DC trip, ‘Cross Country’, ‘The Neighbor’, ‘The Upside of Anger’, ‘The Associate’, ‘Little Children’, Rokon

(posted from home)
(This post covers 24-31 March, 2009)

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Tuesday, 31 March -

This morning I buzzed up to the doctor’s office for the creatinine blood test for my upcoming CT scan and hit the newly-refurbished Red Land library. In the afternoon I put the top down on the Miata (finally!) and went into York. I wanted to check out a used Honda ‘Big Ruckus’ motor scooter at Action Motorsports. Orat and I had stayed at a Florida campground where the site manager had the smaller version—the ‘Ruckus’—and it looked like fun and might even be usable on the sand roads in the Ocala. But the Ruckus is too under-powered and the Big Ruckus is too big to haul on a rack on Mocha Joe. What I need for the Ocala is something like a ‘Tote Gote’ or a Rokon ‘Ranger’ or ‘Trail-Breaker’ (Wow factor: the Trail-Breaker is a two-wheel-drive motorcycle which has hollow wheels you can fill with water or extra gas and they allow you to FLOAT the machine across a river or lake !?!?!). But I’d prefer to have something which could be licensed for the road so I could ride it on the forest roads back here in PA.
This is a Rokon:

Afterward, I walked five miles at Rocky Ridge Park.

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Monday, 30 March –

I spent most of the day editing and uploading video clips from the Florida trip. In late afternoon I took my four-mile walk while listening to CBC’s ‘The North This Week’ podcast. I enjoyed the downwind leg but coming back the wind picked up too much for a casual walk. I had to lean into it to stay upright. (Isn’t March supposed to go out like a lamb?)
On the podcast I heard a song I liked. It’s ‘Under the Covers’ by Scotch. Give it a try; it’s different. Have a listen on Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/scotchisgood . The listing shows the band is from Montreal but they came from Whitehorse (thus the connection to “The North This Week”.) “St. Cosmo” is worth a listen too.
That evening we watched ‘Little Children’ with Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson. Todd Field (the director) knows how to tell a story. Excellent movie. As RT says, the movie “follows several in habitants of a small American town as they fumble their way through adulthood”. Roger that.

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Sunday, 29 March –

Today was a rainy day and we both spent it in our offices. I worked on uploading some video clips from the Florida trip then spent the entire afternoon reading the rest of ‘The Associate’ by John Grisham. I don’t normally read so much at a time but the book is due Tuesday and I can’t renew it (according to the online renewal system) because someone else has it on hold.
Actually, I was a bit disappointed in it. Perhaps I was expecting everything to be tied up with a nice little justice-wins-in-the-end bow. I did enjoy the fact that the protagonist’s home town is York and I enjoyed the references to local landmarks and restaurants. The plot is a bit of a stretch, though.
That evening we watched “The Upside of Anger” with Joan Allen and Kevin Costner. All the way at the end we realized we had already seen it! That sounds like something I’d do but Labashi normally has a really, really good ‘visual memory’ and can name a movie from just a tiny little clip. Good movie, though.

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Saturday, 28 March –

I spent the morning on the web catching up on email, web news and gunny sites, then updated the blog.
I spent much of the afternoon working on video clips. Nero9 seems clunky and not very user-friendly.


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Friday, 27 March –

We drove home from Virginia today, taking our time. We first took a break at the Starbucks just south of Frederick then drove into town for some antiques shopping. We were mostly just looking around and found the antiques-row area of Frederick perfect for it. We had parked at the visitor’s center garage and had been directed to the East Patrick Street area.
Labashi was looking for a small table, preferably a triangular one, so I figured chances were good we weren’t taking anything home. But after a few hours of browsing through traditional-style antiques shops, we hit upon a small shop with many imported French, German, and Chinese everyday-use items. And Labashi found just what she wanted— a Chinese drum stand. It’s triangular in shape and she’ll only have to add a small piece of glass, about 9” in diameter, to it to make a nice little table to fit nicely between our two angled chairs.
That evening we watched ‘The Neighbor’ with Matthew Modine and Michele Laroque. Yikes. It was terrible. And I see RT doesn’t even rate it. Run away!! Run away!!!

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Thursday, 26 March –

Today I drove Labashi and the New Mexico relatives in to the Natural History Museum for the day. I blundered onto a DC ‘gotcha’ when I tried to go around the block at the museum and ended up across the river and headed up the George Washington expressway before I could turn back to the museum.
But we had a great time at the museum and it was interesting to watch the boys as they went from display to display. I expected them to gravitate to the ‘wow’ stuff (like the blue whale, the T-Rex skeleton, and the mammals, but they seemed more fascinated by the fossils and, oh yeah, the five-year old liked the bats.
That evening their dad treated us all to a meal at Chili’s. Back home the kids went downstairs to watch an animated feature while the adults watched the first two ‘I, Claudius’ episodes (our hosts are history buffs and have an interesting collection of historical movies).
Later than night I finished James Patterson’s “Cross Country”. I think I’m done with Patterson’s work. I like the character he developed but just can’t stand the story lines and the overuse of exclamation points intended to generate tension.

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Wednesday, 25 March –

Today we drove to visit Labashi’s brother and his wife in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC. The trip was an easy one down US15.
Another brother and family are in town from Albequerque so we had a full house and, with two young boys, plenty of entertainment.
We spent the afternoon and evening catching up with each other.

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Tuesday, 24 March –

This morning I updated the blog and then made a grocery-store run. That afternoon Labashi joined me in my walk and we did a little over 3 miles while chatting and listening to music on the iPod.
We started packing for our trip tomorrow and I watched a couple of ’30 Rock’ episodes on Netflix Instant.

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‘Cat Ballou’, ‘A Walk on the Moon’, ‘The Painted Veil’

(posted from home)
(This post covers 20-23 March, 2009)

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Monday, 23 March –

Today I got to work cleaning up the van. I took down and stored away the sea kayak and the Thule box, then took the van to a car wash. There I had problems with the foaming brush and decided I’d better switch to the next bay, which had just come open. Unfortunately I rushed a little too much and didn’t notice that the wand hose was looped out just enough to catch my mirror. In pulling out my mirror snagged the hose and I broke off the end of the wash wand.
After finishing the wash I drove to the gas station just up the street since I knew they owned the car wash. The owner was very gracious, just telling me not to worry about the wand. He said it happens all the time and he has plenty of replacements. That was completely unexpected, especially since I opened the conversation offering to pay for the damage.
I made a grocery-shopping run, then walked my four-mile route along the creek at home.
That evening we watched ‘The Painted Veil’, another surprisingly-good romantic movie, this one starring Naomi Watts and Edward Norton. The actors do a good job of keeping this one from becoming a boring-albeit-pretty period movie. Recommended. RT=overall 73 & top critics 73.

