Day #101 – Birding at Dusk

Crystal River FL

Today we tried to save a lost day.  We started at the library, with me on a mission to get my taxes ready.  I got quite a bit of my data ready, but could not find any of my 1099s.  This brought on quite the meltdown.  Since there was nothing to be done about it until I could rip into every nook and cranny of the trailer and truck, we left the library in an attempt to salvage some good from the day.

There are two sections of the Greater Florida Birding Trail (http://myfwc.com/gfbt) near our RV park.  We decided, near dusk, to explore one of them.  We walked for nearly an hour.  Most of the trail looked like it had been created by a 4-wheel-drive vehicle driving several times over the same ground.  In other parts, it looked like a walking path through the woods.  In a couple places, there was no trail at all and we took our best guess on direction.  

We didn’t see many birds until nearly sunset, but the landscape was beautiful.  Dusk found us in an open area of saw grass.  Suddenly, there were small birds flying in swarms, reeling from one side of us to the other.  They were dark on top, with rosy bellies.  At first, I thought this was sun reflection, but the color was visible on those not turned to the setting sun.  Kelly thought they were kite swallows and I thought they were tree swallows.  They were smallish birds, with only a shallow cleft in their tails.  Their wings were nearly perpendicular to their bodies, with little “hinge” to them – they looked a lot like fat, stubby,  flying cigars.

We finished the day with laundry.  How exciting.  Yet another example of this not being a vacation.

Day #100 – Square Tires & Manatee Sightings

Crystal River FL

It’s Day #100 – wow.  We made it this far!  I don’t know that we’ve accomplished as much as President Obama in his first 100 days, but I think we’re doing alright.  Today was another good day.

We started out at the local Chevy dealer.  We found out our truck has square tires!  Who knew?!?  It was probably caused by sitting too long at the dealership without being driven – in Florida, three months of sitting in one spot can ruin tires forever.  So, we have four new tires on order, all under warranty.

After dealing with the truck, we found the Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge (http://www.fws.gov/crystalriver).  Since they were closing for the day, we drove on to a bridge near Three Sisters Spring.  From there, we watched nearly ten manatees swim back and forth into the spring.  We spotted two different mothers with one baby each.

Next, we drove to Crystal River Kayak (http://kayakcrystalriver.com).  These folks take pride in offering only ACA-accredited classes.  In addition, they offer a free introductory class to anyone who buys a kayak from them.  We swapped Stupid Kayaker stories, and touching wonderful stories, but found nothing we needed to buy in the shop.  Mary, one of the owners, took us out back to show us their launch site.  It was wonderful, with lawn chairs, a changing area, and a planned BBQ area for groups.  Her dock was clean, with a beach next to it.  Kelly tested the water – nearly bath temperature!  Since this spot is located right around the corner from Three Sisters Spring, we’ll probably use her launch site for our first trip.

Day #99 - Exploration

We've been noticing that the steering wheel of the truck starts to shake at higher speeds. Lately, it is starting to shake at lower speeds, too. This has me very concerned. So tomorrow, we have an appointment at the local dealership to get it checked out. I'm none too thrilled that we have to waste a day doing this, but I hate the not knowing even more. At least it should all be cover under warranty.

We have been searching for free Internet access. I'm told we can pay for access at the campground, but the reception is "iffy". Joy. So we decided to search for a library. Luckily we found one close by. It seems that most libraries will let you use the computers for an hour, even if you don't have a library card. I think this is going to come in handy while we travel.

Near the library was a bunch of cute little shops. One of them was a toy store - The Manatee Toy Company (http://www.manateetoyco.com), and the other was another kind of toy store - Aardvark's Florida Kayak Company . The first toy store was very disappointing to me. I was expecting a toy store, with games and puzzles and stuff. If I had visited their website, or read the sign slowly, I would have realized that it was a MANATEE toy store. So basically every manatee themed object you can think of is in this store. I can't think of many. Neither can the store. They have jewelry and clothes and other non-toy things. I was majorly upset.

Aardvark's Florida Kayak Co (http://www.floridakayakcompany.com), on the other hand, is exactly what you would expect of a Kayak store. The owner's, Matt & Sue Clemons, are wonderfully nice people to talk to and they really know their stuff. They however had a manatee themed toy that I really wanted -- a paddle with manatee fabric fiberglass blades -- oh, la, la! I entered a drawing for the paddle, with proceeds benefiting Save Three Sisters Spring (http://www.savethemanatee.org/three_sisters/savethreesisters.html). We talked to them about places to go to see the manatee and still be respectful. We heard that some kayak tour groups harass the manatee so the tourist are sure to see them. Sue and Matt definitely don't subscribe to that kind of tour! I also bought a really cool "Save the Manatee" T-Shirt.

I had noticed that Matt has posted all kinds of kayaking launching points for this area on google maps, that I found really helpful, so I made sure to thank him. Suzie and I plan to check out a couple of them soon.

Day #98 – Greenpeace Rocks

Crystal River FL

We had a great day today – it met its promise of fresh new hope!

We awoke to tap-tap-tapping on our roof, or so we thought.  We spotted a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers  enjoying the breakfast bar - a dead tree next to our camper.  There is a lot of wood in our trailer and we're thankful they weren't really going after our roof!

We were able to have our site officially moved to its new location with no trouble or extra fee. 

We found an RV parts store that had the replacement piece we needed.  Kelly was able to fix it in about 10 minutes, at a cost of about $5.  We bought an extra piece because this was not a mechanical failure – we broke it by collapsing the bathroom incorrectly.  We’re sure it will happen again.

