Ocala, “The Darjeeling Express”, Ocala National Forest, Farle’s Prairie, Tie-Dye, Daytona Bike Week, fox hunters, boating on Lake George
(posted at Astor, FL library)
(this post covers 28 February to 3 March, 2008)
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Monday, 3 March-
I’m still under the weather with my cold. I did sleep well but the world is going to be moving in slow motion for me today. But I also didn’t want to just hang at the campsite another day.
I connected-up the fishing boat and went to a free launch ramp out in the National Forest at the south end of Lake George. I was at first unsure I could launch given the large mat of aquatic growth extending out a hundred yards. But then I noticed a small water-way only about two boat-widths wide snaking through the mat and leading to deeper water. I launched without incident but almost immediately went aground—the water was both weedy AND shallow. But I found I could move forward with the prop raised as high as possible. So long as I kept the water pickups just barely under water I could move.
As I started out through the narrow passageway the wind was picking up and blowing me across the little channel but in about ten minutes I was in deeper water.
I had been listening to the marine weather forecast as I prepared for launch and knew that small-boat warnings will be going up later in the day. As I cleared the point, the wind-driven waves were starting to break their tops. But my down-wind was comfortable.
I crossed the lower portion of the lake, thinking I’d go up into the Salt Springs for a look-round. But as I closed on the far shore I saw another extensive mat of aquatic growth I’d have to maneuver through and the waves were building steadily at my back. I knew I’d have a rougher ride into the oncoming waves on the way home. But as I thought about the wind steadily pushing water away from my departure point, I realized this would make that area even shallower and I had just barely gotten through there as it was. I headed back.
But the worry was all for nought. I motored back the 20 minutes to the channel entrance and began to ‘cut the grass’ (even with the prop kicked up as far as possible, it’s cutting its way through the vegetation, sometimes jerking almost to a stop. I’m getting away with it in this soft bottom. If it were a rocky bottom I’d be walking.
The boat loaded easily and an older cracker fisherman came in just as I pulled out. He wanted to know how I had done (fishing) and seemed curious that I’d be out there motoring around with no intention of fishing. What would be the point of that? But he was polite enough to not ask the question.
Upon pulling the boat out I had driven the rig into the shade of some giant live-oaks. With the fisherman now gone, I was alone in this beautiful spot- perfect for a late lunch. But once I had lunch it seemed like a perfect spot for a nap and that indeed it was.
A few hours later I drove to the Astor Library for a wi-fi connection and blogged away. I’ll return to Farle’s Prairie later this evening and expect to have it to myself. Brad and Jan are headed to the Appalachicola National Forest as they work their way toward rock-climbing in Georgia and Alabama, then north to Chattanooga on their way to some April obligations in Rhode Island.
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Sunday, 2 March-
Today was a bust. I have somehow picked up a bad cold and today the only sane thing to do is stay in camp and let it run its course. Fortunately, the weather today is perfect, so doing some little chores around the ‘house’ is not bad duty. I started with a basic sweep-out of the van and then started pulling everything out of the driver’s-seat area to clear-and-restow. But when I took a break before lunch I suddenly had the overwhelming desire to nap. I spent the entire afternoon alternately napping, doing crossword puzzles, and listening to music and podcasts on the iPod.
I did have some interesting conversations with fox hunters. Some of them stop occasionally at the campground to wave around their tracking antennas, to water their dogs or use the privy. I was burning up with curiosity so asked one hunter how it works….
(me) “OK, so you turn the dogs loose and they eventually chase a fox to its den. Do you then shoot it?”
(hunter) “Nope, it’s illegal to shoot foxes”.
(me) “Once you hear the fox has been run to its den, do you go there?”
(hunter) “Nope. We don’t go in. The point is to exercise the dogs, not to get or see the fox”
(me) “Why do you want to keep the dogs fit? What are they getting ready for?”
(hunter) “Hunting season. Small game and deer”.
At that point he picked up a signal on the tracking antenna and got out of his truck to show me the tracking gear in use. He had the names of his dogs (“Retread”, “Tan-Man”, “Butch”, etc) and a letter for each frequency. He swept the antenna back and forth and I could see the meter rise and fall and hear the sound rise and fall, telling him the direction and distance (direction by centering on the strongest signal, distance by the maximum strength attained). He then switched to a frequency for one of the dogs in the box and demonstrated how it pointed right to the dog and was much, much stronger.
I wanted to ask more but he had to get going so he I thanked him and he said “Sure thing, Chief” and roared off.
