Vacation with Orat and Maypo ; bailng out of this year's Florida trip
(posted from home)
(this post covers 1 – 11 March, 2012)
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Sunday, 11 March -
I felt bad again today, a bit worse than I've been feeling the last few days. I was still a bit nauseated for the morning and then sleepy and weak. I napped much of the day and spent a little time online with Flipboard and felt a lot better by late afternoon.
I started 'The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest' and that evening Labashi and I caught up on the last three episodes of 'Gold Rush'.
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Saturday, 10 March -
I was once again on the road by 0730 and still in automaton-mode. Traffic was moving well but below Richmond I saw a sign saying 'Extreme Backups Likely' but had missed the first half of the message. I was approaching the I-95/I-295 split so which was it? I turned on the CB radio but there was nothing there. At the split I elected to go through Richmond, figuring there'd be more alternatives through Richmond than out in the countryside where I-295 runs. I didn't have any problems but still don't know for sure whether I avoided an I-295 problem or not.
I arrived home by 1500 and immediately unloaded the critical items from the van (pills, etc), then went to bed for a nap. I was feeling pretty rocky and that settled me down.
I didn't sleep long but read a bit and then showered and shaved so I'd feel more normal. I spent the evening smiling a lot with Labashi.
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Friday, 9 March -
This morning I woke refreshed and happy to be heading home. I was on the road by 0730 and thoroughly enjoyed the morning drive up to Jacksonville and on to I-95.
Once on I-95 I was more or less on automatic, stopping only for gas, Starbucks, and rest-stops. I had a tailwind for a few hundred miles and saw a 12.5 mpg number on one of the fill-ups. Gas in Florida was in the $3.78 range, $3.60+ in Georgia, and $3.47 in South Carolina.
My goal for the day was Lumberton, NC, which I know to be about nine hours from home. But once in Lumberton it seemed too early to stop and I may as well cut down tomorrow's drive. Besides, Lumberton's Wal-mart tends to have too many trucks running their engines overnight on cooler nights like this.
I drove on to Smithfield, NC, which I knew had a Wal-mart fairly well off the main route. I arrived here about 1930 and had a sandwich at a nearby Quiznos before settling in for the night.
I considered renting a movie from the Redbox but thought I'd probably fall asleep part-way through so instead spent an hour or so on the web via the iPad's Verizon 3G link before reading.
I thought I was destined for an early night but around 2200 there was a disturbance outside my van. A small group of teenagers had decided to make our part of the parking lot party-central. Fortunately that only lasted an hour or so. But once they left I moved to a less-likely party spot over by the garden center and slept soundly.
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Thursday, 8 March -
Today is Day 14 of being sick. I spent it once again in the horse camp, a pleasant-enough place to be but not much fun when you're under the weather. I thought I'd walk the horse trail a bit but just didn't have the strength to do more than get out of the truck and circle it a time or two and then go back to bed. Yuck.
I was feeling somewhat better today and briefly thought I might try going through the Picayune to the Fakahatchee Strand and on back to Bear Island. But the more I thought about it the more I realized it's probably time to bail on this year's trip. I'm improving so slowly that it's almost imperceptible. Weather back home is incredibly mild-- temps in the Sixties day after day. Weather here is strangely hot and humid and I'm seeing mosquitoes in places I've not seen them before (this time of year).
By noon I made up my mind. Time to bail indeed.
I've done this enough times now that I can just start home and if things don't go well-- I get extra tired or something-- I can just stop at a familiar spot for a day or two. Today I set my goal as getting back to the Ocala National Forest.
I drove all afternoon and found myself in Eustis by supper time. I stopped in at Old Crow for some take-out bar-be-que and then drove on to Lake Delancey for the night. The ATV campground is only a few miles off the hard road and I knew I'd have one of my favorite spots available there and I could get in after dark with no problem.
Once at Delancey I called Labashi and let her know I'd be home in a few days.
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Wednesday, 7 March -
I spent all day at the horse camp and just felt lousy all day. In the late afternoon I drove back into east Naples for gas, ice, and tylenol and felt like I was barely making it.
I had hoped to get out and tour the Picayune a bit that evening but didn't feel at all like it when I got back from Naples.
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Tuesday, 6 March -
We had cheesy-bacon-eggs for breakfast at Bear Island this morning. With the cold front the overnight temperatures were in the low Fifties but once the sun came up we were very comfortable.
