Isaiah’s Travel Log

KEY WEST!

It feels like we have left the US driving down highway 1 to Key West, where we will stay for a month and celebrate Christmas.   One of the first things we learned is that it technically was not part of the US for a brief period of time. It is still known as the Conch Republic. They declared war on the US by throwing a piece of stale Cuban bread at a naval officer🥖.All they wanted was a blockade at the beginning of the Florida keys to be removed so they didn’t feel like a separate country and it worked, they removed the blockage.

Our big bucket list item of this month here was visiting the Dry Tortugas National Park.  You can only get there by a boat or a sea plane. We took the Yankee Freedom Ferry. It was a 2.5 hour boat ride that was a little rough on the way there. The boat ride was fun but words the end we all felt a little queezy but no one puked! We traveled over 140 miles on the boat! Most national parks have millions of visitors a year.  Dry Tortugas has only 58,000. They served us lunch at the island which was Jersey Mikes subs. They were great after that long boat ride. After lunch, we got snorkel gear. It was my favorite part there. We snorkeled beside the seawalls of the fort and saw many different fish, but sadly our hunt for a sea turtle continues. The name “Dry Tortugas” dry came from there being no fresh water on the island, and tortugas, being the abundance of sea turtles in the water around the island. We spent the last of our time exploring the fort.  It was huge with 3 levels and a moat (with water). We started the audio tour of the fort but did not have enough time to finish, and if you ask me, I did not want to be stranded on that island. My brother and I completed our Jr. Ranger books so we got a free ice cream sandwich on the way home!

My mom and I planned a day trip up to the middle keys from Key West for all of us to take. First stop was the Turtle Hospital in Marathon, FL. We went to one a few weeks ago in Jupiter, FL but we thought this one was even better. I got to see the doctors working on a turtle when we got there which was one of my favorite parts. We also got to feed turtles in the natural tide pool, they were the permanent residents (could not go back to the ocean). Next stop was the Keys Fishery. Our neighbors had told us about it at the campground so we had to check it out. The food there was great.  The coolest part was that you could see so many animals in the water at the restaurant! We saw 2 sharks, a lot of tarpon, and even jellyfish! Last stop was the Blue Hole. The Blue Hole was once excavated and used as a limestone quarry. Today, it is part of the National Key Deer Refuge. They are known for their alligator sightings, as well as deer. And we were lucky enough to see 2 gators, a deer, and even a peacock!

One of the other cool things we got to experience while in Key West was collecting our own coconuts.  We got to harvest our own coconuts from the tree limbs they cut down at the campground. We were going to make art with them, but we were wanting to harvest the juice and make pina coladas (mine was virgin don’t worry). We got the juice out by using my dad’s drill, and we found that the small green ones had the most juice. Also inside was a lot of the coconut meat we tried some plain and it was not great, but my dad loved it. We saved a couple extras to paint and make Christmas decorations with. My mom made a Christmas tree and the grinch, and my brother made Santa’s sleigh.

SNUBA! My mom and I went to snuba at the reef off Key West called Cottrell Key. SNUBA is like scuba diving but you don’t need to be certified. You have tanks on a raft filled with oxygen and you could dive down and look at the different animals. We had tubes connecting us to the tanks that were 20 feet long. We swam with dolphins! Our captain said that it was the biggest pod of dolphins he’d ever seen with divers. We also saw lion fish, crabs, a grouper, but sadly no turtles. Our Hunt continues. I think I’m going to get certified soon because this experience was awesome! My mom did say that not every scuba dive is swimming with a massive pod of dolphins 😂🐬!

Christmas in the Keys was really fun and different.  Santa brought Eli and I each an electric scooter.  We a  on a trip to Pigeon Key on the 26th and got to test them out of the 2 mile bridge to that Key.  They were awesome!   Pigeon Key an island that was used to build to house people that were building a railroad down to Key West.  Lots of the original buildings were still standing.  

Our last adventure this month was a fun sandbar boat trip with Uncle Nate and Chrissy!  They came to visit us for 2 days.  We had a boat that took us to a sandbar about 9 miles from key west where we spend hours playing in the water and sand.  It was an awesome way to end our time in the Keys. 

Current leg: 141

Total miles: 3437

Miami… Welcome to Miami 

Miami is massive! It was such a huge city. It reminded us of NYC but with much better weather.  We were there for the week of Thanksgiving.  We got to explore a lot of places and my favorite was absolutely my first NBA basketball game of the Miami Heat versus the Milwaukee Bucks.

