#294 Markham Park CampgroundCounty Park Sunrise, FL

County Park

16001 W. State Rd. 84

We saw a place called Markham it would be a nice little break at three hours down the road and was kind of near the Miami, Hollywood area. It was a huge park and I ignored the words shooting range. They had an opening for Thursday through Tuesday so we took it. We needed to drag our feet a little as it was 10 days before we could move into the site at the Keys.

We would soon realize the spot we chose was near the range so you can hear guns going off all the time. It bothered me because it's people practicing to kill people.

I liked Markham in many ways but there was no gate so people could come and go and that was a little weird. I think sometimes people just kind of play camp but are just gathered in cars and come down to be loud and party. They didn't have a site but they would stay until they got caught or something like that.

The biggest problem was bang bang all day long from shooting range.

Almost immediately after getting settled, I realized I was not going to enjoy this place because of the shooting range. There were no other problems.

I had hoped that maybe a site might pop up in the Keys at a state park. The only thing I saw was Monday a week before our arrival and it was a Key Largo. It wasn't worth going down there for one night and then there would be no place else to stay.

I kept on checking in with the Reserve America and suddenly there was availability on the 27th and 28th at Curry hammock which is down the road at the Keys near Marathon. I went and took these two nights.

The problem is that I needed a place for the 29th and 30th and that didn't exist yet so I thought well am I going to be homeless or what?

One day I was messing around on Reserve America and suddenly I saw 6 nights available at Curry Hammock. I was going to grab it and so as I started fumbling around on the website. By the time I messed around for three or four seconds the site was gone. Wow.

I got lucky and I was able to pick up two more-night s at Curry on the 29th and 30th and so now we have that covered.

I just kept on checking it every day and it seems like five pm with a good time of day to check-in. I saw two more nights on the 26 and 27th. Now we had six straight nights at Curry Hammock. We had to move three times but that was okay with me.

I would rather be Curry Hammock than at some weird trailer park any day.

We ended up finding two days ahead of that at Key Largo John Pennekamp so now we’re rolling.

When all came together so well we left Markham a little early and head towards Key Largo. I would rather be at Key Largo than Markham.

I wanted to share a story about when we were near Miami way out in the boonies and went to a church service. This was 2 years ago as we were heading towards the Keys for April.

We went to The UU church at Sunrise Florida. Like many services no matter what denomination they are they have some sort of fellowship time after the service with cakes, coffee, cookies, and goodies. We always enjoy that. We work this into our Sunday. We leave out of the house as usual with nothing for breakfast. The service is only an hour then it's off to the goodies table as an appetizer before going to lunch somewhere. We walked in the door and passed by the place where you sign in a visitor and get a name tag thing. We did that and then right there in front of us were these Nabisco cheese crackers and bottled waters and stuff. I thought to myself I'll have one of those. We took a bottle of water in a couple of cheese crackers and sat down in our chair/pew.

Almost instantly we realized that this was not just one table with some bottled waters but there were six of these and they were all set up like an assembly line. We had helped ourselves to the bottled water and crackers that were designed for feeding the Working Poor.

Nobody corrected us but we felt a little dumb.

Usually, we find that the UU is sort of done with dogma and normal Protestant/ Catholic stories. This Sunday’s service was about the loaves and fishes story. This is perfectly fine except it just seemed like maybe they were catering to their audience. I can imagine the members saying we're not really completely into normal church but I still like to hear about Jesus. There was nothing wrong with it I just thought it was interesting. We usually don't see a regular old Jesus service at the UU.

The theme of loaves and fishes made it go a little longer than normal. After a brief sermon, we were all going to a table where the bottled waters and crackers were staged. Everyone would team up and pack a bag lunch for the Working Poor that they were going to distribute later in the week.

We already knew that we had kind of stepped in something with our accidentally stolen crackers and water. I guess this is when the compassion came because they must have decided that we were dressed okay and all but we were just hungry and hadn't eaten for weeks. They were happy to let us have the water in the crackers with no criticism, but I felt pretty dumb about the whole thing.

Don't get me wrong this awkward feeling didn't stop us from eating our crackers and water during the service as it does take the edge off an empty stomach.

I guess I figured even if you mess up just plow right through it like it's the normal thing to do.

Well, that was our Sunday, and tomorrow it was time to move on towards Key Largo.

954-357-8868

GPS: 26.1277, -80.3598

Markham Park Campground 21 22 23 County Park 16001 W. State Rd. 84 Sunrise, FL 33323