Archive for Places to go
May 1, 2008 at 6:39 pm · Filed under Places to go, Uncategorized
It’s a short drive from Tampa to Disneyworld, but once you get here you’re a thousand miles from the real world. Which is as it should be, I think. The goal of being here is to escape the real world and live somewhere perfect for a little while. We’re here snuggled into a spot in Disney’s campground, called Fort Wilderness.
“Snuggled,” I say because the campground was designed in the 1960s and the spaces and roadways are a bit tighter than they would design today for the larger RV’s that are common, like ours. It took a couple of passes for us to make it into our spot, which is saying something considering that we have backed up our Airstream on the order of 600 times, into some pretty tight spaces. It’s a rare campground that makes us take more than one pass, but this spot took three tries.
“Wilderness” is a bit of a Disney-esque turn of phrase. Yes, it is a heavily wooded campground with lots of shade, little creeks criss-crossing the park, and pine cones everywhere. But there are no mosquitoes to be found, something that is pretty peculiar considering we are surrounded by tens of thousands of acres of forest and swamp. It is like a state park but without warnings about ravenous raccoons, dangerous snakes, or ravens that like to pick at the sewer hose.
And of course there are full hookups at every site, nightly sing-alongs and movies, swimming pools, golf cart rentals, fast and free bus transportation everywhere, clever little gift shops, a ferry boat, and the Hoop-de-doo Revue.
We’ve been here before so it wasn’t a mad rush for us to run around and see everything as soon as we arrived. We settled in, had lunch in the Airstream, and considered our options. Most people run off right away and go hit a theme park, but one of the nice things about Disneyworld is that you can have a fairly impressive time doing “nothing”. So we went off and rode the ferry across the lake to the Contemporary Hotel, browsed a bit, then took the monorail to the Grand Floridian, people-watched for a while, then rode the monorail and the boat back across the lake. All the transportation is free to guests at any Disney resort (which includes Ft Wilderness), and the weather was absolutely perfect. It’s “low concept” entertainment but it worked for us this afternoon.
The Disney people gave us sites all together, so we’ve rejoined Adam and Susan for dinner this evening. They have been having a wonderful time on their own so far. When we talked via phone this morning they were at Magic Kingdom, and this afternoon they were at Animal Kingdom (Susan got soaked on raft ride), and apparently they’ve been taking in evening concerts as well.
Tonight we’re all hanging back at the campsite for a group dinner by the grill and then, at 9:40 pm, we’ll take in the Electric Water Parade, or whatever they call it, by the boat dock. It’s a good first day away from reality.
April 25, 2008 at 5:47 pm · Filed under Maintenance, Places to go, Roadtrips
We had a sense that it was a shame to leave St Andrews after only three nights. As Susan said, “I feel like I could spend two weeks here.” It really deserves its reputation as a great place. We’d just barely scratched the surface with the boating and bicycling, and a few hours on the beach, although I wonder if we’d have liked it half as much during Spring Break season.
Getting out of the park we encountered a “dump station delay,” which happens once in a while. Most of the time a stop at the dump station is a brief event, but at popular campgrounds you can get stuck in a line. This time the line was two Class A motorhomes ahead of us. They take longer at the station because of their much larger tanks, but in this case the first guy in line was one of those extremely meticulous types who takes 15-20 minutes to do the job.
After an extraordinary procedure which I won’t go into, he loaded his sewer hose into a plastic basket and proceeded to wash the outside of the hose. I’ve never seen that one before. I have to admit that the hose looked like new, but I’m not sure why that is important. Then the next Class A rolled up and a guy got out at such a slow speed that he should be careful not to get run over by a glacier. We decided we didn’t need to dump that badly, and headed out.
There are two ways to get from Panama City to Tampa. You can head north to I-10 and drive through Tallahassee, or you can take the scenic (and shorter distance) route of Rt 98 following Florida’s Big Bend. We opted for the scenic route and got rewarded by nice views, a bit of construction delay, and better fuel economy. The latter was important since fuel in that area is currently running $3.69 per gallon.
We’re going to have to think carefully about our routing going forward. Highways with high speed limits (as in the western states) are bad for our fuel economy. We do better taking the slow roads, even with the occasional stop sign and traffic light. Anything over 65 MPH dings our fuel bill pretty badly.
