Long Pine Key Campground, Everglades National Park
Thursday, 2 February 2023
Today's Groundhog Day. So weird, but for the rest of my life today will make me think of Bill Murray.
We stayed in the campground today and endured south Florida weather. It was very sunny and way too warm: it got up to almost 90° inside the cabin before 1:00, so I finally gave up, closed all the windows and skylights and turned the AC on high.
I wanted to clean the windows before the day got too warm, but it was also so humid that the windows wouldn't dry. Heavy dew everywhere until the sun really got going.
I could see by the weather forecast that we were likely to have quite a bit more weather like this over the next few weeks, so I stored some of my heavier clothes and pulled out some shorts and tank tops for my closet.
This afternoon on one of our walks, Dext and I met a couple from upstate New York. We were talking about strategies for dealing with the overnight heat without AC. My approach had been to try to avoid using the AC during the day to get our bodies used to the heat. But the man told me he cranked up their AC and got their cabin as cold as he could until the generator curfew at 8:00. He said that kept the cabin cool for a good part of the night, and at about 1:00 or 2:00 he opened the windows to get the cooler nighttime air.
Since I'd already been forced to turn on the AC to keep my critters from having heat stroke, I decided to try his approach, figuring it couldn't be less successful than mine, which had meant it was too hot overnight for me to get much sleep. I sometimes forget we're living in small metal boxes with not a lot for insulation. And by 5:30 today, after 4½ hours of the AC on high, the inside temp was barely down to 70°. It seemed too chilly for Dext but I'm afraid to adjust it much because I don't have much more than 2 hours before we'll have to shut it off altogether.
There's been little to no breeze all day, so bugs have been a problem. Apparently Florida - or at least the Everglades part - doesn't have a no-bug season, even in February. On our last walk of the day, I couldn't even raise a breeze by walking. The air was just still.
This will sound trivial, but when we were in Miami, I stopped at a Target and bought an electric razor. I've never used one before and hadn't thought it was appropriate in an RV. But I was desperate because of not having found any campground bathrooms for ages that were set up to let me take care of the problem with a non-electric razor. Today, I got it charged up and, with a little trial and error, I was able to use it. And it worked well, and now I know how other full-time women have been able to handle this situation. It's a liberating feeling.
I suppose the equivalent is a man who doesn't want to grow a beard for various reasons (here, because of the heat) but has no choice because he's nowhere with facilities to let him shave. And he has to walk around in discomfort, until he finally uses an electric razor.
Life is full of choices and learning experiences, and they don't all have to be cataclysmic.
I didn't have an internet signal, so I spent time today editing some of the photos I've accumulated over the past few weeks when I haven't been posting on the blog.
I did finish writing the post about my stay in the Starke KOA from a few weeks ago, but I won't be able to post it until I can get somewhere where I can pick up an internet signal.
A park ranger told me 6 to 8 panthers live in the Everglades. They clearly have enough sense to steer clear of the campgrounds.
It was an interesting stay here, surrounded by all this tall grass. On one walk, Dext and I went down to the "amphitheater" that almost every government campground has. It's where they present programs about the local wildlife and so forth, usually during tourist season. This one was unusual and it took me a couple of minutes to realize why: each row of benches had been built with slightly longer legs than the row in front of it, so the first row was really suitable only for little kids, and the last row was nearly barstool height. And I finally remembered Florida is a very flat state, and the Everglades are in some of the flattest part of it. They had to build the benches this way or nobody would have been able to see over the other rows.
I'd noticed before that even though we were here only during the middle of a February week, the entire campground was completely full. There were no available spaces and even all the tent sites had been taken. Obviously a very popular place, so I got lucky.
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