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February 20 through February 26, 2004
Friday February 20:
It is 45 degrees under the RV at 4:30 when I arose. The furnace ran infrequently but regularly after midnight. We prepared to move before noon, dumping and filling water. The run to Big Bass Lake campground was less than 16 miles. We heard it was not as nice as Clearwater Lake, so were not prepared to find it full. However, there was a small "Full" sign on the bulletin board, and all sites appeared full when we drove through. We stopped at the host's RV on the way out, and asked if he knew of any open sites. He offered to put us in overflow, and I accepted. The site was off to the side of the dump road, but was fine for us. It would cost less to stay ($3) than to drive back to Clearwater lake, then we would have to pay more too.
The host lady helped us situate the RV. We pulled brush away to get as far off the road as we could, to leave turning room for dumping RVs. Claire practiced some TaeKwonDo outside in this very private spot, then we walked a trail around the lake, which turned out to be more brown grassland than water.
The drought of the past few years has not been overcome here! One person said they were glad the lake was coming up, but they would be very happy for more rain; it sure does have a way to go here, fer sure! There were lots of tiny fish fry in the shallows, but it seemed like a really big bass would be scraping bottom with its dorsal fins out of water.... :-) There were lots of vehicle signs here, both ATV and street 4 wheel drive types; the sand was worked loose enough from the tires that it made walking difficult. There were signs that horses used the trail also. :-) The distance around the lake was about 1.6 miles using the trail around the original lake boundary on the GPS map. Shortcut trails across the dry parts of the lake were being used by vehicles. There were lots of discarded beer bottles in places here; this looked like it might be a hangout for underage kids. There was access to the trails from the road without passing the campground entrance. We returned to the RV to relax, do more TaeKwonDo, and work the web page. Dinner was spaghetti using left over eggplant sauce which had been frozen, with added canned sauce. TV news, then bed for me; Claire studied the TaeKwonDo referee rules and watched more TV before bed.
Saturday February 21:
Arose at 4:15. It was warm last night, no furnace needed, heavy quilt too much. 56 degrees under RV at 7:50 AM. The cellphone showed yellow flash, QNC would connect but not work, Access 4 Free worked, and we transacted all necessary net business in 2 hours 49 minutes on line. Today we move to St Cloud. First we shower, I spend some time preparing the webpage, then just after noon we move out. Driving gets busy as we approach Orlando, but Claire snaps this picture of the Saturn Blimp that operates out of a base in the City.
We had missed that opportunity before as the windy conditions seemed to keep the blimps on the ground. I had seen it in the distance at night, lighted up brightly while tied to its ground tower when walking with Randy during our previous visit to Orlando. We find the Kissimmee Sam's Club again (I'm disappointed that we do not remember exactly where along Rt 192 it is, and refer to the GPS track for our prior jog into their parking lot, but this area is one huge blur of businesses along Rt 192) and buy what we need there. On the way out I ask a customer service manager if we might park the RV overnight in the parking lot... "only if I'm invited to your party" ... OK by us!! She assures me Sam's owns the land and no police will bother us. I guess I will always wonder at the selective enforcement of no overnight parking ordnances...... We decide our best bet is to get to St Cloud to be close in the morning. After finding the place we must go, and finding on street parking is available on the narrow street, with no time limits on Sunday, we return to the St Cloud Walmart for the night. The gas is actually now cheaper here than at Sam's in Kissimmee .... Dinner is kidney beans with turkey and carrots. Very nice!! We ate a bit more of them than planned, but we'll figure out something easy for tomorrow.... This place is quiet and we rest well.
Sunday February 22:
This is Claire's day at TaeKwonDo; we drive there early, and find a nice spot on the lake where I will move the RV after she gets settled; On street parking is available across from the TKD studio, but the street is narrow and sun is hot. Settling takes a long time, as the instructor lady is from out of town, and gets lost. {Perhaps I should sell her our GPS at a profit?? :-)) } I finally do move down along the lake and spend time with the web page. Claire walks the mile to the lakefront after the clinic is finished, and we determine the family radios start working well about 0.43 miles away...that is close to their advertised 0.5 mile range. They were too scratchy to understand further away. We spent the rest of the afternoon on the lakefront, then returned to the St Cloud Walmart to shop. Claire spotted a "No Overnight Parking" sign near where we had parked last night, so after dinner we fueled and moved to a place with RVs near the highway. I am up to within a few minutes of midnight uploading the webpage, but it finally was successful on all three sites, and the e-mail went out. Two weeks of uploading takes a long time on a cellphone! This place is close to the highway, with traffic noise, but I am tired enough to sleep anyway.