The only time we were in Manatee Springs State Park (29 °29’19.55″N 82 °58’34.98″W) was two years ago when Eleanor was having a massive migraine. We stopped for a few hours in the afternoon to let her sleep, but didn’t camp there. Eleanor doesn’t remember the visit, so I wanted to give us all a chance to recapture the place in a healthy moment, and for me, replace that grim memory with some nice ones.
The park features a first-magnitude freshwater spring that runs into the Suwannee River. In the colder months, manatees swim upstream to this spring and others like it in Florida to escape the cold seawater, and so you can easily spot them here. April, however, is the end of the manatee season and during this visit we didn’t see any.
Instead, the water was alive with mullet, placidly floating in the crystal-clear water and facing upstream like a football team awaiting the kickoff. The mullet jump out of the water at random and clear often clear it by a foot or two, which is fun to watch. Sturgeon are also found here, but not during our visit, and deer were as plentiful as squirrels.
This morning we dragged Emma out of bed (an hour earlier than she was ready for, because we crossed into Eastern Time yesterday), and Adam, Emma, and I all climbed into the 72 degree water at the headwaters of the spring for a morning snorkel. I can recommend this practice. There’s nothing like a swim in the morning to start off a great day. Of course, a wetsuit makes the water a lot more pleasant.
Perhaps having a serene feeling helped me deal with what came next. Just a few miles from the campground, our brake controller stopped working. I touched the brakes and that reassuring tug from the trailer wasn’t there. Then I stepped harder on the brakes and felt the trailer pushing against us as we drifted to a stop at the red light.
Those of you who have followed this blog can probably appreciate my feeling when I realized, in traffic, that we had once again lost our brakes. This time it was not on a downhill ramp in the rain, but the feeling of “omygodherewegoagain” certainly was overwhelming all the same. I flashed back to the last time, in Oregon, when the brake actuator suddenly died, and how we ended up waiting for days for a replacement unit to be shipped in, and then dealt with brake bleeding aggravation for days afterward.
We radioed Adam and Susan, who were behind us, and pulled over in the next available dirt lot for an inspection. I checked all the obvious culprits: trailer umbilical connection, corrosion on the contacts, fluid level on the actuator, wire connections to the actuator, fuses, but everything was fine. So I called up Actibrake’s tech support and asked for help, fearing the worst. Being Friday, I could just see us parked at the nearest campground for the next four days awaiting a replacement unit again.
Fortunately, Mike Adamietz of Active Technologies was a real pro, and very calm. (I was trying not to get really upset, but I’m sure some of my stress leaked through the phone.) He ran through the troubleshooting checklist, but I had checked everything on it already, except the last item. The unit was making a light “thump” sound every few seconds for a minute or two after we stopped. Mike recognized this as a possible low-voltage condition and asked me to check the trailer ground wire.
I had never looked at our ground wire, even though it is located out in the open in front of the trailer. This is the ground for everything in the trailer’s 12v system. Since the other 12-volt appliances in the trailer worked fine, I had not considered it, but it turns out that the actuator pulls a hefty 15-20 amps, and so a corroded ground can affect it before anything else appears awry.
Sure enough, simply by removing the ground wire, brushing it briefly with copper wool, and replacing it, the problem was solved. I can’t begin to describe my relief. I was also grateful to have a pair of supportive friends behind us (along with the ever-supportive family), and glad that Mike was right there to help us over the phone. So with that, we proceeded down the road to Tampa, with that reassuring disc braking feeling once again.
The ground wire is such an easy maintenance item and so important that Eleanor and I shot an instructional video on it, and posted it on the Airstream Life media community. You can see it here.
April 23, 2008 at 6:05 pm · Filed under Places to go
St Andrews State Park has been unexpectedly full of interesting creatures to see, and I’m not talking about the other campers. Across the way from our campsite a pair of baby Great Horned Owls fell from their nest high in a pine tree, and (since their mother was unable to retrieve them) they have been relocated to a box a bit lower down in a pine tree where everyone can see them.
They spend most of their day sleeping, as nocturnal birds should, but like good babies they wake up randomly to take a look around. They are growing rapidly, according to campers who have been here for a week or more.
Mother Owl keeps an eye on them from her perch far above. This photo is a crop of a 200mm zoom shot without a tripod, hence some blurriness. She’s never far away from the nest, and occasionally the presumed father has been spotted around the campground too. We never saw that Great Horned Owl in Tucson but at least we are finally seeing one here. It’s fun to walk out of the trailer during the work day to go watch the fluffy owl babies snoozing in their nest.
