Power-loading the boat, periodontal fun, “The Queen’

(posted from home)

(this post covers 23-26 April)

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Thursday, 26 April-

Labashi and I went to York and to Lancaster County today, another colder and rain-threatening day. She’s still planning her living/dining room upgrade and we needed to check out some technical details on lights she wants to order. While out and about she also did some shopping at antique shops in Columbia and near Elizabethtown.
That evening we watched ‘Survivor’ and ‘Survivorman’. I enjoy watching Les Stroud on his adventures, stranded somewhere with his cameras. I think it’s more authentic and less contrived than ‘Man vs. Wild’.

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Wednesday, 25 April-

My project for this rain-threatening day was to shop for replacement downspout and accessories for the back of the house. Last Spring I re-hung the rain gutter to get rid of a low spot and standing water but it always has had an overflow problem in a hard rain. So I’m going to change the 2 x 3 downspout to a 3 x 4 downspout to see if that will resolve the overflow problem and resulting muddying of the siding.
That evening we watched “The Queen” with Helen Mirren. She was fantastic and the story artfully told. Recommended!

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Tuesday, 24 April-

Ah, another fun day at the periodontal office. I had two procedures done today. First, the troubles with my implant which failed last Fall appear to be behind me. My periodontist tells me the new bone material in my jaw looks very white and good and he went ahead and drilled the bone, then screwed in the titanium dental implant--- just like placing a concrete anchor. On the x-ray it looks like a fat little screw placed well down into my jawbone. This will anchor my new tooth (cap).
My second dental procedure today was a ‘crown lengthening’. A few weeks before my Florida trip I broke off a tooth and the broken part extended below the gum line. My dentist put on a temporary cap for my trip but now it’s time for the more-permanent fix. The periodontist had to remove gum material to prepare the tooth for capping. It’s not yet clear whether the tooth can be saved. I guess I’ll learn that next week when I return for follow-up.
The other thing I had going today was a visit to the car dealer for a recall on the fuel-pump relay on Labashi’s car. We received a letter last week warning us of the recall and making us aware the relay could fail and leave us stranded. The appointment only took a half-hour or so.

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Monday, 23 April-

It’s another beautiful, 80-degree day today but I was way behind on the blog and spent the morning catching up. That afternoon I trailed the fishing boat to a Fish Commission launch ramp on the Susquehanna to work some more on launching and loading single-handed. After the last few days at Codorus State Park I’m comfortable with the process when I have a small floating dock which allows me to walk the boat onto the trailer using the docking lines. But I wasn’t sure the docks at Goldsboro are configured the same.
As it turned out, I couldn’t use the docks at all. Recent rains have raised the river level so high that the walkways connecting the floating docks to the riverbank are all under several feet of water. It’s very odd to see the nice recently-refurbished floating docks out there ready to be used but no way to get to them.
But it occurred to me that this is a perfect day to practice launching and loading single-handed without a dock. I could use the ramp as much as I wanted and wouldn’t have to worry about blocking someone else’s access.
I first backed down the ramp as far as I could go leaving just enough space for me to step up on Mocha Joe’s rear bumper to push the boat off its trailer. But it was a no-go. I needed to back up another foot or two to float the stern of the boat enough to make it light enough to push off. I remembered I still had my knee-high boots in the van from the Codorus trip; I had taken them along in case the floating docks there were still in winter storage. I put the boots on and backed the trailer a few more feet into the water…just enough to float the stern. I waded to the tongue and climbed aboard and started the engine. I was going to step back out onto the trailer tongue but then thought I’d just try backing off using the engine. After checking prop clearance, I gave the throttle a burst and the boat backed off rather easily. Ta-da!
Since the van wasn’t blocking anyone’s access to the ramp I decided to take advantage and try another exercise—power loading, i.e., driving the boat up onto the trailer using the engine. I had a fairly strong river current coming from my starboard side and a puffy, ten mile-per-hour wind from the port and a bit forward of amidships. I found that wind trumps current on this ultra-low-draft boat. I had to point the boat at the port-side guide-on in order to be positioned in the center of the trailer by the time I got to it. I tried about a dozen iterations, each time pulling well out into the river and approaching from a different angle. I completely failed in two of the load attempts, getting the boat so crossed-up I had to abort and slam it into reverse to avoid damaging the boat or trailer. But otherwise I learned if I just get onto the trailer anywhere near straight—even well off-center— the load is good. If I missed the bow keel-roller I can still step out onto the trailer tongue, push the boat back a bit, and then lift it onto the keel-roller and pull it into place. All in all this is a great confidence-builder for Florida next winter since the lakes down there have no docks—all you get is a ramp leading into the water. But I need a lot more experience in different conditions. It’s going to be real interesting to power-load with any wind above ten knots, particularly one coming from astern of amidships. Of course if it gets too bad I can just jump off and wade the boat onto the trailer. But what fun is that?
That evening I mowed the lawn for the first time this year. It’s still a little early to mow given that the dandelions are mostly too low yet but Labashi wants to put down some corn gluten meal tomorrow in time for the rains due later this week.

“The Pursuit of Happyness”, ’55 Alive’ course, boating gear installations, boating at Lake Marburg (posted from home)

(this post covers 15-22 April)

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Sunday, 22 April

Another perfect boating day! Last night I was so excited about my fantastic time at Lake Marburg that I called my brother and left the message: “OK, so what is your lame excuse for not going boating with me tomorrow?” (he had to work yesterday). He called back a few minutes later and said he had more work to do but could join me at 16:00. I took the Concours up to Bass Pro and bought a battery box for the trolling battery and installed it and a holder for the warning horn (a horn-in-a-can). We had a great evening on the lake, racking up break-in Hours Five and Six and getting in about an hour of late-day fishing.

