Where the Manatees Are

It was cold when we got to Florida but warmed up. You may think, like I did, that you have only to cross the border into Florida to find warm, sunny weather. We learned a number of years ago on the boat that you have to get at least to mid-Florida before it starts feeling warm in winter. Still, it was warmer than farther north and wasn’t raining. We drove past acres of pecan orchards in Georgia and arrived in Tallahassee mid-day.  Actually we were a bit out of town but our campsite had a lovely view of Lake Talquin. After setting up, we set off to see some sights. 

First we visited Alfred B. Maclay Gardens State Park, which has an extensive collection of camellias (that were in bloom), small ponds and paths that wind among big, old oak trees dripping with Spanish moss. We were lucky that the price was $6 per vehicle because in a few days, after January 1st, it was going up to $6 per person, which we would have considered too steep.

After that we visited Lake Jackson Mounds Archaeological State Park where a trail through the woods takes you past a couple Indian mounds. There is some basic information about the culture who built them. The mounds look like small, unremarkable hills. They were built around 1100-1200 AD for ceremonial or religious reasons. That night we ate our only dinner out at Barnacle Bills. Our dinners were good not great, although lots of people seemed to be enjoying huge mounds of oysters. Tallahassee seems big and busy.

The following day I had planned a bike ride, but it was too cold. So we set off to see more sights. First we visited Mission San Luis, which has an okay museum in a modern building and other historic mission buildings positioned about the grounds. We shivered as we watched the blacksmith make an iron nail. We quickly saw everything outside,

then headed to the Museum of Florida History where we spent a couple hours viewing the extensive exhibits. You could spend all day learning the history of Florida. It was interesting, but after awhile we were saturated. 

Our last visit that day was to Natural Bridge Battlefield Historic State Park, which was disappointing and not worth the $3 fee. There was a monument and a few plaques about the battle and nothing much to look at, although it was neat to see a gnome’s home behind the fence (not on state property).

On our third and final day in Tallahassee, once again it was too cold in the morning to go biking, so we visited the 22-story Florida State Capitol. There wasn’t a guided tour, but we read the brochure, which described the building and some of the rooms. On the 22nd floor, you can see a great view of Tallahassee and some exhibits. 

The paintings by Christopher Still, who also painted murals in the Senate, were especially nice. 

Warm weather arrived in the afternoon, and we went to Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park. The springs themselves are warm (69^o), year round, so in winter, manatees arrive to enjoy the warmth. Manatees also flock to other locations with warm water in winter in Florida. We saw at least eight manatees swimming around, playing or sleeping in the idyllic setting. You could see them very clearly in the water, and they came close to the viewing platforms. I also saw a large gar and a school of fish that looked like catfish. We looked in the lodge, which has a smallish lobby with a painted ceiling. 

Then we took the park’s 45-minute, 3-mile river boat tour with Capt’n Bob, who did a great job explaining the ecology and history of the area. We saw lots of small alligators and birds in the cypress swamp. 

Some grass had gotten caught in the boat’s prop, and when we returned to the springs, a manatee came up and nibbled on it. 

After that we had a late picnic at San Marcos de Apalache Historic State Park in St. Marks. There was a short interpretive trail through the park, which had been a fort on the St. Marks River. From there we drove to the end of St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge to look at the Gulf of Mexico and St. Marks lighthouse. 

Along the way vast saltwater marshes were dotted with lots of birds and alligators.

Winter Trip

Plato in his "penthouse" above the bed

We haven’t used the trailer in over a year so it was high time we got the wheels moving again. We decided to tack on some vacation days to Christmas vacation and take a two week trip to Florida. Getting ready for a 2-week trip is almost as much work as for a 2-month trip, but ready or not, we were leaving Christmas day.

I planned the trip. David checked the tires and all the systems on the trailer, and we packed everything we needed, including enough food for two weeks. Christmas day turned out to be warm and sunny, and because the trailer was lighter than when we had gone on our longer trips, we had no trouble getting out of our steep driveway. 

By 12:00 we were on our way. By 4:00 we arrived at our campsite in Sesquicentennial State Park in Columbia, SC. 

The lake's in the far background

We walked over to the lake. A little terrier dog was running around, dragging his leash behind him. Since pets aren’t allowed off a leash, technically he was following the rules. We started walking around the lake. Since it was after 4:30, we were concerned it would get dark on us, so we partly jogged and mostly walked fast along the 1.9 mile trail and made it back to the trailer before dark.

That night it poured rain. It was still raining in the morning, and we talked about possibly skipping Augusta, our next stop, to see if we could get away from the rain. We decided to stick with the plan, and, if it was raining in Augusta, we would find something to do indoors. 

