January 21, 2010 (Thu) Monument Lake CG (2) 66/82° - The "breeze" (that which we call wind in New Jersey) kicked up today. The TV fear mongers (weather forecasters) said that it was gusting to 40 mph. We'll take their word for it. Wouldn't you know the National Park Service chose today to resurface the road through the campground. By resurface I mean scrape the high parts of the dirt road into the low parts and into the pot holes - a dusty process - then coat with a new layer of dust (pulverized coral) brought in by the truck load. Luckily the wind direction was parallel to Q so most of it passed us by. Even so our pledge to wash and wax Q was short lived. We did get a little done before the road work began.
January 22, 2010 (Fri) Monument Lake CG (3) 71/79° - Friday is usually the day when people begin to pile in here for the weekend. From our experience there are three type, in addition to the usual weekend campers. 1. Overnighters who stop here on there way to somewhere else. They come in late in the afternoon and early evening and leave early the next morning. 2. Overflow from Midway. Midway is a "resort" atmosphere campground down the road a way. Those wanting to get in there - reservations are not accepted - often find they have to wait at the gate for someone to leave. When all have left that are going to for the day, the wannabes often become overnighters here hoping for better luck the next day. 3. The day "campers". These are people, usually out of Miami, who come for the day on Saturday or Sunday. They will come in sometime in the morning, claim a campsite and set up as if they were going to spend a week, sometimes even setting up tents. Then pack it all up at the end of the day and go home. There hasn't been that kind of influx this year - at least so far. Several units came in this afternoon but there are several campsites still unoccupied. We'll see what tomorrow brings.
January 23, 2010 (Sat) Monument Lake CG (4) 69/82° - We had some sprinkles of rain during the night, not enough to do much to settle the dust from the road but enough to mottle the dust on Q and make him look as if he needs washing. It was a nice even coating before. Most of the campers that came in yesterday and some others as well left over the course of the morning and very soon the next wave began to arrive. There were no day campers that we were aware of, but in the early afternoon a group of young men arrived at the picnic area - our site is next to the picnic area - in three cars. Three of the four fellows in the first car got out, two put on long pants over the shorts they were wearing and wandered out toward the lake. One of them sat on one of the picnic tables, another stood looking out at the lake, the third just stood by the road across from where the cars were parked. No one from the other two cars got out. This still-life lasted at least five minutes, maybe more, then they came back to the cars and the others began to join them. Those not already wearing long pants, put them on over their shorts as the first two had done. Most of the pants were khaki, though some were dark, but all of them wore white polo shirts.
They moved the only three picnic tables into a rough grouping on the far side of the picnic area and began to bring snack type things, sodas in coolers,and big bags of chips(?), from their cars. Suddenly all motion stopped. Most of the fellows were in a shaggy circle around the tables but others were scattered around. They all stopped. Even the one near the cars. Praying came to mind and that was probably it. After that they sat at the tables as if in a meeting, although one seemed to be reading and another was lying on the bench as if sleeping.They seemed to be having a good time because there seemed to be much laughter. After fifteen or twenty minutes they all disbursed and began to privately read or study what, from where we sat, looked to be bibles of prayer books. This went on for a couple of hours then after another rough prayer(?) circle they returned the picnic tables to their original positions, loaded into their cars and left. We came to the conclusion that it must have been a class outing.
January 24, 2010 (Sun) Monument Lake CG (5) 69/83° - It rained during the night - not hard, but enough for water to find its way into the motor home were the antenna wire comes in. We put a dish under the drip and collected a thimbleful of water - just enough to be annoying. Again no real influx of campers came in for the night and those that did come in left over the course of the morning.
We've named the alligator that comes around every day "Willie" because he seems to show up as Mark is playing his guitar. This afternoon he was sunning in the shallows right next to our campsite. When Joy approached to take his picture, he turned and started toward her as if wanting to say hello. She decided not to stay around.
January 25, 2010 (Mon) Monument Lake CG (6) 75/73° - Woke up in the middle of the night (3:00) to the sound of the awning and flags flapping madly. Obviously the wind ...er breeze had come up with a vengeance. We got up and closed the awning and brought the flags in. Everything else we'd packed up last night in preparation for our outing today. The morning news said that the area had been under tornado watch.
We were going to take our bicycles over to bike trail in Shark Valley today but the weather forecasts made it highly probable that a storm would hit just about the time we got there - or more likely when we got 7 miles away from shelter. It's good we decided to wait till tomorrow because we had a downpour mid morning. The temperature has dropped and the breeze has swung around to the West. There is no shelter from it (or the sun which came out after the rain) without sitting right on the road so we spent most of the day inside.
