Category Archives: Reviews

Wekiwa Springs

17 Monday Apr 2017

Posted by in Campground, Vanlife

≈ 4 Comments

the moon over wekiwa springsI wasn’t planning on writing about Wekiwa Springs because a) I’m only spending one night here, mostly so that I could dump the tanks, and b) I’ve been here before, years ago, so I figured it would be familiar, nothing much to say about it.

On the tanks, for future reference for myself, ten days without dumping worked okay, largely because I avoided washing dishes or taking a shower in the van, but I was starting to get occasional whiffs of latrine. Seven days, as long as I shower elsewhere and am cautious with dishwater, is no problem at all.

On the familiarity, ha. I have been here before, years ago, and I have reasonably clear memories of it. My parents camped here with their motor home and R & I came and spent time in the campground with them. We swam in the springs, cooked on the grill, ate dinner outside at the picnic table. I remember it as scrub pine forest with sparse trees and sandy ground covered in brown pine needles. Somewhat desolate and barren — nice enough, but very different from the lush green vegetation around the springs.

Duh. It had recently burned back then. The landscape along the road was still blackened with dead plants and ashes. Fast forward a decade or so and it’s all lush and green and beautiful. But walking along the road this morning I kept being struck by the clear demarkations between one type of green and the next, as if the universe had drawn sharp lines between one terrain and another, instead of letting them smoothly blend together. It wasn’t the universe acting capriciously, though, it was fire — a long-ago fire, now.

That said, in other ways, it’s still much like I remembered. Sitting outside the camper, enjoying the breeze, the loudest sound I hear are some crows yelling at one another, but the second loudest and far more continuous is the traffic. From where I’m sitting, I can see the trucks passing by on the road. And when I got here yesterday afternoon, the park itself was closed due to overcrowding. The springs are a popular destination. Deservedly so — they’re a great place to swim, with water that’s refreshingly cold in Florida’s heat. But it’s the kind of park that you will be enjoying with lots of other people.

The campground, though, isn’t a parking lot. There’s lots of room & lots of vegetation between sites. Sure there are plenty of people here, but it still feels peaceful. If the weather wasn’t so hot — it’s supposed to be in the 90s by the weekend — I could see being perfectly happy to settle in here for the next few weeks. I saw wild turkeys this morning while walking Zelda, and I bet if I stayed long enough we might see a black bear. The warnings about them are prominent and I’m guessing one might have gotten into a nearby dumpster last night, based on the morning’s scattered trash, which looked a little too widely scattered to be raccoon mess.

I was disappointed with the results of my morning’s photo efforts, though. My dad thought I ought to be getting a camera instead of a zoom lens for my phone and now that I’ve had a chance to play with the zoom lens, I’m thinking he was probably right. (You were right, Dad!) The lens is part of this set: CamKix 9 Piece Camera Lens Kit for iPhone 5. (That is an affiliate link, so if you buy it from that link, something like $1 of your purchase price will come to me. On the other hand, you’re probably not going to buy it after I keep writing about it, so don’t worry that I’m getting rich. :))

The zoom lens is very nice if you have lots of time to set up your shot, use the tripod, can focus evenly, and don’t mind using the case that the lens attaches to, which both prevents you from using other cases and doesn’t look like it would offer any protection at all to your phone. All of my photos this morning came out so unusably blurry that I just threw them away as soon as I had a chance to look at them, even the ones of the wild turkeys. The photo at the top of the post was actually taken without the zoom lens.

And before I left for our walk this morning, I had to take off my phone’s case and put the phone into the lens case. The chance that I am actually going to remember and be willing to do that at 6:30 most mornings is… nonexistent, really. I’d be far more likely to remember to hang a camera around my neck.

Of course, the lens was a lot less expensive than a good camera would be and it is fun to play with. But unless I turn into the kind of person who wants to carry around a mini-tripod and patiently set up for long-distance photos, I suspect it’s mostly going to sit in its box. It’s just not convenient enough to work for me. If it came with a better case, one with some cushioning to protect my phone when I drop it and a cover for the screen, I’d probably get much more use out of it. As it is, I suspect mostly I will use it to try to take pictures of birds right outside Serenity’s windows. And that will be fun, but it wasn’t what I was imagining.

Bah, somehow it is almost 10AM and I have to get moving. My one morning at Wekiwa is rapidly slipping away from me! I’m still trying to figure out my next plans, but I am also determined to get some words written on Grace this week. Fortunately, I’m going to spend the next couple of nights parked in a writing friend’s driveway and I know she’ll encourage me!