With our museum membership we got to check out the Frost Science Museum.  It was a pretty good one.  It had lots of interactive exhibits. One i really liked was you have to build a hurricane barrier. Your choices were a combination of Mangroves, sea walls, and coral reefs. We knew from our kayaking trip that you needed a good combination of all three.  Eli and I did pretty well with that exercise.  The other awesome feature of the museum was a 4 story aquarium that you could see from all levels as you went through the museum.   We got to see sharks, stingrays, sea turtles, and lots of fish!  At the top level was a touch area where we could touch the stingrays.  This top level also had an amazing view of the city! 

We when to zoo Miami for the zoo lights, we did not get to see all of the animals but we got to see some cool Christmas lights. My favorite was this turtle riding a surfboard. The best animals were the otters, you got to go in a slide through the exhibit and the otters came up to you when you slide. You also got to go into a tunnel through a fish tank and got to see a bunch of different species of fish there was also an alligator laying on the tunnel! Farther into the museum there was an alligator exhibit where you walked over a rope bridge over top a full grown gator! There were also many species of birds that we got to see at the show they had parrots and a vulture!

I was waiting for this our entire stay at Miami, a basketball game! We saw the Miami Heat play the Milwaukee Bucks. It was cool watching the players i only knew from video games play in real time. We had pretty high seats, but we had the best view because we got to the plays develop. I also got a way overpriced burger which was good.

We explored Biscayne National Park. What is cool about this park is the 90% of it is underwater!  We took a boat trip to learn about this park and got to explore the first Key in Florida called Boca Chico Key. It was cool to see all the yachts that come out here to spend the day! The water was beautiful.  We saw tons of fish, a few sting rays and even a sea turtle poking his head above the water. At the visitors center, we did our junior ranger packet and got sworn in and received our badge. This park is unique because if we complete the junior ranger packets at Everglades and Big Cypress we will get a special patch representing all three.  

Current Leg: 143 miles

Total Miles: 3,296 miles

3000 miles and Counting! 

We are at fort pierce KOA in Fort Pierce, Florida for a 6 day stay.

Our big excursion was to the LoggerHead Marine life Center where they rescue sea turtles. The center was one of my favorite places so far on the trip, it was well done, and we learned a lot. The most common injuries to sea turtles are boat strikes, shark attacks, swallowing micro-plastics, and virus called fibropapillomatos (FP) tumors.   FP tumors has to be surgically removed. We met a turtle that was recovering from FP, and his name was Igor. We also met a turtle named Pyari. She lost a fin from a shark attack but she can still swim just fine, and once healthy enough will be able to return to the ocean! We also learned that the gender of the turtles in the nest is determined by the temperature of the nest. The warmer the nest the more females, and the colder the more males. There is concern that with global warming more and more females hatch in each nest every year. And sometimes its too hot for any of the to survive at all.  That’s why we have take care of our planet.  Things like picking up trash at the beach and reducing the use of single-use plastics will help these turtles. Whenever you leave a light on at the beach it confuses the baby turtles and they walk the wrong way, that’s why at the beaches and some city’s people are trying to put more warm orange lights rather than bright white ones. Another thing that can help is knocking down sandcastles and any other stuff you built at the beach, this way the babies don’t have to climb over Mount Everest just to get to the water. These are things I have never thought about before!

My dad and I went on a bike ride to the Fort Pierce Manatee center.  Sadly we did not see any manatees. They had a lot of cool tanks of fish that lived in the water just outside the center, and my favorite was the seahorse. Did you know that seahorses don’t have stomachs so they eat a lot! And the excess food they don’t want, like boness and skin, gets shot out of their heads and back into the water, so they have to have another animal, like a lobster, to help clean up the tank. Mom and Eli took the day to go see the new Wicked Movie.

Saturday morning all year long they have a huge farmers market right on the water.  We checked it out and got some amazing cider donuts.  That is saying something because living in Vermont the last two years I feel like I know good apple cider anything! We also got smoothies at the market. Mine was  berry blast and it was delicious! 9/10! The only reason its not a ten is because there were to many seeds. We also saw a cool 3-D printing stand, where, they had all sorts of good prints.

This campground had a nice big swimming pool that we swam in most days.  There was also lots of lizards everywhere and not just the tiny ones but some bigger ones with cool colors. Next we are off to Miami for Thanksgiving. 

Current leg: 72

Total miles: 3153

Manatee cove at Patrick Space Force Base

 This place had some of the best views so far on our trip. The campsites were right on the Banana river, and the sunsets were beautiful but I was personally a fan of the sunrises. We also had to see a rocket launch while we were at the space coast, and we saw two! One was a Starlink group 6-89 rocket to send up more satellites for their starlink, and it’s cool because we use starlink as our internet for this trip, and really, to publish this blog! We also saw the Via sat-3 F2  that was also carrying communications satellites!