An hour or so later I saw another guy sweeping for signal as he sat in his truck across the parking lot. I approached and he affably nodded hello. I told him I had asked another hunter about running foxes but was still confused about the why. He surprised me with “A lot of these guys are running them for the fox-hunting competition”. It turns out there’s a fox-hunting competitive event coming up next weekend in another part of the National Forest. Apparently an area is defined and judges are spread throughout the area to watch and judge. The dogs each have large numbers painted on their sides and must each hunt for five hours straight to score points. If one is seen doing something other than hunting, he’s scratched from the competition. As a group of dogs passes by a judge on the scent of a fox, the judge writes down the numbers and scores points. The first dog gets 35 points, the second less (I don’t remember how many) and so, on, down to a minimum of 15 points for that sighting, so long as the dog is actively hunting. If a judge misses a dog’s number, he can’t score any more points for that sighting (I’m using the word ‘sighting’ here, I’m not sure what the official term is). All this info was going by me so fast that I know I’ve done a poor job of re-creating it but I’m having a hard time envisioning this scenario play out through a five-hour event. But I wanted to give you an idea of how complex this gets.
When I asked this hunter about the ultimate purpose he said some guys hunt small game with dogs (like his beagles) but the point for most is to hunt deer with the dogs. Since that’s not legal back home, I had to ask how that works—do the dogs drive the deer to you or what? He said, no, when a dog kicks out a rabbit that rabbit will circle around and come back at you but deer don’t do that. You can’t drive the deer but you have a general idea of where the deer is by where the dog is and what he’s doing. Then it’s up to you to determine where the deer will come out and to position yourself to be ready. And, by the way, dog-hunting deer is a lot more complicated than still-hunting deer—and also is less productive. First, only bucks can be hunted with dogs and they are very smart. “In fact,” he said, “you may be surprised for me to tell you we didn’t get a deer this year. People think dogs give us a big advantage over other hunters but they don’t—it’s just a different thing altogether.”
At that point he had to move on and I thanked him for the info. Verrry interesting. I want to know more.
Late in the afternoon I snapped out of it a bit and finished the clean-up. P.A. Joe moved on yesterday but Brad and Jan are still here, hanging around another day or two before moving on the Appalachicola National Forest. They hiked down to Buck Lake this afternoon and afterwards we had a long, long conversation about their experiences and recommendations on wintering in Baja. They’ve been down six times and will keep going back year after year, so long as their somewhat-fragile health allows.
I asked whether they felt safe traveling alone down there or would recommend traveling with someone else. They did the travel-with thing their first year and found it both a pain and unnecessary. The ‘pain’ part was their travel companions wanted to travel to a different rhythm. They liked to start very early and drive without pitstops for hours and hours, then take a very brief pitstop and do another travel marathon, driving late into the night. The ‘unnecessary’ part is they’ve found that once you leave the border areas, there is little reason for a caravan. You don’t travel at night—but mostly to avoid the cows (they like to stand on the relatively-warm asphalt after dark) and you pay close attention to signs which warn of road-side problems ahead—they usually mean it. You also keep a sharp lookout for larger rocks on the road. When someone breaks down, they put rocks in the road to indicate a problem ahead. But they often don’t go back to remove the rocks when they’ve left. I also asked how critical it is to know Spanish. Both Brad and Jan said it would be helpful but isn’t really necessary. They have picked up some Spanish phrases but are far from fluent and don’t find it a problem in their travels.
They recommended Vagabundos (which I take to mean ‘Vagabundos del Mar’ now that I’ve had a chance to look it up on the web) and AAA for travel info and info about Mexican insurance and car bonds. Brad preferred the Moon guidebook to the Baja over others. The best map of Baja is put out by AAA but they believe it’s only distributed from AAAs in L.A. and south. They stay at a campground which caters to gringos outside of La Vantana, about 45 minutes from La Paz. I jokingly asked how far to the nearest Starbucks and Brad says I’d be surprised at the amenities. There’s a small gourmet coffee shop within a five-minute walk of the ocean-front campground and there are internet cafes in many towns throughout the Baja. Brad then showed me his ‘cantenna’, a home-made wi-fi antenna which he uses to pick up wi-fi at his campsite. The campground owner apparently has the wi-fi but coverage around the campground can be spotty, thus the need for a ‘cantenna’. That device is literally a can—a Pirouettes cookie can with an antenna connector in the side. Inside the can there’s nothing but a short (about an inch and a quarter) piece of copper wire in the antenna connector, pointing inward toward the center. Unfortunately, I don’t see an external antenna connector for my internal wi-fi card so I probably can’t use it. I’ll have to read up on this. As I write this line I’m sitting outside and across the street from the library in Astor, Florida. The librarian said I was welcome to come in or use the wi-fi from outside and I chose the latter as more convenient. But I don’t have a great signal. A can-antenna would fix that (but also give me yet something else to lug around).
From the enthusiasm of both Brad and Jan it’s clear they absolutely love Baja, both for its weather and for its differences in day-to-day living style. From early November until early May the weather is perfect and the livin’ is easy….
