I-75 is a long ribbon connecting Jackson Center, OH (the home of Airstream) to Florida’s Everglades. Given that this is December and the entire country seems plunged into temperatures best associated with refrigerator compartments, we chose to head south.

Our goal was to get into the Everglades for a quick one-night stopover. We’ve visited the Everglades before in our 1968 Airstream Caravel, but we’ve never been to the Everglades City area, so that became our destination. Coincidentally, in the morning I received an email from Brad and Mary saying that they were staying at Chokoloskee, and we realized it was basically the same place, and for a bonus, there was a campground offering a $17.50 full-hookup rate for holders of the Passport America discount card.

So while Brad and Mary were out riding a National Park Service boat tour, we pulled up next to their spot and set up camp. After six months of emailing each other as we roamed the country, I think they were a bit shocked to find us finally parked ten feet away!

Before Brad and Mary returned, we also got a chance to photograph some brown pelicans at the marina. I’ve uploaded a bunch of nature photos from this stop to our Flickr album, which you can see here.

We hit it off with Brad and Mary, and ended up putting together a fun dinner made up of various “Indian food in a box” packages we both realized we were carrying, and staying up till 11 p.m. yakking. We’ll see them again on Wednesday.

I’ll talk more about Chokoloskee Island, and Everglades City, in Tuesday’s blog, when I catch up. Here’s where we camped (requires Google Earth to view).