A 30' or so coachman class C motor home pulled in just behind us in the mid afternoon and immediately started up his generator. We thought he either doesn't know that his batteries were charging as he drives, doesn't know that virtually everything in the motor home runs on 12 volts (battery), there is a problem with his charging circuits, doesn't have a house battery or enjoys the sound of a generator like some people enjoy a radio playing all the time. It was still on when we went to bed.
January 26, 2010 (Tue) Monument Lake CG (7) 47/68° (50/1856 miles) - Shark Valley is a 15 mile walking/biking trail deep into the Everglades National Park. It was our destination today. We took off at about 9:00 and got to the visitors at about 10:30 with a stop at Midway campground to dump and take on fresh water. That took longer than we expected because it turned out to be a busy time at the dump station - and the fellow ahead of us took his time not caring that the line was getting longer behind him.
The first part of the Shark Valley trail follows a small waterway filled with wildlife, the most spectacular of which were the alligators. We counted 60 of them between the visitors center and the observation tower 7 miles into the Everglades. Most of them were sunning themselves on the bank next to the trail - in a few cases on the trail itself. It would have been easy to get into trouble if we didn't watch where we were going. We passed up climbing the tower because it was crowded with people from one of the "trams" that carry less energetically inclined sightseers. The return loop meandered through the saw grass and dwarf cypress tree swamp and yielded another 24 alligators - these at slightly greater distances. In addition to the alligators there were hundreds of birds along the entire loop - heron, anhingas, ibis, egrets, hawks, storks and many others. Photographers with huge lensed cameras were everywhere and they had plenty of subjects. It was a beautiful ride, even having to beat against the wind on the way back, and well worth doing.
Q057780 Monument Lake CG, Big Cypress National Preserve #5 dry $8.00 (x7)
QC01-05 A week dry camping
QC01-04 From civilized to roughing it
January 16, 2010 (Sat) Ortona Lock CG (4) 61/77° - After a nice day yesterday, that we pretty much missed because it was such a busy day, it clouded over today and the wind began to pick up. Forecasters say that there are thunder storms coming across the Gulf of Mexico and should be upon us around midnight. That sounds like fun. About mid-afternoon we folded up the chairs and stowed them under the motor home, secured the bicycles to the picnic table and brought in the flags and door mat (which has been know to blow away). Thus battened down, we walked over to the lock to watch the activity there.
We have been to Ortona Lock campground twice before. Both times the gate at the walkway across the dam to the lock itself has been closed and locked. We expected the same this time but it was open. So we crossed the dam and stood by the lock watching as boats passed through. We timed our visit just right. In the hour or so that we were there the lock processed 9 boats - probably the most activity it has seen all day. Most were small but apparently expensive yachts on their way from the Gulf of Mexico to Lake Okeechobee or vice versa. It was interesting to see how different "captains" handled the almost identical tasks of easing their boats up to the bulkheads and holding them while the water lifted or lowered them to their new level. The lock attendant obviously needed his relatively short activity period. It appeared that he must spend the rest of his time slouched in a chair in the booth, snack food readily available.
January 17, 2010 (Sun) Ortona Lock CG (5) 70/80° - Tails from the department of weird: When Mark went into the rest room to take a shower this morning he found the curtain of one of the two shower stalls closed, apparently occupied. The curtain of the other shower was open but it was occupied by a completely balk guy, obviously naked, doing something indeterminate. Studying the situation to determine what that might be seemed inappropriate. Thinking that one shower would probably soon be available, he decided to wait. As he waited the man kept peering out and down the passageway at him. That was strange. If he wanted privacy, he could close the curtain. The occupant of the first shower soon pulled curtain back and came out - fully dressed. Mark picked up his stuff preparing to take his turn there but before he was able to take more than a couple of steps, The naked guy began to move his stuff from where he was to the newly vacated stall. Actually he wasn't totally naked. His face was completely covered with what looked like shaving cream - not just cheeks, chin and upper lip as if about to shave but forehead as well!
The obvious question remained unasked, instead Mark asked, "Is there something wrong with that shower?" The answer was unintelligible. A request for a repeat yielded no better information. Mark asked Clothed Man if he knew of anything wrong with the shower. "Mine worked OK," he said. Time to ask a different question of Naked Man. "Is that shower working?" "It's fine," the man said as he transferred the last of his things into his new shower stall. And it was.