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Sunday, 22 March –

Today we couldn’t stand being stuck in the house any longer and went into town to look at floor lamps. I ended up buying an Ott Light lamp called the ‘Dakota’ at Lowe’s, a full-spectrum fluorescent which will make a good reading light beside my lounging chair. Labashi was frustrated though—there was nothing else even close to what she wanted to see.
Late in the day I walked the six-mile loop.
That evening we watched ‘A Walk on the Moon’ with Diane Lane and Viggo Mortenson. Labashi had ordered a string of romantic movies from Netflix while I was in Florida and I thought they’d be terrible. This one wasn’t bad, though. A little predictable, perhaps, but certainly not soapy. Recommended. (RT = overall 73, top critics 60)

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Saturday, 21 March –

I worked on reviewing all the accumulated bills, insurance reports, and other paperwork regarding my recent CT scan— mostly just reviewing all the details and making sure everything matches. Looks like I’m stuck with the bill for $542 for my portion of it. And I have to have it re-done in a couple of weeks.
I also spent a very frustrating couple of hours uploading video clips to Facebook. What lousy software they have for this. It locks up both Opera and Internet Explorer and doesn’t work consistently the same. Depending on how you enter the upload mode the screens and messages look and act differently.
This afternoon I was very sleepy for some reason. Maybe the six-mile walks are a little too much. I took a nap and I was surprised to find I was out of it for two hours and very dopey coming out of it.
That evening we were going to watch a Netflix movie but Cat Ballou was on TCM’s ‘The Essentials’ tonight. I’ve only ever seen clips of it; I didn’t even know Jane Fonda is in it. Anyway, we watched this one, wondering what the heck could have caused this one to be developed. Lee Marvin is indeed award-worthy and the one shot of him drunk and asleep on his horse, both leaning against a wall (with the horse’s legs crossed!) makes the entire movie worth it.

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Friday, 20 March –

I blogged the morning away and posted my update, then cruised my regular web sites. In mid-afternoon I walked my six-mile loop. That evening we watched a Dateline special about the incredible foolishness of the mortgage industry, Wall Street, and ratings firms, leading to the current economic collapse. Wow.


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Return of the Miata, ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’, ‘Breaking the Waves’, Juniper Springs Wilderness fire

(posted from home)
(This post covers 13 - 19 March, 2009)

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Thursday, 19 March-

I paid for the Miata trans this morning. The bill wasn’t as bad as I expected. I ended up paying $750 but it was for installing not one but two transmissions (the first had worse problems than my original one) and also for re-routing and re-welding the exhaust and also fixing a miss in the engine. All in all, I’m happy. When I picked it up last time I thought I had made a terrible mistake in allowing my local garage guys to do this work. The trans was very noisy and I thought the guys would just say it’s not their problem the junk yard sent a bad transmission and that’s just the chance I take ordering a used transmission. But when I detailed the problems they offered to take the hit and took care of all the details and hassles, even washing the car before returning it.
Late in the day I began watching ’30 Rock’ episodes on Netflix instant movies and got caught up in them. I watched four or five episodes. I guess it’s another of those guilty-pleasure things but I like Liz Lemon, the Tina Fey character. Labashi looked in on me and must have wondered what the heck was going on. I had the lights off and was sitting in front of the laptop with my headphones on, LMAO.


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Wednesday, 18 March –

This morning I took the Miata to town, both to test out the new transmission before paying the bill and to get a look at some guns on sale at Gander Mountain. And with today’s beautiful weather I could go topless, er, I mean, top-down, in the Miata.
The guns were a disappointment in that one of the guns wasn’t available at all and the other wasn’t really a good deal. For the first, I really just wanted to see if I agreed with the reviews that it’s a little too heavy and that the fit and finish are surprisingly good for the bargain price. But it was not to be—none in stock. I really have to learn to call ahead.
I then drove across town to Rocky Ridge County Park for a walk. I had to alter my normal walking path somewhat because of logging of gypsy-moth damage but put in six miles of trail walking in a bit over two hours.
That evening I spent much of my time on YouTube watching FrenchPop videos. This is one of my guilty-pleasure things. Tonight it was mostly Mylene Farmer (“FTA” is a trip!), Natasha St. Pier, Lorie, Les Enfoires, and one or two by Patricia Kaas.

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Tuesday, 17 March –

I began working in the office today, mostly working on some health insurance stuff. I’m trying to track down whether my doctor made a mistake or I’m just unlucky in having to repeat an expensive diagnostic procedure.
Today was rainy so I spent the whole day in my office.

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Monday, 16 March-

Holy frijoles, the news says the Juniper Springs Wilderness fire has now burned over 10,000 acres. It’s now 85% contained but what a shame! The canoe run down Juniper Springs is reportedly one of the top five in the country. Labashi and I loved it on our run on it in kayaks in 2006. Orat and I went to the launch on March 4th of this year and the Spring looked great and has a brand-new boardwalk approach. The news says firefighters are in some cases going by canoe to the fire so it’s apparently very close to the run. The area has lots and lots of saw palmetto and those plants recover quickly from a fire but one of Juniper Run’s greatest assets is that it runs through overhanging vegetation for more than half the run and if that’s gone, it won’t recover soon.
This afternoon I walked my six-mile loop and it felt great—I was still going strong up the hill at the end.
That evening we watched ‘Breaking the Waves’, a Lars Von Triers film following the ‘rules’ of the dogma-95 style of film-making (read ‘hand held camera, natural lighting, no props, no music track, etc).
We enjoyed it but it’s one of those films which requires a suspension of disbelief. In other words it’s just a little too far out. In this case, tragedy strikes a young married couple when the husband is injured at his job on an oil platform and is paralyzed. The husband preys upon his wife’s naivete and abiding love for him and forces her to seek out sex with other men and tell him about the encounters. She comes to believe her actions are curing her husband and we see the situation overwhelm her and tragedy building for her. Yet, in the end, we learn we aren’t as all-knowing as we think we are.
The main reason to see this film is Emily Watson’s acting. She’s absolutely fearless and amazing to watch. I recommend this one if you don’t have a problem with a few explicit nude scenes.



