Almost Hike

We set out this morning to hike part of the Florida Trail. The first part was along the road above the Suwannee River. We passed this interesting setup. Looks like family members or friends have built together. These park models are mounted on wooden poles, which puts them far above the usual flood stage of the river.

No joke! Boaters on the river are warned that if they go too fast, they may run into a large sturgeon that has leapt out of the water. Several people have actually been seriously injured this way on the Suwannee.

Speaking of flooding, the river is actually a couple of feet above flood stage right now. The lower section of this deck is under water.

It turned out to be too hot to hike, even though we started early, so we turned around after one mile and went back to our campsite. Tomorrow we plan to start even earlier!

We went to Cliff's Discount Grocery today. It recently opened in the old Suwannee Diner and still sports the lovely murals the restaurant owners commissioned.

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Historic White Springs

We went to the Florida Nature and Heritage Tourism Center in White Springs to pick up a "Historic Walking Tour" map this morning. Then we set out to see all the history we could find in this small town on the Suwannee River. The town drew many people during its heyday who came for the medicinal value of the sulfur spring.

Here's a view of the Spring House. It's right on the river, and the spring pool is inside. Now it is just a shell, because the spring quit flowing out here 35 years ago.

One interesting encounter was at the Community Center. We saw a large school bus being painted with flowing blue swooshes and stopped to talk with the painters. They turned out to be Lesley Gamble and Tracy Wyman. They were working with the Hope Summer Enrichment Program. Lesley brought a couple of the students out to talk with us about the bus painting project, which was to promote awareness of the importance of the aquifer. Lesley works with the Springs Eternal Project, which currently has a display on the Urban Aquifer at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville. She is an enthusiastic and impassioned advocate for Florida's springs and aquifers, which are threatened and being degraded.

Here's a business sign that caught Ken's attention: the bike looks like it's emerging from the building.

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Payne's Prairie Preserve State Park

We've been looking for a place to stay near Gainesville, which has turned out to be much more difficult than we expected. We were very interested in Payne's Prairie Preserve, but were alerted by reviewers on RV Park Reviews that there might be problems with narrow roads, difficult to access sites, and worst of all, lots of low overhanging branches. We decided to go see for ourselves.

It's a straight shot down I-75, but a 70 mile trip, so it took over an hour. As we approached the park, we realized that it might be difficult for us to avoid the overhanging branches, but we were still hopeful. At the gate, we asked about this, and a friendly volunteer assured us that there was no problem. If we called as we approached the park, rangers would meet us and cut any offending branches or guide us around them. Good news.

However, as we drove along, we could see that it would take a major logging operation to remove the many very heavy overhanging branches, some over 12" in diameter. We drove through the campground and determined that we might actually be able to get into one or two sites, but most would be impossible to access because of the narrow roads and the trees lining the roads and next to the campsite drives. We decided to make the most of our visit and check out the Visitor Center and prairie observation tower.

We walked the short trail to the Visitor Center, which was locked when we arrived, so we went on to climb the observation tower to view the prairie.

We didn't see any bison or wild horses or scrub cattle, but we did see a wide expanse of prairie stretched in front of us. Looking around, we could see that we were in the forest canopy and could see the sunlight reaching the tops of the trees. By the time the light reaches the ground, it is much diffused.

We ate our picnic lunch sitting on a glider at the top of the tower, looking out over the prairie, called the Great Alachua Savannah.

We walked the short Wacahootah Trail through the trees back to the Visitor Center, which was now open. We saw the introductory video about the history of the park, which was Florida's first nature preserve in 1971.
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Well Darn!

It was a quiet Sunday until a thunderstorm arrived with flashes of lightning and booming thunder--and heavy rain. The DirecTV pixelated and died for a while before returning. All would be well, except that we noticed a puddle in front of the fridge. Water was dripping from an air conditioning vent.

Our track record with repairing water leaks has not been good, and we know that water is the worst enemy of RVs, so I'm feeling quite anxious about our prospects for getting the leak repaired well and quickly. We'll contact Ken Ullmer tomorrow and see what he suggests.

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Airstream Progressive Party

What is an Airstream Progressive Party? you ask. We asked the same question and found out that it's a mobile party. We moved around the resort from back to front, with various folks hosting drinks, appetizers, main course, and dessert. The main course was held at the pavilion, but the rest of the stops were RVs. The dessert finale was at a 1960s Airstream that was open for touring.

A good time was had by all. We got to meet some folks, including a couple who had rented an RV and were out on their first RV trip ever. The food was creative and delicious.

Earlier in the day we hiked down to the Suwannee River. We had to pick our way around a flooded section of the trail, and we were sure glad we had my GPS with a crumb trail, because various paths criss-crossed, and it was easy to get headed the wrong way.
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Travel Day

Before we brought in the living area slide room this morning, Ken took a closeup of this spider that had constructed an elaborate web from the corner of the slide to the rear of the coach.