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Saturday, 21 April-

Today I took the boat back to Codorus State Park and its beautiful Lake Marburg for some more break-in time. I didn’t leave the house until after lunch and I toured most of the lakeshore, adding two hours of run-time to the break-in clock. The boat has an odd rooster-tail coming off the upper cavitation plate at speed (21 mph); I’ll have to work on that. But what an evening! It was spectacular out there. As I cruised around today I saw lots of turtles, a coyote or grey fox (I think the former because of its size and stealth), several ospreys, a BIG carp on the surface with a swollen belly, and many cormorants and Canada geese. The cormorants went to roost at the southern-most island and the Canada geese were taking over the little island near the main launch as I left.
That evening we watched ‘The Departed’, a Martin Scorsese film with Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Martin Sheen. Overall we liked it a lot for the acting (particularly DiCaprio) but the plot line had too much coincidence to be taken seriously.

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Friday, 20 April-

Today was boating day! The weather has broken and it’s a beautiful day with a string of just-like-its coming behind. The object today was to work on launching and retrieving and to start the outboard for the first time and start the break-in process. The break-in goes like this: for the first 15 minutes, run the engine no faster than trolling speed. For the next 45 minutes, vary the throttle but don’t advance it more than one-third of its range. For the second hour, vary the throttle up to two-thirds of its range. For hours Three to Ten, limit the throttle to two-thirds of its range but occasionally run it up to max (but for no longer than 5 minutes at a time). After ten hours, change the oil. Today I completed the first two hours and worked out a good single-handed launching and retrieval process. Thank goodness for the walking planks.
I then drove over to Motosports (the dealer where I bought the boat) and bought a spare prop, an oil filter, and the Honda type SM oil needed for the first oil change.

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Thursday, 19 April-

The trolling motor arrived today so I installed it and I installed the walking-planks and fit the docking lines. That evening we finished the ’55 Alive course’ at Dover High and then watched another episode of ‘The Shield’ and decided it’s just too profane and exploitive to continue. We’re pretty open-minded but this show is just too much. Yuck.

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Wednesday, 18 April –

I spent today installing boat gear. The guide-ons were easy enough to install but had six-inch bolts when three-and-a-half would have been plenty. The SawZall took care of that. I also installed docking-line cleats and a fishing-rod rack.
That evening we watched a few episodes of the television series ‘The Shield’. We’re not too sure about this one. We want to give it a chance but it’s badly written, badly shot (lots of extra shaky camera moves to give it “reality”) and very violent and disrespectful of police. If you live like this, you believe all police are corrupt and your only hope is to get one of the more powerful corrupt ones on your side.

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Tuesday, 17 April -

I spent today at Cabela’s in search of boating gear. Because I’ll be single-handing it quite a bit I bought a set of ‘guide-on’s to make it a little easier to load and unload the boat onto/from its trailer by myself, particularly on windy days. Guide-ons are basically a set of carpet-covered two-by-fours mounted on spring-steel brackets parallel to and above the fenders. They keep the back of the boat from floating sideways off the trailer during the launch and retrieval processes and make it possible to ‘drive’ the boat onto the trailer at bare launch ramps (i.e., those without a dock).
I also bought a trolling motor, this one a stern-mount 55-pound-thrust model. We decided to keep it simple and save a lot of money by avoiding the foot-pedal controls used on most bow-mount models. This will work fine and will be a better solution on the electric-motor-only lakes.
I also bought some walking-planks for the trailer tongue. These provide a nice, wide platform on the trailer tongue and frame for those times when I can get the boat partially loaded but need to use the winch to pull it into place. I’ll be able to climb off the bow and walk to the winch, hook to the boat and then crank it into place, all without having to step off the tongue into the water below (at least that’s the plan!).
That evening we attended the first of two sessions of the AARP ’55 Alive’ driver-training course. Now that we’re both over 55 this program not only updates us on driving laws but also gives us a 5% discount on our car insurance for three years. The class was a trip. Our instructor seems like a nice guy but is getting forgetful and also tends to wander. Each of the two sessions is four hours long and it wasn’t until two hours into today’s session that he said, “Oh my, I forgot to tell you that my policy on breaks is you take one whenever you need to”. Here’s another example—he started giving us a phone number which is 800-FREE-411 and said “It’s 800FR3733411” That caused a five minute discussion on what the number is. It turns out he was translating the FREE to its corresponding phone-pad digits (some of them, anyway). Ah, the things we have to look forward to as we age!

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Monday, 16 April-

I spent today working on a plan for next winter’s Florida trip. Labashi has decided she had a wonderful time the last two Florida trips but has ‘been-there, done-that’. She may fly down to join me for a week or two of the two-month trip but otherwise I’ll be on my own. I still have many things I want to do in the outdoors paradise that is the Florida backcountry. That evening we watched “Pursuit of Happyness” with Will Smith. The storyline is a bit sappy but Will does a fine job of acting in this one and is well worth the price of the rental.

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Sunday, 15 April –

The weather continues to be cold, the highs some 15 degrees below normal as it has been since the third of April. But there’s hope...later this week the weather is to be much nicer. I mention the weather because I’m going a little crazy and have been spending WAY too much time on the computer for the last couple of weeks. I spent the morning blogging and the afternoon surfing the web for info about places to visit on upcoming trips.

From our recent Florida trip. This is a 'view in the slough' (pronounced 'sloo'). It was taken near our campground in the Okaloacoochee Slough State Forest. This area is north of the Everglades (near Frostproof, FL) and is important because it feeds water to the 'Glades.

(click on the picture for a larger image)

‘The Good Shepherd’, the amazing Stumpknocker, boating prep , ‘Babel’ (posted from home)

(this post covers 8-14 April, 2007)

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Saturday, 14 April—

I spent most of the morning on the web and the afternoon working on the boat. I also installed a ‘transom-saver’ to support the weight of the cantilevered motor in its towing position on the trailer.
That evening we watched ‘Babel’ with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. RottenTomatoes gives it a 68 per cent but it gets quite mixed reviews, from ‘award-worthy’ to ‘it’s nothing but noise’. We liked it but felt a little cheated by the DVD in that it had no extra features to introduce us to the director.

