A State at a Time: Florida - Day 5 - in the campground, Gainesville

Starke/Gainesville NE KOA, Starke

Thursday, 29 December, 2022, through Thursday, 19 January, 2023

So I guess the summary first:

When I first came here I was still coughing hard and often because of my asthma. Now my cough has almost completely gone away and I'm not feeling any clog in my lungs.

When I first came here, I would often have to stop during Dexter's walks and find someplace to sit down and rest because I was too tired to keep going. Now I almost never feel that way.

When I first came here, I could barely manage a coherent sentence to someone. I still sometimes have a little trouble with that but am mostly over it.

When I first came here I could barely plan anything, and trying to plan would cause me almost paralyzing confusion and stress. Now I'm able to plan travels and places to stay for the next few weeks, as well as a visit with an old friend I got in touch with.

And on it goes. I was a mess when I got here, both physically and mentally. Now I'm pretty much back to my old self again. The difference is absolutely worth the extra time and expense, because if I'd tried to push through it, I'd've fallen apart at some point - I was so near that point anyway. Clearly it was the right move.

In the campground

This place has just over 100 spaces, plus some mobile homes around the edges of the campground. It's all very well maintained, with lots of trees and grass; the staff are friendly and flexible; the laundry has machines that work and are inexpensive; the showers are clean and the water is hot; they've got activities for guests most evenings - a weekly bingo night, a weekly potluck night, weekly line dancing lessons - like that, and these things are all well-attended. One night I left the overhead fan on all night only to cover up the noise: the campground had a band in and a potluck party around a campfire, with lots of folks attending. Someone outside the campground was shooting off fireworks (it wasn't the 4th of July) and scaring Dexter.

I was surprised to find this message attached to their campground map:

I was equally surprised that their request was being honored by all campers. Made for a more relaxed and pleasant atmosphere around the campground.

There are a fair number of long-term stays here, but the campground also has a lot of folks coming in for one-night stays. There are a number of families with various-aged children, but mostly I'm reminded that lots of retirees come down here.

White Ibis

The campground seems to have a frequent visitor flock in the form of some American White Ibis. This photo is from the internet.

You can just barely see that they've got black wingtips, which are really only noticeable when they spread their wings. Not very tall, and the main difference between them and some short egrets is that decurved bill. You might think that only shows up in photos, but it's actually pretty clear in real life.

The ones I saw were, like the one in the photo, grazing in some grass - looking for bugs, I guess, though of course they prefer seafood (that's what those bills are for).

Here's what I found odd: I saw zero rabbits during the several weeks I was here. I can't figure out why because it seemed like perfect rabbit habitat.

It was often pretty warm during this time - even up to the low 80s - though mostly in the 60s and 70s. On the other hand, we had several nights with temps down in the 20s, though it warmed up to the 50s during the day. Fog some mornings, and it can be so dense it coalesced on the trees, then dripped down and sounded like rain on the RV's roof. We had several thunderstorms (Dext got CBD treats) and heavy rain at times. Early one morning at 2:20 (I woke up which is why I know the time), there was a LOUD crack of thunder that scared everybody (including me) and more kept coming. I finally got up at 3:00 to find poor Dext cowering in the bathroom and gave him a CBD treat. Poor little guy. We also had chilly evenings, lots of wind. Some days we had so much strong cold wind my cigarette-smoking neighbor had to hide behind his RV to get out of it. He's a native Floridian, looks about my age, and told me this is pretty normal winter weather in Florida.

This same neighbor helped me mend my power cord one day. The end with the plug had somehow pulled out enough that it was no longer snug against the thick black casing on the cord. This made me nervous because I didn't think it could possibly be waterproof, and I wasn't sure it was even safe. So I bought some electrician's tape at the campground office and held the cord and plug as close together as I could while this nice guy wrapped a whole lot of black tape around the whole situation. I'm sure he was right when he said I needed to get it all replaced, but I also know I won't be doing it any time soon because I don't know a repair place I can trust out here. I think it should be okay for a while with this repair.

I talked to a couple who'd just come down from Pennsylvania to spend a few months here. The husband told me they'd wanted to go to Texas which they'd enjoyed a few years ago, but they decided it wasn't safe now because Fox News said the border was completely open and 35,000 people were crossing every day bringing drugs and crime. When I said (pleasantly) that that wasn't true, he got insistent because, he said, Fox had showed the pictures of them crossing.