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Saturday, 1 March-
I had a lousy night last night. Though it’s nice and quiet out here in the National Forest, I’ve somehow picked up a cold and the drainage and subsequent coughing drove me crazy. The situation wasn’t helped by the fox hunters. Around dusk I saw a parade of pickups come past the campground, eight or ten of them, all jacked-up, muffler-challenged and sporting dog-boxes full of baying hounds. Before the parade came through I had talked to one good-ole-boy who stopped by the campground’s privy for his buddy’s use. I was just coming back from the iron-ranger so I was nearby as he pulled up so I struck up a conversation with this younger guy as he sat in his pickup. I asked if coon season was in and he told me no, they’re ‘runnin’ foxes’. Once deer season ends in January they transition into the fox-hunting season. I asked if they do anything with the foxes and he said. “Naw—we just run ‘em” and then politely spit his tobacco juice well off to my side. The dog box had five or six dogs and I asked whether they had radio collars. He nodded toward a tracking antenna mounted on the inside roof of the pickup, just above the mirror. I said somewhere I had seen GPS dog collars and he knew all about them— they’re made by Garmin. I asked whether he knew if the GPS receivers lost sight of the satellites in the thick brush as do the older hand-held units. He understood thick brush limits the tracking to a mile radius while his radio-collar tracker can pick up a signal ten miles away. Then again the GPS unit plots the dog’s movements on a map in real-time.
We could hear occasional baying of hounds through the evening but it wasn’t until 0200 or so that a few pickups came flying through the campground. They apparently delight in exceeding the posted 15 mph limit by 500 per cent or so. I wasn’t concerned about it but it didn’t help my already-suffering sleep. The zooming-by continued until 0400 and after that I finally slept heavily.
The first thing I saw this morning upon opening the doors was P.A. Joe and Oregon Mack working on Joe’s solar panel. Rhode Island Brad wandered over too and before long we had the problem licked— for some reason the leads had been connected backwards.
Brad said he and his wife Jan were going to be hanging around the campground today so I dropped the boat and locked it up, then headed for Daytona.
Once in Daytona I went to the airport and took the free tram around to the displays. I walked through the displays slowly but didn’t really see anything interesting. The chopper freak-bikes were of course attention-getters but left me cold. I checked in at the Kawasaki tent, hoping to get a demo ride on the new Concours 1400 but they were all booked up for the day. Wandering back toward the tram-stop I realized the most interesting things to see were the bikes people had ridden to the event and spent a couple of hours wandering the bike-parking area.
Back at the van my sore throat seemed to be getting the better of me so I headed out to a Starbucks in Ormond Beach for something cool to soothe the throat. Then I started looking for a wi-fi hotspot. I tried two libraries but the first was closed for renovation and the second wanted a $5 visitor’s fee—and they were closing in 45 minutes. I then found a Krystal hamburger joint with wi-fi. After a couple of Krystal ‘sliders’ I contacted Labashi via Skype and we chatted for 45 minutes or so before I headed out.
After a quick stop at a grocery store, I made it back to the campground at dusk and didn’t have a chance to talk with anyone. I wanted to sit out a bit so fired up one of my few remaining ‘Kwik Kampfires’ and sat by it for awhile, watching the stars come out. I’m looking forward to taking my NyQuil and sacking out. I think tomorrow will be a recovery-day.
Daytona didn’t seem to be as busy this time but then again I don’t remember which days of the event we went to last time. I thought Saturday would be a busy day but perhaps not.
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Friday, 29 February-
Well, today is the first day of Bike Week but I’m in no rush to get over there. The last time we did that we found a lot of people arriving on the Friday and using the day to set up. So I thought I’d spend the day in the Ocala National Forest.
I first stopped at the Lake George Ranger’s Office for maps and advice and learned a body had been found several days ago near Lake Delancey. It appears this was someone who had been camping for an extended period in the forest and violence doesn’t appear to be involved. The identity of the individual has been determined but the circumstances of the death are still unclear.
I drove on out Route 40 to the shooting range on Route 88. There I shared the range with a muzzle-loader. I didn’t have a staple gun and the other guy had just run out of staples so I put my targets up with stick-pins. Unfortunately the winds kept kicking up the targets so I was a little frustrated with that and only shot 40 rounds at two targets before deciding to move on. But I was glad to see the range. I’ve been near this one a couple of times in years past and had wanted to see it.
I then drove on into the Ocala and down to Farle’s Lake. Labashi and I had stayed there for three or four nights two winters ago and last year had been shocked to find hundreds upon hundreds of Rainbow People overwhelming the campground’s meager facilities. But today I was happy to find just two campsites occupied. First I met a younger couple living full-time in a Ford van much like mine—only this one has a Quigley Four Wheel Drive conversion, a satellite dish, and massive solar panels. This turned out to be Brad and Jan, a couple originally from Rhode Island. I don’t know much of their story but learned they both are recovering from Lyme Disease (yes, the tick-borne one) and Brad mentioned he hasn’t worked in 12 years. These are picture-of-health California yuppie-types traveling in their gnarly, jacked-up supervan. There has to be an interesting story there….
