Myakka River National Park

Tonight, we're camping out in Myakka River National Park. This campground is beautiful. There are trees everywhere, and the sites are very secluded. After we cooked and ate dinner, I laid on the bench of our picnic table and watched a group of giant dragonflies dart around the sky.

We were also treated to a beautiful sunset. Every sunset on the west coast of Florida has been spectacular so far.

At the end of last week, Josh inspected Tilly's tires, and found that the two front ones needed to be replaced. I pretended to look at them as well, and pretended to agree with him, even though I know nothing about tires. For all I know, Tilly rolls around on 6 jelly doughnuts. Of course Tilly tires are special order, so we called around and found a reasonable mechanic near Ft. Meyers who could both order them in and do the labor. We spent the past two nights at a sketchy RV park in Ft. Meyers waiting for them to arrive, relaxing, and preparing our home for some new additions to the family (more on that in a later post).

I don't write about Tilly's repairs too often because they're pretty boring, but just in case anyone was under the impression that driving a 25-year-old, pre-owned RV across the country is a piece of cake (or a piece of jelly doughnut) and we're on this glamorous camping adventure... no way. In fact, at the beginning of our trip, a new part would break every day. This started the day we left Falls Church with the brake rotors suddenly becoming worn down, and continued with the engine grounds burning out (all of them, one by one), the starter breaking, the accelerator cable snapping, the master cylinder clogging (which required a new master cylinder be installed and the brakes be bled), the generator refusing to power the air conditioner, and the toilet leaking into the bathroom. We also lost our bathroom skylight cover somewhere between Miami Beach and Key Largo, and haven't been able to find a replacement yet, so we have a garbage bag attached to the gaping hole in the ceiling to catch the rain. It has rained every day since we lost it. Josh would wake up every morning and say to me "welp, I wonder what's going to break today" and something inevitably would. And we would laugh about it, or sometimes cry, and then go to AutoZone and pick up the parts we needed to fix the Ol' Girl up and get her moving until the next breakdown.

Not that I'm complaining. I'm on the trip of a lifetime, and I'm grateful to be doing it, setbacks and all.