A happy birthday

09 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by in Food, Movies, Personal, Serenity

≈ 9 Comments

On my birthday morning, I woke up around 5AM and it was cold enough in the van that I decided I needed a comforter, so I pulled it out, unfolded it, snuggled down — and then Zelda came and snuggled under the covers with me, tucking her head into my shoulder and lying on her back so that I could rub her belly. I love it when she does that. Really, truly love it. And that’s pretty much how my birthday went.

Jumping back in time, R arrived Thursday night in time for dinner at the Bistro, the fancy restaurant in the retirement community where my parents live. We hadn’t planned on going but that day they won a gift certificate for it, and reservations were available that night, so away we went. When we got there, I was waiting to be seated when my dad said, “I think you can figure out which one is our table.” It was the one with balloons and presents. I was surprised, charmed, and pleased, which was fun. On Friday, of course, I wouldn’t have been surprised at all (although I still would have been charmed and pleased — I like balloons and presents!), but it was fun to have that surprise factor.

Dinner was terrific, as it always is there. It’s not just a good restaurant by retirement community standards, it’s a good restaurant by any standards. But the fact that it’s a small community and the waitstaff all know the patrons really does make it exceptional. Instead of helping me find a gluten-free option on the menu, the cook made a modified sauce for my meal. And they all sang Happy Birthday to me along with a candle in my ice cream, but it wasn’t nearly as embarrassing as it usually would be, because I’ve chatted with most of them before and they all know my parents. It was just nice. It felt very celebratory.

In the morning, I got to feed R breakfast — the third-best commonly-available yogurt (IMO), fresh blueberries, and my homemade granola. He approved. Since he’s the first person to try my granola except for me, I was pleased, although realistically, it’s not like he would have told me that my granola was terrible on my birthday. Or any day. But I think he really did like it, except maybe for the dried blueberries, which I’m not so excited about either.

Afterwards, we went off to a hardware store to buy a part to repair damage I inflicted on Serenity the day before by trying to go under a roof (yes, stupid! but we are not dwelling on that, it is what it is), and to Starbucks to collect my free birthday treat. And we stopped by Goodwill, too. It felt so cozy to be running errands with my dad and my son. Like snuggling with Zelda in the morning, it was the kind of everyday that I don’t get everyday and so appreciate all the more.

For lunch, R and I ate roast beef rolled with horseradish cheddar cheese, a little mayo, and arugula. It is a perfect taste combination, one that I just discovered recently, so am still enamored with.

After lunch, we went to Beauty & the Beast. I’d suggested a few different options to R for my birthday activity — a Segway tour of Mount Dora, kayaking, thrift-store shopping, or the movies — and the movie won. That movie is pretty close to a sure thing: enjoyable for all ages, impressive eye candy, fun and nostalgic, and we all liked it.

For dinner, we were intending to go to a pizza place with good gluten-free options with my sister and her kids but they were unfortunately all sick, so we went to Bonefish Grill instead. I had the special of Georges Bank scallops on parmesan risotto, which the waitress was told was gluten-free. Honestly, I don’t believe it on the gluten-free part — I asked, but I expected to be disappointed, and I was surprised when she said it wasn’t — but it was absolutely delicious. I don’t even care if I’m paying for it on Tuesday & Wednesday. I will tough it out, knowing that it’s a gluten-reaction, and it will have been worth it.

I had a little bit of a low point in the afternoon, when I was getting dressed for dinner. I’m not sure why, really. Maybe it was just low blood sugar. But I was really missing my mom. I adore my stepmother (and I know she reads my blog, but it’s true and I’d say it anyway!) and I’d had a really nice day, but… I don’t know, I just wanted my mom. I went into the kitchen to get a drink and my dad had picked up the mail and left a card for me on the table. It was from my aunt and uncle with a very generous gift, but an even nicer message. I had to go into the bathroom and cry, but not in a bad way at all — it just felt like my aunt gave me an immense long-distance hug at exactly the moment I needed it.

After dinner, I got a couple more presents — an induction cooktop and an immersion blender. Yep, the longer I live in Serenity, the more complicated I get with the cooking. But I’m looking forward to playing with both of those toys. I miss making soup and the induction cooktop means I can cook anything outside. It’ll be like setting up a little outdoor kitchen. Yes, there is bacon in my future. Also soup. Lots of soup, I hope!