The other person in the campground is Erie Joe or “P. A. Joe”. It took awhile for me to uncover this but Joe was here with the folks we had met here two years ago--- Henry and Jane, Tie-Dye, Ontario Don and Paul, and Murph. And there’s bad news. Tie-Dye (a/k/a Mark Wright) has died. Now Tie-Dye is the guy who lived full-time in the forest. He drove a beat-up old Ford pickup and towed a large fifth-wheel camper and then behind that camper he towed a large utility trailer containing dresses and his tie-dying supplies. His claim to fame was traveling around to music festivals and selling his tie-dyed clothing there. So it turns out Tie-Dye was reported to be in a particular area and his friend Larry was looking for him. Larry would hear someone say they had seen him a few days before or something but he couldn’t get a good fix. Finally, he was driving through an area and turned into an out-of-the-way spot to turn around and there was Tie-Dye’s camper. But when he walked around the camper he found Tie-Dye sitting in a chair dead with a half-finished tie-dye garment in his lap. Now this is what Erie Joe told me and he was clearly affected by this. Tie-Dye was an institution in the Florida State Forests and at the music festivals. We had met him at Farle’s Prairie on our first trip down in March 2006, then ran into him unexpectedly last February south of Lake Okeechobee (and of course Tie-Dye had just been kicked out of the campground he was free-loading in but delighted in telling us every detail of having talked the Water Management District into giving him a couple of more days to move out because his rig had broken down). RIP, Tie-Dye!
This afternoon I tried launching the fishing boat on Farle’s Lake but the water was too low and the ramp too shallow. I think I could have gotten it off if I were willing to take a chance on getting the van stuck by backing into the lake further but I didn’t see any reason to take that chance. I went kayaking instead.
I kayaked late in the day for about an hour and a half. The water was very clear and cool, and the day a nice, warm 70-plus with a clear, blue sky. NICE paddling.
After loading the kayak back onto Mocha Joe I spoke more with P.A. Joe and then also with a guy named Mack who is camped at nearby Mud Pond. Mack is a retired firefighter from Oregon and he was out mountain-biking when he stopped by to see Joe.
The cost of camping has gone up to $10 a night now. It was $5 two years ago and $8 last year. That’s a pretty hefty increase, particularly for the long-term folks who spend months down here. The rules say you can still camp free in the primitive part of the National Forest but good spots are hard to find. Campgrounds like Farle’s Lake with basic pit toilet, water pump, fire-rings, and trash pickup offered a good combination of freedom and security (with others camped nearby) but, as I say, some people can’t swing the price increase.
After supper Joe and I spent a little while star-gazing and then I retired to the van to blog and plan the next few days.
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Thursday, 28 February-
I slept well at the Chiefland Wal-Mart and woke to a sunny-but-cool day. I drove south down Alt-27 and soon began to see horse-farms as I approached Ocala. Once into Ocala proper I looked up the library on the GPS. I followed the GPS to a crowded downtown area and it looked like I was going to have trouble finding a parking place anywhere near the library building when I noticed a good place in front of a construction site. But my luck was short-lived. As I walked up to the library building I could see the hours posted prominently and it sure looked like a library building but something was missing--- the name and the word ‘library’. I spoke to some people walking by and learned where the new library is and that it had moved four years ago. So much for the GPS database. Between leading me to old addresses and not knowing about the new locations, my fancy GPS is turning out to be wrong about a quarter of the time.
At the new library I received more bad news; their budget had been cut before they installed wi-fi. And, though you can sign up to use a computer, you can’t connect your own and can’t bring in any files. But I did learn that several wi-fi spots were supposed to be near the west-side Wal-Mart. I took that for a sign to go check whether I could stay at the Wal-mart and if so, then I’d update the blog and then hang around for the night.
I ended up spending the afternoon at a Whataburger, then a Beaner’s Coffee franchise working away on the computer. After updating the blog I installed some programs I read about in PC Magazine at the Ocala Library— top-rated free software. As the sun went down I finished up the computer work and went looking for a movie. The GPS took me to the nearest Blockbuster where I rented ‘The Darjeeling Express’ for my evening at the Wal-Mart.
When I asked permission to stay at the Wal-Mart I was directed to a side lot and that looked great in the afternoon. But when I arrived that evening, a truck was already there and running its generator for the night. But I’ve been wanting to learn to ignore such noise and decided to try to stay.
I can’t say I liked ‘The Darjeeling Express’. I did like the scenery and the train and a little of the quirkiness of the characters but in the end it seemed too contrived. I’d recommend passing on this one.
I could hear the truck’s generator in the background as I watched the movie and alternately thought ‘I’m going to have to move’ and ‘I think I’ll be all right’. In the end, I was all right. The generator sound was constant enough that I was indeed able to tune it out and I slept well.
