in the parking lot wasn’t as bad as I feared and we soon had enough space to spin around the obstacles. On the road again…
When almost arriving at my first destination, the Markum Park campground, GPS brought me in a circle and onto an on-ramp to the expressway. Halfway up the ramp she told me I had arrived at the destination! Granter, I could SEE the park to the right of the expressway and getting farther below me as I went up the ramp, getting the trailer to an actual entrance road took another 15 minutes of detour and backtracking to find park the entrance.
Check in and set up went well. The campsite backs up to a canal which is the eastern edge of the everglades. Ran out and found Super Target at the Sawgrass Mall for groceries and supplies.
I picked Colleen up from the FLL airport around 10:30pm and we returned to the campsite.
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