Six Days

We have started to answer a question that has lingered in the back of our minds for some time now: What will we do with ourselves when we are stuck camping in one place for several days?  After all, weather permitting, we are otherwise nearly constantly on the move.  But for now the available supply of warm, sunny weather has us trapped on a peninsula with a million or so fellow cold weather refugees (though thankfully not all of them are campers).  As such, changing campsites every day would mean that a bit too often we'd be driving up north into cooler temperatures in order to find a place to stay without an advance reservation.  And since the added cost of reserving for one night is the same as reserving for two weeks, it is best to reserve a number of days at a time.  For us, that means five or six nights, as it is only the campgrounds up north where the Saturdays are not all booked weeks or months in advance.

We spent six nights last week at Gamble Rogers State Park near Flagler Beach, Florida, which was a fortuitous choice.  Fortuitous primarily because it is booked solid most of the time, and partly because there are a few local bike routes with either sufficient shoulders and/or low traffic.  Thus it made it easy for us to do a bit of riding in anticipation of heading north in about six weeks.  Even though the rides were short (most were about an hour), it helped to keep our surplus time manageable.

The weather was a little cool by Florida standards - mostly lows in the low 50s and highs in the low to mid 60s, and windy most days.  It did get a bit cooler some mornings and we did see highs briefly reach the 70s a couple of days, and we had a heavy rain one evening.  It was certainly warm and dry enough that we were able to be outside a high percentage of the time.

We were fortunate that there was a beach about a mile down the road where we could walk Lana (farther north, dog beaches are pretty much extinct).  So a morning walk on the beach was part of our daily routine.  In fact, Lana occupies most of our free time - walks first thing in the morning, more walks a few times throughout the day and one last walk just before lights out every evening.

Alea and Lana walking along Flagler Beach.

Some sightseeing soaks up additional time, though we had already passed through this area back in November (and Alea had lived in Florida for many years before we first met thirty years ago, and we've been back many times since then).

We did make it back for a visit to Fort Matanzas.

The Flag of Burgundy flies above the watch tower.

When it is not either too cold, too windy or two wet, a couple of hours spent in the evening around the campfire is pleasant way for us to pass some time.  Our standard fuel is a three hour wax log (i.e. Dura Flame), since bans on importing firewood are nearly ubiquitous now (so we would need to burn what wood we have before getting to the next campground).  The other benefit of the wax logs is that it is easy to make that three hour log burn in just two hours when desired.  Plus they are easily stored in one of the deep storage bins of our camper.

At this time of year, with cool mornings and cool evenings, a couple of games of Spite and Malice (the general rules can be found here, though we play a slightly different version of the game) with our morning coffee and/or after our evening campfire helps to pass some additional time.  Since skill is such a minor aspect of this card game, it results in a near equal split of wins and losses, thus assuring domestic tranquility.

Reading, solving Sudoku or crossword puzzles, talking with neighbors, blogging, planning the upcoming week and occasionally solving new problems/challenges related to our van or camper has so far been sufficient to soak up any additional extra time.

On really wet or cold days, cabin fever is a very real threat, given the tiny cabin of our camper.  Our preferred method of dealing with that is going to a movie (matinee or evening, since when it is that nasty out we don't have to worry about Lana overheating in the van while we are inside).  When that is not an option, we have a selection of videos that we haven't yet watched, or we can find a nearby Redbox for more recent releases.

In most places (but not at Flagler Beach) we'll usually have some amount of over-the-air TV to watch, allowing the Idiot Box to keep us properly indoctrinated about all the current fears that should be driving our behavior (after all, fear is The Great Motivator).  That can help take up the slack in the morning and evening on cool, windy or wet days, when being outside isn't all that much fun.  

Regarding the IB, it's nice to know that Big Pharma has figured out how to offset the trend of mom's not wanting to vaccinate their children - one of them must have said to himself, 'I know, let's make the moms think they have to get vaccinated themselves, to keep mosquitoes from causing their babies' heads to shrink' (after all, mosquitoes are just about everywhere at some time of the year).  You have to love our health care system - the most expensive and most dysfunctional one on the planet.  And the only such system that thinks that making an entire country sick is a sustainable business model.  (By the way, there is no evidence that the Zika virus causes babies to have tiny heads, despite what the media would have you believe.)

So it seems that staying put for a while is something that we can tolerate.  We should be able to continue treading water well enough to give the rest of the country some time to warm up sufficiently before we begin traveling again.  But the next five or six weeks really can't pass quickly enough for us...

And, oh.  Alea and I celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary yesterday.  I'm not sure what the gift theme is for a 28th anniversary - hopefully it's something bicycle-related, as we probably have that covered.  ;-)

We have returned to Oviedo to 'Camp Jean' for the weekend, where we can get caught up on laundry and restock before heading out again on Monday.  Our next destination is Rodman Campground, situated along the Cross-Florida Barge Canal near Palatka, FL.

We spent our anniversary evening with Teri and Carson Robinson at their home in Orlando on Lake Conway, where Carson treated us to a cruise around the lake, followed by some awesome meatball soup, great wine and fun conversation.  And Lana had loads of fun playing fetch in the warm, shallow lake water (which is great, as she was definitely in need of a bath).  Their dog Buddy had hoped that Lana had come to play with him, but Lana's fear of big dogs kept that from happening.  Though disappointed, Buddy was very patient and understanding of Lana's fear.

Our skipper, Carson Robinson.

Alea and Teri as we cast off from the boathouse.