As expected, I did spend the day at work, but for an hour in the afternoon I broke away with Adam for a bicycle ride, and during that we spotted this fellow, a Florida softshell turtle. He/she was talking a stroll across the road but was apparently struck by indecision midway through. Note the unusual pointed snout on this distinctive Florida species.
Apparently these turtles can be rather aggressive, but a state park worker soon came by and lifted the large turtle with bare hands, and carried him off to the side of the road. The turtle didn’t smile about it, but he satisfied himself with a half-hearted nip at the worker and thereafter tolerated the ride.
This evening around sunset I plan to take the tripod over to “Gator Lake” and see if I can spot some alligators. It’s a long shot but a worthy photographic exercise. Even if I get nothing I’ll still get a photography lesson out of it.
By the way, Emma’s big gift last night was a Fluke pineapple ukulele. She also snagged several books, including two about dragons and a magic wand-maker’s kit. That cheap tourist uke I had handed down to her sounded just awful, so I’m hoping this better one will further encourage her learning. I just have to resist the temptation to monopolize it, because it sounds so good.
Tomorrow we are heading out to Manatee Springs State Park, halfway around the bend of Florida. There is no cellular or Internet service there, so it’s likely I won’t be able to update the blog until Friday.
April 22, 2008 at 5:20 pm · Filed under Places to go, Tips & Ideas
Adam came up with an idea for Emma’s birthday, to rent a pontoon boat and head out on the relatively calm water of St Andrew’s Bay. I had gotten up early to do some work, so by the time we were ready to head out at about 11 a.m., there was enough work behind me to justify blowing off the rest of the day and hitting the water.
From the state park you can rent boats for the day and roam around the bay, stopping off at Shell Island and snorkeling in the sandy shallows. Since we had a reliable captain with us (pictured above) who today has turned eight years old, and the weather was fine, it seemed like an ideal thing to do. So we packed up our gear, some food, and a lot of sunscreen, and took off.
Shell Island is fairly good for shelling, but not amazing. The island is an uninhabited sand barrier facing the Gulf of Mexico, with green water and dazzling white sand on the Gulf side, and yellowish sand on the Bay side. It’s an easy place to chuck out the anchor and wade to.
A bit further east we found the sandy snorkeling spot that we’d heard about. (Approximate coordinates: 30 ° 5’14.54″N 85 °39’0.37″W) No tropical fish here, but plenty of sand dollars, starfish, sea urchins, and a crab or two. The wind picked up and it got to a one foot wave, but after borrowing her mother’s dry snorkel, Emma did very well.
To the west we entered the commercial part of the bay over by Audubon Island and checked out a large ocean-going container ship which was being loaded, as well as a lot of extravagant water-side houses. Six hours on the boat vanished in no time.
The photo above is of a Laughing Gull that adopted us for a few minutes as we were cruising. He seemed to want a handout.
Emma has had a great birthday so far, but there’s more to come as I write this. She and Eleanor are working on a cake now (tip for those who would bake in their RVs: make sure you are absolutely level!), and tonight she has a few presents to open.
Since we were able to extend our stay, we’ll be here for two more nights, which means some time to explore the park tomorrow, at least for everyone except me. I will have to pay the price for not working a full day today, by making up for it tomorrow.
April 17, 2008 at 1:49 pm · Filed under Places to go, Tips & Ideas
I mentioned earlier that we are transitioning from our PO Box in Ferrisburg VT to a mail-forwarding service in Florida. It’s something that we should have done a long time ago, but our local postmaster has been so accommodating about sending our mail to us that we never bothered.
Last week I talked to a budding full-time traveler who was doing the same sort of thing as us, and many others: having someone back home sort through and send the mail. It always seems like a good idea at first, but then problems tend to crop up. My advice to part-time or full-time travelers is to just bite the bullet and find a mail forwarding service early on.
The cost is not bad, generally $10-20 per month, but be sure to read the fine print and make sure your magazines will get forwarded too. The real challenge is getting all your accounts, family, and friends to adopt the new address. That’s the process we are in now.
For us the problem is worse because we have a house in Arizona now. Some businesses will insist on sending us mail there, even though we ask them not to. So to catch those bits of mail, we put in a temporary forwarding order from the Arizona address back to our PO box in Vermont.
