This morning I got up at dawn to go Otter Spotting. Mike was still fast asleep, as I ventured out on my own in the early morning light. Firstly, I walked out onto the floating pontoon to see if there were any alligators, but all was calm on the water.

As I walked further around the lake, I heard a growling sound coming from the bushes. I thought that can’t be good, the camp owner had told us there was a black bear in the park. So I headed back to the car where the growling noise got louder and more insistent. 

I looked around, but there was no sign of a bear. I walked closer to the trees, and the noise started again.

I woke Mike up to tell him to come and listen to the bear. But by the time he got up, the noise had stopped. And I still haven’t seen a bear.

I did see an alligator though, but they are becoming as common as squirrels.

We were going to stay another day, but we decided we should get heading towards Texas. We drove down to Florida, and followed the coast along the Gulf of Mexico. We stopped to look at a house made of glass bottles. While we were there, some big bug latched onto me and started gnawing away at my skin. I’ve had so many things biting me over here and I’m already covered in bites. So I hopped back in the van and smothered myself in bug repellent.

Then Mike got in the car and tried to start it, and it wouldn’t start. It turned over like it was going to start, but didn’t fire. We kind of panicked a bit, and rang roadside assistance, They said it would be 1.5 hours before a tow truck arrived. But then, 1 hour later they sent and updated text saying it was now 77 minutes before it would arrive. Then again 30 minutes later it said it would now be 78 minutes as it was coming from Tallahassee.

Anyway, it was Friday afternoon with a long weekend coming up. We did not want to spend 3 days stuck outside a glass bottle house. So we called a local mobile mechanic, he came had a quick look, said he’d get us back on the road today, and he’d be back in an hour. 

Then the tow truck turned up 78 mins early according to the text messages, before I had a chance to cancel it. He insisted he had to tow us to a garage around the corner. I rang the garage to make sure they could look at our car, and they insisted they could. So he towed us to the garage and when we got there they said they couldn’t look at it until Tuesday. Arrrrggghhhh. And the mobile mechanic won’t come and fix our car at someone elses garage.

So we asked the tow truck to take us back to where we’d broken down. That was the shortened version of our mickey mouse day.

Anyway, 3 hours later, the mobile mechanic finally came. He’d been very busy with a lot of breakdowns. He spent two hours diagnosing the problem, and not finding an answer. He swapped a few wires around the place, and eventually wired it up as it was originally and it worked. So it was possibly a faulty connection somewhere along the line. But he apologised he couldn’t fix the root cause, and said he couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t happen again. But he’s shown Mike how to hotwire it to get it started if need be.

He spent a good two hours in the stifling humidity and only charged us $75. We gave him $100 for his time.

We drove two hours to Panama City and are now parked in a free carpark at Cracker Barrell (A restaurant/gift shop). It’s pretty common to be able to park overnight in Cracker Barrell and Walmart carparks. There are two others camping here tonight.

Still 16 hours drive to Texas.