The Distance: 99 miles. After two full months in Sanibel we began our meandering journey out of Florida with a westward run to South Bay, a small town with a county campground on the very southern shore of Lake Okeechobee. Obviously, our total for 2021 is also 99 miles. February will see a significant increase in our movement, but still all of it in the southern half of Florida.

This block of Southwest Florida was our home region for a big portion of 2020, and continues to be so for the first couple of months of 2021. The next few posts take mostly within this map as we linger in the area, partly because we love it, but also because Loki’s repair is taking a lot longer than we anticipated.

The Places: We spent most of the month at Periwinkle Park in Sanibel, one of our favorite places that we have visited many times, including the entire Spring of 2020 as we self isolated when the pandemic hit. We ended January at South Bay RV Campground, a county park we enjoyed for the first time back in November. This month we spent 27 days in a private park and 4 in a county campground, with full hook ups the entire month.

A small portion of Rosemarie’s shell haul from our latest two months on Sanibel. We did not have the best shelling conditions, and red tide effects made some days difficult to spend on the beach, but we made the best of it.

The Money: At 44% over budget for the month we are not, financially speaking, starting 2021 off well. Though we received our $600 per person stimulus checks, we also had to pay for the bulk of our tow vehicle’s engine rebuild. We did what we could to limit daily expenses, but it was not nearly enough to counteract the repair costs and our high RV resort fees (averaging nearly $50 a night despite the monthly discount at Periwinkle Park.)

We have enjoyed all of our sites at Periwinkle Park, but some more than others. January’s site was excellent.

You might think that the lack of a daily driver would help us limit our expenditures, and I am sure in some ways it did. But the need to rent a car for a few days to visit Rose’s family across the state and a couple of associated Lyft fees pretty much erased whatever savings that might have created.

The remnants of an American version of a folly castle on the Gulf Coast near The Ten Thousand Islands.

The Drama: Loki, our previously super reliable Geo Tracker, remained in the shop for an engine rebuild. Getting that done on any vehicle would be drama enough, but this particular job has turned out to be extra special: our Fort Myers mechanic could not locate a suitable engine block upon which to base the project! To his credit, he was dead accurate regarding how limited Tracker engine cores for our model are.

We have been trying to eat better this year, with particular focus on fresh and local ingredients. Sure, the pasta was basic Barilla thin spaghetti, but topped with fresh basil pesto, and local clams, garlic, and mushrooms it made for fine dining.

Luckily I found a Xtreme Zuks Offroad, a Suzuki Sidekick specialist (Trackers and Sidekicks were a joint project between Chevy and Suzuki during the ’90s) north of Tampa that had exactly one available engine block. The shop’s owner, Richard, agreed to do the engine rebuild, though rarity and specialist involvement meant it would be about 30% more than our Fort Myers man had expected. His shop is quite busy, so it took him a few weeks, but he not only finished the engine, he delivered it down to our Fort Myers mechanic himself. All’s well that ends well, right? Not this month it ain’t: after installation our Fort Myers guy could not get the tracker started, even after several days of extra effort and research. You will have to wait until a later post to read the final outcome.

Next up: A couple of inland campgrounds in Southwest Florida, including our first Core Of Engineers park.