Unfortunately, our postmaster in Vermont accidentally sent something to the Arizona address a week after we left. It was a license plate for an old used car that we recently bought to drive while we are in Vermont. The plate went from the Vermont DMV to our PO Box, then was forwarded to Arizona, and is now being forwarded again back to the PO Box in Vermont. Since the car is currently in Florida, we will ask for it to be forwarded again, where it will get installed on the car and driven back to Vermont. Got all that?
The license plate is like those gnomes that people mail around the world. It will be well traveled before it ever goes on a vehicle.
I’m not so worried about the plate but unfortunately a pile of mail also got sent from the PO Box to Arizona. It will eventually be sent to our mail forwarding service in Green Cove Springs FL, and then probably to Tampa, where we expect to be in about 10 days. Somewhere in this mail are several important checks that I’d like to have sooner. I wish I could get certain vendors to make electronic payments to the magazine rather than mailing paper, but not everyone is ready for that yet.
Life in Austin has been great. Every day we get a bike ride. Today Adam and I rode around the town paths, which are numerous and excellent. It makes an ideal break during long days at the computer. Tonight we are expecting guests for dinner again, and in the meantime a constant parade of interesting people come and go around Pecan Grove RV Park. I’m almost caught up on work, and the weather is fine. Can’t complain.
But we’re out of the west now. Even though Austin is considered the southwest by some, to us it feels noticeably different. There is some humidity, and grassy lawns. Very little cactus. Austin is well shaded by trees. All the signs are present, telling us we are about to enter the humid Gulf states. We’re a little sad about that because we all like the dry open spaces and the clear skies of the west, but there are many compensations where we are going, too.
For one thing, we’ll start to see beaches again — some of the best beaches in the world. And we’ll be chowing down on some seriously good Cajun food. Jill Smith-Mott, who is coming over for dinner tonight, wrote an article for the upcoming Summer 2008 issue of Airstream Life magazine which describes a great Cajun culinary tour. She has inspired us to spend a couple of days in the New Orleans area and chase down some of those edibles, and we’ll do that this weekend.
Speaking of the magazine, we’ll also have an article about Airstreams used for business, and one of the featured businesses is “Hey Cupcake!” which happens to be parked just about a mile from where we are right now, on South Congress Street. We saw the trailer last night and tried the cupcakes, which were — as expected — really excellent. The owners say they are going to launch more Airstream locations around town soon. Give ’em a try if you are in town.
April 16, 2008 at 10:01 pm · Filed under Places to go, Roadtrips
I’m still catching up on emails and blog entries since we came out of Big Bend. I came back to 229 emails, of which about 150 were spam. The rest required time to deal with …
My blog yesterday about being misguided by the GPS, and the need to keep your eyes open to “sanity check” routes was reinforced on our way out of South Llano River State Park. A bridge on the way to I-10 was being renovated, and orange signs said the clearance was 10 feet wide and 10 feet high. Our trailer is nine feet seven inches tall and eight feet six inches wide, so we would have cleared it, but our friends following us in their motorhome were too tall. This meant an abrupt detour and some quick navigating to get back to I-10 via an alternate route.
Since I needed to get back to reliable Internet, we decided to head straight for Austin for a few days. This meant skipping the hill country west of Austin, which is a shame. Still, we paused in Fredericksburg, a German-accented town in the hill country, for lunch and pastries, with the two Airstreams parked on a side street. We also stopped at the Lyndon B Johnson State and National Historic Park. Everyone checked it out while I stayed behind in the Airstream to deal with about fifty of the most pressing emails.
When we are in Austin we always visit Pecan Grove RV Park. I’ve written about it before (you can check the archives using the Search box at right). It’s one of a dying breed of urban RV parks, just a short hike from all kinds of downtown attractions. Massive economic pressure seems sure to doom this funky green oasis. The neighboring park (Shady Grove) just closed down last week and sold for $8 million.
The clock is ticking on Pecan Grove, but the residents here have a campaign to save it somehow. The only strategy I’ve heard so far that seems to have a chance is to get the park named a historic landmark. Considering all the amazing people who have lived here, and the things that have happened here, it might just work.
At lunchtime I was visited by John Irwin, who writes for Airstream Life magazine, and this evening we went out for dinner at the Magnolia Cafe on Congress Street with my friend Vicki, who lives here. We realized tonight that we’ve known each other about twenty years. Was it that long ago that we were cycling the streets of eastern Massachusetts together?