On Saturday, R and I went off to a matinee of Your Name, an anime that I’d seen a review of somewhere. When I first mentioned it to him, he rejected it, thinking I was talking about some other movie, and I’m so glad I persisted, because it was amazing. Not in the popcorn movie sense of Beauty & the Beast, where the movie is perfectly straightforward and not likely to cause any tension (although I did shed a tear when Mrs. Potts was searching for Chip at the end). But it was captivating and interesting and… I think the review said something like “go see it and when you’re done, go see it again” and yeah, that was pretty much what I felt like doing. Instead I waved good-bye to R and went off to spend the next three hours cleaning out my storage unit.

Alas, rats had gotten into the storage unit. Or is that yay, rats got into the storage unit? It was much, much easier to let go of some of the things that I’d been holding onto — linens, blankets, stuffed animals, even pictures — when they were covered in rodent droppings and/or chewed on. The woman at the storage place let me use the dumpster, probably grateful that I wasn’t yelling about the damage. I also let go of two boxes of books, a lamp, and most of the remaining kitchen items, although they were dropped off at Goodwill. I’ve got four bins, a cedar chest, a chair, and a small table left, and I’m hoping to move all of them up to my brother’s basement. Sometime this week I will see how the cedar chest fits into Serenity, because it’s the big issue. Beyond those things, I’ve got some pieces of luggage and a vacuum cleaner left to figure out. And three paintings. But I’m really close to having simplified as much as I ever hope to. And it only took me a year longer than I wanted it to! A year ago today, in fact, I was looking around the house debating whether I should try another garage sale and feeling pretty wiped out after the two previous days of selling. It’s amazing how there’s always more stuff to get rid of.

As a combined result of birthday presents and cleaning out the storage unit, I spent a big chunk of the evening and today reorganizing Serenity. I was prepared to let go of the kayak. Instead, I let go of some clothes, some dishes, some containers, and a blanket. And it doesn’t feel over-stuffed. I think I have it organized enough that all of things that I want are accessible to me. There’s still some stuff I’d like to do — I’d like to get bins for the medicine cabinet, so stuff doesn’t always fall out on me, and maybe the same for spices. And it’s funny to see how my use of space is evolving. With every passing month, the kitchen supplies take more room, clothes and entertainment get less. Although I guess the kayak counts as entertainment and it gets a lot of space. But I was thinking of the cupboards, not all the storage.

Anyway, this is a long, rambling post and probably not of interest to anyone but me. But ten years from now, I do want to look back on this birthday as it is right now, not as I will remember it then. We were talking about my fortieth birthday at dinner and it was a reasonably dramatic birthday as they go, so the stories were of C’s broken arm and T’s tears and who had the stomach flu. It was only later that I remembered the fireworks and the calm when it was just R and me, home with Zelda, and I was so glad to be just us again. This birthday was very nice, most excellent, and ten years from now, I really don’t want to remember it as the weekend when I crunched Serenity and rats invaded the storage unit. It was a weekend of many treats, much delicious food, cozy family time, and both nostalgia and joy. A happy birthday, indeed.

Edited to add: I can’t believe I forgot this already. I can see this will be a process…

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O’Leno State Park, High Springs, FL

03 Monday Apr 2017

Posted by in Campground

≈ 6 Comments

O'Leno State Park Dogwood Trail

The Dogwood Trail in O’Leno State Park

I feel like I’m parked in a ghost town. Or, more accurately, I guess, camped in a ghost campground.

I got here last night after a long, long day. Because I’d done ALL the things during my stay at Komoki Mounds, packing up was more of a chore than usual. I like the kayak but getting it clean enough, dry enough, and packed small enough to stow under my bed is a chore. And I love the end products of the grill, but it is a serious pain to clean. Also, since I hadn’t really had internet while I was there, I stopped in the front parking lot and spent an hour catching up online — answering emails, posting to my blogs, responding to comments and so on. Once I got on the road, I had a three plus hour drive to my next campground that turned into a five hour drive while I searched for dog food.

It was hot — in the high 80s — and I was tired and feeling sort of grouchy. But as I drove into the park, all that resentment faded away. The road into the campground was packed white sand, narrow and winding, totally bordered by trees with bright green leaves everywhere. Everywhere I’ve been recently has been in early spring but Florida is in late spring, with everything full and lush and not yet dried out. It felt magical.