The thunder storms predicted for last night never materialized. In fact it barely even rained. But the wind remained fierce and has lasted all day.
January 18, 2010 (Mon) Ortona Lock CG (6) 51/77° - The winds have quieted down but the chill has returned. Well, 51° isn't bad but we did need to pull up the extra blanket during the night. But it warmed up quickly. By mid-morning it was warm enough to debate whether sweatshirts were necessary for our bike ride out to the main road. We wore them. In the afternoon we crossed the dam and lock to the road on the other side. There are five or six houses along that road, most for sale, and a small park about a quarter mile west of the lock. It was very small but pretty. It had two pavilions with four picnic tables, five or so single picnic tables, rest rooms and a boat launch. The pavilions can be reserved if anyone is interested.
January 19, 2010 (Tue) Ortona Lock CG (7) 50/68° - Frustrating day. We spent the morning waiting for it to warm up enough to sit out without sweatshirts. It didn't happen.The sun was warm but not quite warn enough and it was not out enough. This afternoon was better - more sun, more warmth. There's always tomorrow and we'll be moving a little further south.
Sometime in the last 24 hours several truckloads of frost ruined (we assume) rotting oranges were dumped as food for the cattle roaming the fields between the campground and US 80. We can't smell them from here but it made our morning bike ride interesting. The cattle didn't seem interested. We can't say we blame them.
Q057635 Ortona Lock South Campground. #50 w/e $12g A (x7)
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January 20, 2010 (Wed) Ortona Lock CG to Monument Lake CG (95/1806 miles) - The first order of business after getting off at 9:45 was to find the La Belle post office. That shouldn't have been a problem with our hand-dandy Garmin GPS but there was no listing there. (This is the second PO not found the resident POIs since we left home. We'll be doing something about that.) Mark had put the address in when we were going to pick up our mail there but deleted it when those plans changed. We did three of the four streets in La Belle before we stopped to ask. It was on the fourth street :-/
Getting to Monument Lake was a straight forward shot south on FL 29 to US 41 then east. The road is very rural, except for the small villages, with lots of farms and farm related industries all along. We were particularly concerned when we saw the migrant workers gathering in the fields. It's probably going to be a rough year for them with so much frost kill here in Florida. We didn't see the alligators in the canals along the road that we usually see (because of the cold January?) but there were plenty of birds - mostly anhingas, white herons, egrets and vultures - and this year loads of wood storks. Interesting. There were the usual scattering of "Panther Crossing" sighs as we passed through the Florida Panther Wildlife Refuge but we saw no panthers. We never have.
Monument Lake campground is almost empty. A couple of units sit on each end of the lake and a couple along the side. We had hoped we'd be able to get one of the two sites at the south end of the lake were we would have a good view of the lake and afternoon shade but both were occupied. We took this site planning to move when one of them opened up but after being here for a while we've decided we like it here.
It got up over 85° this afternoon, quite a change from the 48° when we took our showers this morning, and our friendly neighborhood alligator decided to come out for a leisurely swim around the lake about 4:00.
Q07730 Monument Lake CG, Big Cypress National Preserve, FL #5 dry $8.00 B-
QC01-03 Florida finally warms up
January 11, 2010 (Mon) Myakka River State Park, Sarasota, FL (2) 30/51° - Today was a day to hunker down to recharge our energy and wait out the cold. In the afternoon it warmed up enough to consider walking over to the concession area (bicycles and canoes to rent, air boat rides on the river, one camp store/gift shop and one gift shop/snack bar) about a half mile away and to hike out the road a mile or so toward the "north entrance". Our entertainment for the afternoon consisted of watching a couple from Quebec unload a convertible (car) from the trailer they were towing then back their 32' plus class C motor home with trailer attached into a site designed for and supposedly limited to a 30' RV. When backed straight in the motor home completely blocked the road. The rig is now "L" shaped with the motor home across the front of the site - trailer still attached and still sticking into the road a bit. Their site is next to the trail to the concession area so they have room to get their car off the road. Florida state parks do little to enforce their own rules!
January 12, 2010 (Tue) Myakka River SP (3) 33/60°- Well it was 3 degrees warmer last night than the night before, but last night the water supply hose froze up! By 9:30 we had water again (from the city hook-up) although we could use water from our on-board tank all along. As we ate breakfast, two white tail deer grazed about 100 feet away in the forest. An hour or so later a couple of black, wild hogs wandered by and rooted in the same grassy area. We haven't seen any alligators yet - too cold for them - but plenty of other wild life. Mostly birds.
