Yesterday was the first day in a long while where I wrote no words for no reason. I wasn’t traveling, I wasn’t busy with other things, I had plenty of time to write… I just didn’t. I didn’t have the imagination. I stared at my files and no words showed up.

I went to bed feeling bleak and annoyed with myself and woke up feeling miserably sick. So I’m guessing that’s why there were no words yesterday and it might mean no words today, either. I gave Zelda the shortest walk she’s had in a while, then came back and crawled back under the covers.

But I’m leaving this park tomorrow, and I promised myself I’d blog about every new place I stay, so… Sam Houston Jones State Park. I have a nice tucked-away spot with a view of forest out of one window, but the park itself feels much bigger and more urban than most of the places I’ve stayed recently.

Bigger is accurate, I think, but the urban is just that it’s near a highway. Instead of birds and bugs and strange animals, there’s a lot of traffic noise. Well, and also there are a lot of picnic tables and a commensurate amount of litter. And maybe a lot of traffic? This morning, when I was trying to go back to sleep, I was looking out the wrong window–not the forested window–and I watched a long string of cars passing by, probably at least a dozen of them. For a Thursday morning in midwinter, that’s a lot of cars to be driving past a campground in a state park.

My first afternoon here, I watched two big cats — house cats, not wild, but I’d guess feral — stalking through the forest out my window. They feel like the definition of the place: feral, not wild. Example: this morning’s walk, admittedly short, included an encounter with a half-dressed guy staggering along the trail. Not staggering in the “I’m an injured hiker” sort of way, but staggering in the “drunk guy, sleeping it off in the woods” sort of way. Hmm, so maybe that adds to the urban feel, too? I didn’t cut my walk short because of him, but it definitely lowers my enthusiasm for random strolls through deserted trails in the semi-dark. On the other hand, swamp sunrise, quite pretty. And I saw an armadillo trundling through the woods yesterday and armadillos are always cool.

I’m hoping my current state of misery is a gluten-reaction — I didn’t read a label a few days ago and it contained some modified food starch, so it could be — but of course it feels like I’ve got the flu. Blah. It’s quite sad how desperately I wish I was back in my house, in my comfortable bed, with my freezer full of homemade chicken stock and my electric tea kettle on the counter. And my fenced backyard, so the dogs could go out without me needing to drag myself out with them. If wishes were horses, I’d have a full stable today.

But tomorrow, Texas.

This is the mist about half an hour later (and lighter) than when I decided, nope, not getting on that path.

I woke up early this morning, maybe because I was hearing a weird noise—like a far-distant telephone dial, the old-fashioned rotary kind—but probably just because I went to bed really early last night. It was 5AM or so and I spent the next half hour trying to track down the noise: moving around the van, opening windows to see if it was louder outside, turning off circuits from the circuit breaker, running the water, going outside and turning the water off… every new attempt punctuated by five minutes or so of trying to go back to sleep.

Finally I gave up and got up. The first thing I do every morning is walk Zelda but it was still full dark outside, so instead I made myself coffee and breakfast (honey Greek yogurt with blueberries and granola, yum.) Zelda is generally not patient if I try to do much before her walk—she knows how the morning is supposed to go—but it was early enough and dark enough that she opened her eyes and watched me but didn’t bother to start moving until I started getting dressed.

When we started walking, it was a little after six. Sunrise was at six-forty, so it was still dark, but getting lighter. I walked a short way down the road, then turned back and got my flashlight, that’s how dark it was. We wandered along the road, down a short path to the deserted nature center—closed today, alas, or I would be headed back there—through the parking lot, down another road, and right to the edge of a boardwalk path into the park.

And there I stopped.

I’m in Tickfaw State Park in Lousiana. I got here yesterday afternoon, with time to do a bunch of housebound stuff (vanbound?), but not enough time to explore the park in daylight. So there I was, approximately 6:20 AM, about to head into the park in semi-darkness. Except…

It was a grey and foggy morning. Mist was everywhere and it was doing that thing where even though it’s not raining, the mist condenses on the tree leaves and then drips, so it sounded like there were tiny random footsteps happening all around me. They weren’t footsteps, of course, they were just drops of water hitting the ground. I’m a rational person, I know that’s what that sound was. Not footsteps, just water drops.

But there were birds, too, loads of them, making loads of noise.

And to the right of the boardwalk, in the woods, there was a rustling. And then a sound like a coughing bark. Not a bark, not a cough, but something in between. It’s not a sound that a squirrel makes, not one of their chitters or squeaks. It’s a bigger sound than that. But it’s not a rumble or a growl, either.

I told myself that it was perfectly safe. I didn’t know what was making that sound, but I was going to get on the boardwalk, not walk into the woods.