The Augusta campground was only an hour and a half away. By the time we got there, the rain had stopped. When we had almost reached the campground, someone started honking at us. David said there must be a problem. We pulled into the almost-deserted campground and found that one of the tires was smoking and the hub was too hot to touch. Once we got into our campsite, and David had a chance to study the problem, he determined that the bearings in one of the trailer tire hubs had disintegrated, and the hub had started to melt. 

So, for the rest of that day and most of the next day, David worked on fixing the hub. He was light on tools on this trip because he hadn’t anticipated any major problems. He went to several auto parts stores, a bearings and drive store, Lowes and an auto mechanic who put on a new race. It was bitter cold but didn’t rain. We were lucky to have reached the campground in time, although being stuck in this particular campground, which was just a big, brown lawn beside a busy highway and didn’t have wifi, was no picnic. 

By 4:00 the second day, the tire was fixed, and we went downtown to walk up and down the landscaped Riverwalk along the Savannah river 










and to look at some of the monuments scattered around town.

The following day we skipped our stop in Macon and drove 4 hours straight to Americus, Georgia. After setting up camp and having lunch, we had enough time to see nearby Andersonville where Union soldiers were imprisoned during the Civil war. 

The museum and site are dedicated to all prisoners of war. It was very interesting and depressing. Up to 45,000 men (and a few women) were imprisoned at Andersonville over a period of 14 months. 13,000 died. 











They are buried in the cemetery, along with other war veterans.

Home from the North

September 16-20, 2011
My cousin Carolyn and her family live about 45 minutes north of Chicago in a suburban oasis. On the road there we passed every chain store known to man. When you turn into her neighborhood, you find yourself magically transported to an enchanting rural environment with beautiful homes and beautifully-landscaped yards.

After so many months on the road, it was relaxing to hang out with family for a couple days and “catch up”. Dylan patiently tried to teach me a video game (Madden), but I was hopeless. Both he and his brother Riley are football players, and I was able to watch Riley play in a high school game one morning (while David stayed behind to fix the caster on the trailer).

Our short visit was soon over, and we set the GPS to “home”. We drove from Illinois straight to Indiana and found a WalMart to spend the night. We parked behind the store and semi trucks came and went throughout the night, unloading their WalMart cargo, but I slept through it.
The next day we drove through pretty country in Kentucky and West Virginia. West Virginia was very mountainous where we were. We got to the Beckley WalMart after 4 and parked far from the store. I hiked in and got permission. David rented a movie from Redbox. We had a hard time believing we’d be home the following day.
After dark, a blue pickup truck parked right behind the trailer, uncomfortably close, since we were in a huge, empty parking lot with several street lights. Three people were in the car--a woman and two young men. The woman was reading, presumably by the light of the streetlight. They were there about two hours before leaving. There was only one other RV in the parking lot.

Happy to be home

The phone rang while we were watching the movie. I looked at the number, but it was a 1-800 number, so I didn’t answer.
The next day, as we were driving, my phone rang again around 10 am. It was the same number, so I answered. It was VISA.
“How are you?” the woman asked.
“I’m fine,” I answered.
“I’d like to verify a couple purchases you made.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Did you spend $1.07 at Redbox yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“Did you place a mail order purchase at Ann Taylor in New York for $1,946 yesterday?”
“No!”
“We believe your number has been stolen. We’re going to close your account and send you new cards with new numbers.”

We assume someone harvested the number when we rented the movie.
From Beckley we drove about 4 hours through pretty landscape in West Virginia and Virginia and got home in North Carolina around 3:00 to find the house intact and unoccupied except for fat, happy spiders and dead bugs.
We'd been gone 119 days and driven 15,000 miles. Mission accomplished. All in all a great trip!

The Badlands and Beyond with Mustard On Top

September 8-15, 2011
After a couple weeks of beautiful Rocky Mountain scenery, we were ready for the Badlands. At US Customs, an agent went into our trailer and came back with a bag of red bell peppers and green onions. He said that the peppers were grown in a hot house in Canada and could have a fungus or something else. He didn’t explain about the onions.
Then we were in Montana. We drove all day, first through mountains, then hills, then ranches with cattle and horses. It got up to the low 90’s. The landscape got flatter with fewer and fewer trees until it was almost a blanket of golden yellow grasses and grains with ranch houses and barns few and far between.