By noon the temperature had gotten up to 50° so Mark decided that it was time to look into what was wrong with the generator. He couldn't use the cold as an excuse any longer. It turned out to be exactly what he thought it would be, a cable left unconnected after work was done on the automatic step. It was a real bear to retrieve! Picture trying to retrieve a sheet of paper that has fallen behind a desk drawer without removing the drawer. It took emptying the drawer of two deep cycle batteries, leveling boards and assorted useful (someday) junk and Joy's help holding a powerful flashlight while Mark probed through a 2 inch slot with a marshmallow roasting fork to find and pull the cable out where it could be reconnected to the battery.
Q057342 Myakka River SP #14 e/w $26 B (x3)
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January 13, 20010 (Wed) Myakka River SP to Ortona Lock South CG (113/1434 miles) - What a surprise! When we made our reservations last week, a miracle in itself as this campground fills up 6 months in advance, we thought we were going to be in the "buddy" site where we had been another time. We were dreading having to share the single pad site with strangers literally two feet away but it was the only site available and we thought the inconvenience was worth it. This is such a beautiful campground. Instead, the site turned out to be a single with plenty of space between us and our neighbors. There is mowed lawn and mulched, well kept shrubbery separating us from the next sites. Q sits on a concrete pad with a large crushed stone area on our starboard side containing a roofed picnic table, a grill and a fire ring. There is really more of a resort feel here than a campground - no swimming pool, hot tub or golf course but what can we expect for $12 a night? We do have water and electricity at the site.
We up at 7:00 (38°) this morning and after showers - we hope the last on-board showers for a while since the weather is warming - and breakfast, we headed south. A Walmart Supercenter was conveniently just off the I-75 for some needed grocery shopping, otherwise the 113 miles to Ortona Lock was uneventful. In the distance across the prairie we could see smoke which made us wonder whether it was from a controlled burn, often done in these parts, or a disaster of some kind. We got here just before 1:00.
January 14, 2010 (Thu) Ortona Lock CG (2) 46/72° - Last night was the first night in a long time we haven't thought we needed a heater going through the night. Wonderful! Today is also the first time we've had the bicycles off the front of the motor home. We rode them around the campground and the nearly 2 miles out to the main highway. That was enough for the first time in nearly a year that we've ridden. We were weak in the knees for a couple of hours afterward. On our ride through the campground we saw a Chinook Galaxy that we've seen before. We had talked with its owners in Hillsborough River State Park a couple of years ago. We haven't spoken with them here yet, but friends of theirs, who used to own a Chinook, stopped by this afternoon.
January 15, 2010 (Fri) Ortona Lock CG (3) 62/78° - Up at 7:00 to a beautiful day. The sky was clear and the sun bright and warm. This is the Florida we came here for! Except that we weren't here to fully enjoy it. At 9:00 we released Q's umbilical cords (water and electricity) and rolled off our pad, our chairs and bicycles locked to the table the only evidence of occupancy. We were headed for Englewood to be with Bom when she signed the papers closing the sale of her condo. She seemed to take the loss of her home for many years without difficulty. After Fabian (real estate agent) and the title company rep left, Joy and her mother played a game of SkipBo. Bom won.
On the way home we stopped at an Olive Garden for their pizza with soup. It really hit the spot. We had intended to stop in La Belle on the way back to see if our mail had caught up with us yet but it was late. We'll try again on the way out.
It's amazing how tired we were from our activities today. Bed time was early!
Q057455 Ortona Lock South Campground. #50 w/e $12g A
QC01-02 More Florida cold
January 6, 2010 (Wed) Alexander Springs CG to Englewood, FL (199/1321 miles) - We drove only 199 miles today but it seems like it took forever. We woke up fairly early and lay in bed for an hour while the furnace warmed it up enough to take showers. We weren't about to brave the 27° temperatures to the unheated public showers! We had intended to dump our holding tanks and fill up on fresh water before a planned 3 nights of dry camping but everything was frozen up at the dump station. So off we went (9:30 31° clear) only partially prepared. In Umatilla, Mark dropped Joy off at the laundromat while he went to the library to for an internet connection.
