December 3^RD to December 28, 2013

We truly and reluctantly left Nashville.  In particular, I felt the potential for music everywhere, and it felt like ripping out a good time to me.  We had one more family stop in Dunwoody, GA (NE of Atlanta) before we were on our own.

For some reason we left later than usual, heading for Chattanooga Choo Choo, so drove into their torn up highway rush hour traffic mess in the dark, while raining.  Remember, we have no windshield wiper on the driver’s side.  It was awful and something we have avoided for many miles.  We almost always hit a park between 2 and 4 PM so as to avoid the awfulness of traffic and dark.  The highway to the county park was long, winding, darker still, passing through residential neighborhoods.  It’s hard to describe that anxiety, which is why we rarely get caught out.  We did make it, of course, and then I ran the barricade of the armed ranger dude, who was an older gent in a crisp uniform.  Another life story, fumbling with the computer registration, to finish by making me a little doggie out of a short string of white beads, “for the pretty lady.”  Yuck.  When I remembered to tell Tony a few days later, he seemed a little stunned, and thought we should report him.

We arrived at our next COE camp about 30 miles from our son-in-law John’s mother Dee and his niece Shelby.  Those two visit us in Washington every year so we couldn’t be that close to Atlanta and just shoot by without stopping in.  We had a delightful time visiting both at dinner and Dee’s beautiful home.  Dee was and is a true beauty, aging into an over 70 wise and wonderful woman.  She’s a retired registered nurse who unwaveringly took over the raising of her granddaughter Shelby after her son and his wife passed away.

Shelby is…well, awesome!  Beautiful inside and out, a “good girl” as her Uncle John and Aunt Sandi call her.  Smart as a whip, great athlete, worries too much.  Funny, funny, and her stream of consciousness enters every conversation.  We have been honored and delighted to watch her grow and grow, and look forward to more growth!

Back at McKinney COE Tony plotted his drive to nearby Rome, GA, where there just happened to be one of the only windshield wiper motor plants in the country that had our particular motor.  We zipped over there and found a delightful old brick building next to a railroad track.  The interior was a messy bunch of desks, parts, paperwork and blue collar types.  Everything was pretty much covered in a Spring coat of dust with some greasy fingerprints haphazardly scattered among the manuals and on the windows.  An older fellow asked what we needed, which then sent several people running to the back room and to their computers to find our part.  A woman, probably a buyer, found the part and sent it back with an employee to customize it for us.

We, meanwhile, had an interesting conversation with the old dude, who was, of course, the owner – before he sold out to a big company, unnamed.  His dad had started with 100 or so acres as a dairy farmer, and he grew up in the house across the street.  The dairy was now the motor plant.

We toddled into Rome proper, another quaint town, with a little more life than most.  We stopped for lunch at an old-timey place, which was, unfortunately, closing.  She pointed us down the street to the Harvest Moon Café, which, of course, turned out to be amazing local foods.  I had a BLT made with fried green tomatoes, which I asked to be cut papier thin; he replied he wasn’t all that fond of tomatoes either, but to trust him on this, I would love this sandwich.  I did.  I can’t even remember what Tony had my memory is so full of that BLT.  Our server then directed us to the owner’s bakery next door, where I picked up some vibes and a few wonderful pastry type things.

We slowly and with purpose worked our way down the Alabama/Georgia border, riding along the Chattahoochie River.  We stopped at the many COE’s available, and particularly loved R. Shaeffer Heard and Cotton Hill parks.  Cotton Hill is in Ft. Gaines, which was a dirty old place with broken windows and little hope left.  However, as fates have it, we were just in time for the Christmas parade!  Awesome local school bands, cars singing Jesus songs, dancing black young women in skimpy clothes, an announcer who knew everyone.  The guy next to us was a local farmer, twitchy, kind of curious about us.  As it poured rain at the end of the parade – good timing! – we scooted into KC’s Café for some excellent ribs, and great atmosphere.

Arriving in Florida we made for Pat Thomas County Park, unsure of what we were going to find.  I could only find three reviews in my usual place, but the most recent said, “I would go out of my way to stay at this park.”  Turns out this is a dream park where we parked in a pull through 50 feet from the water.  The park is a little peninsula on sweetly quiet Lake Talquin.  The only people we saw were fishers backing their boats into the water or standing on the dock:  there were no other campers until the night before we left.

We drove straight for Tallahassee as we’d never been there.  It is really a beautiful city, downtown anyway.  Had a wonderful conversation about area history with the Visitor’s Info woman.  Ended up not having enough time to visit any of the places she suggested, due to a Costco run and always, always getting up late and fucking around in Blue until 1:00.  No worries.

Although the weather doesn’t hold as well in northern Florida, we were still able to soak some sun up at Pat Thomas and down to Manatee Springs.  Arriving at the latter was such a delight for me I over enthused to the hosts of my love for Manatee.  We got a spot next to our favorite one two years ago, where the deer come through.  There were two women neighbors with three little dogs so I immediately began my low level anxiety concerning Roku and Blackie.  Turns out we sat at their bountiful fire each night, sharing our lives and food.  We will remain in touch with these two.