Monday February 23:
I arose at 7; midnight is too late to bed for early rising. Temperature under the RV is 62. Today we plan laundry, a stop at Camping World for roof repair stuff, and then will head for Flying J in San Antonio for dump and water before heading on up the gulf coast. Purry insists on being center of attention as usual, but Claire deals with it. :-)
Laundry goes well, but there are pan handlers working the area; a police car appears, and they disappear. Camping World is busy, but we buy rubber roof sealant, a small kit to repair a rip in the rubber roof if we should be even MORE unlucky (or stupid) than we were last week, a water filter (in case we find more bad water) and two fittings for our spare sewer hose, so it can just be snapped in as a 10 foot extension to our normal sewer hose on those rare occasions when we need it. I spend the time to caulk our damaged horn bracket in Camping World's lot, as heavy rain is predicted tomorrow. A camping world customer asks if I am going to jump as I start up the ladder to the roof.... well, not unless I cannot fix it! :-) We head out I-4 to Lakeland, passing the Air Museum advertising a Tuskeegee Airman's P-51 Mustang on display, then north on US 98. The drive gets more rural, and we pass groves of citrus trees, most already picked. A HUGE open top trailer loaded with oranges pulls in front of us....but the camera is out of reach. We arrive at the Flying J... to another crowd, this time at the fuel pumps ! We pull in to the last available RV parking space, deciding to fuel in the morning. Dinner is pork and cabbage; it is delicious, and we eat it all! After doing dishes, I find my pillow. Sleep came very fast tonight.
Tuesday February 24:
Arose 4:45, temperature was 69 under the RV. It was warm all night, no flannel PJs in THIS weather. Since we ran off the installed GPS maps yesterday, I upgraded our Etrex Legend GPS software to version 3.5 (I had held off doing this until we were no longer needing the tracks from before the holiday break; I feared they might be erased) and installed maps taking us along the Gulf coast past New Orleans. Well after first light and Claire was awake, a truck seemed to bump us in our parking slot; we both rushed out as he started backing away. He insisted he did not touch us, and although we were sure he had moved us slightly, we could find no trace of the contact point. We returned to the RV, and in a few minutes I decided to go out and recheck to be SURE I could find no damage; as I walked back to the RV door, a long haired black cat poked out from behind the front tire; PURRY! He had escaped unnoticed during the excitement, and had been outside for a few minutes unleashed and unmissed! I hurriedly captured him and returned him to the RV. This is no safe place for any cat, with the hectic driving activity in the Flying J lot. After showers, and dumping, we decided to also fuel, since the water fill hose reel on the dump station was unbearably slow, and the fuel island was open. The faucet on the fuel island had normal flow, and made it worth dragging our hose out. Finally we drove out just as rain started under very dark looking skies, headed for Shell Mound County Park north of Cedar Key, reported online as having $5/nite RV parking WITH electric and water. This place was hard to find from the sketchy directions on line, but Street Atlas had shell mound listed as a point of interest at N29d 12.412', W083d 04.038' on County Road 326. As Claire drove, she noticed the passenger mirror seemed to be loose in it's mount again; it's not holding it's adjustment, but it's raining too hard to fix it now. Then a truck passing us southbound on US 98 threw something that put a big 1.5" circular ding in the upper part of the driver's windshield. We checked at a glass place said to be named Crystal River Glass, in Crystal River on the north side of Rt 44, 2 miles east of US98; they said the ding was too big to repair, but as it was circular it would not run further. We arrived at Shell Mound park, finding signs as we neared Cedar Key. It was still raining heavily, and we found RVs cost $15 a night, with lesser cost for tents and trailers. This place might have been pretty in good weather, as it looked out over the water, but was not appealing now, especially at that price. It seemed like a good place to come with a small boat in nice weather. We examined options, found a Super Walmart in Chiefland about 40 miles north, and decided to try there. As we drove north along the county road, water was accumulating alarmingly in the ditches along the road.