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Sunday, 15 March –

We spent the morning with Maypo and the birthday girl and took our good ol’ time driving home.
I picked up a Sunday Times at the obligatory Starbucks stop and had a nice, leisurely read when we got home. Then we watched ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ on DVD. If you are interested in lavish photography, it’s interesting to watch but the storyline is too simplistic. I see it only gets a 35% on RT (and only 29% on the Top Critics tomatometer) and that’s about right.

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Saturday, 14 March-

I was far behind on my blog updates so spent the day catching up and posting. In checking the news, I see the Juniper Springs Wilderness fire which interrupted my plans for a walk on that portion of the Florida Trail has spread from 1300 acres to 3500 acres and from only 10 per cent to only 13 per cent contained.
Late in the day we drove to Chambersburg for my sister-in-law’s birthday party. We had a wonderful evening at the Copper Kettle and I believe the party took her by surprise. And if that’s the case, great! She’s an incredible, caring, very competent nurse and mom (and now a grand-mom). She well deserves a party and I hope it made her happy.
After the party we stayed the night in Mocha Joe in the driveway rather than drive home late.

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Friday, 13 March –

I spent much of the day going through the snail mail and catching up with the web news on sites I don’t follow very closely while traveling. I like to see what’s been happening on several gunnie web sites, typically ‘The High Road’ and the Pennsylvania Firearms Owner’s Association sites. The latter had some interesting legal cases going on wherein local and state police forces were making improper arrests of gun owners and seizing their handguns for ‘open carry’, i.e., for carrying a handgun in a holster while going about their day. Open carry is legal in Pennsylvania but some law enforcement organizations were apparently behind the times in their training. The legal cases as well as commendable efforts by members of PAFOA to educate law enforcement organizations (by providing briefing papers and by a writing campaign) appear to have made a difference.
The garage guy dropped off the Miata after it’s four-month-long odyssey to get a replacement transmission. I drove it only long enough to take him back to the garage but it’s definitely better than the other one. I’ll have to test it further when I get a chance.
That evening we watched the extras on the ‘Before Night Falls’ disk and then watched Bill Moyers’ Journal and ‘Now’.


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Another flat, Lake Dorr, Hontoon Island State Park, Wekiwa State Park, boat trip on the Silver River (with monkeys!), Ocala, Juniper Springs Wilderness fire, and the trip home.

(posted from home)
(This post covers 5-12 March, 2009)

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Thursday, 12 March –

I woke refreshed and ready to get on the road. My drive up I-95 through the remainder of North Carolina and Virginia and Maryland was very easy, marred only by some stop-and-go traffic in a construction zone south of Washington, DC. I passed the time listening to ‘This American Life’ on the iPod and to Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner’s excellent testimony on the financial crisis (on CSPAN Radio).
By 1530 I was backing the boat into my driveway. I spent the next hour unloading and ‘arriving’ and then settled in with Labashi. It’s always GREAT to come home.
That evening Labashi and I watched ‘Before Night Falls’, an excellent film adaptation of Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas’ memoir. The part is played by Javier Bardem, who is one of my favorite actors and is amazing in this movie. The director is Julian Schnabel and I really, really now want to see ‘The Diving Bell And The Butterfly’, one of his later films. ‘Before Night Falls’ is very highly recommended.

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Wednesday, 11 March –

This morning I drove to Juniper Springs, thinking I’d walk to the site of yesterday’s fire. But the whole park is closed and the air is thick with smoke. The canoe launch is closed as is the Florida Trail through the entire Juniper Springs Wilderness. (I later learned the fire had been much bigger than I realized and in fact was less than 10 per cent contained on this day).
After staring at the maps a while I decided it was time to point the van toward home. I had had a great trip for the last five weeks but it just seemed I had accomplished everything I had wanted to this trip and home was where Labashi is. Also, with the spring-forward time change, days wouldn’t seem so short at home as they had back in January and daytime temperatures are pretty comfortable.
I decided I’d wend my way home rather than “head for the barn” like I normally do once I make the homeward-bound decision.
Rather than just go north up route 19 (my normal route), I drove to the western boundary of the Ocala National Forest and took that road, my first time on it. It took me up through beautiful backcountry and past ‘old Florida’ homes, then on to Route 301. I had my chance to catch I-95 above Jacksonville but chose to stay on 301 through Georgia and part of South Carolina. But late in the day I swung over to catch I-95 so I could make Lumberton, NC for the night and be within striking distance of home the next day.
My drive up 301 was great. The country parts of it ran through mile after mile of pinewood tree farms and farmland. The towns were for the most part neat and tidy but in South Carolina I started seeing lots of evidence of hard times. Many stores and factories were shuttered and the amount of trash and junk sitting around the abandoned homes and former businesses was overwhelming in some areas.
I didn’t make the Lumberton Wal-mart until 2200. After a quick supper I easily fell asleep but was awakened at 0100 by a noisy truck. This clown must have had a refrigerated truck because the noise was much louder than a normal idling diesel. I don’t understand why, with dozens of truck stops within easy reach, they choose to wake up the RVers at the Wal-mart. Anyway, at 0200, I gave up trying to sleep and drove north for an hour to another Wal-mart and there fell gratefully and very deeply asleep.