We dawdled a bit this morning since it was time to start the going-home process already. We slowly drove down the Turner River Road and the Wagon Wheel Road to the hard road. I had thought we might go over to Everglades City and Chokoloskee for a look-round but realized I'd be delaying their arrival in Orlando that evening.
We drove up 29 to I-75 and then west to the Naples Airport to get the guys a rental car. I jumped on the iPad and found a good deal on a car off-airport for $65 and found them a $60 motel room near the Orlando Airport.
I dropped off the guys at the Budget car rental and made sure everything was okay with their rental, then looked up the nearest Starbucks. I spent much of the afternoon at Starbucks catching up on mail and news and talking with Labashi via Skype. We also had an offer on house 2 I had to coordinate with the guys and our agent so part of it was waiting for call-backs while relaxing in Mocha Joe in the mall parking lot.
Late in the day I drove east out of Naples to an equestrian campground I know in the Picayune State Forest. The plan is to hole up there a few days to try to get over this bug that keeps hanging on.
At the campground I met camp-host Orville and realized I had met him before when he was a host at the T-canal campground on the south end of the Picayune. Orville is from Ontario and worked most of his career near Timmons, an area I'm familiar with from travels. He had been an electrical-shop foreman at the paper mill for 25 years and has done a lot of interesting travel. We spent a few hours talking about traveling in Canada and Greenland and Orville was very interested in my Botswana pictures and had lots of questions.
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Monday, 5 March -
This morning we headed down the Everglades Road to Flamingo, stopping at each of the pull-offs to look around. We showered at the campground there at Flamingo and had a fresh-flounder lunch at the visitor's center restaurant. After lunch we headed back north and stopped at the Long Pine Key campground to pick up our dropped trailer.
We then drove back out of the Everglades and up Route 997 to the Tamiami Trail. We drove west to the Miccosukee tribal lands. There we booked an airboat ride with Osceola Panther. These are the smaller boats, a bit larger than private boats but far smaller than the 'cattle-boats' many concessions run.
Our driver today was Steve and he was great. He says he's been driving airboats since he was 14 and he's a real-live Florida backcountry boy. His enthusiasm for Florida was contagious and when he learned we had met an airboat buddy of his, Peters, over at Mitchell's Landing a few years ago, he was our buddy too. GOOD guy.
When we returned form the airboat trip we each got to hold a year-old gator. That may seem like a kid's thing but we loved it. The gator was quite cold to the touch and as our hands warmed it up, it became more active.
We had taken the last ride of the day so the sun was getting low in the sky by the time we left the airboat docks. We drove west into wonderful evening light and turned up Turner River Road about a half-hour before dark.
Turner River Road leads to Bear Island but it's a long drive up 17 miles or so of washboarded road. Maypo kept the van under 25 miles an hour, sometimes under 15 when the going got rougher. That put us into Bear Island after dark. The last section after the turn off Turner River Road took us down a very narrow dirt road with trees growing in from all sides and is was all the spookier for being lit only by our headlights.
At the camp itself we had a pleasant surprise. A lot of work has been done to bring in the one-piece concrete toilets and these are lighted by a nine-LED light powered by a solar panel and small battery. Where the campsites had been just pulloffs, often rutted and muddy, there was now a nice, flat stone driveway leading to a picnic table on a concrete pad, a lantern-hanger, and a metal fire-ring and grate. I'm sure that means they'll soon start charging to camp there and the turkey hunters will grumble but the campsites are situated well away from each other and most were pull-through sites, all well drained.
We made hot-dogs for supper and had a very, very nice evening. We had no mosquitoes there and with the full moon we didn't need a light. After a few hours I pulled out one of my few remaining Kwik Kampfires and lit it for company and it's just-right heat in the cooling night.
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Sunday, 4 March -
This morning I was still not feeling well so decided I'd drop off the guys and I'd relax in the van for a few hours while they had time to do the tourist thing.
We drove back to Fort Taylor and pointed the rear of the van into the breeze so I could open up the doors and get a good air flow on what looked to be a hot day--- it was in the mid-Eighties already.
The guys had only been gone a half-hour when I noticed a change in the air. A refreshing cool breeze had started. I got out the iPad to check weather and saw the reason for the cool breeze ; we had a storm front roaring in on us. Within minutes the breeze turned into a strong wind and all hell broke loose. The wind across the dirt portions of the parking lot generated a dust storm. I quickly tried to close the back doors and side windows but the van was filled with heavy dust in an instant. After closing up the back I looked forward and could see the dust-storm howling through the front passenger seats, completely horizontal. By the time I got the windows up everything was covered in dust inside the van.