I got Serenity connected, then immediately took Zelda for a walk, out of the campground and onto a trail. Well, it felt more like a path than a trail. It was one-person wide, not very big. Dead leaves and dried pine needles crunched underfoot as we wandered through rich, dense forest with tall, tall trees. I kept thinking about a scene in Grace that takes place in the forest outside of General Directions and thinking, “This! This! This is Grace’s forest!” I am not going to go back and rewrite that scene — I think the forest descriptions in it are fine — but I was sorely tempted.

The campground was close to full, I think. Lots of people and lots of sounds of people. Kids on bikes, campfires, dogs barking. Loads of tents. There are a couple bigger RVs here and a few long trailers, but I can’t imagine trying to get into most of the sites with a big RV. Honestly, I can’t even imagine driving on the road into the campground with a big RV. At least not this part of it. There’s another loop, farther into the park, and it might have easier sites for bigger rigs. But the whole place had the friendly, cheerful atmosphere of a busy campground in spring.

And then morning rolled around and people started leaving. Through the day, it got quieter and quieter and quieter. Last night, every site near me was occupied. Tonight, three sites in either direction are empty. It’s not like being alone… well, no, it’s a lot like being alone. I guess I mean it’s not scary solitude, it’s peaceful solitude. But at the same time, it definitely feels a little spooky to have gone from busy, busy, busy to completely quiet.

I’m sitting outside now, at almost 8, and it’s still light, but probably pretty close to sunset. Also still hot. It was 95 degrees today! It’s so hot that it smells of hot, like the sand is cooking. It’s a smell that you get on beaches sometimes, usually balanced by the smell of ocean, but here it’s just the smell of hot sand. I’m listening to the birds and an occasional clank from a neighbor many sites away as it slowly gets darker and darker. And the mosquitoes are getting just a little too happy about my presence. I pulled a tick out of Zelda today and one off of me, so I’m feeling a little bug paranoid, but I’m getting munched. Time to go inside.

Despite the heat, I took some long walks during the day. Apple Health tells me I walked 5.5 miles. If I felt very moderately ambitious, I could break my step record for the year, which I’m actually pretty tempted to do, just because.  Later: One loop around the campground to reach 12,518 steps, aka 6 miles, comfortably beating my previous high on March 9th of 12,103 steps. I think this is sort of a silly thing to keep track of — I definitely wouldn’t be doing it if my phone didn’t make it so easy — but there is something satisfying about seeing that average number going up.

This is definitely a park that makes it easy to take good walks. Between the trails and the roads and the signposts and the interesting Conservation Corp history and even the river, there’s enough to look at to keep me wandering. It reminds me of Palmetto State Park in Texas in that way.

My day here was not so glorious, though, mostly because 95 is just too hot for the dogs. For B, panting is not just a cooling mechanism, it’s a necessary part of getting enough oxygen because of his malfunctioning heart. He sometimes works very hard to breathe, even when he’s cool enough, so I don’t like to let him get anywhere close to overheated. Therefore I was running the AC from about 1PM on.

Also, I forgot to dump the tanks when I arrived yesterday, and they’re full, so I’ve been trying to be very sparing of water. If I was here for longer than a day, I would have just gotten my act together and packed up for a run to the dump station, but I’ll do it tomorrow when I leave. Still, it meant very simple eating, since I don’t want to make any dishes dirty. It’s not a big deal, but it’s not a relaxing attitude to be anxious about using water.

Also, ticks. Let’s face it, no day with ticks in it can be a glorious day.

All that said, it was still a pretty darn good day.

 

Kolomoki Mounds State Park, Georgia

30 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by in Campground, Grace, Zelda

≈ 12 Comments

Sunrise over the water at Kolomoki State Park Those of you with a good grip on geography may reasonably ask: if I was in Alabama on my way to Florida, what am I now doing in Georgia? For once, it was not because I got lost.

But I realized Monday evening that Zelda had an ear infection. Sometimes, a good dog owner will notice her dog shaking her head or scratching at her ear, holding one ear oddly, maybe acting lethargic, maybe even a squishy sound coming from the ear, and think, “Hmm, I wonder if my dog has an ear infection.” I’m obviously dense as a rock when it comes to being a dog mom, because I missed all those clues and didn’t figure it out until black goop was oozing out of her ear. As the vet tech said on Tuesday, “That is a serious ear infection.” Yes, I’m a little mad at myself.