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Tuesday, 10 March –

Today I headed over to nearby Biggby Coffee to update the blog and have a coffee. But it took me a minute to realize they had gone out of business. The sign was still in place but something wasn’t right. Hmm. No ads in the windows, nothing posted on the door—not even the hours of operation. But it wasn’t until I saw the interior had been stripped and there was nothing in there at all that it sunk in…. they’re gone! Rats!
It wasn’t critical to update the blog so I went looking for the local Gander Mountain. Someone had told me there’s one in Ocala but the GPS didn’t show it. Fortunately, the guy had said it’s near I-75 so I found it easily.
Next door was a big Northern Tool store so I checked both there and at Gander Mountain for a spare wheel and tire for the boat trailer—but no luck. I did, however, see Gander Mountain sells TentCots (http://www.kamprite.com/pages/products). I had been interested in one of those for the boat, i.e., for an overnighter out in the Everglades or something similar. But I soon realized it would be an unwieldy thing to haul around all the time just to have it for a night or two. Also, it’s $160 so it was an easy decision to pass. But I would like to come up with a good way to set up a backpackers solo tent on the boat and somehow do it an inch or so off the deck so rains wouldn’t simply soak through the bottom of the tent.
I then drove to the closest park for lunch and planned the rest of the day. I’d go to Juniper Springs Wilderness for a walk, then drive on to Lake Dorr for the night.
As I drove out Route 40 toward Juniper Springs, I saw a relatively small cloud of smoke over the area. As I turned into the entrance station I saw some fire vehicles and I wondered if there had been a fire in the campground. The attendant said I could walk on the Florida Trail if I wanted to but there’s a wildfire about five miles back the trail. After talking with her a bit I realized the Florida Trail is the only access to that area and with more firefighters rolling in the gate, it was apparent the firefighters would soon be hoofing it down the trail and I’d be in the way. Later, I learned the park campground had been evacuated and the park closed shortly after I left.
I drove west on 40 to the shooting range, thinking I’d while away an hour or so there but it was crowded, so I turned back. And in that short time, the cloud over the Juniper Springs area was MUCH larger and darker. (NOTE: on March 12th this fire was reported as 1300 acres and only 10 per cent contained. Also, hikers had to be airlifted from the area and a firebreak constructed near the campground and canoe-launch to prevent them from being affected by the fire. I had no idea the fire was this extensive.)
I drove down US19 to the nearest Florida Trail trailhead and parked there for my walk. I walked northbound on the trail for two hours, making it well past Buck Lake. I had hoped to make it to Farles Prairie but realized at 1700 that I had better turn back in order to make it back to the van before dark. I really liked this hike though at first it was quite hot and dusty. But as dusk came on, it was very special and peaceful, particularly at Dora’s Pond.
I also met an interesting hiker on the trail. I met Sarah Montana. She’s not Hannah Montana’s older sister, she’s Sarah, FROM Montana. Let me explain. As I parked the van at the trailhead I noticed a car with a Montana license plate--- something you don’t see a lot of in Florida. About an hour into my walk, I met a pretty, outdoorsy young woman hiking southbound with her two dogs. We talked for fifteen minutes or so and I learned she is originally from the plains of eastern Montana and her dogs are named ‘Finn’ and ‘Rocket’ (I should have asked where ‘Nose Cone’ and ‘Gyrocompass’ were). She had interesting ‘tribal’-style tattoos circling her arms but I didn’t dare ask if they had special significance. She had an interest in snakes and lizards and had done some work with ‘herps’ (as in herpetology). She told me of the snakes she had seen on the Yearling Trail north of us while I said I had been surprised at how few snakes I had seen both here in the Ocala and the Everglades. We talked of our experiences happening upon hog-nosed snakes and I told her of the Juniper Wilderness fire and recommended the Juniper Springs Run canoe trip. She was just refreshing to talk to. Afterwards I kicked myself for not asking whether she knew of Broadus, Montana. That’s the little East Montana town where our van broke down in 2006. It would have been a great coincidence if she had known or known of Steve and LeAnn Rhodes or of the Powder River Tire shop there at the Broadus cross-roads.
I was exhausted from the hike but hoped to revive myself with some good ham and mustardy hot-sauce at Old Crow Bar-Be-Que. But they were closed! I swear the sign said they were open seven days a week when I was here last week but now it says they’re only open Wednesday through Sunday.
I drove on through Umatilla, looking for something like Old Crow but there’s nothing. I stopped at the liquor store and bought some classy vodka for my orange juice, then returned to the campground and had a big spinach salad for supper.
After my eight miles of walking it only took two shots of vodka in my orange juice to put me into a heavy sleep for the night. I’ll never be much of a drinker. A couple of shots and I’m fast asleep!

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Monday, 9 March –

I finally left Lake Dorr campground today… but I may be back. I really like the area and you can’t beat the price. For some reason this campground takes the America-the-Beautiful national parks pass for a 50% discount, making it $6 for a nice campground on a lake and within easy driving distance to many recreation lands.
Anyway, the goal today was to take the fishing boat out on the Ocklawaha River and (hopefully) sample the Silver River.
I drove to Ray Wayside Park on route 40 about seven miles east of Ocala and at the edge of the Ocala National Forest. The little wayside park has two launch ramps on a canal leading to the Silver River and very near its confluence with the Ocklawaha. Go upstream for the Silver, downstream for the Ocklawaha.
I was immediately smitten by the Silver River, a/k/a Silver Spring. It’s crystal clear and has a good healthy flow. And there are monkeys!
I had read about monkeys in the area but was still surprised when I saw the branches shaking oddly up high. I spotted a monkey in the underbrush and thought I was very lucky to see one. Then I saw five of them together with another four in the trees above. Very, very cool!
I spent the afternoon slowly motoring upstream against the current, fascinated by the many birds, fish, turtles, and alligators, all on this sleepy, postcard-perfect stream. There were enough underwater obstacles threatening the prop to keep the trip interesting and in a few places the river was only two boat-widths wide, typically around a snag. And the clear water made it possible to see the underwater roots and branches festooned with reedy growth, a deep green against the pretty white-sand bottom.
It took me about three hours to reach Silver Springs, the commercial glass-bottom-boat attraction. I took a spin around the boat basin and waved to the tourists but the natural area downstream was much more interesting so I didn’t stay long.
As I had come upriver I passed two small pontoon boats coming down with a dozen or so tourists and naturalists from the nearby state park. In my five-hour trip I saw eight private boats but I’d bet the river gets crowded on weekends. I passed a dozen or so kayaks and canoes, all working hard going against the current and I didn’t envy their trip upstream.
By late afternoon I made it back to the launch ramp and took a break, then headed the other direction on the river. I only spent about an hour on the Ocklawaha but it too is a special river and I’ll want to explore it some more sometime soon. The Silver River is protected and there’s no fishing permitted while the Ocklawaha permits fishing. Also, the Ocklawaha goes on for many miles and forms much of the western boundary of the National Forest.
I returned to the ramp and loaded up, then headed to a new Starbucks I had spotted on the east side of Ocala. I spent a very pleasant two hours on their shady patio, sipping and blogging. I then went to the library and called Labashi from Study Room 3 for a video call.
Afterwards I drove to the 19th Street Wal-mart for the night. I’ve stayed at that one before and there’s a Biggby Coffee next door where I can post the blog tomorrow morning.
I visited the Redbox and rented ‘Lakeview Terrace’ with Samuel L. Jackson. RT gives it a 48 and that seems appropriate to me. It’s not the greatest movie but I like watching Mr. Jackson at work.