We headed back to White Springs today, hoping to spend a couple of laid back weeks hiking and riding our bikes and exploring the Suwannee River here. Along the way we stopped for groceries. White Springs is a small town, so the nearest large grocery store is over fifteen miles away. Our campsite is nicely shaded, so we were lucky that our DirecTV dish was able to find the satellites. We had to jockey back and forth a bit to find a hole in the branches.

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Jacksonville-Baldwin Rail Trail

We took our bikes to the Imeson Road trail head of the Jacksonville-Baldwin Rail Trail this morning. The trail extends for about 13 miles, but we didn't plan to ride the entire length. It's a wonderful trail that runs through farmland and wetlands, paralleling I-10. The trail is shaded most of the way by large trees on both sides of the trail.

We were at 5.7 miles out when we arrived at a restroom that clearly marked another trail head. After using the facilities, we followed a sidewalk to find out where it led and found ourselves in the Camp Milton Historic Site.

The preserve includes the remnants of defensive earthworks designed by General Beauregard after the Battle of Olustee in 1864. We were most impressed by the over fifty trees with descriptive plaques. Each was grown from seeds harvested by hand from historic trees at important Civil War sites. For example, there's a Southern Magnolia from a tree at Andersonville Prison.

One of the more touching plaques commemorates the Battle of Gettysburg.

On the way back to the trail head, we were amused by this fence. It reminded us of a similarly humorous decorated fence we saw on the Katy Trail near Sedalia.

We went over to Aunt Iris's house for a final visit. She had a really bad night again, with pain running from her hip down to her ankle. Beth brought over a delicious dinner of chicken cacciatore with pasta, spinach, and broccoli. After dinner we watched some TV, including the usual Jeopardy. We also watched Duck Dynasty--the first time we've seen that show. It's one that Beth likes but Iris doesn't.

Aunt Iris called Uncle Jesse, and I had a chance to talk with him. Everything seems to be going along okay in New Bern. My cousin Penny is home from the hospital.

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Hanna Park

We finally made it to the beach today, and a beautiful day it was. We walked along the shore with the waves lapping our ankles, cooling us a bit from the hot sun. It's been a long time since we enjoyed a walk along the beach like that. The beaches are long and wide, and on a Wednesday in July, only sparsely populated.

We had been thinking of going to Little Talbot Park, but we opted instead to check out Hanna Park. It has a campground that is more convenient to Aunt Iris's house, but we were warned that the overhanging trees might be a problem for us.

We decided that we probably could have managed the trees without serious damage, but it would have been a tense situation. The campground does have several sites that would hold us, nice long pull throughs. All of them are well shaded by tall trees, so no satellite TV. Although the park has a long public beach, the campground is not on the water, except for a very few sites that have a glimpse of a small lake.

We showered quickly at Aunt Iris's and changed to go to Bonefish Grill, which offers a Wednesday evening special on their Bang Bang Shrimp. Beth highly recommended them and said they were plenty for a meal. They were delicious, crispy and succulent, dressed with a Thai hot sauce and served on a bed of mixed greens. Ken and I had one order of Bang Bang Shrimp and one of Bang Chicken (same thing with chicken nuggets). We shared a delightful piece of Key Lime pie on a pecan crust. It was all yummy, and we enjoyed the good company too.

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Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens

The Cummer is ranked #2 on Tripadvisor among attractions in Jacksonville, and it offers free admission on Tuesday evenings. We always enjoy both art and gardens, so we made plans to visit the Cummer with Beth. Both she and Iris had been there some years ago, and Beth was happy to return. Aunt Iris preferred to stay home and rest. The injury to her foot is healing, but her hip replacement and spinal surgery still have her recuperating.

Beth braved Jacksonville traffic to drive us to the museum, which is located directly on the St. John's River, which winds its way northward through Jacksonville. We started in the gardens, since they close at dark and we wanted to take advantage of a lull in the rain showers. There are three gardens, Italian, English, and Olmsted, terraced down to the river. The blooms are not as fresh and numerous as usual because of the hard rain showers here recently, but the gardens were still quite attractive.

Indoors we started at the temporary exhibit of classic car design:

 Future Retro: The Great Age of the American Automobile

May 14, 2013-September 8, 2013

This exhibition, comprised mainly of drawings from the collection of Frederick A. Sharf, showcases the beauty and ingenuity of American automotive design during the decades following World War II, a landmark period in car styling.

We enjoyed the cars and the concept drawings, and we sat down to watch some vintage automotive television advertisements.

We walked through several rooms of exhibits, all of which seemed rather eclectic. Another temporary exhibit features Florida art in all different media and time periods. After a while I just hit a wall and had to sit down. Ken and Beth were still happily examining the offerings in the gift
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Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives--Oh My!

Beth and Aunt Iris came over to Big Tree RV Park today to see our new home. I think they enjoyed the Stressless chairs!

Beth drove us to Singleton's Seafood Shack for lunch. We took the St. John's River Ferry to make the crossing to Mayport (a whole .9 miles).