Downtown the guys had seen the sky blacken and sought shelter under an overhanging awning at one of the businesses. The rains came hard but lasted only twenty minutes or so and they then moved on to the nearby Hogsbreath Saloon and decided it was time for lunch.
After the main front passed, the wind swung to the northwest and turned into a constant 25-with-gusts-to-40 day. Not much of a day for tourism!
The guys were able to do their shopping between light rain showers and I was surprised how long they lasted downtown. They came back to the van around 1400 and we headed out.
Maypo took over the driving and took us up the keys in a fairly strong northwest wind. When we stopped for gas we learned we were only getting nine miles per gallon (versus the 11-plus otherwise) against the wind.
As we reached the Upper Keys the winds abated and we continued on toward Everglades National Park. We stopped at Robert Is Here (a well-known produce-stand) for fruit milkshakes and a half-gallon of fresh orange juice.
By 1800 we were in our campground at Long Pine Key and setting up for the night. Setting up in this case means unloading the ATV and setting up a pair of cots in its place for the guys.
We sat around after dark and experienced our first mosquitoes. The temperature had dropped dramatically with the cold front so we were surprised to have mosquitoes, though, come to think of it, temperatures had only dropped into the low Sixties or high Fifties.
When we first arrived I noticed an announcement on the bulletin board for a night walk on the boardwalk at the Anhingha Trail a few miles north. At 1930 we drove to the trailhead and joined a fairly large group of campers and a ranger for the tour.
With the colder weather I was convinced we wouldn't see many gators tonight. But we did see a few dozen of them, mostly singles or groups of two or three. I think the most I counted in one sweep of the light was eight. In previous visits here I've seen upwards of 100 pairs of eyes with the same sweep of light.
Fortunately, our ranger was a good one and did a good job of keeping us interested and entertained. The highlight of the night, though, was seeing a massive gator just a few feet below us under the boardwalk and in very clear water.
After the night-walk we drove back to the nearby Nike missle base along roads where the greatest concentrations of panther sitings in the 'Glades have occurred. We then drove on down to the Pa-Hay-Okey boardwalk and took a brief and very cold walk there.
We were happy to get back to our campsite and the guys were extra-careful to close up the trailer well against the mosquitoes.
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Saturday, 3 March -
This morning we continued on to Key West, down through the heavenly-scented orange groves, massive, burned-over sugar-cane fields, the exotic-plant nurseries of Route 997, gator-farms, and various fruit-and-vegetable fields/irrigation complexes.
We had a pleasant late-afternoon drive down the Keys and loved seeing the blue and green water.
We arrived at our campround, Boyd's, around 1730 and quickly dropped the trailer in our campsite and headed downtown for the sunset. We parked near Fort Taylor and arrived at Mallory Square just at sunset. But today's wasn't spectacular given that the sun went into a band of clouds on the horizon.
We walked Mallory Square checking out the acts and I thought the crowd seemed smaller than other years, particularly for a Saturday night. We then had dinner at the Cuban restaurant-- El Meson de Pepe – just off the square. The caprinha and mojitos were very good! I had a sampler plate of three different Cuban-style fillings in green peppers.
We lingered at supper a long time and afterwards were ready to head back to the campsite. It had been a long day on the road.
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Friday, 2 March -
This morning we left Lake Delancey and drove to the Ocala National Forest shooting range. Before leaving home I had bought a Do-All 'White Wing' trap-target thrower and today was the day to try it out.
We assembled the unit in about half an hour and it worked right from the first try. This unit holds 25 targets at a time and operates via a step-switch. It can throw targets 70 yards or more and it does so impressively. The targets seem to go on forever. And if you miss the target, it seems to mock you as the target just keeps flying gently out of range to land at the far end of the shooting range.
This is also the first time I've shot my Mossberg 930 shotgun with it's longer barrel. I had bought it as a 'convertible' package, i.e. it has two interchangeable barrels, an 18 1/2” one for self-defense and a 28” one for hunting (and clay-target shooting). So the first order of the day was to figure out how to change barrels. That only took a few minutes. We had the option of changing chokes but decided to stay with the Modified one already in the barrel.
I took the first round of five shots and didn't hit a thing. Orat and Maypo didn't have much better luck.
As we began to shoot three people walked up and asked to share the range. It was two guys and a girl who had a shotgun and a piece of wallboard they wanted to use to 'pattern' their shotgun. When the one guy said he had done quite a bit of clay-target shooting I offered him a round with my gun. He didn't hit any birds either.