One of our excursions, we went to the Orlando science center. It was the biggest museum I’ve ever been to and they have a lot of cool exhibits. My favorite was the space one. It had a simulation where you made a rocket and then piloted it up to space, that was the best part. There was also a stop-motion studio where you could make a short video/movie. I liked it so much a got the app on my iPad to do it more! ( it’s called stop motion studio!) . The science center was fun but then we were hungry so we got food at pig Floyd’s where i got a pulled-pork sandwich, it was the best pulled-pork I’ve ever had! 10/10!

Other highlights of this stop was a cool minigolf course and an ice cream shoppe called the Surfin Turtle. They had turtles to feed while you ate your ice cream.  Also our neighbors were really nice and had two dogs. One was named Arly and she only had 3 legs.  It didn’t slow her down at all. She loved to play catch with Eli and I.  

Current Leg: 181

Total Miles: 3081

Pelican Roost Campground at Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, FL

New State unlocked!  We were super excited about entering Florida where we will be staying for the next few months.  It is especially nice when we compare it to the weather back in Pennsylvania and Vermont.

This campground is directly on an inlet to the Atlantic Ocean. We saw big boats come through everyday. We saw a cruise ships, Navy ships, and massive cargo ships! In the mornings, we saw multiple bottlenose dolphins from our camper. Some long-termers even said they have seen saw sharks! The campground is called Pelican Roost and I thought that name was accurate because we saw hundreds of pelicans over the course of the week. We even saw Ospreys, a type of raptor bird, having fish in their talons! Up the road less than a quarter of a mile is a beach that we can ride our bikes too. We met another family there and it was fun to play catch and go to the beach and climb on the jetty rocks together. It was super nice to have some friends while we were there cause there usually isn’t many kids we can hang out with.

One of our big excursions was checking out the city of St. Augustine. Its claim to fame is being supposedly the oldest city in America, but our guide for the kayak tour said it is actually the oldest continually occupied settlement in America, but not the oldest. We did a kayaking trip on the Matanzas river through the mangroves. We saw fish and oyster fields. We stopped at an island on the river. I even planted some new mangroves! Our guide told us that for every mangrove it cleans the air for four people! Our guide reminded me of my teacher back in Vermont, because he was very informative and knew a lot about the wildlife there!(Shoutout to Ryan!) If any of you readers are in the St. Augustine area, I highly recommend kayaking with Ben of geotrippin.com! 

I think a week there went fast, the campground was awesome and having friends there made it a whole lot more fun!  Next stop Manatee cove family campground at Patrick space force base!

Current Leg: 181

Total miles: 2900

Savannah 

We are at Red Gate Farms for a 4 day stay in Savannah, Georgia. At the RV park they have horses, donkeys, goats, and turtles. You can buy goat and turtle food at the store. My favorite part was feeding the turtles, when you chucked out food their heads popped up right next to the dock, we even had 13 at once in our view! Feeding the goat was also fun, I stuck out my hand flat, and then they suck it all up!

The most important reason we stopped in savannah was to see our cousin Harper, as well as Uncle Ryan and Aunt Lauren. Harper had just beat cancer before we got there 🥳🎉!!!we haven’t been able to see her so it was so nice to finally go trick or treating with her!

We took a day to go explore downtown Savannah, where we saw cargo ships and went to planet fun. Planet fun is a store in downtown Savanah where they have cool video game stuff like Mario and sonic. Uncle Ryan gave us each 30 dollars to spend.

I got a switch game and a comic book! We also took a walk on River Street where we walked right next to the water and they had many cool stores and splash pads to do (it was a little to cold to do the splash pads when we were there, but they’d be great in the summer)

Halloween was happening while we visited.  We had decided since Moana is Harper’s favorite movie of all time, we would do a group costume with theme.  I got to be Maui and Eli was the angry coconut known as a Kakamora.  Harper was of course Moana.   

The street that they live on was great for trick-or-treating we got a massive candy haul, especially with the trick or treating at Winding Waters the week before. We also watched the Steelers play in Ryan’s media room, he also has super fun video games that played a lot when i was there.

Current leg: 161

Total miles: 2719

We left Atlanta on our way to Savannah but stopped for a short stay for 4 days in Warner Robins, GA. There is an Air Force base called Robins that we stayed at. The campground was pretty nice but the weather did not cooperate and it rained most days we were there.  We did explore the local library and did school in the mornings. There is a pond right next to the campground that supposedly has Alligators inside but we saw none, unfortunately. We wanted to do the Air Force museum on base they  had, we heard was really good, but because of the government shutdown it was not open.  

We are mostly excited about our next stop and seeing Aunt Lauren, Uncle Ryan and Harper!  We have a group costume planned for Halloween… so stay tuned!

