It Rained On Our Parade

Waking up to our new reality and our first, and maybe last "night adventure," in Mosquito Lagoon

Today, we woke up in the pine forest campsite in Jonathan Dickinson Park to a new reality. We are a family of five with kids aged 8, 6, and 3, living together in a small trailer with two full beds and only one toilet, driving 5000 plus miles from Miami to Alaska. The culture shock of this new life driving long distances and living in cramped quarters is hitting us all hard.

We parents are not yet in a flow. We overpacked and under-organized. We have no idea where that iPad headphone adapter is. We are exhausted from the move and probably need an actual relaxing vacation. Not this, LOL.

The kids are not listening to anything we’re asking them to do. “Don’t lean on the mosquito screens.” They throw each other onto the mosquito screens. “Don’t go near the trailer hitch.” They invent a game to jump over the trailer hitch. “Don’t touch the sewer hole.” They open the sewer hole and stick their hands in it. We probably washed their grubby little paws 30 times today. We’ve all lost our cool at one point or another, but that’s to be expected.

It’s always like this at the beginning of an RV trip, even short ones, and this is NOT a short one. There is an adjustment period, and we’re right in the thick of it. Plus, we are all processing the magnitude of this life change in our own ways.

Rainy morning as we settle in to trailer life at Jonathan Dickinson State Park

The day started with a morning hike to find the scrub jays again, but we couldn’t find them in the same place where we had seen them the evening before. It's probably because a massive Florida summer squall was coming our way. It rained on us a bit, and then it started pouring just as we shut the aluminum door on “La Tortuga” (the Airstream). It was cozy to be indoors. We had a late breakfast of freshly brewed hot coffee and fried eggs, and the kids had Choco Chimps cereal with fruit. Jaron exercised with the kids on his back while Dana worked on drawing, painting, and finger weaving with them, all while trying to get more organized in the trailer — a Sisyphean task. We managed to distract them for a while, but the rain didn’t let up for hours, and we all got a bit of cabin fever.

To make matters worse, when the sun came out again and we wanted to hit the road, we realized we had lost the keys to the Airstream. We searched for almost an hour before finally finding them inside the lock that opened the latch for the outdoor shower, which is our main hand-washing station while at camp. Duh

Eventually, we filled our water tank, hitched up, and drove straight up I-95 for Titusville. We had booked an excursion that night to see the dinoflagellates that light up in a bioluminescent display at the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. It was going to be what we affectionately call a “night adventure,” which really could be any reason we decide to let the kids stay up way later than they should.

We had a late lunch on the road at a nice restaurant called Citrone’s Bistro in Hobe Sound while it continued downpouring outside. We made a deal with the kids that we would pay them one US dollar for every new food they try. They each tried fully loaded potato skins and a wedge salad. 6$ for the kids.

During the meal, we attempted to book a campsite at Manatee Harbour Campground but were unsuccessful. However, since this was the closest campsite to the launch point, we decided to roll in anyway. Luckily, we were able to get a site on the spot. We quickly unhitched and frantically got dressed in long-sleeved shirts and long pants and drove with just the truck about 30 minutes to the Beacon 42 boat launch in Canaveral National Seashore.

We found one operator who would take a 3-year-old out, and it was BK Adventure, which offered us a raft with a guide for our whole family. We had some doubts about whether we were doing the right thing by taking our children on a nighttime rafting trip, but they said they had taken their young kids out before, and we decided that this was a unique experience we shouldn’t miss.

We met our guide, Kai, a local college student with a septum ring, who said that the long sleeves and long pants and bug repellent may not be enough to deter the “18” varieties of mosquitoes that inhabit the area. The US government had apparently attempted to eradicate them with DEET but had failed to do so. The story goes that the surviving mosquito species are these Frankenstein super mosquitoes infused with the blood of Chuck Norris, unkillable and fierce to a level we mortals will never understand.

Two women of Gujarati descent who live in Southern California joined us, but it seemed they were unaware that the tour was a bioluminescent tour when they signed up as they were looking for the glowing lights in space. Seriously. Maybe not so crazy, though, given that NASA’s Cape Canaveral is just a few short miles away. As dusk turned into night, the waxing moon, with a majority still hidden by shadow, rose slowly over the Lagoon. The Chuck Norris mozzies did not relent and were trying to conquer our bodies from our scalps to our ankles. We were all literally itching to get on the raft. After a brief introduction, we put on our life jackets, climbed onto this heavy-duty inflatable vessel, and before we knew it, we were pushed out into the water. It was approximately 9:30 pm, way past the kids’ bedtime, and we were off.

Kai was wonderful. Patiently answering all of our questions while doing the majority of the paddling. Out on the water, the mosquitoes finally paused their attacks. A tranquil serenity washed over us as we stared up into a sky freckled with stars. The moon glimmered on the dark water, sparkling in a white glow. Luca and Vivian started to get sleepy, and we held them. Which means we couldn’t help Kai paddle very much. As our guide explained the science and mystery of this phenomenon, he paddled us farther and farther into the lagoon, the water growing darker. With each paddle, these tiny single-celled planktonic creatures got stirred up more and more until we saw these streaks of turquoise fluorescence with every stroke of the paddle. The best part was when a school of mullet, hundreds of them, got agitated by our presence (or maybe a predator nearby) and began whizzing by us like purplish-blue fluorescent lasers in the water, lighting up the lagoon like our very own Pink Floyd laser light show in the lagoon. Ori, our eldest, sat at the edge of the raft, mesmerized and enchanted by this phenomenon. “My friends will never believe me! ” he shouted while hoping one of the fish would land in our boat like they did our neighbor’s boat.

Suddenly, the sky darkened. On the positive side, the bioluminescence got even brighter. But on the negative side, it appeared we were about to encounter a severe storm way out in the lagoon with no protection. We got nervous, particularly for the sleeping kids, as we were still at least a mile or two away from the launch. The wind picked up, and the rain hit us aggressively and it was suddenly pouring. There was nowhere for us to take cover from the rain. Poor Vivi woke up and cried. The wind picked up even more, and paddling became very difficult. Thank God the rain let up after an intense few minutes. The wind finally died down, and we were able to paddle faster. We wrapped Vivi in a towel, and she fell back asleep. Somehow, Luca managed to sleep through the whole thing. Finally, we got back to the launch and carried our two younger children to the truck. Half an hour later, we were back at our campsite, as we carried all three sleeping beauties back into the airstream. The rain continued most of the night, and we all slept well.