This same man decided Dexter was a full-blooded pit bull and that he was likely to maul his dog at any moment. He explained that his dog had been attacked 3 times by pit bulls, that he could always recognize them, and that they were always dangerous. Of course, his dog displayed no signs at all of being afraid of Dexter, and when I told the man Dext was considered a lab mix the man argued that he wasn't a lab but was a pit bull. His wife seemed very pleasant and said almost nothing and I couldn't help but wonder what she thought about any of this.

As an antidote, I talked to a very pleasant woman just down from Ontario (Canada) with her husband, traveling with some friends in a separate RV. She was outside every day sitting in the sun, regardless of temperature. She told me they'd left some pretty cold weather. Actually, I saw several Canadian license plates, most from Ontario.

I also talked to a nice couple from Florida who were in town to take their dog to the vet school at the University of Florida, which is apparently the best equipped vet clinic in the state. Their little dog had lumps on the top of her head and on her body, and various vets hadn't been able to figure out - even after a biopsy - exactly what they were. The woman was both worried that her pet might be dying and ready to get a definite answer one way or another.

I stopped at their campsite the next day to ask if they'd learned anything more, and the woman started crying. The lumps were indeed cancer, and they'd already called their own vet to arrange for euthanasia. She said it was lucky that her vet was moving her clinic from one building to another and preferred to come to their house herself, which would be the least traumatic for everyone. The couple were worried about how their other dog would take the loss of his companion, and they were grateful to the campground for not making them pay for the second night they'd reserved, because they wanted to go home right away.

There's all kinds of stories in a campground, which isn't something I'd ever realized before this trip.

What I got done

One of the most important chores was defrosting my freezer. You may remember that the bottom of the freezer was completely covered with a thick sheet of ice from one time the frig turned itself off and the freezer defrosted itself, only for the thawed ice to freeze into a glacier when the frig turned itself back on again. I didn't find out until the glacier was already formed.

I started the thawing process at 9:00 AM, and that ice sheet didn't break up enough for me to get it out until after 1:00. And to do it, I had to hold the space heater up to the freezer and train the heat directly into it. That was a measure born of frustration that it was taking so long, plus the daytime temp that had started pretty chilly had warmed up considerably from the sunshine, and the cabin was getting uncomfortably warm for all 5 of us. But if I cooled off the cabin the glacier wouldn't thaw, so instead, I made the glacier hot, which finally let me chip away at the sides, and I gradually got it all out. Of course, then it took till the end of the day for the frig to get back to a reasonable frig-type temp. But it's done.

I finished the 18 blog posts up to getting to this campground, which felt like no small accomplishment.

I called Texas to ask for a mail ballot application, which they said they'd send. I pointed out to them that I was eligible for the mail ballots because of being over 65, and that I would never again not be over 65, so it seemed odd that I had to keep reapplying every year, but they told me that was state law. Probably the idiots in charge of Texas's government hoping I wouldn't think to do it and not vote. They told me there were only school board and other local offices up for election this year, but with all the looniness being talked these days about what goes on in schools and local government, those elections are assuming a much greater importance than they used to have.

I spent some time gathering information about what I want to see when I'm in Washington, DC, in a few months. I'd heard many museums required tickets to get in, and that those tickets could be hard to come by because the museums - such as the Holocaust Museum - are so popular. Apparently, the ticket situation has changed and the previous restrictions were at least partly a product of covid precautions. Several do have timed entry passes (free), but I can make reservations only 30 days or 6 weeks in advance (depending on the museum). I'd been worried I'd have to get tickets many months in advance, so this news was a relief.

The campground in Maryland where I stayed a few years ago during my month there says I'd have to pay at least $90/night because I'd be there in the tourist season instead of in February, as I was before. I can't afford that - especially since Maryland state campgrounds cost $27.50/night. It's hard to make definite reservations so far in advance, and so far I haven't done it for DC. But being here in Florida during its tourist season has taught me that I'll need to commit to something pretty soon or I'll run out of options.

Speaking of which, I spent an entire day making reservations for the rest of January. And what I found is that it's exceedingly hard to find any place to stay on weekends - especially Saturdays. Anywhere. Especially for a reasonable price (like, say, less than $70/night). Florida is now entering its big tourist season - January and February - and the tourists are definitely here. Well, I shouldn't say "tourists" because the time for them would be in the summer, I think, when kids are out of school. Who I'm competing for space with are the refugees from northern states who got tired of the cold weather.