After another round or two we realized we were probably shooting high because of the position of the stock. When I'd mount the gun to my shoulder, I noticed I had to slide it up further to get the right view down the barrel-- so far, in fact, that the top of the stock came an inch above my shoulder.
This particular model shotgun has an adjustable stock. You take off the shoulder pad and that exposes a 3/4” nut you can remove to change out adapters. We swapped the 'no-adjustment adapters for the '1/4”-up' set. Now when I mount the gun to my shoulder I can see a good sight-picture and the stock is tucked in properly on my shoulder. That made a difference. We started hitting targets. We still were only hitting two to three targets for each five-shot round but also felt we now knew which way we were off on our misses.
I had bought three boxes of shells so we shot threw those and called it a day-- a very successful one. I'm really looking forward to more of this!
By about 1300 we had packed up and got on the road south. We were headed to the Keys down through central Florida.
Unfortunately, today I wasn't doing great. I had had to take a break and lay down mid-morning for a bit. And now that we were on the road I was feeling worse. When we stopped for lunch at a Checkers and I was feeling bad, we decided we'd stop at an urgent-care facility. We looked up a local one in Leesburg but that one turned out to be a community clinic and was closed on Friday afternoons (!!!).
As we drove south we came upon an urgent-care facility in Citrus Towers. I spent an hour and a half waiting to see a doctor and another hour inside only to get a diagnosis of 'viral syndrome' and no prescription-- I'd just have to wait it out.
We continued south as the evening came on. I was making calls from the iPad, trying various state campgrounds but all of them were full. We were passing near Orlando so I suppose that wasn't too surprising.
But I also knew Labashi and I had stayed at a state forest primitive campground several years ago near Frostproof. I thought I could find it and, after a bit of flailing, did indeed come up with a very nice little primitive campsite in the Lake Wales Ridge State Forest. We were the only occupants and it was perfect.
Again we had a near-full moon and had a very pleasant shirt-sleeves evening with no bugs.
We had hot dogs for supper and felt like we were livin' large.
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Thursday, 1 March -
This morning at Juniper Springs Campground we had cheesy-bacon-eggs for breakfast, courtesy of chef Maypo.
We packed up and headed for Salt Springs to catch a boat. Yesterday I reserved a pontoon boat for us at Salt Springs Marina while the guys were finishing up their canoe trip.
Salt Springs comes up out of the ground just above the marina and then the creek winds its way down to Lake George in about five miles. The ultra-clear water is shallow with a weedy bottom and fish are plentiful. I had seen manatees near the marina several times but not today.
It didn't take long for us to agree that a pontoon boat was perfect for us today. We had a cooler full of cold drinks and the makings of our lunch, a quiet four-stroke motor to idle us along, a nice bimini to shade us when needed and a wide-open front deck to enjoy the sun. Nice!
Orat took command and idled us downstream for an hour to the lake. That was as far as we were allowed to take the boat but did allow us to get a nice look across the lake. We turned back upstream and went ashore at a pretty little sand beach. We walked back through the palms, wondering if we'd find a campsite but it appears to be more used for day-stops like ours than overnighting. While we were there an airboat came by and we learned it was possible to take an airboat tour of the big lake with exploratory runs up the little creeks entering it.
Maypo took over and took us back upstream as we gathered in the pretty views lining the spring. We spent extra time looking for manatees near the headwaters and saw a few sizable fish (twenty-inchers) but no manatees.
We had the boat for about three hours and returned it around 1300, declaring it well worth the $80 rental.
We then drove on to Lake Delancey ATV Campground and set up for the night. Orat took first turn on the ATV and rode for about an hour on the Longleaf Trail. In the meantime Maypo and I drove over to the Indian mound at Davenport Landing and walked in to the site. We came at a good time to see the Oklawaha in peace and quiet. I had been here last weekend and had seen campers and boaters and some silly bank-fisherman playing his radio loud. But today it was ultra-quiet and the river had a primitive, languid look. Water lillies lined the banks and waved here and there ominously. Otter? Snake? Current whirls? The tannin-stained water didn't give up any secrets.
We returned to camp and found Orat had just finished up. After we had a beer, Maypo took off on the ATV and I drove Orat over to the Landing. This time I was feeling exhausted so Orat walked down to the mound and river while I hung around the van, taking it easy.
Orat and I returned to camp just after Maypo's return from his first ATV ride. We then had a glorious evening sitting around in near-full moonlight just chatting away.
