Astral Nomads

One man, one woman, one rabbit......traveling with the stars.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

An Everglades Holiday

Just a quick post to show how we celebrated the Holiday in the Everglades. The campground was almost 30 miles inside Everglades National Park and it was AWESOME!. We were right on Florida Bay, the weather was spectacular, and we not only did not have the distraction of the internet, we also had no cell phone service or AC power. We ran the Eurovan refrigerator on propane and were able to read at night off of the marine battery power.  Xmas day was about 75F, calm, and cloudless. Wendy took tons of great pictures which we will post in a few follow-ups over the next few days. 

In order to create a festive Holiday table, Wendy arranged our travel goddess next to a pine cone decorated with cherries and pistachios and a small carving of a redwood tree riding a boat of mini-bananas. This meshed nicely with our holiday feast, which was a chicken and pineapple curry served over brown rice.


This was the view of Florida Bay from our campsite. When we pulled up to the ranger kiosk, the ranger said "Go pick a site and come back and tell me". We only drove about 30 yards until we saw site A1, the only site in its row, with a huge old mahogany tree for shade, and a great view of the bay. We drove back in about two seconds and said "A1, sir!". After parking, we high-fived at snagging the best site at the campground. Whenever another car pulled in later in the day, we just looked at each and said "Sorry, A1 is taken". We also amused ourselves by chanting "We're number 1". 

Here's a shot of that glorious mahogany tree, with our screen house
and the Eurovan. The mosquitoes were not that bad, but I would hate
to be here in the summer. I don't know if we're getting better at insect
management but I think we both got more bites at Seminole-Collier State Park.



The sunrises over the bay were worth getting up for.

Camp Paradise.

For our holiday meal, I cooked a chicken and pineapple curry right on the grill in our trusty La Creuset mini-Dutch Oven. I just browned up some onions, garlic, and ginger and then added chicken, a whole fresh pineapple with juice and threw in a diced apple and about 4 mini-bananas for good measure. Then I added curry powder, salt, pepper, ground coriander seed, cayenne pepper, and some turmeric. I stoked the fire at a slow simmer for about an hour, until the chicken was fork tender. Meanwhile, Wendy cooked some brown rice in chicken broth on the propane burner inside the Eurovan.



Otis added to his outdoor credentials by getting a little sting on the nose from a paper wasp. We rinsed it with water and applied a little bit of topical cortisone.

Da Perp!



After some Mommy loving (which was after the Mommy revenge which sent the wasp to insect heaven), he was back to his normal self, scarfing carrots and lettuce, and begging for cookies whenever he hears the crinkling of the wrapper.

The black vulture, a protected species, was a ubiquitous
campground presence. They say they will chew the rubber
on your car and I was a little worried, but that did not seem
to be a problem for us. They are pretty nervy though and will
eat anything you accidentally leave out. One even landed on the
hot grill after I had cooked the curry and just sat there like it had
asbestos feet.

I'm not good enough to even play Jingle Bells yet, but I 
keep practicing. Who knows, by the time we get to Coachella, 
maybe I can jam with my son Colin.

Much more to come on the Everglades. Wendy took so many great shots of the flora and fauna that someone should notify National Geographic. We are hunkered down in Hollywood, Florida for a few days so we'll post as many as we can.

-The usual suspects.

4 comments:

  1. Love the A1 spot! Perfect. The food sounded outrageous. Lovin' the trip folks. What a wonderfully Merry Christmas for you.

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  2. What an absolutely, wonderful Christmas!!!

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  3. @Barbara: Yeah, this was the best campsite yet. We have LOTS of photos yet to post. The Everglades was beautiful.

    @sandra: We like'em everglades a lot.

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  4. Your food descriptions always make me so hungry! And I've got 2 hours to go until lunch. 'Sorry A1 is taken' haha.

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