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(posted at Astor, FL library)
(this post covers 28 February to 3 March, 2008)
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Monday, 3 March-
I’m still under the weather with my cold. I did sleep well but the world is going to be moving in slow motion for me today. But I also didn’t want to just hang at the campsite another day.
I connected-up the fishing boat and went to a free launch ramp out in the National Forest at the south end of Lake George. I was at first unsure I could launch given the large mat of aquatic growth extending out a hundred yards. But then I noticed a small water-way only about two boat-widths wide snaking through the mat and leading to deeper water. I launched without incident but almost immediately went aground—the water was both weedy AND shallow. But I found I could move forward with the prop raised as high as possible. So long as I kept the water pickups just barely under water I could move.
As I started out through the narrow passageway the wind was picking up and blowing me across the little channel but in about ten minutes I was in deeper water.
I had been listening to the marine weather forecast as I prepared for launch and knew that small-boat warnings will be going up later in the day. As I cleared the point, the wind-driven waves were starting to break their tops. But my down-wind was comfortable.
I crossed the lower portion of the lake, thinking I’d go up into the Salt Springs for a look-round. But as I closed on the far shore I saw another extensive mat of aquatic growth I’d have to maneuver through and the waves were building steadily at my back. I knew I’d have a rougher ride into the oncoming waves on the way home. But as I thought about the wind steadily pushing water away from my departure point, I realized this would make that area even shallower and I had just barely gotten through there as it was. I headed back.
But the worry was all for nought. I motored back the 20 minutes to the channel entrance and began to ‘cut the grass’ (even with the prop kicked up as far as possible, it’s cutting its way through the vegetation, sometimes jerking almost to a stop. I’m getting away with it in this soft bottom. If it were a rocky bottom I’d be walking.
The boat loaded easily and an older cracker fisherman came in just as I pulled out. He wanted to know how I had done (fishing) and seemed curious that I’d be out there motoring around with no intention of fishing. What would be the point of that? But he was polite enough to not ask the question.
Upon pulling the boat out I had driven the rig into the shade of some giant live-oaks. With the fisherman now gone, I was alone in this beautiful spot- perfect for a late lunch. But once I had lunch it seemed like a perfect spot for a nap and that indeed it was.
A few hours later I drove to the Astor Library for a wi-fi connection and blogged away. I’ll return to Farle’s Prairie later this evening and expect to have it to myself. Brad and Jan are headed to the Appalachicola National Forest as they work their way toward rock-climbing in Georgia and Alabama, then north to Chattanooga on their way to some April obligations in Rhode Island.
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Sunday, 2 March-
Today was a bust. I have somehow picked up a bad cold and today the only sane thing to do is stay in camp and let it run its course. Fortunately, the weather today is perfect, so doing some little chores around the ‘house’ is not bad duty. I started with a basic sweep-out of the van and then started pulling everything out of the driver’s-seat area to clear-and-restow. But when I took a break before lunch I suddenly had the overwhelming desire to nap. I spent the entire afternoon alternately napping, doing crossword puzzles, and listening to music and podcasts on the iPod.
I did have some interesting conversations with fox hunters. Some of them stop occasionally at the campground to wave around their tracking antennas, to water their dogs or use the privy. I was burning up with curiosity so asked one hunter how it works….
(me) “OK, so you turn the dogs loose and they eventually chase a fox to its den. Do you then shoot it?”
(hunter) “Nope, it’s illegal to shoot foxes”.
(me) “Once you hear the fox has been run to its den, do you go there?”
(hunter) “Nope. We don’t go in. The point is to exercise the dogs, not to get or see the fox”
(me) “Why do you want to keep the dogs fit? What are they getting ready for?”
(hunter) “Hunting season. Small game and deer”.
At that point he picked up a signal on the tracking antenna and got out of his truck to show me the tracking gear in use. He had the names of his dogs (“Retread”, “Tan-Man”, “Butch”, etc) and a letter for each frequency. He swept the antenna back and forth and I could see the meter rise and fall and hear the sound rise and fall, telling him the direction and distance (direction by centering on the strongest signal, distance by the maximum strength attained). He then switched to a frequency for one of the dogs in the box and demonstrated how it pointed right to the dog and was much, much stronger.
I wanted to ask more but he had to get going so he I thanked him and he said “Sure thing, Chief” and roared off.
