Day 98 - Lordy, Lardy
Trip Start
May 19, 2008
1
100
161
Trip End
Nov 08, 2008
Chiefland,
Florida,
United States
Sunday, August 24, 2008
After having our breakfast we set off on highway 27 towards Perry. We didn't actually get any more rain and the wind had dropped quite considerably from last night
After The Storm
. All along the sides of the road however, we passed flooded fields and gardens, rivers and creeks that had burst their banks, fallen branches and in a couple of instances fallen trees. And snakes. Lots of squashed snakes. Big ones too. We're glad we didn't break down and need to get out of the bus on these roads last night. We stopped for fuel in Perry and the girl in the fuel station said that although they had had a lot of heavy rain and strong winds there wasn't any real damage. She said that it was much worse down near Orlando. In Cross City we stopped off at the first Dairy Queen we have seen in several days. As we sat enjoying our Blizzards we noticed that everyone was dressed in their finery. And then the penny dropped. It's Sunday and folks in these parts go to church on Sunday mornings. And then obviously go and lard it up at fast food joints like DQ afterwards. We couldn't quite believe what we were seeing when one table close to us bowed their heads and said Grace before tucking into their burgers. Now before anyone gets on their high horse and gets offensive, we're not knocking it, we're just not used to seeing it, especially in a fast food restaurant.
It was only another 15 miles or so until we arrived at our camp-site, Manatee Springs State Park
Lots Of Floodwater
. It was only early afternoon but as we had a long day yesterday and didn't sleep too well, we decided to park up early and chill out for the afternoon. We could have chosen from any of 100 pitches as we are the only campers here. Apparently everyone shipped out for the storm. We actually found out from one of the rangers that we are the only campers they have seen for 3 days! As the mosquitoes here are very aggressive we chose to spend the rest of the afternoon in the bus, as our insect repellent didn't seem to be very effective, despite its 25% DEET. Neil relaxed with his book and Mel had a nap before catching up with the blog. As the afternoon went by the cloud thinned, the sun broke through and it got hotter and hotter. After all the rain of the past week it's very humid and there was no breeze at all.
During the afternoon a couple more sets of campers arrived. There are several deer wandering through the site, all of whom are quite young and not at all bothered by the presence of humans we noticed, as they spent the late afternoon and early evening wandering through the trees and visiting the occupied pitches. We hope their indifference to humans doesn't become their downfall.
After dinner we went to have our showers
What A Boring Road
. When we first arrived this afternoon there had been a ranger over there taking down a light cover to get the bugs out and the cleaning cupboard was open. We both noticed that the loos/showers needed cleaning and assumed he was about to get on with it. Well tonight we discovered that he hadn't. And probably hadn't for some weeks. There are all kinds of bugs in there and they've moved in and set up home. It's really not pleasant trying to shower while watching to make sure there are no moths or grasshoppers flying at you and no huge spiders crawling towards you. And to top it off for Mel, she had no hot water, then as she went to turn the shower off the water suddenly came out warm...and brown!!! So she had to rinse off again in cold water. Hideous! We feel a complaint coming on! Miles travelled: 120
Total miles travelled: 9621
Days on road: 78
States visited: 18
National Parks visited: 11