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Sunday, 8 March –

Today I drove in to the library to call Labashi but couldn’t get a signal. I carry along a copy of wi-fi hotspots in Florida from wififreespot.com and saw there’s one in Eustis at a coffee shop. I had a coffee at PJ’s and a nice long chat with Labashi. She’s home from her parent’s place now and already working on one of her art projects.
I then drove to Big Bass campground in the Ocala National Forest, just to check it out. I spoke with the volunteer there and took a look around but it’s too hilly. Only a few of the campsites are level, the lake dried up, and it’s $12 for a site there (and only $6 at Lake Dorr), so I’d be silly to camp there.
I then drove the dirt forest road north until hitting Route 40 and I peeked in at Mill Dam Lake but it’s small and boring.
I then drove on to Silver River State Park and took a walk. I had read about it in ’50 Hikes in Central Florida’. I walked down to the river (Silver Springs) and then walked one of the trails for an hour or so, giving me a four-mile day.
As I headed back to Lake Dorr, I took the forest road since it was dusk and I hoped to see some wildlife. I only saw one deer, however.
Back at camp I made my signature spinach salad for dinner and then blogged the rest of the evening away.

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Saturday, 7 March -

Today was a loss as far as getting done what I wanted to do. My campground doesn’t have a dump station so I went to Clearwater Lake campground and took care of that chore. But then the idea was to go kayak the Wekiva River. I had briefly seen a stretch of it while taking Orat to the Orlando airport a few days ago and had make a waypoint of it on the GPS.
But I also wanted to see Hontoon Island State Park, Florida’s only island state park. You don’t drive into the state park. You park in a parking lot and walk to a six-person electric ferry and that ferries you across part of the St. John’s River to the state park dock.
I walked a bit but just wasn’t into it. I wanted to paddle. And if I had had any brains at all, I would have just gone back to the van and launched the kayak near the ferry dock. But I decided I wanted to paddle the Wekiva.
My waypoint would take me to the Wekiva but I decided I should go to the Wekiva State Park so put that in the GPS. It seemed like it took forever to get there and I realized I had almost driven to Orlando to get there. And to make matters worse, I couldn’t paddle there. There was a Riverfest and Artfest going on and even on a non-busy day it’s quite a hike to the launch. I gave up on that idea.
I then followed the GPS to my waypoint and I noticed it’s now getting late in the day. I need to get on the river soon or I won’t have enough time.
But then the next problem. There’s no place to launch into the Wekiva River in that area. The bridge over it has a big fence all around. I cruised the country roads on both sides of the river and everything was private. I did eventually find a park but it was closed for rehabilitation and had a big construction fence and no-trespassing signs around it.
So I gave up. By that time it was only two hours till dark. I’d just have to regroup and this time plan it better.
I drove back to Umatilla and went to a chili cook-off in the library parking lot. For $5 I was able to approach any of 20 stands and get as much chili as I could stand. I made the rounds of about ten of them and then voted for my favorite— “Gaspacho-Macho”. It was a garlic-heavy Gaspacho (cold soup) and it was definitely different than the others.
I then drove behind the library and picked up a wi-fi signal there for some web stuff before going back to camp for the night.

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Friday, 6 March –

I spent the morning working on the fishing boat. I had to make another trip to the hardware store for more supplies but did get the job done by mid-afternoon. I then hooked up the boat and towed it to the parking area near the launch and washed it down again. Orat and I had washed off the worst of the crud but there was still a fine layer of dirt on everything and I had a heck of a time getting it off enough that I wasn’t making tracks just walking across the deck.
I then launched the boat and spent the rest of the afternoon on Lake Dorr, just exploring. I saw a bald eagle at the far end of the lake but otherwise saw only a few anhingas and cormorants on my two-hour cruise.
After dark I went back to Old Crow and this time tried the beef bar-be-que and sweet sauce, then switched to the hot sauce.
I finished the evening parked outside the library in Mocha Joe, on the internet. I noticed Orat sign on to Skype and had a nice chat with him and the missus.

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Thursday, 5 March –

Today I took a driving tour. It wasn’t really intentional, it just happened that way. I drove from my camp site at Lake Dorr to Umatilla and the Ace hardware store to buy a few replacement screws and lock nuts for the fishing boat. All the bouncing around caused the fire extinguisher mount to come off and the boat motor control console to come off. After buying the supplies to resolve those issues I planned to go back to the campground but as I approached the van I noticed a low tire. I checked the pressure and it only had 16 psi so I pumped it up to 30 psi and checked the tire over thoroughly but couldn’t find anything wrong. I did notice that the plug I put in on the McCarthy Road in Alaska’s Wrangell-St Elias Wilderness had a bit of an odd discoloration but that plug has been working fine for something on the order of 8000 miles. This is the same tire which Orat spotted what looked like a roofing nail head protruding from it last week. That turned out to be just a ¼-inch screw in the thick part of the tread so that also seemed unlikely.
The GPS found a tire shop just down the street in Umatilla so I gave it a try. This one turned out to be an interesting place. The owner, Bruce, is a Florida good-ol’-boy who likes to hunt. The tire shop is an old (30’s vintage) gas station and Bruce has stacks and stacks of tires piled all around. In the ‘office’, there’s barely room to turn around but the walls are festooned with deer heads and a BIG life-size turkey mount. Every horizontal surface is covered in junk and the grime that goes with having an open-air office and garage where tire work is done.
Bruce took care of me right away and mumbled something about a horse trailer due in for some work so he had to get me done quickly. He didn’t have a tire-dunking tank to find the leak, he just man-handled the tire around the corner and slowly ran water over it with the hose. I thought he might have a hard time finding the leak but as soon as the water hit the plug, you could see the bubbles.
Bruce dismounted the tire and installed a patch from the inside—the old way of doing it. He told me he has been using those patches for 35 years and they almost never come back. He said something more modern may work fine but he’s not about to try it given the excellent performance of the patches. They do require the installer dismount the tire and to rough up the area to receive the patch with an air-rasp and then it takes awhile for the glue to air-dry before putting the patch down. I couldn’t help thinking this could get expensive given the time it was taking but Bruce surprised me by charging only $17 for the job. It easily took 45 minutes for the entire process so I don’t think Bruce is getting rich on this. On the other hand, he had a string of locals coming in and lining up to have work done the whole time I was there. I had apparently gotten lucky to get in line just before the rush.
The job with Bruce required cash so that reminded me I needed to replenish my walking-around cash so I found a bank further down the street for that. And that led to my wanting to keep driving and looking around. Before long I was following 441 west and I realized I had never been on that section. And, gee, it was only another 45 miles to Ocala—wouldn’t it be nice to see good old Ocala again?
You get the picture. I spent the rest of the day driving around. And late in the day I stopped at the Ocala Library to see if they had gotten their wi-fi installed. They didn’t have it last year but were due for it soon. And sure enough, they had it. I spent an hour or two catching up on news and mail, then I completed my circle across the Ocala National Forest again to get back to Lake Dorr for the night.
I passed right by my campground and went on to Umatilla to try the bar-be-que at a local joint called Old Crow Bar-B-Que. The pork was good but the hot mustard sauce made it perfect!
I then drove a few blocks to the library to call Labashi via Skype before returning to camp for the night.


