Kissimmee to Eustis – 16 January 2024
We arrived at our our next campground Southern Palms which is part of the Thousand Trails group, and squished our RV amongst hundreds of others. It was raining so after setting up we settled in for the evening. This campground was enormous with over 800 sites spread on both sides of the road. We were a little shocked as to how overcrowded it was. Also many of the mobile homes and rvs belonging to permanent residents looked very run down.
Keen to escape from the crowds and left the following morning and drove to nearby Mount Dora, hoping to do a hike. When we arrived we realized it was a mountain bike trail so we walked instead in the opposite direction through a quiet suburb and eventually into the loveliest little historic town. Very quaint shops, beautiful houses and tons of interesting restaurants. The town is called Mount Dora because it rests upon a plateau 184 feet above sea level – an unusual feature in Florida. It also has a very large lake called Lake Dora, which was named after Ms. Dora Ann Drawdy who homesteaded in the mid-1800s and befriended federal surveyors with her warm hospitality. After walking back to the car we returned to the town and found a colourful Cuban restaurant for dinner. It was still quite early so the patio was deserted. I ordered a grilled mahi mahi in a creole sauce and Derek a skirt steak. They came with a green salad and yellow rice. It was ok – certainly not as flavourful as Mexican food. I was also very disappointed with the coffee. When we left we saw a number of other Cuban restaurants. Apparently Florida has the highest density of Cubans in the US at 1.5 million.
The following day I decided to walk Jax over to the farmers market next door to buy some veggies and fruit. Before I had even left the RV park I accidentally dropped Jax’s leash while picking up one of his poos and at that moment he ran towards and barked aggressively at two leashed dogs walking past. Thank goodness he didn’t bite any of them. After screaming at him to stop he finally left the dogs and walked sheepishly over to me. I was very upset and decided to return to the RV instead. As we walked back we passed a couple who were just exiting out of their RV with their dog. He was a pit bull and not on leash. He took one look at Jax and ran over and pinned him to the ground snarling. Jax was crying loudly and I was screaming at the owner who had the dog by the collar, to take him off Jax. Finally the dog let go and I pulled Jax to the opposite side of the road where I examined him for injuries. Thankfully I did not find any but I was extremely shaken when I made it back to the RV. I felt I could not report this dog as Jax had also been aggressive with the other dogs so I let things be.
Later on that day we decided to go to the Trout Lake Nature Centre for a hike. When we arrived we stopped at the Centre to pay the $5 entrance fee and then sprayed ourselves with the recommended bug spray left outside on the table. We began our walk and had only gone about 30 metres when the bugs started swarming us. Derek was wearing shorts and they were all over his legs. He wasn’t going to stick around and took off running back to the car with Jax. So that was the end of that walk. So instead we drove to Ferran Park in Eustis which has a Lakefront walk. The place was alive with hundreds of birds, many different to the ones I had seen before in Florida. The lake was covered with water lilies and several birds were running from lily pad to lily pad lifting them up and looking for bugs. It was fascinating to watch. There were several fisherman with very long (15 ft) fishing rods catching bass and other smaller fish. As we walked back to the car along the wooden walkway, a beautiful Great Egret perched itself on the edge of the railing and I was able to take a really close up shot of him. That really made my day.