We had heard flood warnings were out for the area, and the whole area was low, with water accumulating in many of the cleared pastures. I watched carefully for the roadside grass to cover up as I drove, but it never happened; hitting standing water in the road at 60 mph could surely ruin our day! There are no paved shoulders on most Florida country roads, and the grass on the side of this raised roadway looked pretty soggy and soft now, and sloped sharply down to the water filled ditches too. We must keep all 6 wheels on the pavement now! We found the Walmart where expected, and lots of RVs were in the lot. After some discussion we picked a spot nearer the store, but that would not interfere with the trucks and RVs towing cars needing to park lengthwise. There was plenty of room in this lot tonight anyway; it is not a pleasant evening to be out! As we stopped, Claire mentioned she had been hit by a drip of water where she sat in the passenger seat. I looked, and found water dripping from the passenger corner of the overhead cabinet; I should have pulled the old silicone seal out of that roof corner spot completely, and recaulked it with the special rubber roof sealant I bought; silicone does not stick to EDPM rubber roofs. Now we must wait for the rain to stop...several days? I must get up there to tighten the mirror before we move on too; it changes orientation in the wind as we drive. I guess this time we will use thread sealant; this has come loose too often!! We buy steak at Walmart for dinner. The home made Tabouli salad is good, the Walmart frozen mixed vegetables with okra are good, but the steak is a big disappointment. Claire looks and finds sodium phosphate and water has been added to it, as well as natural flavor. I guess we must buy our meat elsewhere, even if it is less convenient. No sense buying what we do not like; that is never a bargain at any price. It rains heavily through the evening, but we find PBS news programs on TV here from Gainesville that we had not found recently. Many PBS stations in Florida seem to be college sponsored stations. I found bed welcome, but kept waking up, probably due to the noise of heavy rain on the roof.
Wednesday February 25:
It rained hard most of night, but was a warm, 61 degrees at 8:20 AM. I slept 'til 7:45, as the rain finally tapered off toward dawn. The TV weather says more rain to come, but gives hope for a bit of sunshine between storms. I decided to go on the roof to fix the mirror, and possibly attempt to seal the leak. It was nearly dry, so I pulled the bad silicone sealant, cleaned and dried the exposed sections with 99% isopropyl alcohol, and sealed with pro-seal rubber roof sealant, extending the new sealant beyond the area covered by the silicone, as the new sealant will not stick where old silicone seal has been removed. Some old sealant pulled away from black areas under the roof too, and I used white roof sealant there until black can be obtained. Better dry than pretty!! I sealed mirror screw with anaerobic thread sealant. I thought I had used this before, but there was no recognizable residue.... more dead brain cells I guess?? :-) Hopefully now it will not continue coming loose as it has in the past. We decide to move to Appalachicola National Forest today (185 miles, 4.4 hour drive), unless a shorter stopping point is found. We did find an unlisted Super Walmart in Perry, but it was still under construction at N30d 06.126', W083d 34.916' on Rt 221 1/4 mile north of US 98. We stopped for lunch on the newly marked parking lot, but decided Walmart security was not going to be there yet, as construction was still very much ongoing. We continued, passing through Sopchoppy which had some boondock places listed; we did not think they would be very secure either, as the town had many buildings in severe disrepair. We continued along Rt 98, within 100 feet of the gulf in many places. Some homes were built right on the shoreline.
Of these some were on high stilts, towering over those traditional homes built on the ground. I do wonder what would happen here if a major hurricane hit. I would not want to be here then, FER SURE!! It was spectacular to look at now though, as the wind was blowing up about 20 knots off the gulf, kicking the surf up. There were commercial campgrounds right on the beach, with RVs in them, but I do not understand folks subjecting their motorhome to such salt spray; all the systems, vehicular, electrical, and refrigerator are subject to hard to repair corrosion damage from the salt. We continued to Rt 65, where the directions from Street atlas got more questionable as the road headed to back country.