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Key West, Everglades City and Chokoloskee, Blackwater River, Bear Island, Fakahatchee slough-slog, Picayune Strand, Okaloacoochee Slough, Daytona, Ocala National Forest

(posted from Dunkin Donuts, Deland, FL)
(This post covers 27 February to 4 March, 2009)

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Wednesday, 4 March –

This morning we headed out into the sand roads of the Ocala National Forest. We were just hitting a few things while still within easy striking distance of Orlando Airport for Orat’s flight late in the day.
We first drove west to Big Scrub campground. This one is an ATV rider’s paradise but because of the cold weather there was only one camper there this morning. I spoke with the campground host volunteer and learned from her that the Farles’ Prairie campground had been closed because there are two bears in the area. She knows this because a Boy Scout troop had come in to Big Scrub unannounced after the bears had come into their camp and the next day the signs went up closing the campground for the season.
She asked if I needed a hunting dog and nodded toward five skinny hounds on the back of the property. These are strays which hunters have lost or abandoned. When I expressed surprise that hunters wouldn’t have come by to look for their dogs, she said these didn’t have radio collars so they probably weren’t good hunters and had been abandoned by their owners. She and another volunteer care for them both here and at another site a few miles up the road. She said she has seen two bears in that area too.
We then drove up the forest road to the public shooting range where we met two old-timers wailing away with assault rifles, an M16 and an AK47. The new range rules now prohibit rapid fire (which to some guys is the point of having an assault rifle) and require two seconds between shots.
The old-timer we talked with most was wearing camo fatigues and a camo hat with VIET NAM in large letters with a sharp-shooter’s badge sewed on. He joked about our having the kayak, saying we couldn’t launch it there. I replied, saying it wasn’t for paddling, it was our target for the day. Could he hit that?
I’m probably lucky that he didn’t fire on the kayak but he laughed and said he could hit a clay pigeon on the far embankment (about 150 yards away) with iron sights. He was obviously proud of his shooting ability and he wasn’t shy about telling us about it. Good for him!
He also made a point of telling us he’s a Christian. When he learned where Orat was from, he told a long story about his missionary work in New York--- building a church in Brooklyn (which is, of course, nowhere near Orat’s place in upstate New York). Anyway, he was yet another Florida backcountry character and we enjoyed meeting him. (I should have asked his name. It was probably “Killer” or “Crack(er)Shot” or something like that.
Before leaving, Orat used the pit toilet and then pointed out the four bullet holes in the door and back wall. And I pointed out the two-dozen bullet holes in the Handicapped Parking sign. Some of these boys seem to have a problem with muzzle control!
We then drove north and checked out the Moorehead launch ramp (I’ve got to go back there) and then Salt Springs and the north-end visitor’s center, campground, and launch ramp.
After lunch, our impending appointment at Orlando began drawing us south. We took a short tour of Juniper Springs and I showed Orat the spectacular spring and canoe launch area.
We then headed for Orlando in earnest. We made the airport in plenty of time and as I dropped him off we chatted a bit about what a great trip we had had together. From the get-go we were lucky. Among the highlights:
- the spur-wearing cowboys (and cowgirl) at lunch at Yeehaw Junction
- the cow country ranches between Orlando and Okeechobee
- the views of Lake Okeechobee (bending with the curvature of the earth) from our viewpoint on the 441 bridge
- the sugar-cane country from Belle Glade to Florida City
- our night-time interaction with the mating-season gators at the Anhinga Trail in the Everglades
- our afternoon boat exploration of the southern end of the Wilderness Waterway from Flamingo, across Whitewater Bay to Shark River
- sunset and bike-riding through the streets of Key West near Mallory Square
- three successive days of very good key-lime pie for dessert in the Keys and Everglades
- Alligators and camping at the freebie campsite (Mitchell Landing) on the Loop Road in the Everglades
- Tree snails on the walk on Loop Road
- Everglades City (and a vist to the Rod and Gun Club) and lunch in Chokoloskee at the Havana Café (where we split flan and key-lime pie for dessert)
- A spectacular afternoon boating trip through the mangroves of the Blackwater River and the dolphins we saw in the Gulf of Mexico in the late-day sun.
- Our high-speed drive up the Turner River Road, dodging a raccoon, a great blue heron, and a bobcat and our night at Bear Island.
- Our slough-slog in the Fakahatchee Strand (where we lost the trail and had to follow the GPS across the swamp to get out)
- Our visits to the Picayune Strand State Forest camps (which we somehow found even though the GPS seemed to be malfunctioning)
- Our evening in the Okaloacoochee Slough State Forest, looking for panther tracks and seeing feral hogs the next morning
- the orange-groves country around Lake Wales and Avon Park (and my first visit to a Checkers)
- Farles Prairie and running into Erie Joe (Orat calls him “Eerie Joe”) at Lake Dorr
- A day at Daytona Bike Week
- A day cruising the Ocala National Forest roads

What a vacation! THANKS, ORAT!!!!!!

After dropping Orat off I then headed back toward Lake Dorr but detoured to Deland to hit the library. Unfortunately, they didn’t have wireless so I went to the nearest Dunkin Donuts and connected there. I had a nice, long conversation with Labashi and then updated the blog before heading back to camp.

