We left Charleston on the 20th of March. Pat had found a campsite in Brunswick, GA and we booked for 10 days. However, when we got underway and I asked for the address for the Garmin and found that the campsite was another 200 miles away in White Springs, FL. Result; instead of an 2 and a half hour drive it wound up being a 6 hour drive and we didn't arrive until 8 pm. Quite dark!
Driving up to the campgrounds we saw a brand new privacy fence at least 10-12 feet tall all the way around the park. Interesting we thought. The site we were given was very rustic and not that desirable but what the heck I thought. The park was full of old trailers with green mold on them and a lot of them you could tell were there for the long term since most had attached decks and huge wood piles, lots of plants and "junk" around their sites.
In the morning we ran into a couple from Brooklyn who informed us; "Watch out for a lot of these characters, some are pretty shady." and, "This park is turning into a nudist colony in 11 days!" Most of the male residents had long beards (ZZ Top) and long below the shoulder length hair. Murky looking types.
Pat made the decision to move on as quickly as we could and break our term. Again I didn't care, after the previous day I was ready to relax and take things as they came. But in the spirit of "Would you rather be right or would you rather be happy?" I agreed to a move.
We found a site 50 miles west of Gainesville near Old Town, FL. called Yellow Jacket RV Resort. It is miles from anywhere but we really like it. It is on the bank of the Suwannee River which is beautiful.
Yesterday we went to Manatee Springs State Park which we were told the day before the manatees were there but I guess they heard we were coming because they took off. I posted some pictures of the park. Great place to visit if you are in the area.
Today we have reserved a boat to take into the river but it looks like rain off and on so we will postpone for Monday. We are talking about going to Horseshoe Beach on the gulf to expose our dog "Sookie" to the water.
Problems we have encountered so far; terrible cell phone reception (one bar mostly and we loose that if you move the phone from one ear to the other, can't get our directtv satellite to work even though the damn thing is pointed directly at a satellite, clothes bar in the closet fell down and I had to re-engineer the design, Pat broke the filter cover on the AC unit, Bank of America froze our debit card due to out of the ordinary activity (need to inform them we are travelling). Lastly a friend of ours who we were supposed to meet in Jacksonville on April 1st died last Tuesday night. That was a real shocker.
Forgot to mention - if you ever camp in Florida make sure you check out the policy of the campground because some advertise "clothing optional". As Monica from Brooklyn told us after they had an experience staying in a nudist campground by mistake, "Some people just look better in clothes!" Her husband Jerry made her stay the day because they had already paid and he told me he "wanted to take in the sites!"
We love all of you with all the love we can muster and it is strange being away from you like we are, but dammit this could be one hell of a good time full of adventure and memories.
We go from here to Bradenton, FL and will be there for Easter with Pat's family. Not sure yet how long we will stay and in fact I don't really care since for us it's always one moment at a time and it's all good.
Later