The Shack is a real shack! It's been featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Yelp says the ambiance is "Divey." Food is served on paper plates with plastic tableware, and a roll of paper towels on the table serves as napkins.

We all ordered the catch of the day sandwich. Iris had king clip. The rest of us had mahi mahi. Ken got his blackened. Ken also ordered clam chowder. The food was good, but Ken thought the chowder wasn't quite what he expected--good, but thicker than usual and with unusual seasoning.

After we ate Beth took us on a tour of the restaurant, including the back room, which is dedicated to an array of model boats carved by Ray Singleton (his kids run the restaurant now).

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Sunday Dinner

We woke up this morning to light rain, but it soon stopped, so we were able to take our walk around the park and into the subdivision next door.

We went over to Aunt Iris's for dinner. On the way over we stopped at Flamingo Lake, another RV park nearby. Actually it's an RV resort, with prices to match. If we were camping with kids, it would definitely be the place to go. They have a lake with a really nice fountain and two beach areas in addition to a swimming pool.

Beth fixed Sunday dinner for us: pot roast with boiled potatoes and carrots an gravy and broccoli. We brought some strawberries and blueberries with whipped cream to top it off. We enjoyed the food and the company.

Iris had a very bad night with her injured foot and her aching hip last night. She had planned to go to church this morning, but that didn't work out, so she and Beth went to 7:00 p.m. mass. We walked around their neighborhood for a bit. We especially enjoyed the creative mailboxes. One was a large white seahorse holding a white mailbox--looked like a pregnant seahorse to me!

Iris has a nice fishing dock. Some of the neighbors have elaborate boats.

Nice view of Iris's backyard.

I used Google Hangouts to video chat with Julie and the kids. It was great to be able to see the kids and Julie talking with me, but next time I'll use my iPad. With the iPhone it was difficult for me to get the camera pointed right at my face. Julie said they mostly saw me from the nose down!
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Jacksonville!

We packed up this morning, ready for our trip to Jacksonville. Then we headed out for a bike ride, which took us to the Stephen Foster Museum, auditorium, and carillon tower to view a special display. It was unclear what the theme was: the various displays seemed quite unrelated.

The first thing we saw was a large collection of very old toy tractors and farm equipment. Another display included a variety of model trains, mainly from the nineteen fifties and sixties. A couple of older men were operating some of them, and we enjoyed a conversation with them. One woman was showing off a display of NASA memorabilia her father had collected. He was in quality control during the early years of the space program and had collected autographed photos of early astronauts.

We finally got on the road and went south to I-10 and then east to Jacksonville, with a stop for lunch and fuel. We pulled into Big Tree RV Park with rain pouring down on us. Jim pulled up on a golf cart and directed us to a space where we were able to see the southern sky--but it has only 30 amp electricity. We'll be okay with that as long as we don't need both air conditioners at once. Everything was going fine setting up, when suddenly the TV lift decided to go down on its own--and then died. It wouldn't respond to either the remote or the switch. Ken checked the circuit breaker, which was fine. Ken looked for a user manual for the lift, but we evidently don't have any information about it at all. He couldn't find anything on Google, so he posted a request for suggestions on the New Horizons Owners Group forum.

Meanwhile we called Aunt Iris and offered to bring dinner over, but she said that Beth was bringing over fish dinners from the Kingfish Tournament. We drove over, arriving just before Beth. Aunt Iris was feeding Beth's cat when a stray cat suddenly attacked her. It was one that Beth has been feeding, and no one knows why exactly. It ripped up the top of her foot and sunk a fang in. Iris was bleeding profusely, but decided to go home and go to the urgent care clinic in the morning. Beth came over to help clean up the blood and bandage her mom's foot. Neither one of them got much sleep last night. Iris went to urgent care, but they sent her to the ER. Now she is bandaged and keeping her foot elevated and taking antibiotics.

We had a good dinner and conversation. Beth went home to get some sleep. We stayed around to finish our laundry and then headed home to get some sleep ourselves. Tomorrow Iris and Beth will come over to visit and see our place.
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Exploring the Park

We biked around the park today, exploring the trails and museum and river. We saw signs warning of alligators and were cautioned about snakes, but we didn't run into either. We enjoyed our explorations and really find this park pleasant and attractive.

We were quite impressed by the museum. It has intricate dioramas of some of Foster's more famous songs. Many of them have animation and special lighting to add to the effect. Our favorite was "Camptown Races," with realistic perspective creating the effect of a quarter mile distance across the track even though the diorama is only 16 inches deep.

We also enjoyed seeing the collection of pianos. One belonged to a neighbor of the Fosters, and Stephen Foster regularly played it. Another was played by Jenny Lind. The museum also features the desk at which Foster sat when he wrote the famous Suwannee River song (Old Folks at Home).

We later visited the gift shop and craft village, where the only crafters in residence were a leather worker and a jewelry maker. He was sitting on the porch, tooling a leather bag. She was inside where their leather work and jewelry was for sale. She made some unusual feather flowers.

During the day we enjoyed listening to the carillon playing Foster's songs on the quarter hour.

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