An hour or so later I saw another guy sweeping for signal as he sat in his truck across the parking lot. I approached and he affably nodded hello. I told him I had asked another hunter about running foxes but was still confused about the why. He surprised me with “A lot of these guys are running them for the fox-hunting competition”. It turns out there’s a fox-hunting competitive event coming up next weekend in another part of the National Forest. Apparently an area is defined and judges are spread throughout the area to watch and judge. The dogs each have large numbers painted on their sides and must each hunt for five hours straight to score points. If one is seen doing something other than hunting, he’s scratched from the competition. As a group of dogs passes by a judge on the scent of a fox, the judge writes down the numbers and scores points. The first dog gets 35 points, the second less (I don’t remember how many) and so, on, down to a minimum of 15 points for that sighting, so long as the dog is actively hunting. If a judge misses a dog’s number, he can’t score any more points for that sighting (I’m using the word ‘sighting’ here, I’m not sure what the official term is). All this info was going by me so fast that I know I’ve done a poor job of re-creating it but I’m having a hard time envisioning this scenario play out through a five-hour event. But I wanted to give you an idea of how complex this gets.
When I asked this hunter about the ultimate purpose he said some guys hunt small game with dogs (like his beagles) but the point for most is to hunt deer with the dogs. Since that’s not legal back home, I had to ask how that works—do the dogs drive the deer to you or what? He said, no, when a dog kicks out a rabbit that rabbit will circle around and come back at you but deer don’t do that. You can’t drive the deer but you have a general idea of where the deer is by where the dog is and what he’s doing. Then it’s up to you to determine where the deer will come out and to position yourself to be ready. And, by the way, dog-hunting deer is a lot more complicated than still-hunting deer—and also is less productive. First, only bucks can be hunted with dogs and they are very smart. “In fact,” he said, “you may be surprised for me to tell you we didn’t get a deer this year. People think dogs give us a big advantage over other hunters but they don’t—it’s just a different thing altogether.”
At that point he had to move on and I thanked him for the info. Verrry interesting. I want to know more.
Late in the afternoon I snapped out of it a bit and finished the clean-up. P.A. Joe moved on yesterday but Brad and Jan are still here, hanging around another day or two before moving on the Appalachicola National Forest. They hiked down to Buck Lake this afternoon and afterwards we had a long, long conversation about their experiences and recommendations on wintering in Baja. They’ve been down six times and will keep going back year after year, so long as their somewhat-fragile health allows.
I asked whether they felt safe traveling alone down there or would recommend traveling with someone else. They did the travel-with thing their first year and found it both a pain and unnecessary. The ‘pain’ part was their travel companions wanted to travel to a different rhythm. They liked to start very early and drive without pitstops for hours and hours, then take a very brief pitstop and do another travel marathon, driving late into the night. The ‘unnecessary’ part is they’ve found that once you leave the border areas, there is little reason for a caravan. You don’t travel at night—but mostly to avoid the cows (they like to stand on the relatively-warm asphalt after dark) and you pay close attention to signs which warn of road-side problems ahead—they usually mean it. You also keep a sharp lookout for larger rocks on the road. When someone breaks down, they put rocks in the road to indicate a problem ahead. But they often don’t go back to remove the rocks when they’ve left. I also asked how critical it is to know Spanish. Both Brad and Jan said it would be helpful but isn’t really necessary. They have picked up some Spanish phrases but are far from fluent and don’t find it a problem in their travels.
They recommended Vagabundos (which I take to mean ‘Vagabundos del Mar’ now that I’ve had a chance to look it up on the web) and AAA for travel info and info about Mexican insurance and car bonds. Brad preferred the Moon guidebook to the Baja over others. The best map of Baja is put out by AAA but they believe it’s only distributed from AAAs in L.A. and south. They stay at a campground which caters to gringos outside of La Vantana, about 45 minutes from La Paz. I jokingly asked how far to the nearest Starbucks and Brad says I’d be surprised at the amenities. There’s a small gourmet coffee shop within a five-minute walk of the ocean-front campground and there are internet cafes in many towns throughout the Baja. Brad then showed me his ‘cantenna’, a home-made wi-fi antenna which he uses to pick up wi-fi at his campsite. The campground owner apparently has the wi-fi but coverage around the campground can be spotty, thus the need for a ‘cantenna’. That device is literally a can—a Pirouettes cookie can with an antenna connector in the side. Inside the can there’s nothing but a short (about an inch and a quarter) piece of copper wire in the antenna connector, pointing inward toward the center. Unfortunately, I don’t see an external antenna connector for my internal wi-fi card so I probably can’t use it. I’ll have to read up on this. As I write this line I’m sitting outside and across the street from the library in Astor, Florida. The librarian said I was welcome to come in or use the wi-fi from outside and I chose the latter as more convenient. But I don’t have a great signal. A can-antenna would fix that (but also give me yet something else to lug around).
From the enthusiasm of both Brad and Jan it’s clear they absolutely love Baja, both for its weather and for its differences in day-to-day living style. From early November until early May the weather is perfect and the livin’ is easy….
