First a few observations:
We saw people in massive RVs "camping" in the same place we were. The folks next to us had a small rapid set pool, golf carts, plasma tv, Dale JR flag a'flyin' and a VERY loud stereo. Seriously, if you're bringing your living room with you it ain't camping, people. Golf carts? It would kill you to walk? Jack had no problem walking the park and he's only 3! Lazy jerks. These same jerks had roughly 600 small yappy dogs that they didn't have on leashes. We got to listen to them yell at the dogs to come back 100 times a day. Next time we'll be camping in the primitive sites. No RVs allowed. No water, no electricity. We can use the campground showers and fill our water containers as we need to but it'll be more peaceful. I'm thinking of going back soon if we can get our tent issues resolved. (see below)
I got a kick out of the people with the wooden signs with their name on them. Some even had a PVC flag pole with the Stars and Stripes flying for the holiday weekend.
Not many things suck more than fire ants:
We had 2 nests in our site. We set about pouring boiling water down the nests and that seemed to keep them in their place. We managed to keep Jack away but John and I wound up with a few bites on our ankles. Probably payback for the boiling water we kept pouring down the nest.
Beth's mad driving skillz:
My previously unscathed jeep got a little scathed this weekend. I backed into a tree and put a little ding in the back bumper and somehow managed to wedge the post making our camp website (Thank you, Jack) number between the tire and the front bumper. So much for creative parking!
101 (Well, 2) uses for a coffee press:
In trying to get Jack to take a nap we just decided to leave him in the tent. This was a bad idea. He got into John's shampoo bottle and smeared it all over his head. We used the coffee press like a pitcher and got the shampoo rinsed out for the most part.
The trip:
The first day was pretty much dedicated to getting settled. We got to the park around 1, got checked in and set up our stuff. The goal was to get it set up before the rain started. We made it. We did the tent first then our screen house over the picnic table. All the comforts of home (minus the plasma tv, pool, 600 yappy dogs, golf carts and loud stereo.) Anyway, we got the camp set up and were putting the finishing touches on things just as it started to sprinkle. Once we were done we decided since it wasn't raining all that hard we'd go for a walk. Jack was delighted with the idea of walking in the rain. We went up to the little restaurant/camp store and got some ice cream and went home again. After dinner we took a drive around the park to scout out the different hiking trails. At one point we saw a wild hog run across the road and into the bushes on the other side. We figured out where we wanted to hike first and went back to camp, made popcorn, had showers and set about the task of trying to get Jack to go to sleep. He was pretty wound up and it wasn't easy. John ended up riding him around a little in the car to get him to relax. While John was riding Jack around I could swear I could hear light sabers every few minutes. I thought maybe it was the ceiling fans in the bathrooms or maybe some kids playing but it was getting late and it was dark and otherwise pretty quiet. I had to use the bathroom so I got up and as I was walking to the bathrooms I saw that some people further down had one of the Star Wars movies playing on the side of their screen house! It was like a drive in movie over there. I was relieved to know I wasn't hearing things.
The next morning we were up early compared to our neighbors and were dressed and on the hiking trails before a lot of folks were even awake. We hiked 2 of the trails. The first was the Cypress Swamp trail.
It's a board walk that goes through a swamp. There's lots of cypress trees and if you're lucky you'll see an alligator. We didn't see one though. We did see some really cool spider webs and a woodpecker. The whole boardwalk was very shady and it was a cool place on a warm day. Later on the boardwalk got pretty narrow. We saw some pretty neat cypress knees too.The other trail was the Ancient Hammock trail. This trail had some of the biggest oak trees I've ever seen. By now Jack was getting pretty tired and John wound up carrying him much of the way. We same some giant grasshoppers, loads of lizards and places where the wild hogs had been rooting in the dirt. We also saw tracks.
After the hike we had a futile attempt at getting Jack to go to sleep. We got in the car and went into town (Sebring, Florida) to get some more ice and some corn for dinner. We drove all the way around the big lake and he was awake the whole time. We came back to camp and had lunch, went to the playground for a little while and still he wouldn't lay down so we decided to rent a couple bikes. We knew he'd konk out if we put him in a bicycle child carrier. We were right. John's bike had some serious drive train issues and kept slipping so we only rode around for a half hour or so but Jack slept most of the way. With Jack re-energized, we went back to the little restaurant/store and had another ice cream. While we were inside it started to rain a little bit. Then it started to rain harder. After we finished our ice cream we went across to the little CCC museum they have and walked around it for a while until the rain let up a bit. It was sprinkling when we headed back to camp and a downpour by the time we got there. We were all soaked to the skin and decided to take refuge in the tent. I went to the jeep and got our dry towels and some dry clothes for everyone. Then we saw that the rainfly was leaking. Our bed was getting dripped on and everything in the tent was getting pretty wet. We figured we could tough it out if it only rained for an hour or so and when it stopped after about an hour we went out to start supper. Just and John got the fire going and we started cooking hot dogs over it the rain started again. We had a short meeting and decided to pack it up and clean everything up at home. We had the car packed in an hour and were on our way at about 8:30. We got home last night around 10 and got some showers and hit the sack. Everything is covered in sand and a mulchy mix of dead organic matter, pine needles and bark. It was a great trip. I wish we could have had another day to check out the trails but we'll go back.