At any rate, from Gunter Hill (which is near Montgomery, Alabama) on Tuesday morning, I called the nearest Banfield. They couldn’t see her until 4, so I called the next nearest Banfield. They could get us in at 2:30 and were conveniently about two and a half hours away, so off I headed to Dothan, Alabama. Once there, I ran useful errands — grocery store, propane refill, purchase of ant traps and mouse traps*, delicious shrimp salad lunch in a parking lot — and then we went to the vet. $170 later, Zelda has some mega, high-tech antibiotic in her ears, and we needed a campground.

Kolomoki Mounds State Park was about an hour away, not quite in the right direction, but not totally in the wrong direction, so here we came. There were other options, of course, but it was already late in the day and I didn’t much want to chance having to keep driving while I looked for a place. Kolomoki had availability online and it sounded… educational. I thought it would be good for me as I headed back home after two months on the road to actually have done something tourist-appropriate.

Serendipity strikes again: Kolomoki is crazy pretty. The description talked about the historic mounds, but the campground proper is on a lovely lake. I have not just a view of the water, but easy access to get the kayak into the water. The campground itself is tiny — maybe 30 sites — and peaceful. I’ve seen cardinals and blue jays flying around and the bird noise is steady music. Plus, there are two little free lending libraries — one for kids, one for adults! How could I not adore it?

Little free lending libraries at Kolomoki State ParkEven the bathrooms look nice — I will definitely be taking a shower in the actual bathroom, instead of Serenity. Brief digression on bathrooms: Serenity is fine for so-called Navy showers. Get wet, stop the water, soap up, turn the water back on, and rinse off. If I try to condition my hair, though, chances are I will either run out of hot water or fill up the gray tank faster than is convenient. I’ve done it occasionally when I’ve got a full hook-up, i.e. can dump the gray tank without having to move the van, but mostly showers in Serenity are brief. So at every campground, I check out the bathrooms. At probably about 50% — not being a fan of dead bugs, dirt, mold, or icky shower curtains — I decide I’m content with Serenity showers. Sometimes that depends on how much my hair feels like straw or how desperate I am for a real shower — I can remember being pretty dubious at Palmetto State Park in Texas, where the bathrooms were quite run-down, but I really wanted a real shower.  They had absolutely fantastic hot water and water pressure, so you know, you never know what you’re going to get. Anyway, bathrooms here = nice enough to use without reservation. And that digression was not so brief, but whatever.

Last night I got the grill out and grilled chicken-apple sausage, and ate it with a salad of mixed greens, apple, cucumber, radish, black olive and shitake mushrooms. I think it’s the first time I’ve tried shitake mushrooms — they were on sale — and yum. So much of that earthy mushroom flavor. I’ve got more, so I may try to make that mushroom sauce again today and put it over brown rice. It’s definitely not weather for cooking inside the van, though. It might have hit 90 yesterday. Plenty warm enough for kayaking, not so great for using the stove or oven.

I’m not sure about the temperature because the internet here is impossible. No T-Mobile signal at all, and one bar on Verizon. I may or may not be posting this while I’m actually still at Kolomoki, depending on whether I can get Verizon to let me use data. Some people might find that a drawback… I am not so sure. I’m definitely starting to notice that my happiest campgrounds are the ones where internet is barely an option.

*Ant traps and mouse traps: Gunter Hill was ant city and by the time I left there, the van was filled with ants. Seriously, dozens, maybe even hundreds of them. I killed them as rapidly as I could but they came in faster than I could kill them. Fortunately I lived in northern California long enough that ants — at least that kind — do not freak me out. Although I was fairly grossed out to discover probably thirty of them crawling around the toilet when I went to use it. Ick! I seriously doubt that they had time to take up housekeeping, but I bought traps anyway.

On the mice, I finally gave in and bought glue traps. I think I’ve gotten rid of the mice, but the paranoia has been keeping me awake. So I set out the glue traps Tuesday night and nothing’s been caught in them. I will give them one more night then toss them with great relief. And a plan to use Fresh Cab mouse repellent absolutely regularly. I can live with the smell of Christmas much better than with the rustlings of mice in the cupboards.

In other news, Grace continues to make progress. Sophia is again being a determined little pain of a character but, I think, maybe, just possibly, I have found an ending that I can get to. (Yes, I’ve found endings before. This one might actually work, though.) If I’m right, it’s still about 20,000 words away and this will be the longest book I’ve written by a mile. I like short books personally, but I’m tired of fighting with this one, so a long book it will be. Either way, this morning I was running down my checklist of characters who need proper endings (eight of them — so many, too many!) and I realized that for the first time, I actually know what happens to each and every one of them and that was a remarkably satisfying feeling. So back to Grace I go.

