Florida - Day 20 - in the Hillsborough River campground

Hillsborough River State Park, Thonotosassa

Sunday, 5 February 2023

I was curious about the name of the closest town, even though I never saw it (it was down a side road).  Wikipedia says the name comes from 2 Seminole/Creek words that indicate this area was a good source of flint.  I can't even imagine living in a time when the only power I had access to came from striking flint.  Even a match is a major step up, let alone flipping a light switch.

Dext and I walked around various parts of the campground quite a few times, and he often found dogs that wanted to play.  It's a shame that none of the Florida state campgrounds has a dog park - at least, none of those I've stayed in.

The weather forecast included thunderstorms, but we didn't even have any rain.  Good for the critters, but I like thunder.

I spent a lot of the day trying to make campground reservations for the parts of February I don't already have them, as well as the early part of March.  I was partly successful but held up because my hotspot signal was pretty slow and made it hard to get information.  I gave up entirely when I tried to get driving directions to anywhere.

The folks next door have 3 children under the age of 12 - the mom told me they're on an extended camping tour while the dad works remotely (I guess he got a better wifi signal than I did), and they've been homeschooling the kids.

One of the things they did today was have the kids put together an odd version of a lemonade stand, except they didn't have lemonade.  Instead, the kids took out to the edge of the road a box, put a basket upside down on it, and proceeding to hawk balloons and crackers.  I guess that's all they could come up with from what they had in the camper.  I listened to them hollering "Balloons and crackers for sale!" over and over and finally went out myself to find out what they had.  The crackers were Saltines - 5/sandwich bag.  I asked what they were charging and the older boy said the balloons and crackers were each 25¢.  I went back into the RV and managed to scrounge together exactly 50¢ (it was all the change I had), and went back out, only to find the boy couldn't remember what he'd told me and wanted to change the prices to 50¢ each.  I didn't feel like arguing with him and decided on a balloon, figuring the kitties could play with it.

They were fascinated.  They ended up chewing up the yarn that's tied to the balloon and I found bits of it around the cabin for a long time afterwards.  Eventually of course the balloon burst, which stunned them.  Then they couldn't figure out where it had gone or what that limp stuff that was left was.  But, also of course, that wasn't their only game.

This time the lump is both kitties.