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Tuesday, 3 March-

It was COLD last night. The overnight low was somewhere in the mid-30’s and I had foolishly packed away Labashi’s cold-weather sleeping bag so Orat and I were trying to get by with a light blanket each and my featherweight down bag spread over top of us. We were fine, it was just a bit of a surprise that the temperature had dropped so low.
After breakfast we drove into Daytona for a day at Bike Week ’09. We parked behind the Speedway and took a tram to the manufacturer tents. We enjoyed seeing the new bikes but were also very happy to walk through the extensive bike-parking lots to see the great variety of personally-owned bikes. We were surprised to see Honda is about to sell a chopper design called the Fury. They seem to have done their homework, It has all the styling cues for a classic stretched-out chopper. And they made a very smart decision to leave the badges off the tank and to only have a very small Honda plate on each side and the rear fender, plus a small Fury decal which can be easily removed by the owner. Price is $13-14K, a very competitive number compared to custom-built choppers.
The engine is a 1300cc model based on the VTX 1300 and is fuel-injected.
After touring all the manufacturer tents and the aftermarket circus, we went to the Harley demo area and each rode a bike. Orat tried a Fat Boy and I chose an Ultra Classic, Screaming Eagle edition touring bike. I enjoyed the test ride but don’t think I’m a Harley kinda guy.
We then returned to the van and had lunch before heading across town to Daytona Beach. We circled another venue, the Ocean Center, but no parking was available and we thought we had really already seen everything likely to be there.
We crossed back to Daytona and parked just off Beach Avenue and walked through five or six motorcycle shops and then an aftermarket sales area until about 1700.
We then drove to a Carrabba’s Grill near the Speedway for supper. We shared a pizza and splurged on chocolate martinis.
After dark we headed back to our campsite at Lake Dorr. We shopped at a Publix supermarket along the way, replenishing supplies.
Back at the campground we each took a shower and then read and blogged the evening away.
Good day!

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Monday, 2 March –

After a perfect sleeping night we woke early to yet another sunny morning. The overnight temperature had dropped to 44 degrees but we were very comfortable in good ol’ Mocha Joe.
After breakfast and cleanup chores, we drove back out to the hard road, surprising a turkey and five feral pigs (including two baby porkers) in the process. The feral pigs are generally difficult to see so it was quite a surprise to come upon these along the side of the road. The two little ones became disoriented in all the confusion of running back and forth to escape the approaching humans and were quite comical.
We drove to the rangers’ office and talked there with an earnest young guy about the ‘Slough. They are continuing their ongoing program to kill off non-native plant-life. The panther hunters put radio collars on three new panthers in the last year and the estimate for the number of panthers in the Slough is eight to ten. They built additional road out in the Four Corners section and that will apparently be the extent of new road building.
Orat and I then drove north on 29 toward La Belle and onward. After a few hours we had lunch at a Checkers (one of Orat’s favorites) along Route 27, near Avon Park. We made the Ocala National Forest by mid-afternoon.
At the visitor center we learned that my favorite campground, Farles Lake, is closed to camping this year. We drove out there anyway since I knew of a primitive site at Mud Lake (near Farles Lake) but that too was closed. At Farles we talked with a caretaker couple who said they aren’t sure why it was closed but believe it will be open next year. The caretakers recommended nearby Lake Dorr since the campground had been re-habbed in the last year.
At Lake Dorr, we were standing at the iron ranger when a guy walked by and said hello, then chatted a bit. As he talked I realized I knew him from last year and I asked his name. It was “Erie Joe” (aka “P-A Joe”, who I had met last year at Farles. He had been the one to tell me of Tie-Die’s untimely death. I had forgotten some of the details and want to record them here. Tie-Die’s real name was Mark Wright. He died in his camper, found there by his friend Larry who saw his camper pulled alongside the road at Cobb Place in the Osceola National Forest and went to investigate. There sat Tie-Die, slumped over with one of his signature tie-die patterns in hand. Larry touched him and his skin was cold and Larry knew he was dead. Last year Erie Joe joined with a group of Tie-Die’s friends at the music festival in Dunnellon to celebrate his (Tie-Die’s) life.
Labashi and I met Tie-Die on our 2006 and 2007 trips and have fond memories of him and the other people we met on our first two trips to Florida.
After I spoke with Joe about Tie-Die awhile, he remembered me, mostly because of my home-made one-man kayak loader which he had seen in action at Farles Lake.
After checking into the campground we washed down the boat to get it looking a little better. It was covered in a thick layer of dust from the dirt roads at Big Cypress, Fakahatchee Strand, Picayune Strand, and Farles Prairie.
After supper we took a short walk to the lake, then took showers in the new shower house. While Orat showered I talked with an interesting couple from Vancouver about travel in Canada, Arizona, and Florida, then enjoyed the extra-hot shower myself.
We spent the rest of the evening viewing more Alaska video clips and blogging and reading.

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Sunday, 1 March –

This morning we again headed out early, this time so we could see the morning light on the Turner River Road and Wagon-wheel Road area. But a cold front had come in overnight and we saw very few gators or other animals.
We then entered the Fakahatchee Strand for our adventure of the day. Today it was a slough-slog (that’s “sloo”, not “sluff”, by the way). I knew approximately where to find the start of a ribbon-marked trail into the slough and we depended on our GPS to get out. The trail of ribbons petered out after an hour or so and we were on our own. Fortunately I had walked into this slough from the other end last year and had made some GPS waypoints. So we simply slogged off-trail until we reached one of my waypoints to find the exit trail. Slogging off-trail was slow and arduous. The water table is extra-low this year so we only had a few instances of wading through ankle-deep water but the growth around us was impenetrable in many places. We just had to take our time to work around any obstacles and then get back on track via the GPS. As we neared the closest of my waypoints from last year, the GPS batteries died. I tried continuing on without the GPS, hoping to spot a familiar landmark but we ended up loading up a new set of batteries to enable us to move on. Thank goodness for the GPS! And thank goodness for the much more sensitive Sirf chip in my current GPS. Labashi and I had tried to enter this area several years ago but had to turn back because my Etrex Legend couldn’t stay locked on the GPS satellites. But my Garmin 60CSx never lost the signal once today and even after we loaded the new batteries, it easily found the satellites again.
Our slog lasted about two and a half hours and we were glad to find our way out of the labyrinth.
After lunch in the van we drove on through the Fakahatchee Strand to the Picayune Strand State Forest. We visited the campground at the south end of the Strand and learned it has been a slow year there for visitors.
We then drove north through the Picayune Strand to the Equestrian Campground and the Ranger office. I hoped to talk to a ranger about next steps in the recovery of the Picayune Strand but nobody was available so we moved on.
We continued north out of the Picayune and on to Immokalee, then to the Okloacoochee Wildlife Management Area. I know a nice little campground there so we found a site, dropped the boat, and spent the next two hours cruising the dirt roads of the WMA, looking for wildlife. We saw five turkeys, two deer, plus a whole roost of ibises but that was it. The cold front had brought wind and cold temperatures and the animals were hunkering down. When we ran out of daylight we returned to the campsite and made supper.
We then whiled away much of the evening by watching video clips from our Alaska trip. Orat had seen only a few of them so this was a perfect opportunity to catch up. After a few hours of that, I blogged while Orat continued reading ‘Yukon Quest’.