Except these weren’t exactly woods. I’m in a cypress swamp. The trees are probably beautiful in summer, but it’s the middle of winter, so right now they’re trunks of mostly bare gray branches, scattered dead leaves hanging from them. Occasional scrub pines provide a bit of color, but the ground is dark and muddy, covered with leaves or swampy water. For whatever reason, it reminds me of the landscape from Stranger Things.

I heard the sound again. Does Louisiana have bears? Probably. No reason why they wouldn’t have bears, plus the trash receptacles are bear-proof and why would you have bear-proof trash cans if you didn’t have bears? But, middle of winter, bears ought to be asleep. Hibernating, right? And there’s no way that noise was big enough to be a bear.

Unless it was a small bear.

Zelda was tugging at the leash. She was quite eager to go walk along that boardwalk and sniff interesting smells.

I was not so sure.

And then, from the left side, I heard a howl. A real, true, actual howl. Like a wolf howling at the moon howl. Like a werewolf howl.

I was sure it was a coyote, equally sure it was far away. And I was totally positive that the little footstep sounds I heard all around me were just water drips from the trees created by the mist, and whatever the thing coughing at me from the trees to the right was (probably a raccoon, right?), it was definitely not a monster from a shadow realm going to eat us both alive.

But I was not getting on that boardwalk, just not.

So Zelda and I walked back along the road and deeper into the park. I saw an owl fly across the road, and then fly from tree to tree until it disappeared into the swamp. I saw two snowy white egrets lift into the air, so beautiful and so ungainly. An entire flock of some much smaller bird flew so close overhead that I literally heard their wings beating.

The noise here is just incredible. Alexa does a forest sounds meditation that I’ve always thought was unrealistic because it’s such steady noise, but this is the forest that meditation belongs to, because the birds and the bugs are a constant background harmony, even now, sitting in Serenity on the computer.

And the park basically belongs right now to me and the birds. The campground has spots for thirty RVs; I believe there might be two other campers here. It is peaceful, serene, beautiful… and also isolated and honestly, seriously spooky.

In a mostly fun way.

The view is impressive when there are no cars passing by.

I’m not much of a fan of van pictures—I love Serenity, but I’m not enough of a van worshipper to find her particularly photogenic—but this photo so perfectly summed up this park for me that I couldn’t resist.

I am one of two campers on an empty line of grass facing the Gulf of Mexico. There’s a busy road that you can’t really see between me and the water, with cars going by every few minutes, and ugly electric lines overhead, and despite the descriptions in the campground’s online info, it’s definitely not beachfront, because there’s no beach there, just ocean. Lots of ocean.

But this morning I watched the sun start to rise over the water from Serenity’s window, with Zelda snuggled up next to me. Of course she was snuggled because she was trying to tell me that it was time to get moving. When I eventually obliged, we had a lovely walk along the road and water. The water is so much quieter than it was on Dauphin Island, just lapping against the concrete, and beautifully still in places. Still a ton of birds, including a pelican that flew really close overhead, and lots of little darting birds. I should really find a bird app and try to learn what some of these birds are. I’m spending a lot of time watching them.

The bugs here are also quite impressive, although much less appealing. Last night I was sitting in Serenity with the windows open, watching the mosquitoes land on the screen next to me. It was seriously creepy. In a space maybe two feet square, there were probably fifteen mosquitoes clinging to the netting. Walking the dogs this morning, I felt like I was in an ocean of gnats, far too many of which then came inside with me. I’ve been swatting at them every couple of minutes, driving Z bonkers. She does not understand what I’m doing but she does not think it is good. Fortunately, I’m managing to reduce the number, one squashed bug at a time. If they were small enough to get in through the screens, I would be very sad. Well, and probably changing my mind about staying here, despite the incredible ocean view.

Yesterday I stopped at a really nice grocery store, Rouses Market, and wound up with a thoroughly impractically stocked fridge. For dinner, I had celery with crawfish dip, because how could I resist crawfish dip? (Followed by mixed greens, topped with pear, pecan,  & a very delicious blue cheese.) Tonight I will be having cajun-stuffed mushrooms and asparagus. I also have olives, marinated mushrooms, two more cheeses—a goat Gouda and a Scottish cheddar—and gluten-free crackers. Apparently I intend to eat nothing but appetizers and salads for the next couple days.

I also did all my laundry. This campground has four washers, for over 200 campsites. On a Wednesday afternoon in midwinter, people were having to wait their turns to get to the washers. I can’t imagine what it’s like in high season. Fortunately, all of my clothes and sheets are now clean, so I don’t have to worry about it. Or they were clean. I had one night of lovely clean sheets and this morning Z came back from our walk, hopped up on the bed, and shook, getting sand everywhere. There is no winning the keeping-clean game in a camper with dogs, but so it goes.

