12 Oakdale

Turns out the 40+-year-old VHS player does work, and I found a store-bought tape to try. Picture quality not great, but we plunged ahead. Unfortunately, the 2nd cassette would not eject. I am pretty sure we pushed buttons faster than that analog machine could handle. After watching  many YouTubes, we figured how to take the cover off and remove the stuck cassette. Unfortunately, it meant cutting the tape, but there were more to try. Which we did without putting the cover back on so we could watch what was happening. Play, rewind, fast forward all worked, but it was obvious my treasured tapes of Stephanie as a baby, my learning to wind sail, kids’ birthday parties, etc were all too damaged to keep.  I had hoped to play them on the big tv and take some short shots with our phones. No one wants the hours and hours we recorded when having a video camera was a novelty. Sigh, I accepted the reality. To the trash.  Years ago, I had transferred some of the tapes to a thumb drive....

We had cabin reservations for 2 nights at Jonathan Dickenson State Park. I decided to throw caution to the wind and just take coffee. We would eat out, not cook. I had GPT-Chat find restaurants and things to do. I have used free AI for trip planning, so I knew to check that sites were actually open and reservations were needed. We started with the Rembrandt and Friends show at the Norton Art Gallery, catching it on the last day of the run, with timed tickets from 11:00-1:00. Which I thought was entry time, but was actually our allowed viewing slot. We got there about 1:00, and I was surprised when the guard gave us a 10-minute times-up warning. Truth be told, we’d about exhausted ourselves peering at the 75+ paintings, including Young Woman Seated at a Virginal , the only Vermeer in a private collection. Time to check into our cabin, then an early dinner. (My Chat pal had recommended lunch at a nearby shop which was closed on Sundays. We ate homemade sandwiches before going to the muse...

Home after 4 nights in cabins (#2, 3, 4) at Silver Springs State Park. The usual crew of Zumsteins, Barkley, Lade/Schwatz, our newer members Giblin-Davis, and first timers, the Gonzalez. I was especially pleased that Tuesday I threw sense away and signed up for the 5.2 mile kayak paddle. Of course, all downstream, but I was able to get in and out of the boat and keep up with the group. Alligators and turtles on the banks, manatees in the river, including 1 swimming directly under me. What a lovely trip. I recorded 16 bird species, including 5 pairs wood ducks who remained calmly paddling at the waters edge as we drifted past. Never have seen that before. Only 1 pair did their usual explosive flight, and that was after we’d gone by. Did help my saying that they were usually very shy. Sally drove down Wednesday for old home’s sake. We walked the board walk from the north entrance and discovered the new bridge across the spring run. Now there is a safe and pleasant way to get from the cam...

I now understand why people wear pajamas: getting into a bed with cold sheets is not fun with bare legs. At home, we turn on the electric mattress pad. Here, at Silver Springs State Park near Ocala and when we were in Utah, it was pjs for me. Even with the heat on at a comfortable 66°, the sheets were chilly and took a while with body heat to warm up. One more thing I never knew in South Florida. We spent 4 days with our cabin camping crew. This is our first time at this park. The 2-bedroom cabins have huge rooms and wraparound screen porches, which would be lovely in warmer weather. Their shaded seating wasn’t for us this trip. The mornings were in the high 30’s; the days were sunny 60’s.  We took the hour and a half glass bottomed boat ride and saw 17 species of birds and some of the macaque monkeys that are descendants from a group released over a hundred years ago. A few years ago, the state tried to remove them all since they are nonnative and do much harm, but the brouhaha th...

Six days of tent camping at Bahia Honda. The weather was lovely, with nice breezes which meant mostly no bugs. One little bit of rain. Unfortunately, even though we know better, we didn’t zip our tent windows when we were away, so our sheets got a little wet. But we were able to dry them out on the wooden railing around our campsite.  Because the onshore wind kicked up the waves and moved the sargassum towards shore, we snorkeled on the bayside next to the rocks. Lots of minnows and quite a few reef fish whose names I have forgotten. Thursday we drove up to Marathon to eat a lobster Ruben and a conch po’ boy at Keys Fisheries. They did not have the $1 stone crabs I’d enjoyed in years past. I was too cheap to have even the $36/pound selects. We’d stopped at Robert Is Here for milkshakes on the way down the day before. Friday we got up early to get a parking space at the old 7 Mile Bridge. Before we rode our bikes out to Pigeon Key, we had breakfast at the 7 Mile Grill. Our coffee ha...

One of the super powers I claim is my ability to sleep anywhere. Nice beds, wooden floors, camp cots, all are fine. While I prefer to snuggle down in sheets fresh off the clothesline, that isn’t necessary. I even made true believers of my companions on our Belize birding trip when I fell asleep in the van’s jump seat as we rattled home on rough limestone roads after a night expedition to find owls.  But my super power had been sorely tested this last year with all my aches and pains. For months I couldn’t pull up the sheets because my shoulders ached so bad when I tried to extend my arms. I was a human T. rex, with my elbows tucked in to my side, and only my forearms available to use. And forget turning over. Between my hips and my shoulders, that’s was misery. I was not happy.  But those nights are gone. I’m back! I was sharing a tent with Deb at the Full Moon Daughters’ winter camp out at Lake Griffin State Park. Spending a night sleeping on the ground and having my Thermare...

Acadia stuck me as a mirror to the Everglades: one has to find the majesty in subtly. Nothing particularly took my breath away, yet there was much to enjoy at a micro level. We did get up early enough to see the sunrise from Cadillac Mountain, albeit not from the top. Rather than parking in the west lot and hoofing it up to the summit, we opted to retreat a little down and used a pullout all to ourselves. We sat on boulders, having the truck as a wind barrier. It was our second time up the mountain, so we weren’t concerned about walking around on the paths at the top. We took a carriage ride with Mike as our guide and his granddaughter Sally driving most of the time. Horses Charlie and Charmer did the work, pulling the wagon on roads built by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., beginning, I believe, in 1904, continuing until the start of World War II. Mike claimed his operation of 26 horses puts $100,000+ each year into the Mount Desert economy, hiring locals to work in the barns and drive the ...

We must have the shadiest campsite in the park, A10. Normally good; bad for using our solar panels to charge our Jackery battery. I said, after dealing with ice at Yellowstone last year, I was buying a Dometic camping fridge. Which we did, using an Amazon card for a 5% rebate and having a 20% off coupon. Still about $1500 for the setup. Not having soggy cold food: priceless. Fortunately, the Tacoma has an AC outlet in the bed, so we plug either the fridge or the battery in when we drive. We can also charge phones, iPads, and Grant’s hearing aides from either battery or car. Not exactly camping like my parents did. We have cell service at our site. I suspect this is more a bleed over from all the nearby towns rather than the National Park Service having added towers. This means I can read downloaded library books on my iPad while lying on my cot. Yes, we’ve added cots to our baggage, thank goodness, (even though I find mine pretty uncomfortable), because there is no way I could get up f...

Once again, my sadness of being too late to reserve a waterfront campsite has turned to joy as the winds blow across the bay, and we are tucked into an interior site. The last time we were here, it blew so hard that some people parked their cars and trucks sideways at the water’s edge in futile attempts to block the wind. Others just packed up and left. We were fine. Of course, even though I knew better, I tried for waterfront. Fortunately, no sites available. We are here to test our new Coleman Instant Tent that pops up with just extending 4 corner poles. And it did. It was also easy to move when we realized one of the guy-lines was too close to the electric box to stake down easily. We are also testing the foldout cots Grant ordered. They opened easily, are a comfortable height, and support us well. If only our vintage sleep pads held air. Those will be repaired or replaced when we get home. All good. With the gentle rain now falling, we are also getting to test how waterproof the te...

Four days sleeping in my own bed, and I have about recovered from our month away. We came home to a pile of meh mail and weeds everywhere. I’ve made my first attempt to uncover okra plants and toss all the restaurants flyers and solicitations for AC repair. If the thunderstorms hold off until this afternoon, I’ll weed the sunflowers and start on the native plant patch out front. Lots of volunteers there. Some will stay; much of the dog fennel will go. I’m ordering a “Pollinator Garden” sign from the Xerces Society so my neighbors think it’s not just a bunch of weeds, which I guess in most people’s eyes it is. Bugs got to eat too. I have decided we are buying a small travel trailer for future camping. We could skip the motels and eating out if we had a easy way to pull into a campground and set up quickly. I loved the made-in-Montreal Alta by Safari Condo we saw in Yellowstone. Owners Kim and Arty sweetly gave us a tour, touting the little unit’s featuring including solar, so many windo...

June 13th There is always a work around. I just realized I can creat a Google Note without cell service. Even if I can’t save it, I can take a screen shot. I’m back! I knew there was no cell service at the campground, but I had counted on being able to connect to the internet at the visitor centers with our cellular data. Which we could, if we had a different service provider. We can text. That’s it. And so far, I haven’t been able to send pictures.  I chose this service because it was the best in Okinawa. Time to change, which I can’t do until we get home because I can’t connect to the internet.  In the meantime, we will text when we can, then perhaps use WhatsApp when we go out of the park. June 8th: Arriving Other than the motels that advertised breakfast and didn’t actually have one, today’s was the worst: a paper bag containing a banana, bad bears claw pastry, and canned OJ. We put the pastry in the front window to warm and went to search for breakfast which we found at ...