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Friday, 13 April-

The weather report for today said it’s supposed to be 52, partly sunny, and a light wind but it’s overcast, cold, and much windier than predicted. I left the house with the boat in tow at 0900 planning to shop a little at Bass Pro while the wind died down, then go down to Codorus Lake to start the break-in procedure. But the wind never died down so I gave up on taking the boat out. But I did spend the time well. I drove to a PA Fish Commission launch ramp area on the Susquehanna and practiced backing the trailer. This launching area has four different ramps, each with its own challenges. I also spent a half-hour or so making circles in the parking lot both in forward and reverse. I marked the trailer with bright-color tape so I can monitor how tight my turns are and avoid damage to the van or trailer. I relocated the trailer jack because it limited my left-side turns. The most challenging part of the backing exercise was attempting to closely follow the outline of a D-shaped parking lot ‘island’ in reverse….without pulling forward to make corrections. I’ve not made that one the whole way yet.

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Thursday, 12 April –

Today I had some little chores to handle. I charged up the boat battery, did the final mailings on taxes, set up appointments for the Miata and for Labashi’s car, and researched and ordered some boat accessories and spares. I’m planning to take the boat along to Florida next winter and want to get it rigged for the long-haul and to secure it. I don’t relish the idea of trailing it all over Florida but can’t wait to get it out on those beautiful lakes, bays, and wilderness waterways.

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Wednesday, 11 April-

It was supposed to rain later today so I thought it a good day to drive to my brother’s house to pick up our shared fishing boat. When the weather breaks I’ll run it through the engine break-in procedure and do the first oil change. I timed my arrival to his arrival home from work and it took only a few minutes to hook up, check the lights, and load the boating accessories in the van. We then went out for wings at a local restaurant and had a chance to chat before I pointed Mocha Joe toward home.

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Tuesday, 10 April –

It was a little nicer out today so I spent most of the day working on Mocha Joe. I installed the U-Haul tail-light converter and plug I bought last week. This took a little longer than it should have because I had decided the plug should hang outside the van but that meant the converter box would also have to hang outside (or I’d have to make an extra-large hole through the van underbody somewhere). Once I realized it would actually work better (and stay cleaner) if I mounted everything inside and would just put the flat-wired plug out under the rear door when I need it, things went much more smoothly. This is a slick setup. The converter does its job well of matching the three-wire turn/tail/stop lights of the van to the trailer’s two-wire lights. The plug has troubleshooting lights built in and can handle either a standard flat plug or specialized U-haul connectors.
I also thoroughly cleaned away the extra-fine Florida dust which had seeped in past the door seals and coated the door jambs, folding bikes and everything stored in the under-bed storage area. I’m going to have to develop a curtain or shield stop this dust infiltration in the future; it’s a pain to clean out.
I also took Mocha Joe’s spare tire up to the local mechanic for service. After bouncing around on some of the rougher pot-holed dirt roads in Florida I had thought to check the spare and found it very low. I probably could have used the hand pump I carry for the bikes to put enough air in the spare to get me out of a situation but I’d rather not find the spare doesn’t hold air just when I needed it most.

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Monday, 9 April –

Today I spent a lot of my web-time googling for this summer’s trip. We’ll be visiting Oscoda, Michigan for a week and then departing from there in Mocha Joe. I’ve long wanted to do the north shore of Lake Superior and that will lead us within easy driving distance of northeastern Minnesota. I’ve read about this area since I was a teenager and have long wanted to see Voyageurs National Park, the Superior-Quetico Wilderness, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, and Ely, Minnesota. I’m hoping to get the old aluminum canoe rigged for my little Honda 2-horsepower dinghy motor (not to mention getting the motor running again) for this trip.
That evening I spent quite a lot of time on TrailJournals.com reading the journal of an extraordinary guy we met last year. His name is Mark Suitor and his trail-name is ‘Stumpknocker’. Mark is an amazing hiker and has completed the Appalachian Trail (four times!), the Florida Trail, and the John Muir Trail. But this year he’s taking on a new challenge. He is going to bicycle across America east-to-west (Virginia to Oregon), turn right and pedal to Washington state, then pedal across America west-to-east to Maine, from where he will walk the AT once more, this time southbound. If you’d like to follow the journey, go to trailjournals.com, search for ‘stumpknocker’, click on Stumpknocker 2007 and start reading. Use the ‘First Previous Next Last’ page controls at the top or bottom of the page to proceed.

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Sunday, 8 April –

I spent the morning blogging and on the web on this cold day. That evening we watched ‘The Good Shepherd’ with Matt Damon. I see RottenTomatoes.com gave it a 56% on the critics tomatometer and I’d say that’s about right. One New York critic panned it, saying “If the lives of CIA spies are this dreary, they may as well keep their secrets to themselves.” That’s a little harsh. I would tend to agree with this one: “Director Robert De Niro’s no-frills approach to spying is probably a more realistic one, but not always as interesting.”

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‘Stranger Than Fiction’, mailbox fun, Freedom Armory visit (posted from home)

(this post covers 2 – 7 April)
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Saturday, 7 April –

The cold weather continues and in fact today is the coldest day in this long stretch of below-normal days. We should’ve stayed down South for another two weeks! I spent the morning going through and filing the maps and planning brochures from our Florida trip and then cleaning and re-organizing the shooting gear. I then spent a couple of hours doing some preliminary planning for a family reunion trip to Michigan this summer. I began making a map of state forest campgrounds in Michigan in the new ‘My Maps’ feature on Google. But after plotting a few I retrieved my Michigan Gazetteer to help with the process and had a nice surprise—they’re already on the Gazetteer maps! That will help keep costs down this summer. I see Michigan, like Georgia, has gone completely bonkers and is now charging $23-25 per site in their state park campgrounds and some of them also charge a vehicle entrance fee while the state forest campsites are $10 per night.
That evening we watched ‘Friday Night Lights’ on F/X network.