Gunter Hill, Alabama and Granola

27 Monday Mar 2017

Posted by in Campground, Food

≈ 6 Comments

River view

The view from the window. More peaceful in reality, where I seem to look past the trees without seeing them to the water beyond.

From the van window, I see trees and river beyond them, in one of the loveliest, most peaceful views I’ve had in a while. It makes me wish that I regularly took pictures of the view out the window and put them in an album, dated, so that I could go back and figure out exactly when I had last had a nicer view. The one at Sanders Cove, the last Army Corps of Engineers campground I stayed at, was definitely close. Well, and that one had much, much better sunsets—my window faced directly west and the sun set over the lake—so I guess I’ll give it the win.

It makes me think that the ACOE are pretty good at laying out campgrounds. Obviously, not every site can be great, but this campground, like Sanders Cove, has the sites with a view positioned so that even though there are campers on either side of me, none of us are blocking the others’ views of the river. I should find out the name of the river, but it feels very Tom Sawyer — green and brown and still, a lazy, peaceful river that deserves to have rafts made out of wood floating down it. Haven’t seen any of those, but the fishing boats are small motor boats instead of big cruisers. (I’m not finding out the name of the river because my internet connections are abysmal: slower than molasses. I’m trying to find that peaceful, rather than annoying, with mixed success.)

I’m baking granola again: this time at 275, instead of 250, and with 30 minute stretches between stirring, rather than 20. This time I added sliced almonds, took out the dates, upped the cinnamon, and added some salt. I think I upped the coconut oil inadvertently, but I suspect that if I’m really going to start making my own granola, I’ll be playing with this recipe quite a lot. And I think I probably am going to start making my own granola. While I’m not sure there’s any economic advantage—the ingredients are still not cheap—I like the control. Every morning… hmm, this story requires more background.

So I have a theory about happiness. Actually, I have many theories about happiness. But this theory is relevant to granola. 🙂 I believe that happiness is woven from four threads: awareness, acceptance, appreciation, and anticipation, and that it’s something you can get better at with practice. When I eat breakfast in the morning, I like to practice. Yes, I practice happiness. I know it sounds ridiculous. Bear with me.

Breakfast these days is mostly yogurt with granola and fruit. I used to eat leftovers for breakfast but that doesn’t work as easily in the van—it’s hard to cook in quantities to create leftovers because I just don’t have the storage space. So for the past six months or so, most breakfasts have been the same thing. When you eat the same thing every day, it’s easy to stop noticing it. Who pauses to savor the cereal they eat every day, after all?

But that makes breakfast a really good chance to practice happiness. Before I take that first bite, I try to remember to anticipate: is this going to be good yogurt? Will it blend well with the granola? How are those blueberries going to taste? And as I take the first few bites, I really try to experience them. To notice if the yogurt is the perfect blend of tangy and sweet, or not. To feel the blueberries in my mouth and their burst of flavor. To acknowledge the crunch of the granola, its texture on my tongue and cheeks, its taste. And then I try to accept whatever the reality is, and appreciate it no matter what. Maybe the blueberries are not the best. They’re out of season and their flavor is bland, or they’re over-ripe and squishy instead of popping. But still, even not-very-good blueberries are a luxury, a fresh taste that I’m lucky to have. And then I get to anticipate tomorrow’s breakfast, when maybe I’ll have a different fruit, maybe banana or strawberries.

And yes, the cynic in me finds this entirely silly. But the me that’s living my life (the me that’s choosing happy over right) has discovered that starting the day by practicing happiness over breakfast makes for good days. I like beginning my day with a buzz of contentment flowing through me, a reminder of pleasure and joy. And honestly, I like it a lot better when the three pieces of my breakfast are actually really, really good. When my thoughts go something more like “Oh, yum, I love this yogurt, this is so GOOD,” rather than “Huh, I wonder how much sugar is in this, I should have read the label, but I will appreciate it nonetheless.” It’s all well and good to practice happiness, but it’s so much easier to do a good job at it when the ingredients are all positioning me for success.

