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We arrived in Orlando late and it was obvious that aside from Disneyland and Universal Studios there wasn't a whole lot to do there. Our budgets didn't stretch to Harry Potter world's $90 entry fee and with my phobia of mascots Disneyland was off the cards, for me at least, so we decided to make it a fleeting visit and just sleep there and leave. We parked up outside a Walmart and attempted to start the propane burner that came with the van. Unfortunately a bit of a running theme had started that nothing that came with Suzanne wanted to work... We had bought 10 days of food from a dollar store (the best shop in the world!) which were useless without a means of cooking and after another frustrated call to the camper van company they could only tell us that they had never had a problem with a stove before.... Not very helpful. In addition to this Walmart wouldn't let us stay in their car park but we managed to find a residential street and stayed there.
It had been quite a few very sweaty days and we had yet to shower so we planned to stay in a campsite in Wakulla springs in Tallahassee which we found in Lonely Planet. On the way there we would pass a hot natural spring called De Leon Spring which is also known as the Fountain of Youth. We figured a swim in a spring would be a great way to break up the journey and we were right. Although not quite as hot as advertised the water was refreshing and crystal clear. I had my diving mask and you could dive down and actually see the swirls of water coming out of the spring about 10m down. It was brilliant and a definite highlight of the trip so far! We also got some great photos with my underwater camera, have a look in the Miami --> New Orleans photo folder. After a refreshing swim we continued on to Tallahassee through Ocala national forest. I was reminded why i had wanted to do a road trip in the first place, the views were stunning and we could, and did, choose not to drive down boring highways and take the scenic route instead. There are photos of the views in the folder accompanying this post however they really don't capture quite how impressive it was!
So we arrived at Wakulla springs a little late to find that it had shut. Worse than this however was the revelation that we had misread Lonely Planet and there wasn't actually a campsite or RV park at all. We found ourselves stuck in the middle of nowhere with nowhere so sleep. We got Gertrude, our Garmin satnav, to find the nearest RV park but she was evidently just as fed up and tired as we were as when we got to the address there was nothing but a motorbike trail and an empty forest. We contemplated driving through the night to New Orleans but decided we'd drive to Tallahassee town and see if there was a place to stop over. As we couldn't cook food we had Macdonalds for dinner and made use of their free wifi and toilets, yet again.
We discovered that there was a car park a few minutes away which was completely free. I'd never really heard of Tallahassee before but after being there for a few minutes it didn't feel like the safest place on earth. We stuck out like a sore thumb, we looked a mess after still not managing to get a shower and we were getting cat called and leered at in the Macdonalds. We left and got to the car park, the barriers which would usually stop you entering had been snapped off and were lying on the ground, meaning it was indeed free, although very dodgy. We drove up a few floors with the ceiling getting lower and lower hoping Suzanne wouldn't be decapitated. We pulled into a space and saw cans of larger strewn around. It was probably the least safe i've felt my entire trip but we didn't really have another option. We rationalised our decision by the fact that there were quite nice cars parked around and there weren't any people loitering. We made sure you couldn't see anything to indicate we were inside and tried to sleep. As you can imagine it wasn't a great nights sleep but we live to tell the tale so all is well! Needless to say we made a mental note to call ahead to a campsite if we plan to stay in one in the future to make sure it really does exist!
Next stop New Orleans!
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