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Saturday, 28 February –

This morning we woke a bit early and got underway quickly. By 0830 we were walking the trail at the Tree Snail Hammock. This area has beautiful tree snails on the Liguum trees. The attach themselves and go into a state of hibernation. The signs at the beginning of the trail ask you to leave them alone, noting that if you detach them from their attachment spot they will die. Their shells are like jewels, each different from the others.
We then slowly drove the remainder of the Loop Road, stopping at each culvert. We saw dozens of alligators, all of them a good healthy black and all of them out soaking up the morning sun. Only the small ones—the ones under four feet in length—moved about or reacted to us in any way.
As we reached the end of Loop Road at Monroe Station, the lot there was filled with swamp-buggy trailers. We talked briefly with one of the guys about his buggy. He was obviously was proud of it but sheepishly told us of having built it a foot too high to get out of the garage. They had had to cut the main vertical supports and remove a foot of pipe and reweld it so they could get the buggy out of the garage. I can see making a mistake of, say, three or four inches, but a mistake of 12 inches seems like a real Bubba- class engineering mistake. I asked why it had a crane-winch on the back and he said he wasn’t sure— just in case they got a deer or something. He then pointed out the charcoal grill built onto the back of the buggy and proclaimed it the best feature of the buggy. He said. “You know— kill-it and grill-it”.
We then toured the Big Cypress Visitor’s Center and watched a really excellent late-70s movie about the Preserve.
We drove on to Everglades City where we walked through the Rod and Gun Club, an old-Florida upscale lodge. I like the dark old paneling and game mounts reminiscent of Teddy Roosevelt’s time. Bully!
We drove on to Chokoloskee and had lunch at the Havana Café. I had a fantastic grilled mahi-mahi with home-made spiced French fries and Orat had the fried version. We then splurged for flan and key-lime pie and split them.
After visiting the Everglades Visitor’s Center in Everglades City, we zipped over to Collier-Seminole State Park to launch the boat. We were on the Blackwater River by 1430. We had a fantastic time maneuvering through the mangroves and into the larger river before spilling out into the Gulf of Mexico. After taking a short beach walk on one of the Ten Thousand Islands, we continued out into the Gulf about a half mile. As our day was winding down, we decided to turn around and at that moment spotted four dolphins. For some reason these dolphins spent a long time on the surface and Orat took some very good video shots of them. I believe this is the best dolphin encounter I’ve ever had.
We then zoomed back up the Blackwater River to the launch ramp and pulled the boat, washed it down, and headed out just at sunset. We drove back to the Turner River Road to Bear Island campground, about 18 miles of very dusty road into the backcountry. Along the way we had to dodge a raccoon, a great blue heron, and, of all things, a bobcat.
We easily found a camping spot and had supper, then took a short night walk around the main camping area and learned we had done very well in our choice of campsite—the others had noisy radios blaring away.
But we had it quiet at our campsite so I finished the evening updating my blog while Orat read. What a great day!

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Friday, 27 February-

This morning we sat around the campsite enjoying the beautiful morning in Key West for an hour or so before getting underway. We have miles to go before we sleep so we didn’t tarry a long time but it was very nice.
We drove north up US 1, making a few stops along the way. We stopped at a Boater’s World to look for some hard-to-find items and Orat checked out the nearby Sandals World, hoping to find a bargain.
In Islamorada we stopped at the World Wide Sportsman shop (owned by Bass Pro) to see the Pilar, a sister ship to Hemingway’s famous sport-fishing boat and sub-hunting boat of the same name. The boat looks massive as it takes up the center of the store. You can go aboard and get a feel for what Hemingway’s boat was like, including the below-decks area. That was really special.
Afterwards we had lunch at the Islamorada Grill, a nice little on-the-water restaurant open to Florida Bay on two sides. I had wanted to try a grouper sandwich and enjoyed that with a mojito.
We then continued north to John Pennekamp State Park. We walked through the aquarium and checked out the dive shop, then drove through the beach and picnic areas.
In Florida City we took a break at the local Starbucks before pressing on to the Everglades and I introduced Orat to the java-chip frappacino, affogato style.
We pushed on to the Tamiami Trail, hoping to get there in time for an airboat ride. Our timing worked out perfectly. We got the last ride of the day and since it was close to closing time, they took just the two of us as soon as we walked in—there was no time to wait for other prospective customers.
The ride was at Sunset Island and lasted 40 minutes (for $18 each). Our driver was ‘Regis’, an interesting ol’ cracker-boy. Our boat was powered by a Chevy 350. Regis was actually very good and gave us our money’s worth, both on the airboat and also as our guide on a short tour of a remote Miccosukee ‘camp’. The airboats are operated by the Miccosukee tribe and fly the flag of the Miccosukee nation—a four-horizontal-bars flag of white, black, red, and yellow, representing the four races and the four cardinal directions.
After the ride we drove on to the Shark Valley visitor area. We arrived just 45 minutes before closing so settled for a short walk along the tram path. We did manage to see five or six alligators up close (within ten feet) and shot some good footage of birds.
We then drove on to the Loop Road and our campground for the night at Mitchell Landing. This is a freebie campground within the Big Cypress National Preserve. As we drove by a young guy stopped us and asked if we were looking for a place for the night and offered the spot he had been occupying for day use and left us more than enough firewood for the evening.
Orat made up our supper salad and we sat by the campfire for a bit but the mosquitos came out and became a little too much. Orat retreated to the van to read while I sauntered over to talk to our neighbors, a couple from Massachusetts. They were sailors and had been to many of the same places I’ve been on the New England coast so we had a nice chat.
I then sat around our fire for an hour or so since the mosquitoes now seemed to only be an occasional bother. Orat was into his book so stayed with that and eventually I joined him in the van and caught up the blog.
It had been a picture-perfect day weather wise. The sun lit up the green waters of the Keys just perfectly and we had a nice breeze to keep us pleasantly cool throughout the day.

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