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Friday, 6 April –

I spent the morning on the web today and then went shooting at Freedom Armory, a newer gun shop and shooting-range facility off the Glen Rock exit of I-83, not far from the Maryland border. I had shopped there several months ago and had some less-than-great customer service experiences but nevertheless wanted to try the range. And, as expected, it was expensive. But I was impressed by their setup. I was first given (and told to thoroughly read before we could proceed further) a four-page brochure which provided the safety and operational information about the range. It very clearly laid down a very safety-conscious approach to shooting. The ‘range officer’ is clearly identified (by a red cap) and is in charge of every aspect of your use of the range, from assigning you a lane to monitoring your use, to resolving any problems which could occur. Each shooter must have, and must wear, a photo-ID badge specifically issued by the facility and must surrender a driver’s license to be held until completion of the range session. There are 12 range ‘lanes’ (for pistols that is; there’s a separate rifle range in the basement), each with barriers between you and the next shooter and each with an electro-mechanical target hanger /retriever. Exhaust fans pull smoke downrange and away and there are fans behind and blowing over you to immediately carry the smoke away from you and the other shooters as you fire.
So what does something like that cost? Well, I had to pay $18 for the registration process, i.e., to go through the paperwork and have my fancy (and admittedly very nice) photo-ID produced. Then, shooting time is charged at $11 per HALF-hour. And your time is rounded up to the next half-hour. And if you pay by credit card, they tack on 3% (because that’s what the credit card companies charge them). So today’s one-hour shooting session cost me over $42 (plus ammo). That’s expensive but I’m also happy I went. I won’t routinely need more than a half-hour at a time so I would be paying ‘only’ the $11 per session. That’s a little more palatable. I can now mix in occasional proficiency sessions at the fancy range with longer trouble-shooting sessions at freebie ranges and have a place to shoot in lousy weather.
Back home that evening we watched ‘Papillon’ and “The Long Kiss Goodnight”, the former with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman, the latter with Geena Davis (as an assassin with amnesia!).

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Thursday, 5 April –

This morning I took Cherry Larry into York to look for a trailer-lights connector and possibly a receiver hitch for Mocha Joe. I have a bumper-hitch on him and can use that to tow the fishing boat but I’d like to eventually add a receiver so I can haul the KLR on a motorcycle-hauler platform. Of course good ol’ Mocha Joe happens to need a special converter to make the lights work correctly. Ford put separate turn signals on the 92-94 Econolines and the boxes are fairly expensive, particularly if they are integrated into what’s called a ‘T-one’ connector which allows them to just be plugged in (rather than spliced in) to OEM wiring. Those are between $42 and $58, depending on brand. Anyway I searched at Wal-Mart, a local trailer dealer, Tractor Supply Center, Pep-Boys, and Advance Auto before finally settling on a $17 splice-in model at U-Haul. But I had an experience at U-Haul. I took the converter to the counter and the tech told me I not only didn’t need that one, it would not work with my lights. The tech said he has installed a lot of trailer-plugs on Econoline 150’s and all I needed was a basic plug, not a converter. I bought the basic plug and took it along in to a nearby restaurant on my lunch stop. But as I read the installation instructions and started thinking about it I realized the tech had to be wrong. If I hooked it up according to the instructions, the turn signals wouldn’t blink if I had the brake on. So I went back to U-Haul and told the tech I didn’t think it would work. He continued to insist it would work fine but finally called over a senior technician to convince me. When I insisted that I have separate turn signals, they finally decided my lights must have been changed by the aftermarket vendor when the high-top was installed and if that was the case, then I did indeed need the converter. As I drove out of the parking lot I saw several E-150’s in the lot and sure enough, they DIDN’T have separate turn signals. I finally realized what I had learned in my internet surfing and my search for T-one connectors. Ford had switched to separate turn signals on the ’92 to ’94 models but then had switched back in ’95 and up. That explains why the T-ones for the other years are a lot cheaper; they don’t have a converter.
We spent the evening on the web.

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Wednesday, 4 April –

The weather’s still relatively cold so I’m hanging around the house and spending my time on the ‘net and reading today. I have a lot of catching up to do on magazines and newsletters which came in while we were away. I’ve been trying to find a plug-in-type connector to put a trailer-lights plug on Mocha Joe and spent an inordinate amount of time trying to find something. Looks like I’ll have to take a tour tomorrow to find something. We didn’t have a movie for the evening and spent our time on the web.

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Tuesday, 3 April –

This morning I installed the new mailbox and post. The new post is a teeny-bit smaller than the old one so I couldn’t just replace the damaged parts on the old one. I pulled out the in-ground section of the old post without too much difficulty but things went downhill from there. I attempted to drive the new in-ground section into the ground and it only went in about four inches and then became much harder to drive. When I eventually got frustrated and pulled out the section, the reason became clear. A stone of just the right size had lodged in it and turned the hollow tube into a solid three-by-three post. The sharp end of the post had collapsed around the stone and the box-shape of the post had collapsed on three sides. You’ve GOT to be kidding! What are the chances I’d select a spot with a stone of just the right size and position to go inside the hollow post and then jam in there tight enough to prevent the post from being driven further?
I ended up taking the damaged post section to the workbench and using a crowbar to pry the stone out, then vise-grips and hammers to pound the metal back into some semblance of its original shape. And with my new-found adrenalin from my encounter with the god-of-unbelievable-coincidences, I drove the post in with no more problem—other than the fact that it’s not exactly plumb (but close enough!).
I then tried to add the top part of the post and it wouldn’t fit! Though I had used the protective block while hammering it in, apparently the too-thin metal had also distended at the top. But fortunately I had some ‘Harley-tools’ (hammers!) to ‘adjust it’ into submission. The only downside is the top section then split for about half an inch along one corner as I tapped it into place. Nevertheless it’s on, it’s solid, and I’m done.
And Labashi thinks I don’t enjoy working in the yard. HAH!
After lunch I fired up the Concours for the first time since returning home. I rode into York to pick up a cell-phone battery for my old Tracfone. The Concours ran GREAT. It seems odd I had been away for the better part of two months in wonderful motorcycling weather and never thought of the bike. Around the time of Daytona’s Bike Week we had seen a lot of bikes and even that didn’t do it. But it sure felt nice today.
We spent the evening on the web.

