The Keys & The Everglades

If you have never been to the Florida Keys, you should start planning your trip now. This was our second trip and we still can't get enough. We spent two nights in the Keys and due to a lack of planning on my (Ben) part, we were not able to get a campground and decided to try our hand at car camping, which was much easier to do than expected. Honestly sleeping in the van allowed us much more freedom, we woke up each morning around 6 and got our day started. On our first morning we went to the southern most point in the contiguous U.S. and had breakfast at the Six Toed Cat, which is right next door the house Earnest Hemingway lived in during his years in the keys. There are almost 40 different dog friendly restaurants so we brought the dogs with us and the waitress brought us out a water bowl for the pups and they got attention from just about everyone that walked by. From breakfast we walked to the famous Mallory Square to take a few pictures and let the dogs get some rest while we figured out our next stop. We had seen the sunset from Mallory Square on our honeymoon and had read that the locals all watch it from Fort Zachary Taylor, an old navy base on the beach, so we decided to head over and watch the sun set from there. Fort Zach is one of the only actual beaches in Key west so there were a fair number of people laying out and swimming as well as a few families having cook outs. We wound up spending the rest of the day there and I was able to get a great time lapse of the sunset. We finished out night off with a pizza, very exotic I know, and found ourselves a nice spot to park the van for the night in the Truman Annex. The next morning we checked the weather and realized that is was supposed to rain that evening so we decided to go ahead and get a move on. From the keys we headed down Everglades National Park for two nights of actual tent camping in the Long Pine Key campground. It was only about a three hour drive from the keys up to our campsite so we had plenty of daylight to set everything up and make a fire. We somehow managed to get the best site in the campground that had the only direct access to the lake that bordered one side of the campgrounds, so we set up our chairs and enjoyed the sun set. There was some sort of artist meet up/performance that night as well and we were able to watch it from our spot on the lake as well. Unfortunately, the forecast we looked at didn't call for rain and I did not put the rainfly on our tent when we set up, so we were woken up as the rain first started to come down and rushed to put the rain fly up in the middle of the night. Luckily we got it on in time and didn't get too soaked, but we did manage to put it on upside down, and backwards. The next day we decided to take a drive to cool the dogs off and go check out a fruit stand that we saw on the way in called "Robert Is Here..." where they sell tons of locally grown fruit, I grabbed two of the biggest mangos I have ever seen and a handful of the juiciest pears, as well as fresh fruit milkshakes. I got a key lime shake and got Alexa a mango shake. It was like heaven in a cup and if you're ever in Miami or the everglades you should definitely make the trip. On our way to Robert's we saw two alligators sunning on the side of the road and stopped for a few pictures. We finished our night of with burgers and drinks around the campfire, and we fixed the rainfly since the forecast predicted rain... which never came. Yesterday we drove up to Tallahassee on our way to our next stop, New Orleans. It has officially been a full week for us on the road and the adventure is in full swing. Stay tuned!

Onward to the Keys!

Today we will be leaving St. Petersburg to head down to Bahia Honda State Park in Big Pine Key. We ended up spending two nights here in St. Pete's due to our first hiccup on the trip: van problems! We are making this trip in a 1998 Chrysler Town & Country that Ben grew up riding around in and learned to drive in as a teen. We had it serviced before leaving, but Wednesday morning when we left Pensacola we realized we had a leak...inside the van. We have been in rain ever since leaving Birmingham Tuesday afternoon and realized that somehow water has been pooling under the hood, and then begins to leak into the passenger floorboard as we drive. Hopefully we can prevent it by trying to drive in the rain as little as possible and covering the van with a tarp when parked. Besides that, staying inside has been helpful while we both recover from being sick!

One of the most helpful resources we have had while planning the trip is the website bringfido.com! BringFido provides dog friendly accommodations (campgrounds, hotels, motels, vacation rentals), attractions (parks, beaches, trails, shopping), restaurants, pet services (pet sitters, walkers, groomers, kennels, vet clinics), air travel, and events. Basically it's the best thing ever if you have a pet. For instance, today I learned that Key West has 39 dog friendly restaurants, they are allowed at the Shipwreck Treasure Museum, the Tropical Forest and Botanical Gardens, and we can even take them kayaking or on an eco-tour to see dolphins! At times we had been worried that having Pavlov and Sasha along for the ride would get in the way of things we wanted to do, but by utilizing BringFido we realized we can do everything we'd like! (Besides, I don't think either of us could've lasted 3 months without them!)

We somehow managed to fit our loft into this storage unit. I probably referenced my years of packing experience and tetris proficiency 100 times. 

Here we are with our van all loaded up just before take off with our pups, Pavlov the pug and Sasha the daniff! 

...And We're Off!

It's a strange feeling to wake up in Motel 6 in Pensacola and realize you are living your dreams. Yesterday Alexa and I finished moving out of our loft and set off on our adventure. We spent the past few weeks packing and getting everything set up for our trip, from van repairs to buying gear and finishing our route. After finishing our last errands yesterday we hopped in the van and drove for about 6 hours to make it to Pensacola, saw a Whataburger with a Motel 6 across the street and we knew we had found home for the night. Today we are back on the road and headed towards the Florida Keys, where we plan to camp in Bahai Honda State Park for about 5 nights. It's about 12 more hours to the keys from here so we may spend the night in St. Petersburg to cut the drive in half. Also we got a little behind on updating this thing so you may start seeing short daily updates to make up for it.

The start of something grand

Greetings all! To start I would like to share some background on our selves and our trip. We are Alexa and Ben Lombard, two newlyweds from Birmingham, Alabama who have decided to pack up all of our stuff into storage and load our two dogs in to our old minivan and trek across the country. We will be updating the blog as regularly as we can with photos and videos as well as giving our detailed accounts of our adventures. We officially leave the 25th of January and will spend the next few weeks making our final preparations and getting moved out of our loft. We will be posting more information about our itinerary as well as our preparation shortly and look forward to sharing our travels with you!