****** END OF POST *********
(posted from home)
(this post covers 1 – 11 March, 2012)
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Sunday, 11 March -
I felt bad again today, a bit worse than I've been feeling the last few days. I was still a bit nauseated for the morning and then sleepy and weak. I napped much of the day and spent a little time online with Flipboard and felt a lot better by late afternoon.
I started 'The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest' and that evening Labashi and I caught up on the last three episodes of 'Gold Rush'.
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Saturday, 10 March -
I was once again on the road by 0730 and still in automaton-mode. Traffic was moving well but below Richmond I saw a sign saying 'Extreme Backups Likely' but had missed the first half of the message. I was approaching the I-95/I-295 split so which was it? I turned on the CB radio but there was nothing there. At the split I elected to go through Richmond, figuring there'd be more alternatives through Richmond than out in the countryside where I-295 runs. I didn't have any problems but still don't know for sure whether I avoided an I-295 problem or not.
I arrived home by 1500 and immediately unloaded the critical items from the van (pills, etc), then went to bed for a nap. I was feeling pretty rocky and that settled me down.
I didn't sleep long but read a bit and then showered and shaved so I'd feel more normal. I spent the evening smiling a lot with Labashi.
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Friday, 9 March -
This morning I woke refreshed and happy to be heading home. I was on the road by 0730 and thoroughly enjoyed the morning drive up to Jacksonville and on to I-95.
Once on I-95 I was more or less on automatic, stopping only for gas, Starbucks, and rest-stops. I had a tailwind for a few hundred miles and saw a 12.5 mpg number on one of the fill-ups. Gas in Florida was in the $3.78 range, $3.60+ in Georgia, and $3.47 in South Carolina.
My goal for the day was Lumberton, NC, which I know to be about nine hours from home. But once in Lumberton it seemed too early to stop and I may as well cut down tomorrow's drive. Besides, Lumberton's Wal-mart tends to have too many trucks running their engines overnight on cooler nights like this.
I drove on to Smithfield, NC, which I knew had a Wal-mart fairly well off the main route. I arrived here about 1930 and had a sandwich at a nearby Quiznos before settling in for the night.
I considered renting a movie from the Redbox but thought I'd probably fall asleep part-way through so instead spent an hour or so on the web via the iPad's Verizon 3G link before reading.
I thought I was destined for an early night but around 2200 there was a disturbance outside my van. A small group of teenagers had decided to make our part of the parking lot party-central. Fortunately that only lasted an hour or so. But once they left I moved to a less-likely party spot over by the garden center and slept soundly.
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Thursday, 8 March -
Today is Day 14 of being sick. I spent it once again in the horse camp, a pleasant-enough place to be but not much fun when you're under the weather. I thought I'd walk the horse trail a bit but just didn't have the strength to do more than get out of the truck and circle it a time or two and then go back to bed. Yuck.
I was feeling somewhat better today and briefly thought I might try going through the Picayune to the Fakahatchee Strand and on back to Bear Island. But the more I thought about it the more I realized it's probably time to bail on this year's trip. I'm improving so slowly that it's almost imperceptible. Weather back home is incredibly mild-- temps in the Sixties day after day. Weather here is strangely hot and humid and I'm seeing mosquitoes in places I've not seen them before (this time of year).
By noon I made up my mind. Time to bail indeed.
I've done this enough times now that I can just start home and if things don't go well-- I get extra tired or something-- I can just stop at a familiar spot for a day or two. Today I set my goal as getting back to the Ocala National Forest.
I drove all afternoon and found myself in Eustis by supper time. I stopped in at Old Crow for some take-out bar-be-que and then drove on to Lake Delancey for the night. The ATV campground is only a few miles off the hard road and I knew I'd have one of my favorite spots available there and I could get in after dark with no problem.
Once at Delancey I called Labashi and let her know I'd be home in a few days.
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Wednesday, 7 March -
I spent all day at the horse camp and just felt lousy all day. In the late afternoon I drove back into east Naples for gas, ice, and tylenol and felt like I was barely making it.
I had hoped to get out and tour the Picayune a bit that evening but didn't feel at all like it when I got back from Naples.
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Tuesday, 6 March -
We had cheesy-bacon-eggs for breakfast at Bear Island this morning. With the cold front the overnight temperatures were in the low Fifties but once the sun came up we were very comfortable.
We dawdled a bit this morning since it was time to start the going-home process already. We slowly drove down the Turner River Road and the Wagon Wheel Road to the hard road. I had thought we might go over to Everglades City and Chokoloskee for a look-round but realized I'd be delaying their arrival in Orlando that evening.