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Monday, 2 April –

Today was a day to get back in the swing of things at home. I buzzed off to the Post Office early this morning to pick up our month-and-a-half’s worth of accumulated mail. While traveling we’re concerned that something important will come in via snail-mail and we’ll miss some deadline. We’ve not had that happen yet but we had a near-miss on our last trip. We came home to find a jury-duty notice for me but it turned out to have arrived just before our return and therefore was not yet a problem. This time we had nothing of concern.
I spent much of the afternoon shopping for a new mailbox and post to replace the ones someone had clobbered a few weeks ago. We’ve never learned what happened, i.e., whether the snowplow hit it or what. But in any case it wasn’t really a loss; the mailbox was peeling and starting to rust so it was time to do something about it anyway. Finding a new mailbox wasn’t a problem but it took me a long time to find a replacement post of the same design. The old one had been a no-dig model and the portion driven into the ground was still OK so I was hoping to just replace the top portion. I finally found the right style at Lowe’s but it appears to be made of lighter steel than the old one—hopefully it will fit. I was also shopping for a solution for the cooler we use in Mocha Joe. We had upgraded to a cooler with thicker insulation and have been happy with its cooling performance but disappointed with the drop-in basket. We had bought a larger basket which fit at first but soon started to sag when weighted and would fall down into the cooler. I had been looking for something to solve this problem and finally found it today. I found a plastic media-storage box at Lowe’s which is just the right size and will fix the problem.
That evening we watched “Stranger Than Fiction”, a surprising, witty, and quirky film about a guy who hears the voice of a narrator of his life in his head—and the story is getting scary. Will Ferrell plays the guy, Emma Thompson the narrator. Highly recommended!

Cedar Key, “Bubba Ho-Tep”, Shired Island, Steinhatchee, White Springs, Suwannee River, Habitat For Humanity International Center, Jimmy Carter National Historical Site, Andersonville Prison, FDR Little White House, Cherokee National Forest-- and home

(posted from home)

(this post covers the period 23 March to 1 April, 2007)


Sunday, 1 April –

Today we woke around 06:00 in Mocha Joe and yet managed to fritter away the time and not get up until almost 08:00; Sundays are SO nice! We drove into town with Maypo and had a nice long breakfast. Labashi and I retrieved the Miata from its winter storage garage and headed for home, me driving the Miata, she driving Mocha Joe. We arrived home about noon and the very first thing Labashi saw was her daffodils. She had planted 500 bulbs last November but in December we had a warm spell and had seen some of them sprout. We were concerned they may have been damaged but apparently not; they’re looking great!
We didn’t have any house problems and everything came back up quite easily—we were pretty much back to normal within two hours. We spent the afternoon calling family who may have been concerned about us in our travels and doing our email and blogging chores. I also made an emergency run to the video store. We only watched two movies the entire time we were away but it seems important to have one tonight.
That evening we watched 'Borat'. We're not fans.

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Saturday, 31 March –

We started hearing the fishermen going by at about 0600 but there were only a few and we soon fell back asleep. We were surprised to find only one pickup parked within sight since we had a very nice stretch of stream behind us; it would have been a nice day to have a Tennessee fishing license. But we had places to go.
We breakfasted and got organized and were on the road by 0830, heading downstream until a turn pointed us back up a steep and twisty dirt road to connect back to the hard road. We came out not far from Tellico Lake and by late morning we were skirting Knoxville. There we connected up with Interstate 40 which runs into Interstate 81 and it was time to put the pedal to the metal. We fired up the iPod and plugged in our earbuds and that put us into zone-out mode for crossing the 75 miles of I-81 in Tennessee, then the 324 miles of it in Virginia, then 23 miles in West Virginia and 11 in Maryland to get us to PA. We spent the evening in Chambersburg with Maypo, catching up on his adventures fishing that morning on our new boat.

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Friday, 30 March –

Today we turned northward once again, crossing from Georgia into Tennessee by mid-day. I had simply plotted our course by looking for dotted-line roads heading somewhat northerly. Dotted-line roads are scenic roads and in the past I’ve found I agree they are well worth doing. This time I had picked out a dotted-line road to pick up the Cherahala Skyway, a 40+ mile scenic route from Tellico Plains, TN into Robbinsville, NC. I don’t know where I’ve heard of it but I recognized the name. The Cherahala Skyway is in the Cherokee National Forest so we soon came to a ranger station. There I bought a detailed map of the Forest and gathered info about the campgrounds, thinking I’d come back sometime, perhaps this fall. But as we traveled along I wanted to at least sample it now so we turned off onto Forest Road 35, a dirt road (of course!) toward a cheapie campsite about three miles away. We soon started a steep, winding descent and came out to a creek and an informal campsite which seemed awfully crowded for an Friday early afternoon. We soon learned that trout season starts tomorrow. Actually, trout season has been going on for two weeks but in this area it closes on Thursdays and Fridays while crews stock the streams and then the season re-opens on Saturdays. Given the crowd at the first campsite we thought we were in for a stampede later today and tomorrow morning but as we kept going, the crowded feeling evaporated. We eventually came to ‘Jake Best campsite’, a nice little 7-site campground which had recently been refurbished and had a brand-new iron ranger (fee station). The camping fee was only $6 but the campground also had a strict no-alcohol policy. I thought those two factors might work to our advantage tonight. The rowdier fishing groups might want to press on to the free sites (which also didn’t have the no-alcohol signs).
We first walked the narrow dirt road down about a mile to the next (free) campground, all the while watching the gin-clear stream for signs of fish. We found a few likely fishing holes but didn’t see any fish and returned to the van by about 15:00. After supper we then walked a gated mountain road up to the top of the mountain, a lung-filling hike of about an hour each way, then we explored the creek behind our van and relaxed until dark and reading time. We turned off the light about 2130 and right after that a car came in and the fishermen set up a tent but we didn’t even see them; we only saw their lights as they worked. So much for a crowded campground!