The next day we drove to Fort Peck. The scenery was mostly flat or gently rolling hills covered with farmland or prairie with low mountains in the distance. I saw a few antelope at one point. When Louis and Clark came through here, the area was teeming with bison, elk, antelope, beaver and other animals. The settlers and buffalo hunters took care of that. Many of the towns we passed through had grain elevators beside the railroad along the main road. We also saw grain elevators off in the distance. It was a nice, hot, sunny day, a bit hazy.

We got to Fort Peck just as the last tour was starting at 1:00, so we took it. The guide showed us the dam’s powerhouses, explained the construction and mechanics and allowed us to touch the rotating shaft of a generator. As we gazed at Fort Peck Lake, the 5th largest man-made lake in the U.S., we could see huge paddlefish swimming around.

After that we checked in at the nearby campground with its spacious sites, big grassy lawns and nice old trees. The cats had a blast chasing bugs in the grass.
We returned to the interpretive center and looked at its extensive displays on the dam, the ecosystem and dinosaurs. Then we drove to the spillway.

The following day we drove about 4 hours to Medora, North Dakota. The topography varied from bumpy with buttes to flat farmland with a few small towns here and there. Mostly it was empty-looking land with far horizons under clear skies, restful to the eye. As we got closer to Medora, the badlands predominated.

Medora is small and touristy but quaint. The campground wasn’t particularly appealing to us or the cats, just a bunch of RVs packed in tightly. We were in a spot with no trees or bushes, just some grass and nothing much for the cats to look at, but we did get full hook-up for a change.

After set up, we went to the tourist center and then the ticket office to see if we could get discount tickets to the long-running, outdoor Medora musical, for which Medora is famous, but the tickets were too expensive for our budget. Instead, we watched a free “cowboy shootout” in town later. It was a hokey skit with a flimsy “plot” in which a bunch of cowboys get shot for no good reason. We went to a museum and learned about Harold Schafer, who founded the Gold Seal company and sold “Mr. Bubbles”. He used the money he made to buy and refurbish most of Medora and start the musical.  On the way back to the campground, we watched about 6 hot-air balloons being inflated.

In the morning we spent 4 hours on the 36-mile scenic loop through the Theodore Roosevelt National Park South Unit.
We saw prairie dog towns,
lots of bison, a small herd of feral horses on a hill and

expansive views of badland buttes.

We stopped at all the viewpoints, hiked several fairly short trails and enjoyed the hot weather.

In the afternoon we viewed the exhibits in the visitor’s center, learned about Teddy Roosevelt’s visits to the badlands, toured his cabin and looked at ruins of an unsuccessful meat-packing plant.

The following day we left, stopping at the Painted Canyon Visitor Center on the way out of the park. It has a trail and great views, but the weather had turned cold, windy and overcast, and the grey skies dulled the colors of the normally colorful badlands.

We continued on to Bismarck, passing mile after mile of cornfields and sunflowers. In Bismarck we caught a tour of the state capitol, a tall, skyscraper building with a marble and art deco interior.

From there we walked over to the ND Heritage Center, a comprehensive museum about the history and peoples of ND with an intact mastodon skeleton to boot.

The next day we drove by more sunflowers and cornfields and other crops we couldn’t identify. We entered Minnesota where the landscape got hillier with more trees, lots of small lakes and picturesque farms and farm buildings. Long straight rows of yellow corn with red barns in the distance were set off by a baby blue sky with “boat” clouds floating by. Picture-perfect scenes of which I have no photos continued the next day through Wisconsin. The woods thickened as we approached Maple Grove. We shopped at Trader Joe’s in a huge outdoor shopping area, then CostCo, then Lowes and drove a few more hours to our campground in Lodi.

We spent the next morning at the National Mustard Museum in Middleton. The drive there was so pretty and scenic, I could have stopped every few miles to take photos, but we were towing the trailer and didn’t stop. The museum had videos about mustard, historical exhibits and dozens of mustard jars and serving pieces. We tasted at least 25 mustards and bought 9 jars. You would be amazed at the variety.
After that we went in search of lunch and turned into a small shopping center before realizing we were stuck, with no place to park or turn around. Fortunately, a parked truck left, leaving us room to park. We bought our sandwiches and then David backed the trailer out of the tiny congested parking lot with a right angle turn while people watched. He did so quickly and without incident except that one of the casters struck the curb and came off. I ran back and got it.
The campground was about 12 miles away, but when we got there, we found a few RVs in a mobile home park but couldn’t find the office. No one answered when I called. We drove around and eventually found the office, but a note on the door said the manager was out sick, and there were no instructions for self-registering, so we left.
We went to the only other campground I knew about in Madison and self-registered but we were a bit far from downtown. It was late, so we ended up shelving other Madison sightseeing for another time since we were leaving the next day.