Update Archive

Archive 2/5 - 2/18/2006:
2/5/2006 - I flew back to Tampa today. It was as uneventful a trip as is possible considering I flew. I didn’t arrive until 7PM so stayed in a hotel for the night.
2/6/2006 - (110 miles – 5 hours) I’m back in Florida! It took me a while to find the kennel where I had left Max. I didn’t have the map and they weren’t answering their phone… but I was eventually able to find it. What a relief. It was so good to see him again!
Next we went over to pick up the trailer. We left the Many Mansions RV Park and stopped at the KOA in Wildwood, about 50 miles away. The refrigerator hadn’t worked again, damn it. Luckily all I lost were a bunch of condiments. There was some mold… but on the upside, my freezer was all defrosted.
2/7/2006 - (L:51F – H:79F) It was really overcast today, and even sprinkled off an on. The temp soared to 72 then dropped to hover around 54 most of the afternoon. Max and I hung out at home.
2/8/2006 - (142 miles - 5 hours – L:35F – H:73F) I had to drive into Ocala and then we decided to go see Crystal River. I had heard it was a beautiful area… But I’m not sure I ever found it. We passed over the Withlacoochee River and part of Tsala Apopka Lake (don’t you just love the names of things?). We wound through Homosassa Springs until I figured out that was the wrong way. Wed drove through portions of the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge. It’s really pretty, not that warm, sunny and bright. We stopped at the Yulee Sugar Mill Ruins Historical State Park and watched some of the restoration that is in progress. I couldn’t find the Crystal iver Archeological State Park, and God forbid I stop and ask for directions.
2/9/2006 - (L:35F – H:77F) We bummed around today… and I had my nails done. That’s about it.
2/10/2006 - (311 miles - 7 hours – L:30F – H:61F) We moved from Wildwood to Chattahoochee, FL. It was a longish trip, coming in at 220 miles, certainly longer than any in recent history. It felt great to be on the move again. There’s something about pulling the trailer that brings it all home, you know? Once I get moving I don’t want to stop (If only I didn’t have to stop for gas…that’s stressful.), I just want to keep on keepn’ on.
2/11/2006 - (L:51F – H:57F) It’s cold and rainy today. A very good day to snuggle up next to a fireplace…. Or, in my case, an electric heater.
2/12/2006 - (136 miles - 5 hours – L:39F – H:49F) Holy crap it’s cold! I’m clearly moving in the wrong direction.
I waited until early afternoon to leave, hoping it would warm up a bit. It did, but just a bit. We drove out to the Falling Waters State Park near Chipley, FL – in the Central Time Zone. The 73-foot waterfall is the tallest in the state of Florida. It’s not a typical waterfall, but a natural 100-foot deep, 20-foot wide sinkhole. This area is filled with sinkholes, which are created by rainwater with weak acids (carbon dioxide and organic material) seeping through cracks in limestone and slowly dissolving it, causing the surface over the cavern to collapse and form a sinkhole. The 168-acre park encompasses several habitats, such as upland pine forests, hardwood hammocks, and seepage slopes. There are more pine trees than I would have thought to find in Florida. Magnolia trees are everywhere – it must be so beautiful in the spring. Max and I hiked to the waterfall and then drove out to and hiked around the swimming area. The water was warmer than I expected, but the air temperature was too cold to even think about swimming.
Our next stop was at the Torreya State Park, which was only 20 miles or so from camp. The park is named for a species of rare Torreya tree that only occurs on the bluffs along the Apalachicola River. It’s a coniferous tree and only four other species exist; in China, Japan, and California. I took a hike through the forest and down to the river. It’s still cold, even though the hike warmed me up. It’s weird to be sweating and still not be able to feel your fingertips.
2/13/2006 - (224 miles - 6 hours – L:36F – H:56F) We moved today, from Chattahoochee, FL to Lillian, AL. I know this sounds weird, but I feel sad leaving the EST Zone. It’s a very definite line of demarcation, more so than the state borders seem to be. I’m no longer anywhere near the East Coast. I wonder when I’ll make it back out there.
The drive was uneventful, even if there were definite moments of panic when I feared I was lost. We finally found the KOA only to discover they were closed until 3PM. When that happens you try to find a spot yourself, hope no one has it reserved which would mean you have to move, and hope that it’s an actual working site. I walked around the park, looking for a good spot. Thankfully the owner arrived and assigned a spot that would be open for the length of my stay. I almost wished he hadn’t shown up….I’m wedged between two huge coaches that are so big they eclipse the sun…I’m in almost constant shade. When you look at my rig parked in between those two….talk about an inferiority complex. Sheesh.
This KOA is on the shores of Perdido Bay (the middle of which marks the Florida/Alabama border) and endured quite a bit of hurricane damage. They lost one whole row of camping cabins and the fishing pier.