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Saturday, 1 March-
I had a lousy night last night. Though it’s nice and quiet out here in the National Forest, I’ve somehow picked up a cold and the drainage and subsequent coughing drove me crazy. The situation wasn’t helped by the fox hunters. Around dusk I saw a parade of pickups come past the campground, eight or ten of them, all jacked-up, muffler-challenged and sporting dog-boxes full of baying hounds. Before the parade came through I had talked to one good-ole-boy who stopped by the campground’s privy for his buddy’s use. I was just coming back from the iron-ranger so I was nearby as he pulled up so I struck up a conversation with this younger guy as he sat in his pickup. I asked if coon season was in and he told me no, they’re ‘runnin’ foxes’. Once deer season ends in January they transition into the fox-hunting season. I asked if they do anything with the foxes and he said. “Naw—we just run ‘em” and then politely spit his tobacco juice well off to my side. The dog box had five or six dogs and I asked whether they had radio collars. He nodded toward a tracking antenna mounted on the inside roof of the pickup, just above the mirror. I said somewhere I had seen GPS dog collars and he knew all about them— they’re made by Garmin. I asked whether he knew if the GPS receivers lost sight of the satellites in the thick brush as do the older hand-held units. He understood thick brush limits the tracking to a mile radius while his radio-collar tracker can pick up a signal ten miles away. Then again the GPS unit plots the dog’s movements on a map in real-time.
We could hear occasional baying of hounds through the evening but it wasn’t until 0200 or so that a few pickups came flying through the campground. They apparently delight in exceeding the posted 15 mph limit by 500 per cent or so. I wasn’t concerned about it but it didn’t help my already-suffering sleep. The zooming-by continued until 0400 and after that I finally slept heavily.
The first thing I saw this morning upon opening the doors was P.A. Joe and Oregon Mack working on Joe’s solar panel. Rhode Island Brad wandered over too and before long we had the problem licked— for some reason the leads had been connected backwards.
Brad said he and his wife Jan were going to be hanging around the campground today so I dropped the boat and locked it up, then headed for Daytona.
Once in Daytona I went to the airport and took the free tram around to the displays. I walked through the displays slowly but didn’t really see anything interesting. The chopper freak-bikes were of course attention-getters but left me cold. I checked in at the Kawasaki tent, hoping to get a demo ride on the new Concours 1400 but they were all booked up for the day. Wandering back toward the tram-stop I realized the most interesting things to see were the bikes people had ridden to the event and spent a couple of hours wandering the bike-parking area.
Back at the van my sore throat seemed to be getting the better of me so I headed out to a Starbucks in Ormond Beach for something cool to soothe the throat. Then I started looking for a wi-fi hotspot. I tried two libraries but the first was closed for renovation and the second wanted a $5 visitor’s fee—and they were closing in 45 minutes. I then found a Krystal hamburger joint with wi-fi. After a couple of Krystal ‘sliders’ I contacted Labashi via Skype and we chatted for 45 minutes or so before I headed out.
After a quick stop at a grocery store, I made it back to the campground at dusk and didn’t have a chance to talk with anyone. I wanted to sit out a bit so fired up one of my few remaining ‘Kwik Kampfires’ and sat by it for awhile, watching the stars come out. I’m looking forward to taking my NyQuil and sacking out. I think tomorrow will be a recovery-day.
Daytona didn’t seem to be as busy this time but then again I don’t remember which days of the event we went to last time. I thought Saturday would be a busy day but perhaps not.
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Friday, 29 February-
Well, today is the first day of Bike Week but I’m in no rush to get over there. The last time we did that we found a lot of people arriving on the Friday and using the day to set up. So I thought I’d spend the day in the Ocala National Forest.
I first stopped at the Lake George Ranger’s Office for maps and advice and learned a body had been found several days ago near Lake Delancey. It appears this was someone who had been camping for an extended period in the forest and violence doesn’t appear to be involved. The identity of the individual has been determined but the circumstances of the death are still unclear.
I drove on out Route 40 to the shooting range on Route 88. There I shared the range with a muzzle-loader. I didn’t have a staple gun and the other guy had just run out of staples so I put my targets up with stick-pins. Unfortunately the winds kept kicking up the targets so I was a little frustrated with that and only shot 40 rounds at two targets before deciding to move on. But I was glad to see the range. I’ve been near this one a couple of times in years past and had wanted to see it.
I then drove on into the Ocala and down to Farle’s Lake. Labashi and I had stayed there for three or four nights two winters ago and last year had been shocked to find hundreds upon hundreds of Rainbow People overwhelming the campground’s meager facilities. But today I was happy to find just two campsites occupied. First I met a younger couple living full-time in a Ford van much like mine—only this one has a Quigley Four Wheel Drive conversion, a satellite dish, and massive solar panels. This turned out to be Brad and Jan, a couple originally from Rhode Island. I don’t know much of their story but learned they both are recovering from Lyme Disease (yes, the tick-borne one) and Brad mentioned he hasn’t worked in 12 years. These are picture-of-health California yuppie-types traveling in their gnarly, jacked-up supervan. There has to be an interesting story there….