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Thursday, 29 March –

This morning we first took care of registration for our late-arrival last night at the state park. The clerk attempted to charge us $22 for a tent site for the night and changed it to $20 when I objected and pointed out the $17-19 rates quoted in the AAA tourbook. She said the camping fees had gone up from $18 to $20 at the first of the year and she learned in the training session for this year’s camping season that the reason the fee is going up is the state parks are turning people away and therefore they are not charging high-enough fees. With logic like that ruling the state, I’ve stayed in my last Georgia State Park.
We then drove into Pine Mountain to check out the town but it was a little too early in the day. Given our experience at the State Park, we were in no mood to wait around and skipped the Calloway Gardens and moved on.
We then spent a delightful three hours at the FDR Little White House in Warm Springs. In Fall 2005 we had visited Campobello Island, New Brunswick where FDR had a summer home and we loved seeing the old-time classic summer ‘cottages’ there. FDR had begun traveling to Warm Springs in order to bathe in the 99-degree spring waters after he contracted polio. He made some 41 visits there and it was in this place that he died unexpectedly of a stroke on April 12, 1946 while spending the day preparing for an upcoming Jefferson-Day speech and sitting for a portrait. The undelivered speech and unfinished portrait are on display.
Later in the day we continued winding our way northward and drove to Cartersville. There we visited the Etowah Indian Mounds, the best-preserved site of the Mississippian culture. We climbed the mounds but they are merely grass-covered mounds while the accompanying museum is where the interesting stuff is —i.e., where we learned the history of the mound culture and saw the artifacts found on site by archeological digs. Perhaps most surprising are the gorgets found at the site. They are elaborate disks displaying Mayan-like etched images and are worn dangling from a neck cord.
After Etowah, we drove on into Cartersville and shared a rack of baby-back ribs at a Longbranch restaurant before retiring for the night at the local Wal-Mart.

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Wednesday, 28 March –

This morning we toured the Habitat for Humanity International Center in Americus, GA. This turned out to be the most unique site we’ve visited the entire trip. It’s a walking tour, showing a re-created South African shanty-town followed by an example of each of the housing types Habitat does around the world. The shanty-town was eerily realistic; it looked like the residents had just walked out to another part of town for the day. The houses were complete down to the appliances, dishes, furniture, and so forth. Each house demonstrated the local materials used and appeared ready to move in. Each also had a price tag, generally ranging between 3000 and 7000 US dollars. In the intro film we learned Habitat has built more than 200,000 homes and will double that by 2008--- an amazing record of achievement.
After the Habitat visit, we drove to Plains, GA, home of our 39th president, Jimmy Carter. After lunch at the Welcome Center, we visited the Plains High School building, which now houses an extraordinarily-good museum dedicated to the Carters and their lives. We then drove into Plains to the old Carter Warehouse where we each had an excellent peanut ice cream and sampled the fried peanuts. We then drove west of town to the Jimmy Carter Childhood Farm for a walking tour. I have to say I’m impressed by both Mr. and Mrs. Carter and, for that matter, the little town of Plains.
After Plains we drove northeast to Andersonville, the site of the infamous Civil War prison in 1864-1865. A relative in my paternal line died at Andersonville during the War and we hoped to learn more about him. Unfortunately only the bare bones of the facts are there, i.e., what unit he was in and the fact that he’s reported to have died there. Now I really, really need to research the genealogical information which first told me he had been there and see if I can glean more from that. We had arrived late in the day so were a bit rushed but did manage to see the very good film, to peruse the books, and to walk the north end of the grounds. It’s hard to believe that 30,000 men were held there in the broiling sun, dying at a rate of some 130 per day.
After Andersonville I decided we’d drive on through to F.D. Roosevelt State Park for the night and then see FDR’s Little White House tomorrow. That turned into a longer-than-planned drive. We enjoyed the beautiful Spring countryside, the azaleas, wisteria, irises, daffodils, and a beautiful budding trees everywhere but we didn’t get to our campsite until almost dark so we were tired out from that. We took a wind-down-for-the-day walk around the campground after dark and then slept like babes.