When we got propane in North Carolina the tank would only take 4 gallons, far less than we thought we needed. Was the cold affecting the filling process? Was something wrong with Q's tank, gauge or taps? We didn't think it was the gauge because of the usage since the last fill-up. We stopped at the Ace Hardware in Umatilla and they were able to put in 8 more gallons. That's better! A stop for groceries was next then we were off again (12:40 47°) but we still needed to refresh our sanitary system and get fresh water. Flying J Dade City, here we come - and here we sat! We waited 15 minutes, at least, to get to a gas pump only to find that the regular non leaded pump was out of order. So we had to wait some more while a big class A motor home finished getting his 100 gallons. The dumping went without incident but water for then fresh water tank was only available at the gas pump island. We were so aggravated by our long wait there that we didn't even think about getting it while we waited.
After a longer day than it needed to be we got to Bom's assistant living facility at about 5:00. Bom looks great and seems very happy. It was good to see her.
January 7, 2010 (Thu) Englewood, FL (2) 37/62° - We learned about the Coleman camping coffee maker on an RV oriented TV show. It is supposed to work exactly like the "Mr Coffee" type drip coffee maker except that the heat source is a camp stove rather than electricity. We thought it sounded like a good thing to have so we bought one. It worked well yesterday morning, we thought. This morning it stopped letting water through the grounds and into the decanter below forcing most of it to stay in the bin with the grounds. What a mess when we open it up! And what coffee made it to our cups was loaded with grounds. Ugh! We'll be trying to figure out what went wrong.
Joy spent some time with her mother this morning and again late this afternoon. Between the visits we did some errands and stopped by Quail's Run for a quick visit with Bom's former upstairs neighbors.
January 8, 2010 (Fri) Englewood, FL (3) 42/65° - The coffee pot worked fine this morning. The trick is to close the filter/grounds bin before putting the glass decanter in. Joy again spent an hour or so each, morning and afternoon, with her mother. Between we got some lunch in town (Chicken quesadillas at Food is Love) and did some used clothing and fabric shopping. The computer kept Mark busy through it all (except for the quesadillas).
Q's generator wouldn't start! Wouldn't even try. Nothing. It's as if there is no electricity at all getting to the starter. Mark took a cursory look for the problem but it was dark so unsuccessful. That said as if it would have been successful had it not been dark. He'll look into it tomorrow - probably in the rain. Current thinking is that Camping World neglected to fully reconnect the battery when they worked on the electric step.
January 9, 2010 (Sat) Englewood, FL (4) 37/45° - Rain on the roof off and on through the night make for good sleeping. It didn't get as cold as predicted but 37° is too cold for this part of Florida. It could be worse though. We could be home.
Q057245 Jeanne Walton's yard Englewood, FL (x4)
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January 10, 2010 (Sun) Englewood, FL to Sarasota, FL (97/1318 miles) - When we made reservations for Myakka River State Park campground, this site came with a caveat, "Due to recent rains the site may be flooded". The note was dated Sept 1 so we weren't too concerned. Even so we joked about having to wade in when we got here. It turns out to be a pretty nice site. It's dry but not much higher that a swampy area out our back door. It probably does flood in the rainy season. We are surrounded by tropical forest. Palm trees and palmetto abound and Spanish Moss hangs from every horizontal branch. There are splashes of sunshine through the hammock and on the tree tops. Black Vultures wander through the empty campsites looking for scraps left behind by human transients. The scene out our windows gives false testimony to the chilling cold. It started out at 33° this morning and has not gotten over 45° all day. Normal day time temperature this time of year in this part of Florida is 70° - 75°.
We're only 50 miles north of Englewood here (the 97 miles shown above includes errands over the last few days) so we can easily make it back to be with Bom for the closing on her condo should that happen ahead of schedule. We don't expect the sale to close until the end of the week though. By then we will be south of Englewood, still within commuting range.
Q057342 Myakka River SP #14 e/w $26 B
QC01-01 Into the cold south
January 3, 2010 (Sun) Home to Franklin, VA (405/405 miles) - From the middle of the Chesapeake Bay with water all around,we could see bridge lights converging in the distance meeting a seemingly endless and diminishing roadway. The silhouettes of sea gulls soared against a backdrop of a brilliant red sky over Norfolk, VA. Beautiful! This and the quiet of only a few cars crossing the bay at the time made the trip here worth the discomfort and gave us needed fortification to navigate the tangled spaghetti of the interstates through Norfolk. That task is a challenge in daylight when road signs are relatively easy to find but in the dark it's a nightmare. Hildene, in her new incarnation as a Garmin nuvi 225W, did a great job of guiding us through it all and back to sanity.
