Central Florida

Wednesday, 7 March 2018

Colt Creek State Park, Lakeland FL

No wi-fi signal here, through the park or through my hot spot.  My phone isn’t getting a signal either.  I guess this is remotest Florida wilderness, or something.

Yesterday I got the cabin organizing done I wanted to and now have use of both bench seats for seating purposes.  That’s the good news.

The bad news is that I seem unable to learn from my mistakes. After David and Anna went to so much effort to repair the bottom half of my screen door, I stupidly took Gracie for a walk and left Dexter in the RV with only the screen door closed – not the full door.  Right.  Dexter somehow managed to bust through the top half and chase after us.  I don’t know how on earth he could even reach it, let alone be in a position to jump through the hole he scratched through the screen.  But he did.  That’s Dexter sitting below his handiwork (or whatever you call it when paws are involved).

It just made me sick – both at my stupidity and at Dexter’s apparent inability to adjust to his current reality.

Later yesterday I found I couldn’t get hold of Shirley, Momma’s college roommate.  Both her phone numbers were disconnected.  I sent an email to her boyfriend (yes, these people are in their 90’s but what else do you call it?) and that came back marked undeliverable.  So I got worried.  She’d sent me a Christmas card so I’d just assumed she was still where she’d been for years.  Shirley and George lived (separately) at one of those trailer parks where the trailers aren’t supposed to be moving anywhere – with foundations and attachments.  Shirley had told Momma and me that, about 20 years ago, the residents bought the land from the owner so they wouldn’t have to worry about being evicted.  So I called the main office for the park and they told me that Shirley’s family had decided to move “them” (by which I guess she means both Shirley and George) to somewhere else.  Presumably closer to family and maybe with more care.  I know Shirley’s been having some health problems, which is reasonable since she must be around 96.  The park person said she didn’t have a contact phone but suggested I write to Shirley’s old address to be forwarded.  Which I’ll do.

If I’d known that a few days ago I’d have made different travel plans, but that’s okay.  Except for the lack of connectivity, this seems to be a nice park.

I had another long drive today, that was made longer by the time zone change in Florida’s panhandle.  So I had to leave earlier so I wouldn’t get here later.  I just ba-a-rely squeaked in by 5:00.  And Gracie almost instantly decided to pick a fight with the dog 2 spaces down.  Well, he was sniffing her butt and she doesn’t like that.

I saw a billboard on I-75 advertising a Gainesville location for Chuy’s “Austin TX original TexMex.”

People in these campgrounds travel with all different kinds of extras.  Chairs and outdoor carpets are normal.  Lots of people string up Christmas or outdoor lights around their campsites.  I saw 2 RVs (or the same RV at 2 locations) with Christmas lights bunched on the dashboard.   People put up cutesy little signs.  One at the last place said “Home is where we park it.”  I saw one camp space that had 2 small pink plastic flamingos in place, and somebody last night (with Florida license plates) had a flamingo outlined with pink lights at the entrance to their campsite.

And pets.  Every other site has at least one dog.  Mostly small dogs, but I saw 2 Newfoundlands at one RV.  Many have Labs like me.  I saw a car drive in with what I thought was an Old English Sheepdog hanging out of the window.  Later I saw an Old English Sheepdog lying across the dashboard of an RV.  Knowing how heavy they are, I decided I was looking at a stuffed dog, until it turned its head to look at us.

And not just dogs.  I know I’m not the only person to travel with cats because other people have told me they have one or more.  And I saw a woman at Rocky Bayou sitting outside her RV with a large cat at her feet.  I told her it reminded me of a cat my mom used to have (Grundoon) that weighed 20 pounds and almost got her kicked out of her apartment because of their weight limit on pets.  The woman said her cat weighs 20 pounds and is a Maine Coon cat, known for their size and easy-goingness, she said.  And in fact her cat was just lying there, calmly watching people and dogs and RVs and bikes go by.

And I’m sure the campground hosts here have a large bird cage in their RV.

Many people travel with kayaks and bicycles.  I talked to a nice woman from Missouri who said she and her husband go camping as a break from 5-day bike riding treks.  I’m telling you, retirees don’t all go play golf, have heart attacks and die.

They come from all over.  I talked a bit with some people from Anchorage AK, who were worried about the late snowfall that happened after they left and think they need to get someone to plow their driveway.  There was the couple who had pronounced New England accents, and I decided they belonged to the New Hampshire plates I saw later.  One campground host told me I didn’t need to bother spending a month in Ohio, she’d lived there for 45 years and could tell me there’s nothing worth seeing there.  Okay.  I’ll check it out for myself.  I think that’ll be next summer.  People come from all over the US and many Canadian provinces.  So far, everybody’s been really nice and really helpful.

Now that I’m not going to be driving down to Venice to visit Shirley and then back up north of Orlando all in one day, I have an easy easy drive to my next campground.  Though I’ll leave a little early to find someplace with a wi-fi signal to be sure I can get this sent off.

The only thing dull about this trip has been the Florida panhandle.  I’ve driven it a number of times and every time have had a hard time staying awake.  It’s just hours of the same scenery, with occasional billboards advertising why people shouldn’t get abortions.  Boring, compared to the other drives I’ve been making.  But it’ll be a while before I do it again, so no worries.