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Tuesday, 27 March-

Today we arose early, around 0715, and dressed for a walk on the Florida Trail. We had a quickie breakfast and were on the trail an hour later, following it south along the banks of the Suwannee. What a fantastic walk! The trail stays atop the right bank and overlooks the tannin-rich river below. The river looks as black as ink in places but it has many sand islands and there you see the tea-colored waters over the white sand. Our sandy path wound through the palmettos lining the river-bank, a park-like setting with many opportunities for picture-perfect campsites.
We walked for almost two hours and turned around a little earlier than planned when we came upon two canoes of campers on the far bank. They hadn’t seen us and we knew they believed they were far away from civilization so we didn’t want to break the spell for them. We had only planned to walk south for another ten minutes anyway so turning back early was no problem.
We returned to the van by lunch time and then had a quick shower before heading out.
We drove the afternoon away, ending up in Americus, Georgia. Labashi had noticed a Habitat For Humanity International Center on the Tourbook listing for Americus so we thought we’d check it out tomorrow, after staying at the local Wal-mart tonight.
As we drove through Americus, we noticed something odd—many of the buildings are closed or damaged. The McDonalds and Chevron gas station have their sign panels almost all blown out, some entire buildings appear to have been collapsed and a dozen or so buildings are only half-there; the top half is missing. It occurred to us both at the same time; there must have been a tornado here recently. After we reached our Wal-mart for the night (all the while hoping it hadn’t been closed because of the tornado), we saw the story in the newspaper-boxes. Each had a story about some aspect of the tornado. It had come through Americus on March 1st.
We spent the evening reading papers and then reading and blogging.

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Monday, 26 March –

After a blissfully-quiet night at the Shired Island county park we took a nice, long morning walk on the beach. The park is not really what you’d expect of a park. There’s no sign telling you it’s a park, for instance. You just travel down the hard road to the end and notice there are a couple of dumpsters at the end of a dirt road about a hundred yards before the dead-end. If you are curious enough, you drive back the dirt road and are rewarded with a magnificent sandy beach, lots of sabal palms, and some picnic pavilions. If you look closely, you notice electrical outlets and water spigots beside the picnic pavilions—gee—this must be a campground! We had the great advantage of having a county map courtesy of our buddy Joe-the-retired-fireman at Old Town Campground so we at least knew there was supposed to be some kind of campground in the area.
On our morning walk we noticed many markers (white poles) out in the water and we finally realized what they are—those are the markers of the clam farms.
We had learned how Cedar Key has a large clam aquaculture industry and this was apparently part of it. Otherwise, it seemed like we were marooned on a Pacific atoll. We had a beautiful view far out into the Gulf of Mexico, we had sandy beach, lightly-swaying palms, a spectacular sunrise, and it was all FREE. We had asked Robert and Mary-Jo (the Oregonians) whether anyone comes around to collect a camping fee and they said someone comes occasionally to clean the restrooms but nobody collects any fees. The downside of this wonderful spot is it is apparently party-central on weekends. We were lucky to have arrived on Sunday for Saturday night the place was packed with Crackers, and, worse, Crackers with airboats. They had spent most of the night Saturday roaring around just off the beach on the airboats and using lights to attract fish, then shooting the fish with a bow and arrow only to discard the fish and shoot another. Thank goodness we missed that spectacle.
After our walk we said our goodbye to Mary Jo and headed west again, this time toward Steinhatchee. We had decided we’d go see Steinhatchee and declare it the western-most point we visited on this year’s trip. Then we’d start winding our way home.
But first we had another backcountry adventure. We tried following the map Joe had given us but the sandy two-track soon split, and then split again. Before long we realized we were driving south when we should be going north. After a few mis-cues we finally took a road that looked too narrow and sandy to be the main road—but was the only one we hadn’t tried. It was of course unmarked and had No Trespassing signs on both sides of the road. But we also know the signs can be a ploy by local landowners to keep visitors off a public road bordering their property. After a mile or so, we finally did see a handmade road-sign confirming we were on the Pump Main Line road, which showed on the map as a public road. It was barely wide enough for Mocha Joe to get through and had some potholes which looked big enough to swallow him, but we pressed on anyway. Soon we came upon large equipment working. They were clear-cutting the area and at first it didn’t make sense. But after several miles of it we came to a tee intersection where we started seeing real-estate-for-sale signs. They are developing this area and it’s one heck of a development. We drove for miles seeing signs on our left saying “Rock Level Members Only”. And in the middle of nowhere—“SW 392nd St”. It reminds me of the Golden Gate development in Naples.
We eventually came out to Jena, a little crossroads town below Steinhatchee. We drove into Steinhatchee and decided it’s quite a nice little town. We stopped at the little community center park for lunch and there learned that the Steinhatchee River and the bay at its head. Deadman’s Bay, appeared on Spanish maps of the 1500’s. This makes a lot of sense when you realize there aren’t many breaks on the coastline of Florida’s Big Bend so any exploring vessels would have made note of them. We also learned the name Steinhatchee had come from the Native American words ‘esteen’ (meaning ‘man’), and ‘hatchee’ (meaning ‘river’), i.e., ‘River of Man’. But why locals chose to use ‘stein’ rather than ‘steen’ is unclear. Our friend Joe had called it ‘steenhatchee’ and we presume that’s the local pronunciation (we didn’t hear any other locals pronounce it).
After lunch we drove up along the Steinhatchee and stopped at the Steinhatchee Falls, which were only about 18” high but very pretty. It was at the Falls that Andrew Jackson had crossed on his way to seek out Native Americans in the Second Seminole War--- and it was also here that De Sesoto visited in the 1500’s.
We continued up FL51 through Live Oak and on to White Springs. There we entered Stephen Foster Folk Culture State Park on the Suwannee River. We parked Mocha Joe in a campsite and set up the bikes, then went exploring. We visited the museum, which was dedicated to Stephen Foster and his music. It was a bit jarring to have come from walking the beach and then bouncing along the sandy roads in the backcountry to the museum mansion where we saw romanticized dioramas and paintings about Foster’s most popular songs, a collection of pianos and a replica of Foster’s maloedeon, a miniaturized, portable piano.
We then visited the carillon and watched the mechanical bells-control system pound out the hour. After a short visit to the Craft Center and Gift Shop we returned to Mocha Joe for supper. Then we took another bike ride around the park and campgrounds just to enjoy the ultra-pleasant evening before going to bed.