It was 20° and very windy this morning, as we loaded the last items into Q for our next three months. They say the wind chill was in the single digits. Easily! Luckily there was no snow on the ground although there had been last week and more is expected. We got off at about 9:20 and headed for route 18 and south. Gas at Costco was $2.45/gal. We suspect that if we'd been a few minutes later we'd have save 2¢ a gallon because they were changing the posted price as our tank filled. There was a fine misting of snow in the air as we drove across I-195 and down I-295, just enough to make the landscape hazy without the danger of accumulation. We could see what appeared to be the front just above the horizon, a bright band below the gray of the overcast, but it seemed to come no closer as we drove south. We did watch the temperature climb out of the 20s into the low 30s - not much but it gave us hope.
We had planned to stop and spend the night in the rest area just north of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel but decided to go on so as to avoid commuter traffic through Norfolk in the morning. We were rewarded with that beautiful sunset.
Q056329 Camp Walmart Franklin, VA
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January 4, 2010 (Mon) Franklin, VA to Savannah, GA (450/895miles) - It was so cold when we converted Q into a bedroom that our memory foam pad forgot. It wouldn't unroll! During the night the temperature got down to 18° outside, 21° inside. We have a furnace but we don't use it at night. As long as we have plenty of warm blankets we don't really need it. We haven't yet any way. It's noisy and we expect it will choose to come on just as we are about to drop off to sleep - throughout the night!. Speaking of noisy, the local Franklin, VA youth chose this Walmart parking lot to conduct a contest, it seemed, to determine whose unmuffled exhaust system was the loudest. It woke us up and went on for some time. In spite of it and the cold we slept well, uncommon for our first night out, and woke refreshed. After scraping the frost off the inside of the windshield, a McDonald's, sausage/egg mcmuffin saved us from having to fix our own breakfast in the cold. We were under way again at 8:00.
There are lots of cotton fields along the road through Virginia and North Carolina. A surprising number of them were unharvested. It made us wonder when the harvest season really is. Usually the plants are bare at this time of year. Again we watched the temperature rise through the 20s and into the 30s as the day progressed. It even reached 35° at on point. Wow!
We weren't able to take on water before we left because the faucet was frozen closed on the side of the house. Nor was water available at the Flying J station just north of the Delaware Memorial Bridge in New Jersey - no surprise - but it should have been available in North Carolina. The lady at the Flying J who came to fill our propane tank said the water was on in the taps but none came out. Frozen presumably. We finally got it in South Carolina. Now we could use the bath room facilities and wash the accumulating dishes. By that time, mid afternoon, the temperature was up to 40°. We're getting there - maybe.
We picked up some chicken from Zaxsby's, as fast food chain we had never tried, and took it across the street to the Walmart that would be our port for the night. 43° at 6:40.
Q056783 Camp Walmart Savannah, GA
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January 5, 2010 (Tue) Savannah, GA to Alexander Springs CG, FL (263/1122 miles) - It wasn't as cold last night and was a lot quieter, although we could hear traffic on the nearby highway. It was a bit warmer also - 25° when we got up. We were totally shocked when we rolled over in our nice warm bed to see that it was after 7:00. We got under way at 8:50 after stopping to pick up coffee at McDonald's. Breakfast was our usual, Quaker Granola, in the Darien discount mall parking lot. The store were not yet open so the lot was empty except for a few cars here and there. We were gone before the first store opened, no one the wiser.
The drive through the rest of Georgia and into Florida was relatively uneventful. The traffic along I-95 was fairly light making the road construction activity in GA a near non-event for us. The narrow lanes made driving a bit more adventurous but not bad. Down US 301 in Florida we counted speed trap towns - they balance their budgets from unsuspecting tourists. No one got caught that we saw. Most people are wise and it helps to have billboard signs 4 miles or so outside of town warning of the speed traps.
Alexander Springs Campground is almost completely empty of campers. We drove around before we settled in and counted maybe 10 other units. We look forward to a quiet and warmer night and showers in the morning.
Q057046 Alexander Springs CG, Ocala National Forest.
QC01-00 Q Getting ready to roll
January 2, 2010 (Sat) Our annual sojourn to the south is about to begin - and none too soon. There's a cold wind blowing and more and colder tonight. Q is about packed - well as much as we can (no liquids) since the thermometer will be down in the teens tonight. As always, we will be picking up email whenever we can get internet access (spotty) and our cell phone will be on. We think we will be in range of a cell tower most of the time. We have no set agenda this year so we don't know when we will be where. We plan to wander around Florida (if we don't decide to do some exploring to the west) following our whims. We'll be in touch and those in our path can expect self-invitations - we'll give plenty of warning.