We drove up 29 to I-75 and then west to the Naples Airport to get the guys a rental car. I jumped on the iPad and found a good deal on a car off-airport for $65 and found them a $60 motel room near the Orlando Airport.
I dropped off the guys at the Budget car rental and made sure everything was okay with their rental, then looked up the nearest Starbucks. I spent much of the afternoon at Starbucks catching up on mail and news and talking with Labashi via Skype. We also had an offer on house 2 I had to coordinate with the guys and our agent so part of it was waiting for call-backs while relaxing in Mocha Joe in the mall parking lot.
Late in the day I drove east out of Naples to an equestrian campground I know in the Picayune State Forest. The plan is to hole up there a few days to try to get over this bug that keeps hanging on.
At the campground I met camp-host Orville and realized I had met him before when he was a host at the T-canal campground on the south end of the Picayune. Orville is from Ontario and worked most of his career near Timmons, an area I'm familiar with from travels. He had been an electrical-shop foreman at the paper mill for 25 years and has done a lot of interesting travel. We spent a few hours talking about traveling in Canada and Greenland and Orville was very interested in my Botswana pictures and had lots of questions.
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Monday, 5 March -
This morning we headed down the Everglades Road to Flamingo, stopping at each of the pull-offs to look around. We showered at the campground there at Flamingo and had a fresh-flounder lunch at the visitor's center restaurant. After lunch we headed back north and stopped at the Long Pine Key campground to pick up our dropped trailer.
We then drove back out of the Everglades and up Route 997 to the Tamiami Trail. We drove west to the Miccosukee tribal lands. There we booked an airboat ride with Osceola Panther. These are the smaller boats, a bit larger than private boats but far smaller than the 'cattle-boats' many concessions run.
Our driver today was Steve and he was great. He says he's been driving airboats since he was 14 and he's a real-live Florida backcountry boy. His enthusiasm for Florida was contagious and when he learned we had met an airboat buddy of his, Peters, over at Mitchell's Landing a few years ago, he was our buddy too. GOOD guy.
When we returned form the airboat trip we each got to hold a year-old gator. That may seem like a kid's thing but we loved it. The gator was quite cold to the touch and as our hands warmed it up, it became more active.
We had taken the last ride of the day so the sun was getting low in the sky by the time we left the airboat docks. We drove west into wonderful evening light and turned up Turner River Road about a half-hour before dark.
Turner River Road leads to Bear Island but it's a long drive up 17 miles or so of washboarded road. Maypo kept the van under 25 miles an hour, sometimes under 15 when the going got rougher. That put us into Bear Island after dark. The last section after the turn off Turner River Road took us down a very narrow dirt road with trees growing in from all sides and is was all the spookier for being lit only by our headlights.
At the camp itself we had a pleasant surprise. A lot of work has been done to bring in the one-piece concrete toilets and these are lighted by a nine-LED light powered by a solar panel and small battery. Where the campsites had been just pulloffs, often rutted and muddy, there was now a nice, flat stone driveway leading to a picnic table on a concrete pad, a lantern-hanger, and a metal fire-ring and grate. I'm sure that means they'll soon start charging to camp there and the turkey hunters will grumble but the campsites are situated well away from each other and most were pull-through sites, all well drained.
We made hot-dogs for supper and had a very, very nice evening. We had no mosquitoes there and with the full moon we didn't need a light. After a few hours I pulled out one of my few remaining Kwik Kampfires and lit it for company and it's just-right heat in the cooling night.
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Sunday, 4 March -
This morning I was still not feeling well so decided I'd drop off the guys and I'd relax in the van for a few hours while they had time to do the tourist thing.
We drove back to Fort Taylor and pointed the rear of the van into the breeze so I could open up the doors and get a good air flow on what looked to be a hot day--- it was in the mid-Eighties already.
The guys had only been gone a half-hour when I noticed a change in the air. A refreshing cool breeze had started. I got out the iPad to check weather and saw the reason for the cool breeze ; we had a storm front roaring in on us. Within minutes the breeze turned into a strong wind and all hell broke loose. The wind across the dirt portions of the parking lot generated a dust storm. I quickly tried to close the back doors and side windows but the van was filled with heavy dust in an instant. After closing up the back I looked forward and could see the dust-storm howling through the front passenger seats, completely horizontal. By the time I got the windows up everything was covered in dust inside the van.