Most roads off of the numbered highways are dirt, and Street Atlas thinks they have names....but the names are not posted on many of them. The GPS map had a likely looking route to Wright Lake, so we chose to follow it. It was a dirt road confirmed by almost hidden signs from the highway, and the GPS said Wright lake was under 2 miles away. We finally reached this sparsely populated but nicely appointed campground on the small lake that costs $4 a night with our golden age passport.
Fellow campers mentioned it even has hot showers in the central building. Claire found they cost $3, and the shower room has an open skylight; not too alluring in this raw weather. I do suppose the shower takes on more significance if you do not have a nice steamy shower in your RV, but that is where WE will shower. :-) Availability of a dump station and water is higher on our priorities list, and of course they are here too. Purry insists on his walk, even before the RV is parked; we insist he wait until wheels stop rolling. As soon as he gets out, he seeks green grass. The grass here is mostly brown. The trees are bare of leaves. No question we are back in a temperate climate, if a mild one. The weather is noticeably cool, and somewhat raw outside; I walk the fee to the pay station, and look over the lake, and return vowing to put my shorts away until it warms up a bit. Claire prepares macaroni & cheese with a nice salad for dinner. We are almost exactly on the border between central and eastern time zones, with some of our TV stations from each zone. Time has little significance to us here, other than when shows come on.....and when campground quiet hours start. We must fish around the channels each half hour to make sure we do not miss the news; sure enough, it comes on an hour earlier than it has elsewhere in FL. After dishes, it is time for my pillow. Claire has returned the heavy quilt to the bed, and it is welcome! :-)
Thursday February 26:
It rained sporadically during the night, and was cool and breezy. It is 48 degrees under the RV at 5:45. The furnace came on toward morning a few times, and I enjoy the warmth of my fleece sweat pants over my jeans while working on the computer. This close to the edge of the time zone, morning light will come late; we have not yet changed our clocks to central time We plan at least another day here to give the wet weather system time to clear out; this is a pleasant place for some relaxation after several heavy driving days. We showered in the morning, as it seemed a bit cool and raw for our planned walk. In the afternoon we walked the 4 mile trail around the lake and along the nearby waterways. The bulletin board talked of seven different habitats along the trail, but I'm not sure we could differentiate all of them. :-) The walk was pleasant even on this gray overcast day. The habitat varies a lot. We very much enjoy this stream front with cypress trees growing in the brown tannin dyed water.
These pine woods with scrub palmetto under growth on higher ground have obviously been planted close together in neat rows.
The trees look like they are spindly and driven to race each other for sunlight, but I imagine the planters know how to maximize pulp wood yield per acre year. We had a REAL incentive to stay on this long "balance beam" bridge crossing the creek.
Who REALLY knows for sure what lurks beneath the dark water just a foot slip away? :-)) We certainly had enough exercise by the time we returned, and found it an hour later on our clock than the GPS had said. I'm not sure if the time zone has changed (we are right on the boundary between eastern and central time at Wright lake), or the GPS has been set for central time for a while (year?), but I had relied on it's time, as I had forgotten to put my watch back on after showering. Oh well, it will not hurt us to eat an hour later than planned, will it? This evening will be colder than previous, so we are careful to run the generator to keep the battery up. The furnace is a heavy drain when it runs a lot. After news and the dishes, I turn in.
Plans: We are now in Panama City FL, at Sam's Club, having been denied entry to Florida's St Joseph State Park by...PURRY! Pets are not allowed there, even if he did not go outside. Oh well, the drive along the peninsula was nice...but that is next week's story. We are working west along the Gulf, with no rush unless the weather turns cold. We will work back along the Mississippi coast and into Louisiana. We plan to spend some time in New Orleans to see what the city is like in a more normal time than Mardi Gras. Then on into Texas; we skipped Galveston last trip, so will make that right, and we do want to be sure to tour the King Ranch this trip. We missed that tour on a cold day two years ago, and will rectify that error this time too. We're going with the flow this time...nothing pressing us but the possibility of cool weather, and that is becoming less likely with each passing day; it's almost March. :-)