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Sunday, 25 March –

Today we drove to the town of Suwannee for a short drive-through and then took the Dixie Main Line (a dirt road) along the Lower Suwannee Wildlife Refuge. We stopped for lunch at Salt Creek and as we drove out Labashi spotted two feral pigs and we attempted to get pictures but no luck there. We spent the afternoon driving slowly across the Wildlife Refuge but there wasn’t much water and therefore not much wildlife. We saw only one gator, a raccoon, a brown watersnake, and a couple of anoles. We then drove to Shired Island, then to Horseshoe Cove, all the time looking for wildlife and finding little. At Horseshoe Cove Café we took a break for pie and ice cream. We then checked out the little county campground there but it had no shade and no privacy at all so we returned to Shired Island and its unmarked and unsigned county campground. There we walked the beach and after supper met Robert and Mary-Jo, a young full-timing-RV couple originally from Oregon but on the road for the last three-and-a-half years. They are traveling in a Bigfoot truck camper and pulling a utility trailer with two dual-sport bikes and a canoe. We had a very nice evening with them, talking away about our respective adventures. The most interesting thing we learned is they do not recommend Alaska—they suggest doing the Far North in Canada. They say the Canadians are much friendlier. They felt the Alaskans only wanted to deal with you if you were there to fish or hunt or do the expensive tourist gimmicks.
We spent the latter part of the evening blogging and reading.

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Saturday, 24 March –

This morning we walked the Shell Mound trail near Cedar Key to see the Calusa Indian shell mounds, then returned to the State Park to see the St. Clair Whitman House and walk the nature trail there. We drove into the Lower Suwanee National Wildlife Refuge where we walked the nature trail and boardwalk. Then we drove north to Chiefland where we shopped for supplies at the local Wal-Mart and tried unsuccessfully to get a campsite at the Manatee Springs State Park. We then tried two campgrounds listed in our old ‘Free Campgrounds of the East’ book but one was closed for construction work and the other had closed the campground. We decided we’d had enough of the find-the-cheapest-campground game so selected the Old Town Campground listed in the AAA book as a special value. And it was—our AAA discount gave us a campsite for $13.50 plus $1.00 tax. There we met owner Joe, an early retiree of the Trenton, NJ Fire Department and a great guy. Joe took good care of us and it was a joy to talk with him. He gave us tips of things to see and do in the area and visited us twice that evening at the campsite to be sure we had everything we needed and to joke with us for a few minutes.
That evening we watched an excellent movie, “Bubba Ho-tep”. This one is a film-festivals favorite from 2002 and it’s difficult to synopsize. There’s this guy in a nursing home, see, who is the real Elvis. Years ago, Elvis was getting tired of living the high-life and so traded places with an impersonator—the very best of the best—who, it turned out, had a bad heart. But to pay the bills, the real Elvis impersonated himself for years but eventually ended up in a nursing home with, of all people, President Jack Kennedy (played by Ossie Davis) who had also not really died. Together they learn that the residents of the home are having their souls stolen by a mummy they call ‘Bubba Ho-tep’ and they try to stop him. GOOD flick!

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Friday, 23 March –

This morning we explored the Withlacoochee State Forest, starting by driving down Nobleton Road to check out the Withlacoochee River. The forest road parallels the Withlacoochee State Trail and the river. The Trail is Florida’s longest paved bicycle trail, some 46 miles in length. We followed along until Forest Road 6 which we wanted to drive to get a sense of the types of trees and undergrowth. This particular road is paved but all the intersecting ones were sandy two-track and looked very narrow. But we are on one of Florida’s ridges so the going is at least dry (i.e., no deep mudholes).
The Forest folks have done a good job in interlacing different trails through the area. If you overlay the hiking trail map over the mountain-biking trail map and then lay on the horseback trail map and the Forest Roads map, I’d think you’d never be more than a hundred yards from some type of trail yet you’d feel like you are in a fairly remote area. After checking out the trail heads I thought we’d try Forest Road 5, one of the shorter ones. Once again things started off well and deteriorated from there! Actually, it wasn’t all that bad. The sand here wasn’t as ‘sugary’ as the sand at the OK Slough so the van tires didn’t sink in so easily. We had one place where I had to get out and walk it to decide whether to press on or turn back. I think we were plowing a little sand with the undercarriage of the van in that area so we were relieved to finally reach the paved road. The problem with these roads is you spend more time watching the road than the scenery around you when the track gets ‘iffy’. On the other hand it’s rewarding to work on your skill in determining what challenges you can take on and which you have to leave to the four-wheel-drive guys.
After FR5, we again drove down Nobleton Road, this time to the Silver Lake. Silver Lake had a picnic area and three campgrounds, two with full hookups and one a primitive campground, all bordering the Withlacoochee. We considered staying at the primitive one but it seemed too early in the day to stop roaming about so we pressed on.
The one thing we wanted to be sure to do today was to connect to the web so we continued on south to the East Hernando Library at Brooksville for that. We spent about two hours catching up on mail, uploading the blog, and catching up on weather and news. Labashi has started ‘West with the Night’ (the remarkable Beryl Markham memoir) and wanted an atlas of East Africa to follow the story so she spent her time making copies of key maps for her reading.
At that point we decided we would leave the Croom Tract of the State Forest and pass through the Citrus Tract on our way to Cedar Key. We spent the hot part of the day (low 90’s) driving to Cedar Key via Crystal River. We arrived in Cedar Key by 16:00 and visited a small historical state park where we learned about the amazing history of Cedar Key. This little out-of-the-way town was at one time a thriving port of commerce and had vessels regularly sailing to Mexico and points throughout Central America. At the State Park the ranger told us we’d find the best camping deal in the area at the county campground at Shell Mounds. We were amazed to find a nice little campground with a killer view for $5.10. We then returned to Cedar Key for a dinner of crab bisque and shrimp pie, then we walked the town streets until dark before returning to our campsite.