I made campground reservations for a couple of weeks after leaving here and came up with driving directions. Those directions include my sightseeing jaunts, which means I've had to figure out just what I did want to see and how to fit those things in with where I was going, which was limited by where I could find a campground. In the other states I've visited, I've relied heavily on the notebooks I put together before my trip, where I had lists of many of the points of interest in each state. Of course, I've also found many others either by accident or by word of mouth, but those notebooks always gave me a starting point. But Florida was the first notebook I did and I hadn't figured out then what kinds of things I'd want to know. So the notebook's list of sights to see in Florida is sketchy at best, and I've been having to work a lot harder to figure out where to go.

I did a lot of other chores that have been bothering me but that I haven't had time to do before - along the lines of the defrosting job. I fixed the cover on my bedside light fixture. I cleaned out the cabinet where I store food to figure out what was there kicking around that needed to be used. You know how you buy something to make a particular dish and then end up not making it and having the ingredients still sitting around. Like that.

I still have a lot of organizing to do but I'm a lot more caught up than I was before I got here.

Pets

One of the things I was worried about before taking this time out was that I couldn't find Dext's current vaccination records other than his rabies shot. There's a reason for that. It's because the rabies shot is the only current one he had. All the others had expired. Well, I still remember the awful death my cat Pete suffered 50 years ago when I was a month late on his distemper shot, and I vowed I'd never do that again. And I haven't, until now. I called the Banfield in Gainesville, figuring since we were already in their computer (from other Banfields) we'd stand a better chance of getting a fast appointment to get him up to date.

I found that Lily was current on her shots, so I made her appointment only to get her claws clipped and flea medicine applied. I also wanted the kittens to get checked too, partly because I wanted Banfield to have all the kids' records in their computer for future reference, but also because they needed a booster shot for one of the vaccinations they'd gotten in Austin. Banfield, of course, hadn't even heard about the kittens.

Our appointment was at 8:00 AM, so we left the campground at 7:00 to be sure of making it through Gainesville's rush hour traffic. I took Lily in first, but Banfield asked to have them all brought in together so I went back out to the RV to get the kittens. Bucky objected. Seriously objected. I had to delay for about 5 minutes while I tried to stem the bleeding - a lot of it - and get Band-Aids applied. (I hate their current packaging which I find way too hard to open - especially when bleeding copiously.) When I went back in, my right hand was half covered (no exaggeration) in various sizes of Band-Aids, and I had them on my left hand and part way down my arm too. Even Lily didn't wreak this much damage when she was clawing all the time after I first got her. Then I went back for Dext, who was so excited at not being forgotten he was hard to control. I was ready to abandon them all but nobly refrained. (So glad I never had children.)

Dext got all his shots, and this vet too said I should really consider getting his teeth cleaned not because it's such an emergency but because they need to be done and I could use that opportunity to get those little cysts taken off. The one on his back has been there a while, but I'm still worried about the one that's recently appeared on top of his head. The vet agreed they were almost certainly benign but also agreed with other vets who told me that under some circumstances they could burst and get infected and then we'd be in real trouble.

The kittens got their booster shot and their claws trimmed (yea!), and the vet said they were old enough to get neutered. I thought 6 months was the age for that, and the vet said yes but it could be done earlier and these kittens were healthy enough and well developed enough that they could do it now. And I was interested to learn that Jimmy's weight is much closer to Bucky's than before - he's 4.89 pounds and Bucky's 5.36 pounds.

Here are some photos:

Jimmy's in the foreground.

Bucky's sitting up.

I'm really glad they're healthy and that they seem to be happy here, but they tend to drive me crazy. One day I got back at about 5:00 AM from walking Dext and found smeared feces on my bed. It turned out one of the kittens had pulled a turd out of the litter box to play with and somehow (I don't want to think how) transported it up onto my bed. The cleanup took a while - and more patience than I'd planned to spend at that hour of the day.

Trips to Starke and Gainesville

I went into Starke to run errands several times during this period. I couldn't find that there were any sights to see here, but I did learn that the town's main claims to fame were a strawberry festival (in season, which this isn't) and a state prison. Actually, I wouldn't have known about the prison except for my friend Dem who lives farther south in Florida and said Starke has a bad reputation because that prison has a bad reputation. I looked it up and learned that this prison seems to exist to be a death row - all the prisoners here are slated to be put to death, courtesy of the State of Florida - so the living conditions allowed for them are pretty bad. As far as I can tell, being given the death penalty in Florida is about like in Texas, which is that it's not necessarily reserved only for truly heinous crimes, and it's unlikely you'll get a reprieve of any kind.