After setting up camp, Max and I headed out to explore a little bit. We drove down toward Gulf Shores, AL but I quickly tired of all the traffic so we turned around and wound through the less populated countryside. In most places you wouldn’t know there had been a hurricane. Except for the trees. It’s so weird to see trees snapped off at about 8 feet high, with the rest of the tree leaning down to the ground.
2/14/2006 - (L:30F – H:64F) Damn it was cold last night. The day started out partly cloudy and then turned really cloudy and rainy by mid afternoon. Max and I hung out at camp, working on web stuff, lounging around, listening to the drizzle of the rain.
2/15/2006 - (41 miles - 4 hours - L:53F – H:76F) I spent most of the day at the auto mechanics. Nothings wrong, just needed an oil and fuel filter change. Also, with almost 30,000 miles on my truck (already!) it was time for a tire rotation/balance/alignment. It turns out that I need two new tires cause I haven’t been having them rotated often enough (at all). My way cool, big knobby tires are hella expensive. They weren’t in stock so I have to go back on Friday. While I waited for the mechanics to finish I walked over to the movie theatre and watched the new Pink Panther movie. A full price movie in Foley, Alabama costs $5.50. The matinee is $3.50. A medium soda is $4.00. The movie wasn’t that good. Or maybe it was, and I’m prejudiced by my overwhelming fondness of the originals.
I waited till after 6PM to do some grocery shopping. While strolling through the automotive section at Wal-Mart (I love those Armoral wipes!) this scary dude approached and started asking questions. He was clean cut with a really thick (Russian?) accent – so the scary thing was how forward he was….in the middle of Wal-Mart for God’s sake. Where you from? Are you married? Do you have a boyfriend? Are you alone? Where are you staying? Want to go party? Want to go get a drink? The whole time I’m standing there thinking ‘Why am I being nice to this guy? He’s totally giving me the heebie-jeebies and none of this is any of his business…. not to mention, I’m buying groceries, so even if I was inclined to go to a bar with a total stranger I couldn’t – the frozen dinners would melt.’ About the time he started asking about going to a bar I gave up being nice and left him standing in the isle with a ‘No thanks, I’m good, see ya’. I was sufficiently freaked out to ask someone from security to walk me to my truck. I can’t believe Wal-Mart has become a meat market (no pun intended). That’s just not right. I drove back to camp, still freaked out enough to make sure I wasn’t being followed. Talk about paranoid.
2/16/2006 - (211 miles – 4.5 hours - L:58F – H:81F) We drove over to Pascagoula, MS today. I was expecting something completely different. It’s a very industrial looking city with lots of hurricane damage. Closer to the coast homes were in the process of being completely rebuilt. Lots of damage. There are places that still look like war zones.
The history of the Mobile area is amazing, and to my undereducated self, unexpected. In March of 1780 Spanish forces captured Mobile and established a palisaded fort to protect nearby Frenchtown from British forces based in Pensacola. The Spanish garrison included 190 Spanish, Irish, French, and Cuban troops. On January 7, 1781, the British attacked with about 200 German, Swiss, English, loyalist American troops, and some 200 to 500 Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Creek Indians. Both sides suffered heavy losses, but the Spanish retained the fort…, which helped the Spanish capture Pensacola in May 1781 and expel the British from the Gulf Coast.
2/17/2006 - (36 miles - L:56F – H:74F) I had two new tires put on my truck. Those really cool, kick-ass, knobby tires that I love so much are soooo not cheap.
2/18/2006 - (130 miles – 4.5 hours - L:59F – H:67F) We drove down to the Fort Morgan State Park. It’s literally at the end of the road on a narrow strip of land that reaches out into Mobile Bay. There wasn’t as much hurricane damage here as I was expecting…or, more likely, it’s been cleaned up already. There are lots of houses along the way, built in the style that reminds me of the Outer Banks area. The lots are sand with a house plunked down in the middle of them. No yards, just more sand. It’s cold (only in the low 40’s out here), grey, and windy out, so all that sand just looks dreary.
I was really surprised at all the offshore oil rigs in Mobile Bay. There is a ferry that takes you out to Dauphin Island, but the water was really choppy, so I contented myself with exploring the grounds at Fort Morgan.
Construction of Fort Morgan began in 1819 and was completed in 1834. It was built after the War of 1812 when Congress realized the need for stronger fortifications along the coast. During the Civil War the fort was proven to be out of date when a Union fleet was able to pass the guns of the fort and enter Mobile Bay with the loss of only one ship. Admiral D. G. Farragut commanded the Union fleet – and it was on this run that he gave his famous order, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead”. After the Civil War, improvements were made, but not until the 1890s. During those improvements concrete batteries were built and the manned during the Spanish-American War and World War I. Fort Morgan was also occupied during World War II, but by that time the concrete batteries were no longer the primary defensive positions. None of the wooden structures from the Civil Ware era remain. The oldest building on site is the lighthouse keeper’s house built in 1872.


New Pictures: FL, AL