Austin seems to have a much higher ratio of neon-lit signs than other cities. I’ve noticed this in past visits but never had a chance to really get out at sunset and shoot the signs. Tonight I captured a few, and I hope to get out again on Thursday night for a few more.
Austin is a great town, with a really lively vibe. It has great food, lots of live music, and interesting people. Unfortunately, in some ways it is outgrowing its infrastructure. Traffic is often terrible. That’s another reason I’m glad we are able to stay in the heart of the city here at Pecan Grove. We’ll spend another couple of nights, so I can continue to get caught up on work, and then press on to Louisiana.
April 13, 2008 at 1:04 pm · Filed under Places to go
This trip to Big Bend has been the most relaxing and enjoyable trip that I’ve ever had here. So relaxing, in fact, that I have not even attempted to write my usual daily blog entries. It is a small revelation for me, because (I have to admit) this is the first year that I’ve been able to fully enjoy being disconnected from the business of running Airstream Life instead of worrying about it. Finally, the business is reaching a level of maturity where I can go away and not fear a dozen “urgent” phone messages and a flood of bad-news emails upon my return.
On prior trips to Big Bend and other great places, the experience has been tainted by business concerns which have lurked in the back of my mind. It’s a shame to walk through a beautiful place and not see it because of worries about some concern back at home or work, and sadly a large number of our excursions have been afflicted by that. It is one of the risks of traveling while working (as opposed to being retired or on a leave of absence). Since in my case there isn’t any near-term solution to having to work, I resolved last year to resolve the problems that have been the cause of many a blighted trip, and at last I am approaching that goal, which is a great relief.
Of course, not all problems can be resolved simply. I had to choose to not worry about those things that I can’t control ““ something that is easier said than done. While we are out of touch, a thousand awful things could happen and I could come back in touch with the world on Monday to discover them, but of course the trick is to not let those worries invade the mind.
In this, I have been mostly successful. We have hiked at length, eaten heartily, and slept well. We have learned, and taken photos, and laughed and relaxed. In this age of instant communications, the outside world still has trouble penetrating the eastern edge of Big Bend National Park, at Rio Grande Village, where we’ve spent the last four nights.
It was a long scenic drive down TX 118 to Study Butte ( “Stoody Bee-yoot”) and into the western entrance to the park. Along the way, Ft Davis National Historic Site made a good mid-day stop, where we renewed our annual national park pass and Emma earned yet another Junior Ranger badge. I think at this point she has thirty or so, but we’ve lost count. They make a great contribution to home schooling.
The snowbirds have fled the southwest, so we had no trouble showing up at the only full-hookup campsites in Big Bend, at Rio Grande Village, and obtaining two sites for ourselves and our friends. It was 95 scorching degrees at 6 p.m. and the temperature hardly dropped after sunset. But the next day it was cooler and on the second night a cold front came through and dropped the temperatures into the 70s, making for perfect outdoor conditions. Being desert, it hardly ever rains here, and the air is comfortably dry for hiking.
The “trailer village” at Rio Grande Village is not particularly attractive, in that it is a basic asphalt parking lot with close spaces, but it is in the middle of a large green oasis of cottonwood trees and Bermuda grass that is carried over from a pre-existing 1920s ranch. Large natural springs all along the Rio Grande and an extensive irrigation system still serve to flood the grassy areas, and the Park Service has chosen to maintain that historical environment rather than let the area return to native desert. Huge turkey vultures rest in the trees above us, and in the early evening they give us a show by soaring close by.
Adam and Susan have been encouraging hikes and long talks daily. We did not come to Big Bend with any particular agenda, but it has turned into a series of hikes every day, which we all like. Talk goes well with rhythmic hiking over miles of terrain, and so we have managed to cover a lot of ground both philosophically and literally in the past few days.
Our first hike was an easy warm-up to Boquillas Canyon. This is 2.8 miles roundtrip. We went to go see our friend Victor Valdez, who is becoming somewhat famous as the “singing Mexican” and spokesman for the little town of Boquillas del Carmen, across the river in Mexico. (You can see him on YouTube.) On many days, Victor can be found with his friends on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, waiting for tourists to come by. The town of Boquillas used to sustain itself as a tourist destination, but since 2002 the free access by Americans across the river to Boquillas has been prohibited, with the result that the people of Boquillas have to sustain themselves by selling trinkets to tourists (contrary to US law) by wading across the Rio Grande, and by soliciting donations.