And so, back to granola: I’m not sure how many different gluten-free granolas I’ve tried over the past six months. Ten? Twelve? I almost never buy the same one twice, because they’ve all got good parts and bad parts. There are some that I’ve actively disliked and I’ve mostly eaten them anyway. Getting good at happiness isn’t about finding perfection in life, it’s about being able to appreciate what I have. I did throw away one that I really disliked because being smart about happiness also does mean changing the things that really don’t work for me. But mostly the granola is neutral in my breakfast savoring, there because I need the calories to keep me going through the morning.

But the granola I made became something I could think about. My appreciation was… eh, lukewarm. The oats were sort of flaky, somehow. They had a texture that wasn’t quite finished. But they improved as they got a little stale, so maybe I just needed to bake them a little longer. And the dates were terrible, so solid that they crunched instead of being chewy. And it was missing something, which I finally realized was a sprinkle of salt. By the time I finished the granola, this morning, it had gotten really good, maybe not the best granola I’d eaten in the past six months, but pretty darn close. (I picked out the dates and added a little salt, as well as the aforementioned staleness.)

So yeah, wasn’t that a long-winded way of saying that I think I’ll keep making granola? In my practice of happiness, it really tilts the odds in my favor to be able to love my breakfast, to start the day thinking, “Wow, that was excellent,” and to have my appreciation all be about the greatness of the experience, rather than how fortunate I am to have the first-world problem of not quite loving my fresh fruit.

In other news, I can’t believe that I just spent so much time writing about granola and happiness. Writing on Grace went well yesterday. Actual progress, I think. I’ve got one more day at this campground with its inspiringly peaceful view, so I should be working on Grace right now, seeing how much farther I can get.

Happy Monday!

Edited to change Cedar Lake to Sanders Cove — got my campgrounds mixed up! 

T. O. Fuller State Park, Memphis

25 Saturday Mar 2017

Posted by in Campground, Grace

≈ 6 Comments

Those flowers are called spring beauty according to a sign I saw at Crater of Diamonds. Appropriate, since it is very much spring here!

If you like the sounds of planes, trains, automobiles, and even a bit of heavy machinery, this is the park for you. Me, I slept like a baby last night–awake at least once every hour–and I am seriously cranky as a result. (R was not a good sleeper. He didn’t consistently sleep longer than two hours in a row until he was two and a half, so I understand “sleep like a baby” somewhat differently than people with more peaceful children.)  Fortunately the dogs are tolerant.

To be fair, for a park in an urban setting, it’s really pretty impressive. The park is only about fifteen minutes from downtown Memphis, but it’s surrounded by forest. There’s a four and a half mile hike that goes around the park; an interactive nature center; a Native American museum; laundry facilities; and a pretty reasonable shower. And it’s close to empty so I got to pick my space. The sliding door looks out onto wilderness and there’s a fire pit with grill, a grill, and a picnic table. An abundance of riches! A person who slept better than I did would be enjoying it.

Plus, of course, it’s really close to downtown Memphis and all the things there are to do there. The ranger gave me a brochure and I could be going to art museums, music halls of fame, clubs and barbecue spots — I am missing one of the top barbecue places in the country, apparently! But yes, I am missing them all, because I am working on Grace and feeling grumpy. Maybe next time…

Crater of Diamonds State Park

24 Friday Mar 2017

Posted by in Campground, Grace, Travel

≈ 2 Comments

Crater of Diamonds PanoramaI looked out over the vast expanse of dirt that makes up the diamond mine at Crater of Diamonds State Park yesterday and thought, “Yeah, no, this is not for me.” I might have mentioned (once, twice, a thousand times?) that I do not like dirt. The thought of going out into a field of the stuff — some of it muddy, some of it dry and dusty — and doing anything other than leaving quickly just seemed… not me.

But I was there, so I did it anyway. And it was surprisingly fun, like some combination of meditation and playing the lottery. I didn’t find any diamonds — or even any shiny, sparkly stones, no amethyst or quartz — but I found lots of pretty orange jasper and I listened in on loads of fun conversations. My favorites were the two boys planning how to divide their spoils, but the kids digging the biggest hole ever were pretty darn cute, too.

In fact, I liked it so much that I went back and did it again this morning. I think my chances of finding a diamond would probably have been better if I’d rented the strainers and buckets and tools but I really enjoyed just messing around, breaking apart big pieces of dirt and finding pretty stones inside. One of the conversations I eavesdropped on this morning was a guy talking about how the sapphire mine in Montana is more fun because most people actually find sapphires and I am so going to do that when I get to Montana. