I'm Baa-ack!

Where have I been,you might ask. Well, nowhere, except riding the most gorgeous stretch of weather I've seen in 6 years of doing this. No, the problem was far deeper. I make my living, so to speak, on this blog mocking all things redneck, ultra southern, super fat, clueless, or maybe just "different

So, the problem started over in Fort DeSoto. Our neighbors, Kim and Barb from London Ontario turned out to be the nicest people I've met in a decade. We shared wine, cocktails, dinners,dogs...(they had a standard poodle who shared some of Gordon's traits) observations about our respective countries, trailer talk; you name it. Nothing to mock there.

By the time I arrived over here in Jonathan Dickinson State Park, something odd had occurred. For example, one night I arrived in the bathhouse to find a woman with a full set of Remington electric hair rollers plugged in. Aha! Good fodder!

But, somehow, this woman broke the ice by admiring my natural curls,and rueing her own somewhat lank locks ,which led to a pretty nice discussion about orange juice can rollers used to straighten hair back in the early 70's....  Yeah, I did that.

Got pulled over on the 4 mile campground road for going 40 in a 30. Not another car around. One of those times you see the guy, and don't even think you need to slow down. Got a warning, and an admission that they needed to show the state that they were doing something other than watching the deer. Yeah, whatever, I thought...
Got so bad, I was contemplating an entry entitled "mellow me"...

Ah,but then...



Saw a teenaged girl in said bathhouse curling her eyelashes. That, and other elements of her beauty routine took the full 20 minutes I was in there...(hey,it was shower day). Felt judgmental pricklings...
Wondered why my fishing pole seems to be a magnet for people to decide to swim exactly there. Find myself wishing they WOULD step on it...

What really brought my curmudgeonly self back has been our search for a rental property for next year. Sadly, the River Campground here is closing for a year, which leaves us looking for a rental in Martin County , the only truly dog friendly area in the whole damn state. It was probably a good thing that happened, to motivate us to ...
  OH SHUT UP MELLOW ME!!!

Anyway, today we investigated a rental property from some site like Homeaway. They give you some  info on the owner, in some attempt to make nicey nice, before they utterly screw you. This owner reported that she spoke English, and Latin!!!

Well! All I have to say is this: atWHay the ellHay do you eanMay you want ixsay undredHay ollarsDay for a dog fee  for 1 onthMay????

Yep,I'm back.

Ahoy Matey's!!!

Made it! Passed the big billboard denying evolution and commenced camping at Fort Clinch last Monday. Chilly but bright. Would like to be on Amelia Island sometime for the Concours de Elegance car show (usually mid March), although I doubt there's much mingling of the campground crowd over there at The Ritz.

Went southwest on Rt.4 towards Tampa on Wed.  Realized that in 6 years of doing this, we've generally hugged the perimeter, or crossed in the South. So, pretty good that this was our first drive through of Orlando... I think we've almost recovered from all those trips there with the kids, the last of which was in 2003.

The route allowed us to stop at Blue Spring State Park, which is a winter sanctuary for Manatees. They close the spring and the run to the St. John River  to  all scuba, swimming and tubing from Nov. -March to accommodate them, so while it was awesome to see 200 Manatees lolling, I would say that if you want to actually swim with them, and be on the water in a tube or kayak,then I would recommend Crystal River, or Rainbow Springs. Super campground though,(and the first one we've encountered in Florida with bear warnings) and a good amount of options nearby in Orange City,Deland, and Debary. Including a BEEF O"BRADY"S, which we passed up in favor of SWAMP HOUSE RIVER FRONT GRILL, with the adjunct HAPPY SNAPPER TIKI BAR. Yep, we've arrived.

Got to our present location last Friday: a Hillsborough County Park, with its own little swimming spring (nothing of the magnitude of it's more northern neighbors). Gorgeous campground. Utterly empty. And not one damn thing to do anywhere nearby.

That was actually not a problem however, since we were actually just parking the trailer and making a beeline to nephew Josh's house in Tampa , 20 miles west, for the weekend. ( Totally sweet bonus: the guy who checked us in was math challenged enough to compute 5 days @ $24/day to equal $90)

Josh had urged us to show up on Friday, citing something called GASPARILLA going on in his neighborhood on Sat.  Last time through Tampa we'd attended a crafts fair of the same title, which I assumed he was referring to. Um, crafts fair? No. More like full blown Mardi Gras, with a pirate theme,starting in the morning with a boat parade wherein wall to wall boats with crews in pirate garb crowd the harbor throwing beads to all of us gathered along the seawall, shooting t-shirts out of air cannons and getting pelted with marshmallows and water balloons in return.THOUSANDS of boats.No discernible rules of navigation. Pole dancers on decks "entertaining".Holy smokes!

Beat a retreat to the house to spend the afternoon watching THRONGS of people in various stages of inebriation walking down to Bayshore Drive ( a block away) to attend the land parade. The kids set up a lemonade stand and made a ton o'cash. Fun interactions. Got to see one overdone girl hauled away by paramedics from the (utter stranger's) porch she had deposited herself upon.

Sunday brought kayaking in the bay with Josh, Jen and all 3 kids.Awesome to be back on the water.
And of course, the best Superbowl ever.

Tomorrow we head to Fort DeSoto for 2 weeks, via the towns of Picnic, Balm, and Fort Lonesome. Can't wait.

Have lots of pics, will post as soon as we can figure out how to get them onto this blog.

Twerking

No, actually I mean Tweaking...(the kind that means fine-tuning something, not that other kind).

In the earlier days of these odysseys, we had a pretty set routine of well-spaced Red Roofs to hit on our journey. That's been knocked a bit askew for various reasons. Yesterday we left the Wilmington DE Red Roof " PLUS"and aimed for the 2nd option in Richmond Va, being dissatisfied with the dining options at the other location.

We've probably been in over 20 of these places, and this is only the 2nd one which forced a u turn right from the parking lot. So just in case any of you were dreaming of spending some quality time at the Richmond Airport Red Roof...no,just no. Unless of course you were also going to indulge in some of that other type of tweaking.

Thus we spent the night a ways down the road (Emporia VA)  at a Country Inn and Suites (By Carlson!) Yeah, better than a Red Roof, but not  2x$ nicer. And THAT, of course led to being too far south for our usual Florence SC stop for tonight (alas Olive Garden...)

So here we are at a Red Roof  somewhere near Savannah GA. A converted Motel 6, where the sly sly fellow at the desk asked me directly about the number of dogs, and hit us up w/ a fee for Mason . (2nd time in history). Ruby Tuesday will be our dining emporium this evening.

Clearly,however,we ARE making progress southward

1st sighting of full Camo: check
Sign welcoming Fox Hunters:check
Eagle swooping in front of truck to retrieve fresh road kill:check
Utterly unfathomable accent:check


Hey, I've heard from several of you that comments are being disallowed. Crap, that's the fun of it for me. For those of you on FB, maybe do it there until we figure it out? Er, "tweak it".

We're off! Trying (and thus far succeeding ) to squeeze amidst this trio of storms. Delayed start, due do discovering a faulty (leaking) circulator on the furnace at the 11th hour and 59th minute, thus encountering bad traffic through "The Oranges" on the Garden State ...trailer hauling requires some strange routes. But now ensconced in the Red Roof in Wilmington Delaware,where there is an onsite "Chilies". The menu brags  "our pickles take six hours to make!"  Um, I'm confused. Are you saying you make a quick pickle, or if I order these, it will take 6 hours to get served??


Day 1 drive featured listening to Mike on WFAN through New York, expounding on Deflategate. This was just like one of those old timey carnival rides, where centrifugal force eventually spins you off, no matter how hard you try to hang on. 4 calls, and I was done. Very similar to reading comment sections on ESPN. If you make a rule to quit at the first overtly racist statement, improper use of "there,their, they're"  or inappropriate Obama bashing, you'll be hard pressed to make it beyond half a page. Sometimes you'll hit the trifecta on the first entry.


Looked over last years posts on this little Blog, and realized I pretty much dropped the ball early on. Giving it one more shot this year.

Here Come Da Judge

     It's hard to believe we're 1/2 way through our 3rd week here at Jonathan Dickinson State Park. Most days have been beach days, and I've even had the kayak out in the river a couple more times.

     We,ve switched campsites to our favorite, #96, (perfect for guests, with its own cul-de-sac) and so bid adieu to our last neighbor, Dick Laliberte, from Hudson NH, here for a 600 person geocaching event;sort of a scavenger hunt using GPS to find things hidden at co-ordinates that you download from the internet. Fun? I don't know, but hey no judging here.

     I almost DID judge the 65 or so Jehovah's Witnesses that took over the campground the weekend before last. (Religiously oriented groups of any denomination tend to give me gas.) But honestly?  These folk were a miracle ( if I can use that word) of planning and execution: organized games for the older kids, Disney movies projected outdoors on the side of an RV for the younger ones, and a central food service area encompassing 2 of their 9 or so camp sites. Complete with a real barbeque pit. The smells of the slow cooking was almost enough to make me consider accepting a few pamphlets in exchange for a taste. (almost)

     This week we had neighbors across the road from, judging from the accent, Germany. A young couple with a toddler and an oft crying infant, driving an odd Ford Transit based camper that clearly came from Europe. Every time the baby would stop wailing, Gordon would commence barking. Turns out the reason the baby (this is the 7-8 month old, not the toddler) had quieted, and the reason for Gordon's alarm was that the baby had taken to SweetPea-ing himself across the road and up our drive into our site. This happened 3 times, to the utter indifference of the parents, who were closed in their camper leaving the infant to his own devices. It got to the point where anytime our other neighbors heard Gordon barking, they would run out of their camper to scoop up the baby in the road. Good Lord, the toddler probably frolics in the middle of the Autobahn at home. So Gordon:hero dog.

     Yesterday I took the kayak a few hours downriver, and had just reached my desired fishing grounds when I got caught in a thunderstorm/tornado/monsoon. By the time I sprinted back, (thank God for healthy knees) the entire campground was afloat, especially the tents. But not this one: www.sylvansport.com/go   "Only" $8,495.

     Of course the integrity of ANY camping unit is challenged when one (duh!) leaves the window open. YOU be the judge: who's at fault, the one who opened the window over the bed the night before, or the one who sat through the deluge blissfully reading without checking? Solomon says it's a wash. Literally.

     However, we COULD be camping in that unit with the Ron Paul for President stickers, (kind of a glorified dog house) so all is good, albeit a bit damp.

     Watched some guys at Hobe Sound Beach who were part of a 3 day shark fishing (from the beach,not boats) tournament last weekend. These guys use the same paddle-the-kayak-out-about-200-yds and drop-your-baited/weighted-line technique that we use for stripers at Race point, except on steroids. Instead of a 12 oz. sinker holding down a couple of sluggos (fake sand eels), these guys chunk up  sting rays and bonito into 12"x9" pieces, put it on what looks like meat hanging hooks, with leaders a good 1/2" thick, and weigh it down with bricks tied to ropes. And the reels? Size matters; bigger than anything you'll see on "Wicked Tuna".

     Of course my very presence on the beach (3 different times over the course of the weekend) meant no action to be seen, but rumor had it they caught a couple of 7 foot lemon sharks in my absence. (Catch,tag,and release, lest ye be judging)

     So now you're up to date. Hope you're all good, and remember: keep your fingers out of the snowblower.

Tiki Bar Wherefore Art Thou?

Well, I learned last year not to let the fun get too far behind us. So I'm checking in in a somewhat timely fashion this year, lack of material be damned.

My friend Carol wants "more redneck stories".
Given that we are eschewing the panhandle this year, they will be hard to come by. ( Not that the area is without its merits, we're just sick of driving 1500 miles to be cold in Florida) Hmm...unless I were to make them up....

No, fisherman that I am, I only write the truth. So Carol will have to settle for "odd people stories".

The Red Roof in Wilmington Delaware provided the first two: the guy who shared far too many details of his divorce with me over the course of 7 minutes, and archetypal Crazy Chatty Cat Lady, who had  ??? many cats in those crates.

I've noticed that at Red Roof locations where there IS  actually something nefarious going on, (Tallahassee, West Palm, Fort Lauderdale) you get left alone. They're too busy doing their ...whatever. It's these "nice" ones where you need to watch out.

Here in JD State Park, most people maintain a respectable distance when using the shared spaces. So this morning I (unseen lady occupying stall 3) was a tad surprised to hear from (unseen lady occupying) shower #1 :"SEEN ANY CRITTERS?"

Well,yes,yes I have. 1 Raccoon in the dumpster, 1 bunny in the grass, 4 whiting, 1 flounder and 1 of those god awful hard head catfish (see Revenge of the Catfish, April 2, 2012 for the gory details)

Other than sighting wildlife and odd people, much of our time here has been spent trying to find a replacement for our 2 favorite post beach watering holes. One gone to a no dogs policy, and one "closed permanently". Yeah, I know, a first world problem.

Mark and Lucy: Swampbloggers: Remember This? Welp,it's that time of year again....

Mark and Lucy: Swampbloggers: Remember This?  Welp,it's that time of year again....: Remember This?  Welp,it's that time of year again. Last year we hadn't much to report (#peteredout), and are expecting/hoping? for m...