Downtown the guys had seen the sky blacken and sought shelter under an overhanging awning at one of the businesses. The rains came hard but lasted only twenty minutes or so and they then moved on to the nearby Hogsbreath Saloon and decided it was time for lunch.
After the main front passed, the wind swung to the northwest and turned into a constant 25-with-gusts-to-40 day. Not much of a day for tourism!
The guys were able to do their shopping between light rain showers and I was surprised how long they lasted downtown. They came back to the van around 1400 and we headed out.
Maypo took over the driving and took us up the keys in a fairly strong northwest wind. When we stopped for gas we learned we were only getting nine miles per gallon (versus the 11-plus otherwise) against the wind.
As we reached the Upper Keys the winds abated and we continued on toward Everglades National Park. We stopped at Robert Is Here (a well-known produce-stand) for fruit milkshakes and a half-gallon of fresh orange juice.
By 1800 we were in our campground at Long Pine Key and setting up for the night. Setting up in this case means unloading the ATV and setting up a pair of cots in its place for the guys.
We sat around after dark and experienced our first mosquitoes. The temperature had dropped dramatically with the cold front so we were surprised to have mosquitoes, though, come to think of it, temperatures had only dropped into the low Sixties or high Fifties.
When we first arrived I noticed an announcement on the bulletin board for a night walk on the boardwalk at the Anhingha Trail a few miles north. At 1930 we drove to the trailhead and joined a fairly large group of campers and a ranger for the tour.
With the colder weather I was convinced we wouldn't see many gators tonight. But we did see a few dozen of them, mostly singles or groups of two or three. I think the most I counted in one sweep of the light was eight. In previous visits here I've seen upwards of 100 pairs of eyes with the same sweep of light.
Fortunately, our ranger was a good one and did a good job of keeping us interested and entertained. The highlight of the night, though, was seeing a massive gator just a few feet below us under the boardwalk and in very clear water.
After the night-walk we drove back to the nearby Nike missle base along roads where the greatest concentrations of panther sitings in the 'Glades have occurred. We then drove on down to the Pa-Hay-Okey boardwalk and took a brief and very cold walk there.
We were happy to get back to our campsite and the guys were extra-careful to close up the trailer well against the mosquitoes.
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Saturday, 3 March -
This morning we continued on to Key West, down through the heavenly-scented orange groves, massive, burned-over sugar-cane fields, the exotic-plant nurseries of Route 997, gator-farms, and various fruit-and-vegetable fields/irrigation complexes.
We had a pleasant late-afternoon drive down the Keys and loved seeing the blue and green water.
We arrived at our campround, Boyd's, around 1730 and quickly dropped the trailer in our campsite and headed downtown for the sunset. We parked near Fort Taylor and arrived at Mallory Square just at sunset. But today's wasn't spectacular given that the sun went into a band of clouds on the horizon.
We walked Mallory Square checking out the acts and I thought the crowd seemed smaller than other years, particularly for a Saturday night. We then had dinner at the Cuban restaurant-- El Meson de Pepe – just off the square. The caprinha and mojitos were very good! I had a sampler plate of three different Cuban-style fillings in green peppers.
We lingered at supper a long time and afterwards were ready to head back to the campsite. It had been a long day on the road.
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Friday, 2 March -
This morning we left Lake Delancey and drove to the Ocala National Forest shooting range. Before leaving home I had bought a Do-All 'White Wing' trap-target thrower and today was the day to try it out.
We assembled the unit in about half an hour and it worked right from the first try. This unit holds 25 targets at a time and operates via a step-switch. It can throw targets 70 yards or more and it does so impressively. The targets seem to go on forever. And if you miss the target, it seems to mock you as the target just keeps flying gently out of range to land at the far end of the shooting range.
This is also the first time I've shot my Mossberg 930 shotgun with it's longer barrel. I had bought it as a 'convertible' package, i.e. it has two interchangeable barrels, an 18 1/2” one for self-defense and a 28” one for hunting (and clay-target shooting). So the first order of the day was to figure out how to change barrels. That only took a few minutes. We had the option of changing chokes but decided to stay with the Modified one already in the barrel.
I took the first round of five shots and didn't hit a thing. Orat and Maypo didn't have much better luck.
As we began to shoot three people walked up and asked to share the range. It was two guys and a girl who had a shotgun and a piece of wallboard they wanted to use to 'pattern' their shotgun. When the one guy said he had done quite a bit of clay-target shooting I offered him a round with my gun. He didn't hit any birds either.