We stopped at the Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park (http://www.floridastateparks.org/homosassasprings/default.cfm).  We visited the gift shop and watched a movie, but decided this park needed a full day.  They have an underwater observatory for manatees and people to watch each other, and a tram that goes into the woods for on-land exploration.  We’ll keep you posted on this park

Wandering down back roads, we found a hot dog stand that called Kelly’s name.  It was a good lunch and the owner seemed to know the directions to just about everywhere.

With his help, we wandered on over to a local kayak outfitter.  He had a nice boat launch behind his store that he said we could use for free.  Basically, all we had to do was paddle down his little channel and hang a right.  He sold us a marine map of the area and a cool little trolley to help us haul our kayaks from the truck to the water.

Our next leg of wandering down odd roads led us to a nuclear power plant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_River_3_Nuclear_Power_Plant).  At the time, we thought this was a good idea.  We’d heard that manatees like the warm water put out by these power plants, so we thought we might go look at some.  To get to it, we turned down a paved two-lane road.  It must have been near a shift change because there was a lot of traffic, moving very quickly, in both directions.  They had a big guarded gate at the power plant.  They were searching every vehicle – looking under the hoods, peering underneath with mirrors, and looking into tool boxes in the backs of trucks.  Our truck was fully loaded – both kayaks on a rack, two big gear boxes, two bikes, a propane tank, a folding ladder, and a BBQ grill in the bed.  Behind our seats, we had stored boxes, paddles, lunch boxes, coats, and general junk.  The guards did not look happy to see us coming.  We were informed, ever so politely, that there were no manatees to see at this location.  And, no, they did not know where we could go to see some.  They stopped traffic in both directions so we could turn around and head out.  I saw lots of dirt roads crossing ours, but Kelly refused to turn on any of them. 

Day #96 - Floods & Broken Hose

Bradenton FL to Crystal River FL

Yesterday did not go as smoothly as we had hoped.  All we had to do was finish every little project and to-do in Sarasota.  We'd been there so long - what could be difficult?  Well, the trouble started with the new truck.  Its bed had different dimensions from the old truck so we had to start over with arranging our boxes, bikes, and other gear.  Kelly worked on that most of the day.  I cleared up all the little paperwork bits.  We didn't get back to our campsite until 11:30 pm.  Since heavy storms were forecast for Tuesday, we decided to dump our sewer and load the boats before quitting for the day.

I should know better by now about anything related to the sewer system.  There is a flexible hose, called a Stinky Slinky, which runs from the sewer valve on the trailer to the septic system in the ground.  At most RV parks, the ground pipe has threads that fit the end of our hose.  But, not at the Linger Lodge.  All they had was an open pipe that we just set our hose into.  So, Kelly held the hose in place while I opened the valves.  Who knew the septic system was nearly full?!?  It was quite a smelly germ-ie mess.  While Kelly gagged and swore, I closed the valve and ran the water hose over everything, trying to dilute the evidence.  We finally got our system dumped, but it was not a fun night.

There are some unwritten rules about RV living.  Don't run your generator too late at night.  Don't let your dog poop on other peoples' sites.  Don't walk through other peoples' sites.  But the biggest rule of all is: Don't let black water (i.e. goop from your toilet) get outside the pipes.  You can go to Hell for breaking that rule.

After cleaning up our mess, we loaded the kayaks onto the truck and slunk off to bed - by now it was 2-ish AM.

We slept in a bit and woke up quite full of ourselves.  We were nearly ready to go and it was still early!  So, we treated ourselves to breakfast out and made some returns to the local library.  There had been on-and-off hard rain over night, and it continued to shower as the morning wore on. 

We pulled out of Linger Lodge around 1:30 and headed up the road for Crystal River.  I finally convinced both of us that I was ready to tow the trailer.  I guess there is one good thing about getting a bigger truck: it takes up so much of the lane that adding a couple more inches of trailer doesn’t seem so bad.  Towing was easy, but I doubt it will be “fun” any time soon.

The folks at the Encore Crystal Isle RV Resort (http://www.rvonthego.com/Crystal-Isle.html) assigned us to a site near the river.  It was really hard to back into it, but we finally got settled.  We had noticed that the sites nearer the river were a bit boggy, but we didn’t think much of it until a long-time resident stopped by to warn us.  High tides were expected and the wind was picking up – both would probably bring the water over the access road and into our site – how high was the question.  We pulled up stakes so fast and high-tailed it to the office, angry as hornets!  Why would they even think of putting us on a site with flooding expected?  The office was closed and workers were getting into their cars.  We flagged one down and she suggested we just set up wherever we wanted and work it out with them the next day.

Kelly found us a nice spot on high ground (Is there high ground along the Florida coast?) and near the bath house.  Thanks Heavens we’d had a nourishing lunch/snack of ham (thanks, Sue & Mary) along with some crackers and fruit!

While setting up the inside of the trailer, I discovered we had sheared off the shower hose, nice and close to the fixture.  This did not go over well with the Divine Miss K as she was still pretty pissed about the flooded site.  We decided to worry about it tomorrow, when hope would be fresh and new.  We ended the day with eating a nice supper and watching The Biggest Loser.

Day #96 - Leaving Sarasota

Suzie and I spent most of the day packing up and getting ready for pulling up stakes tomorrow. It feels sort of weird. On one hand I'm ready to get going with this adventure. On the other hand, I've gotten used to being in Sarasota. It has been nice to have family and friends around. Yes, my mother makes me nuts, but that's what family does. I still love her like crazy, and I'm going to miss her. The craziness is familiar. The unfamiliar is a little scary, even if it is exciting!

We have to be out of the campsite before 1pm. At 1pm tomorrow, Sarasota is expecting it to rain cats and dogs. Of course it is. We are getting back on the road, and the luck continues!
Stay tuned for adventures to commence!