In Boquillas Canyon there is a steep sand hill which everyone except me climbed (I stayed below with the backpacks and to take photos), and Adam had a nice time tumbling down it.
Our afternoon hike, under a hot sun, was the Canyon Rim hike that overlooks the Rio Grande. This one is six miles roundtrip, but at the turnaround point we were able to pause at the riverside hot springs, and to take in the petroglyphs and pictographs nearby.
Hiking for hours in the desert is enough to feel justified that you’ve done enough for one day, so we retired to the Airstreams for the evening and only ventured out again for a brief ukulele lesson. Adam bought Susan a nice concert uke last week in Tucson, and she was eager to pick up a few initial pointers. It’s a lot of fun to be able to share the uke with other people, and Susan is a very quick learner.
Hiking in the desert for hours on a hot day is also enough to drain a Camelbak drinking reservoir, I found. The Camelbak I brought holds a hefty 100 ounces of fluid, and Emma and I drained it completely in the course of our two hikes, plus an additional 20 ounce bottle of water, and then much more once we were back at the Airstream. Out here the general rule of thumb is one gallon of water (128 ounces) per person per day, when hiking, and I can tell you that when the temperatures exceed 90 degrees, that’s no exaggeration.
We did the same the next day, too. A midnight wind rose up and dropped the temperatures by 20 degrees (and forced me up in the middle of the night to take in the awning). This made things very comfortable down in Rio Grande Village, but a bit chilly up in the Chisos Mountains in the middle of the park. Susan, Adam, and I decided to take a hike down “The Window” trail in the Chisos, while Eleanor and Emma hung back to relax and work on Emma’s Junior Ranger program. In the Chisos at 5,400 feet, the temperature was a mere 43 degrees when we started hiking, quite a difference from the 95 degrees we had experienced just 48 hours prior.
That hike added 5.2 miles to our total. The Window is probably the most popular and famous hike in the entire park, because it is relatively easy and the view at the end is spectacular. We finished in time to have lunch at the Chisos Mountain Lodge, which features spectacular views and is (surprisingly) reasonably priced for lunch.
At this point I was thinking we might be done with hiking, but in a place like Big Bend you just have to go for a hike if you want to see the diversity and beauty of the park. So a couple of hours later we re-grouped with E&E and drove out on a rough backcountry road to make the short hike to Ernst Tinaja. This hike is another favorite, with the highlights being a natural watering hole (tinaja) in a dry cascade, and incredible fossils just a short distance further up the wash. It’s a short hike, about two miles roundtrip.
At this point I realized that we weren’t going to be back to Big Bend for a long time, possibly years, and I wanted to get the most out of it, so when Susan suggested a bike ride before dinner, I was ready to go. Less than a mile from the trailer village is the national park service’s campground (a nice spot, no hookups, but with fresh water and a dump station, $14), and “¦ you guessed it, another hike. This time we just hiked a piece of it, to get a look at the beautiful pink limestone cliffs in the late afternoon sun and the little town of Boquillas across the river.
In the evenings we’ve been watching a program on DVD called “Life in the Undergrowth,” which is an educational series about insects and other little critters. It’s fascinating, and the best part is that Emma doesn’t know it’s educational. All day long, on hikes (looking at fossils and geology), doing her Junior Ranger program, and then even watching TV, we are home schooling and it’s completely painless. National parks are a great place to learn about the natural world.
Sunday I was actually a little resistant in the morning, but since everyone else was gung-ho, we launched out to do the second-most popular hike in the park: Lost Mine Trail. This hike, also in the Chisos at high elevation, was probably the most beautiful we’ve done, and that’s saying quite a bit. I can see why it is popular. It’s a moderately steep hike most of the way, 4.8 miles roundtrip, and peaks out close to 7,000 feet. The views along the entire trail are fabulous, and the top view is worth twice the hike.
At this point we are done hiking. Actually, I think we’d all be up for another one but we are having trouble finding more good hikes on this side of the park that are under ten miles. We could move to the other end of the park for a few days, but time is pressing and we need to plan the rest of the trip to Florida.
We did a little of that this evening, after lunch at the Lodge again, and another fun uke lesson at the campground. Our next deadline is May 1 in Orlando, and there is much we want to do before then, so we will launch on Monday morning. Our next stops will be along I-10, then in the Hill Country west of Austin, then in Austin itself, then the New Orleans area.
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