I saw and heard nothing of even the existence of the prison, either from folks in the campground or from those I talked to in town, though I learned online that many local jobs are related to the prison.

The KOA was actually in the town of Starke, so I didn't have far to go to get to the main part of town. I found a nice little park where I took Dext for walks each time we came in for groceries and such. It gave him someplace new to sniff and anoint.

road route from Starke to Gainesville

travels in Gainesville

And of course we went to Gainesville a couple of times - it's about 30 miles from Starke. On one trip, I'd planned to stop on the way at a recycling dropoff center I'd found online. Unfortunately, the first time was a Wednesday and I learned from their sign it was closed on Wednesdays and Thursdays. On our second trip I was gladly able to get rid of almost everything I'd accumulated, including glass and most plastics. A relief.

On the first trip to Gainesville I went to a dog park I'd found online, and that was a strange experience. It was a nice big fenced-in park, but a lot of people hadn't picked up after their pets (unpleasant) and we didn't even have the pleasure of other dogs while we were there. But I ended up talking to a woman there who seemed to be homeless who said she'd come down from New England, only to find she wasn't allowed into a shelter without a "blue card," which apparently involved a trip to the police station. I imagine the shelter wanted to know if she had a criminal history, though the woman didn't mention that. She did say the folks at the shelter let her sweep and dust in exchange for food. Being homeless is no picnic. She looked old and thin, and I couldn't help thinking "there but for the grace of God . . . ." That park had a lot of big old trees and so much Spanish moss that I had a really hard time telling the oaks from the palms from the magnolias.

I drove around town a while, passing the Alachua (pronounced ah-LAH-chew-ah) County Courthouse and seeing the University of Florida from both the north and south sides. I couldn't take photos of the school myself, due to traffic, but I found photos online of parts I'd seen.

The second time we came in was for the vet appointment, and I was interested to note that the shopping center where the Banfield was had a small flock of White Ibis grazing in its grassy areas.

After that errand, we went to visit the Devil's Millhopper. It was one of several places of interest I'd heard of in Gainesville, but I chose this one because it was the most accessible. The Florida Museum of Natural History sounded interesting to me and admission was free, but parking for RVs was more than 2 long blocks away, after which I'd have to walk all over the museum before walking back to the parking lot. I knew I hadn't recovered enough of my strength for this to be sensible, especially since I wouldn't be able to combine this with a walk for Dexter. Also near town was something called Paines Prairie State Preserve, which I'd have liked to visit if I'd been staying in the area longer, but it looked like the way to get the most out of a visit there was to hike - again, something I wasn't sure I was up for.

Instead I went to the Devil's Millhopper (named for looking like a hopper where grain is fed into a mill), which turned out to be a very old, very deep sinkhole.

The Devil's Millhopper Geological State Park opened in 1974, but the sinkhole itself was known at least back into the 1800s. It was a tourist draw for years before the WPA built the first public trail there in 1935. People came first in buggies, then in automobiles, many trying to climb down into the sinkhole. Today there's a boardwalk and a staircase that help minimize the erosion that was being done by visitors.

The sinkhole is 500' across from rim to rim, 120' deep, and 100' across at the bottom. In other words, it's big. I took a video because photos didn't seem to be able to convey the size of this thing.

They had some exhibits near the entrance that explained how this thing came to be.

This is the green section in Step 1 below.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

I wanted to come here because I've been curious about all the sinkholes I keep hearing about in Florida. You know, how come they seem to happen so often here? So this park answered not only that question but also what a sinkhole looks like after Nature's had a chance to clean

it up - I'm sure this place looked raw for a while after the ground had collapsed, but you can see that now it's a place of lush beauty, even in January.

And finally . . .

I'll end with a quote and some photos.

The quote comes from an older Carolyn Hax column: "Finding a place to grow old affordably amid love and support is one of the hardest damn things there is in America, no exaggeration." I was glad to find this because it helps explain to me why I'm having so much trouble figuring out where I want to spend the rest of my life.

And then here are a few miscellaneous kitten photos, that all seem to be of Jimmy, now that I think about it.