By the time I’d gotten everything packed up yesterday, checked out of the last campground, headed into Mississippi, hit traffic delays, did my grocery shopping and laundry, walked the dogs, and settled into my new campsite, it was late afternoon. I spent a little while doing a jigsaw puzzle and watching the sunset, then fed the dogs and ate some dinner. Then and only then, did I settle down to try to write my 1000 words.

I knew it was going to go badly. I was tired and so un-inclined to do the work. I didn’t remotely have the energy to even think about what was supposed to happen next in Grace. But two of my writing group friends and I are writing short stories together—writing motivation!—and this week’s assignment, decided on Tuesday, was to write a “romance short story.”  (Last week’s assignment was a horror short story and that was fun: I’ve never even contemplated writing horror, but I think I got it right.) So yeah, yesterday—sitting down to write with no motivation, knowing that it wasn’t going to go well, turned into 1600 words of romantic short story that I think is really fun. I’m definitely working on Grace today—that’s my big goal for the today—but I think I’m going to try to finish this little story first.

I’ve been thinking about blogging ever since I woke myself up to post on Monday night. I’m sort of a terrible blogger, obviously — I do none of that “building community” stuff, nor do I try to “provide value” for my readers. (Sorry! No value here!!)

I blog about whatever’s on my mind and erratically. Some years I had lots of posts, some years I had almost none. In 2016, I’ve tried to blog every Monday and Thursday and have tried to be restrained about posting more than that, not wanting to bore the audience that tolerates me. (Thanks for tolerating me!)

But when I sleepily decided Monday night to reassess my posting come the new year, it started me thinking about what I want out of blogging. I’m obviously terrible at the whole author business aspect of blogging — well, the whole author business in general. Really, the basic, bottom-line, requirement to be a successful author is to finish what you write and I’m not doing so well at that. But I also don’t do the promotion and outreach and giveaways and that kind of thing that one is supposed to do. When it comes to “growing my audience,” I am pretty much a complete fail.

So the question is, in 2017, do I want to grow my audience, build community, and provide value? I’m sure that those of you who know me or have been reading a while already know the answer: that just sounds like so much work. It’s never going to happen. Besides, if I can’t even finish a new book, what would be the point? And really, I like my blog because it’s a record of my life. It’s an online journal. Maybe I’ll be the last online journal keeper.

But I did realize that I really wish I was at least writing something — a few notes if nothing else — about each of the places I’ve stayed. I haven’t because I haven’t wanted to be boring — how many entries can I write that start with “I stayed…”? Answer: lots! Probably too many. But still, I’m already forgetting places. Last week I was thinking about all of the beautiful sunrises I’ve seen and two days later I remembered the wonderful Harvest Hosts farm in Vermont. How could I have forgotten that so quickly? And what will I remember two years from now if I’m forgetting places already?

So in 2017, I’m not going to worry about posting every Monday and Thursday (although I’m going to for the rest of 2016, just for the sake of finishing what I started.) I am, however, going to write at least a paragraph or two about every place I stay, and I’m going to start now, with Lake Griffin State Park.

Is a picture worth a thousand words? If yes, I should probably post an image of a tree instead of a sunrise, because Lake Griffin’s claim to fame is the second largest live oak tree in the state of Florida.

Oh, look, a tree pic! I have not yet run out of data in my data plan for the month, but with posting all these pictures I probably will soon. But anyway, second largest live oak tree. I tried to keep the Californian in my brain shut up as I admired it (not entirely successfully — redwoods really are very large trees, even the little ones). According to the sign, it was probably used as a landmark for the native Americans before Europeans settled Florida.  (Although, really, wouldn’t it have been a lot smaller back then? Isn’t the impressive thing more that it’s survived for so long rather than that it might have been big even a few hundred years ago? It’s only supposed to be 300-500 years old and you’d think that 400 years ago, when it was maybe 100 years old, there would have been some other 300 year old trees around that were bigger than it that are now gone… Yeah, my inner critic is always noisy.)

Anyway, nice tree! Nice park, too. It’s small — I think that Z and I managed to walk every trail this morning and our total walk length was still just under a mile when we made it back to the camper, but it would be a great place to kayak if I was feeling that ambitious. The campground only has about 40 spots and they’re fairly close together, but — as always — they’re much nicer, greener, and more interesting than the typical independent campground parking lot.

My highlight of this stay was probably my new grill. I used it (a little Coleman portable propane grill) for the first time yesterday. It worked remarkably well, so yay! I’m looking forward to the increased kitchen flexibility — I’m eager to grill fish on it, because smells linger in Serenity, so I’ve been avoiding cooking things that I don’t want to smell the next day. But I miss fish. A lot.

As with every state park in Florida that I’ve stayed at, I would happily stay here again. But this trip is only for two days — tomorrow I head out for Thanksgiving at my dad’s house.

Happy Thanksgiving!