The other person in the campground is Erie Joe or “P. A. Joe”. It took awhile for me to uncover this but Joe was here with the folks we had met here two years ago--- Henry and Jane, Tie-Dye, Ontario Don and Paul, and Murph. And there’s bad news. Tie-Dye (a/k/a Mark Wright) has died. Now Tie-Dye is the guy who lived full-time in the forest. He drove a beat-up old Ford pickup and towed a large fifth-wheel camper and then behind that camper he towed a large utility trailer containing dresses and his tie-dying supplies. His claim to fame was traveling around to music festivals and selling his tie-dyed clothing there. So it turns out Tie-Dye was reported to be in a particular area and his friend Larry was looking for him. Larry would hear someone say they had seen him a few days before or something but he couldn’t get a good fix. Finally, he was driving through an area and turned into an out-of-the-way spot to turn around and there was Tie-Dye’s camper. But when he walked around the camper he found Tie-Dye sitting in a chair dead with a half-finished tie-dye garment in his lap. Now this is what Erie Joe told me and he was clearly affected by this. Tie-Dye was an institution in the Florida State Forests and at the music festivals. We had met him at Farle’s Prairie on our first trip down in March 2006, then ran into him unexpectedly last February south of Lake Okeechobee (and of course Tie-Dye had just been kicked out of the campground he was free-loading in but delighted in telling us every detail of having talked the Water Management District into giving him a couple of more days to move out because his rig had broken down). RIP, Tie-Dye!
This afternoon I tried launching the fishing boat on Farle’s Lake but the water was too low and the ramp too shallow. I think I could have gotten it off if I were willing to take a chance on getting the van stuck by backing into the lake further but I didn’t see any reason to take that chance. I went kayaking instead.
I kayaked late in the day for about an hour and a half. The water was very clear and cool, and the day a nice, warm 70-plus with a clear, blue sky. NICE paddling.
After loading the kayak back onto Mocha Joe I spoke more with P.A. Joe and then also with a guy named Mack who is camped at nearby Mud Pond. Mack is a retired firefighter from Oregon and he was out mountain-biking when he stopped by to see Joe.
The cost of camping has gone up to $10 a night now. It was $5 two years ago and $8 last year. That’s a pretty hefty increase, particularly for the long-term folks who spend months down here. The rules say you can still camp free in the primitive part of the National Forest but good spots are hard to find. Campgrounds like Farle’s Lake with basic pit toilet, water pump, fire-rings, and trash pickup offered a good combination of freedom and security (with others camped nearby) but, as I say, some people can’t swing the price increase.
After supper Joe and I spent a little while star-gazing and then I retired to the van to blog and plan the next few days.
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Thursday, 28 February-
I slept well at the Chiefland Wal-Mart and woke to a sunny-but-cool day. I drove south down Alt-27 and soon began to see horse-farms as I approached Ocala. Once into Ocala proper I looked up the library on the GPS. I followed the GPS to a crowded downtown area and it looked like I was going to have trouble finding a parking place anywhere near the library building when I noticed a good place in front of a construction site. But my luck was short-lived. As I walked up to the library building I could see the hours posted prominently and it sure looked like a library building but something was missing--- the name and the word ‘library’. I spoke to some people walking by and learned where the new library is and that it had moved four years ago. So much for the GPS database. Between leading me to old addresses and not knowing about the new locations, my fancy GPS is turning out to be wrong about a quarter of the time.
At the new library I received more bad news; their budget had been cut before they installed wi-fi. And, though you can sign up to use a computer, you can’t connect your own and can’t bring in any files. But I did learn that several wi-fi spots were supposed to be near the west-side Wal-Mart. I took that for a sign to go check whether I could stay at the Wal-mart and if so, then I’d update the blog and then hang around for the night.
I ended up spending the afternoon at a Whataburger, then a Beaner’s Coffee franchise working away on the computer. After updating the blog I installed some programs I read about in PC Magazine at the Ocala Library— top-rated free software. As the sun went down I finished up the computer work and went looking for a movie. The GPS took me to the nearest Blockbuster where I rented ‘The Darjeeling Express’ for my evening at the Wal-Mart.
When I asked permission to stay at the Wal-Mart I was directed to a side lot and that looked great in the afternoon. But when I arrived that evening, a truck was already there and running its generator for the night. But I’ve been wanting to learn to ignore such noise and decided to try to stay.
I can’t say I liked ‘The Darjeeling Express’. I did like the scenery and the train and a little of the quirkiness of the characters but in the end it seemed too contrived. I’d recommend passing on this one.
I could hear the truck’s generator in the background as I watched the movie and alternately thought ‘I’m going to have to move’ and ‘I think I’ll be all right’. In the end, I was all right. The generator sound was constant enough that I was indeed able to tune it out and I slept well.
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posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 16:58
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