Current Leg: 152

Total Miles: 2558

Welcome to Atlanta

We are at Winding Waters RV park for a week’s stay, it is right outside of Atlanta so we did some fun things there. We bought the city pass which let us into the aquarium, zoo, college football hall of fame,  the Coca-Cola museum, and the Natural History Museum. We did 4 out of 5!  

First, we did the world of Coca-Cola museum. They had a tasting exhibit, smelling exhibit, pop culture, and Icons. My favorite was the tasting room.  There were so many different drinks from all around the world, including things like cucumber sprite, and passion fruit Fanta! They also had an Icons Exhibit where they had an interactive model downtown of where CoCa Cola first started. AI was even used to transport us back to the time with our photos.  There was also a short film about coca -cola. It was one of my favorite things we did in Atlanta. 

Right next to the World of Coca-Cola museum was the Georgia Aquarium. They had so many different animals there ranging from whale sharks to tiny shrimp! They also had turtles, my personal favorite! We started at the Predators of the deep.  It is a new exibit featuring many different species of sharks including Hammerheads, Blacktip reef sharks, and white tip sharks. My favorite were the hammerheads because of their heads. They have eyes on the end of each side giving themselves good vision to see behind them, it’s like a rear view mirror! We also saw a seal show where three seals competed to be the best. the three contestants were Peaches, Scarlet, and I can’t remember the third ones name. We were cheering on Peaches and she won! The beluga whale exhibit was my favorite. The belugas played by going up to the surface to get air, then coming down and blowing a bubble ring and then swimming through the bubble!  It’s like they knew we were watching and kept coming up to the glass and put on a show for us.   It was really cool. 

Other adventures while we were in Atlanta was the Zoo and the College Football Hall of Fame.  The best part of the zoo was the meerkats because they dug holes and kept watch while we were there. We read about how they always have a lookout watching the sky and the ground for predators. They have a special call for aerial predators to alert the other meerkats of danger. They also have a special call for ground predators. When they get alerted they go into their underground tunnels where predators can’t get them.  While at the zoo, we also fed Giraffes lettuce and watched elephants eat hay from high up in a feeding net. The Lions were also awesome. One came up to the glass right by Eli’s head!  We thought the lion might have thought Eli looked like a snack!

The campground was really nice.  It had a heated pool and waterslides that Eli was sadly not tall enough. So I went on them and were pretty fun one was red and went super slow but there was also a tube slide that went really fast! There was also a hot tub that we spent most of our time in 🤣. On Saturday night they had lots of family activities for families for Halloween.  We did candy bar bingo and trick-or-treating. We won 3 of the 4 games i won two and my dad won one. There were about 15 other people there. We won 15 candy bars and another kid one 10! The trick-or-treating there was better than I thought and we got some pretty good candy!

Current Leg: 87

Total Miles: 2406

Raccoon mountain!

We are at Racoon Mountain for a weeks stay. It is right outside of Chattanooga in TN. We went to Rock city for a day on Lookout Mountain, which started as somebody’s backyard and had some really awesome rock and cave formations! They turned it into an experience that we could do. There were 4 trails and a big lookout over Chattanooga from the top of the mountain. There were also small cracks that you have to squeeze into to continue the trail. My favorite part was a big suspension bridge that shook when you walked on it.

Back at the campground we went on the spooky caverns tour, it was dark and you took a small flashlight at the entrance to see. The tour guide told us the story of how the all-powerful wizard, Vanir, cursed and ruined a castle and the ruins were the caves. It had a good story but the cave was not better than endless caverns in VA.

Downtown Chattanooga was nearby so we drove and than parked and went to the pinball Museum where we got endless plays on over 100 different pinball machines! They were all good especially the ones from the 1990’s, those were the best.than we took a walk to an ice cream store nearby called Clumpie’s Ice Cream it was some of the best ice cream we’ve had so far i got a waffle cone with cookie dough and cookies and cream i give it a 9.8907980/10. It was so close to perfect but the waffle cone was a little bit too sweet to blend well with the ice cream.

Current Leg:102

Total Miles:2319

Redstone Arsenal

We are at Redstone arsenal for a 3 night stay. Redstone is an army base in Alabama, NEW STATE UNLOCKED! The Coolest part of the stay is the space museum in Huntsville, Alabama. The space and rocket museum was my favorite part, they had the rocket garden where they held one of the original Saturn 5 Rockets which was cool to see in person they also had stands to see how far away the planets were and what there sizes were (to scale)! We saw a movie in the planetarium which was about facts on the different planets in the solar system!

My Dad and I went to the Giga Parts store that was nearby, they had computers,  3-D printer, telescopes, radios and photography supplies! My dad spent a while in the HAM radio section. I spent all my time in the computer section looking at new keyboards and desks. Hopefully, when we settle in the forever house I’ll be able to have a cool computer setup!

Current Leg: 90 

Total Miles: 2217