Ran out of room at Manatee and I hadn’t extended in time so we moved to a local county park called Hart Springs.  Made friends with an ex-Washingtonian a few sites down from us at Manatee who will be joining us here the 3^rd.  I think we’ll still be here!  

We are agonizing over where to spend the majority of our winter.  Tampa south is expensive, at least $50 a night – way too much for a month.  But then again, they have the beaches and warm weather.  If we could be assured that the Panhandle had consistent sun at 70 and above we would explore the hell out of it.  We keep pouring over maps and rediscussing why we’re here (sun and beaches), and how we can achieve our goal (sun and beaches) while not breaking the bank.  We have suffered greatly from shitty wifi so are tempted to just park at a commercial place and enjoy wifi and cable.

Now, the cats: how can we possibly have been blessed with these two handsome black boys?  Every day they impress us with their willingness to go with our flow, never holding a grudge.  They loved Manatee and ran around chasing each other in the sand, watched the armadillo, looked for birds and raccoons.  Then in they would come, vying for the other bucket chair, taking turns batting each other out of it.  Hoping for treats, wanting love and petting.  They are both so cool.

January 11, 2014 – Seahawks Saturday!

We are languishing: there is no other word for it.  After our week stay at the beautiful Manatee Springs SP, we moved to Hart Springs County park, as suggested by our Manatee neighbors.  We are languishing here in site 8.

Our initial guess was a week, maybe two, as usual.  We sent more mail to nearby Trenton, hit up some local yummy restaurants, made good with the park host and manager, found our way through town after town.  The weather has been horrific here in old Florida, ranging from 18 at night to 42 during the day, for a few days.  Mostly gray cloud cover – sound like the northwest?! – thunderstorms, torrential rains, high winds.  Shit.  Don’t like it.  We just had two days in which we threw our chair and lounger into the large spot of sun and louuunnnggged.  I plugged in my earphones , tuned into my OM meditation  section on my iPad and zooonnnnnneedd for about 45 minutes.  While I received massive amounts of sun.  Lovely. 

Tony meanwhile, had long and loud conversations with several Masonic dudes, of which I heard very little.  He was walking up and down, sitting, petting the cats, sunning.  

This park is a quiet little piece of heaven.  We are  one-two-three at the end of the row of our little party of friends.  First is Bob and Joyce from Pennsylvania, probably 70-ish, in their big old RV; then comes Ron and Lena, mostly from Illinois, also from Bellingham (the latter).  We are a little group of hippie/Christian/liberals all mixed up.  But we like to talk about ourselves, each other, the world, politics, and most of all, food. 

Tony the sweetheart, made his fabulous chili one night for a get together of all of us, rounded off with my fabulous cornbread.  Aside from the massive no see um bites I and Lena got, we had such a great time.  Another evening was spent eating pie together.  

We have been honored to be a part of Joyce’s struggle with memory loss.  It’s heartbreaking to hear her talk about the decline of just small parts of her memory, her fears, not having a doctor quite nail it on the head yet so they’re still doing a lot of testing.  We’ve noticed that she tells the same recent stories over and over, whatever that means.  What a lovely person she is, as is her husband Bob.  They met in San Fran 55 years ago while he was in the Navy.  He worked for 35 years climbing telephone poles in the Pennsylvania snow drifts, finally hanging his tool belt up after his heart attack.  He smokes like four Pennsylvania smoke stacks, and has a smile that lights up my heart.  Oh, they love each other!  Bob is traveling this journey with Joyce, right by her beautiful side.

Ron and Lena are anomalies, opposites I think, funny, scared, open hearted.  She’s also battling a physical issue, and I mean battling.  He’s a Vietnam vet who Tony explained to me, was in the worst of the worst over there.  His little presents from soldiering are serious lung problems, PTSD, aches and pains in many, many places.  He did his time.  Ron sucks life up through a straw, chews on it, swallows it and asks for more.  Very outspoken , loud voiced, big heart.  He has an opinion.  About everything.

We like them all so much, thus the extension of our stay here at Hart.  We have never stayed anywhere longer than two weeks, here we’re doing a month.  So comfortable and at peace.  Centered, happy, content, love our lives.

So what do we do here in northern Florida?  Hm.  Went on a long drive through a swamp.  Toured Cedar Key, a lovely island nearby.  We had been there two years ago and rediscovered the beauty of it.  

Watch the cats.  Laugh at the cats.  Cook a lot.  Not use the internet as my Samsung tab has been sent to be “flashed”, i.e., maybe fixed.  iPad mini doesn’t have the capability to be a hotspot.  Jetpack has something seriously wrong with it that Verizon won’t admit to.  

Going to a gyno as my ovaries hurt.  I want her to feel them and tell me there’s nothing growing on them!  Trips to the post office are fun, sometimes friends and family send us cards and gifts!  My most recent was some lovely lavender body wash from friend Claire-Bob, and a funny card about old lady arm flapping from friend Joey.