After another round or two we realized we were probably shooting high because of the position of the stock. When I'd mount the gun to my shoulder, I noticed I had to slide it up further to get the right view down the barrel-- so far, in fact, that the top of the stock came an inch above my shoulder.
This particular model shotgun has an adjustable stock. You take off the shoulder pad and that exposes a 3/4” nut you can remove to change out adapters. We swapped the 'no-adjustment adapters for the '1/4”-up' set. Now when I mount the gun to my shoulder I can see a good sight-picture and the stock is tucked in properly on my shoulder. That made a difference. We started hitting targets. We still were only hitting two to three targets for each five-shot round but also felt we now knew which way we were off on our misses.
I had bought three boxes of shells so we shot threw those and called it a day-- a very successful one. I'm really looking forward to more of this!
By about 1300 we had packed up and got on the road south. We were headed to the Keys down through central Florida.
Unfortunately, today I wasn't doing great. I had had to take a break and lay down mid-morning for a bit. And now that we were on the road I was feeling worse. When we stopped for lunch at a Checkers and I was feeling bad, we decided we'd stop at an urgent-care facility. We looked up a local one in Leesburg but that one turned out to be a community clinic and was closed on Friday afternoons (!!!).
As we drove south we came upon an urgent-care facility in Citrus Towers. I spent an hour and a half waiting to see a doctor and another hour inside only to get a diagnosis of 'viral syndrome' and no prescription-- I'd just have to wait it out.
We continued south as the evening came on. I was making calls from the iPad, trying various state campgrounds but all of them were full. We were passing near Orlando so I suppose that wasn't too surprising.
But I also knew Labashi and I had stayed at a state forest primitive campground several years ago near Frostproof. I thought I could find it and, after a bit of flailing, did indeed come up with a very nice little primitive campsite in the Lake Wales Ridge State Forest. We were the only occupants and it was perfect.
Again we had a near-full moon and had a very pleasant shirt-sleeves evening with no bugs.
We had hot dogs for supper and felt like we were livin' large.
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Thursday, 1 March -
This morning at Juniper Springs Campground we had cheesy-bacon-eggs for breakfast, courtesy of chef Maypo.
We packed up and headed for Salt Springs to catch a boat. Yesterday I reserved a pontoon boat for us at Salt Springs Marina while the guys were finishing up their canoe trip.
Salt Springs comes up out of the ground just above the marina and then the creek winds its way down to Lake George in about five miles. The ultra-clear water is shallow with a weedy bottom and fish are plentiful. I had seen manatees near the marina several times but not today.
It didn't take long for us to agree that a pontoon boat was perfect for us today. We had a cooler full of cold drinks and the makings of our lunch, a quiet four-stroke motor to idle us along, a nice bimini to shade us when needed and a wide-open front deck to enjoy the sun. Nice!
Orat took command and idled us downstream for an hour to the lake. That was as far as we were allowed to take the boat but did allow us to get a nice look across the lake. We turned back upstream and went ashore at a pretty little sand beach. We walked back through the palms, wondering if we'd find a campsite but it appears to be more used for day-stops like ours than overnighting. While we were there an airboat came by and we learned it was possible to take an airboat tour of the big lake with exploratory runs up the little creeks entering it.
Maypo took over and took us back upstream as we gathered in the pretty views lining the spring. We spent extra time looking for manatees near the headwaters and saw a few sizable fish (twenty-inchers) but no manatees.
We had the boat for about three hours and returned it around 1300, declaring it well worth the $80 rental.
We then drove on to Lake Delancey ATV Campground and set up for the night. Orat took first turn on the ATV and rode for about an hour on the Longleaf Trail. In the meantime Maypo and I drove over to the Indian mound at Davenport Landing and walked in to the site. We came at a good time to see the Oklawaha in peace and quiet. I had been here last weekend and had seen campers and boaters and some silly bank-fisherman playing his radio loud. But today it was ultra-quiet and the river had a primitive, languid look. Water lillies lined the banks and waved here and there ominously. Otter? Snake? Current whirls? The tannin-stained water didn't give up any secrets.
We returned to camp and found Orat had just finished up. After we had a beer, Maypo took off on the ATV and I drove Orat over to the Landing. This time I was feeling exhausted so Orat walked down to the mound and river while I hung around the van, taking it easy.
Orat and I returned to camp just after Maypo's return from his first ATV ride. We then had a glorious evening sitting around in near-full moonlight just chatting away.
****** END OF POST *********
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 23:59
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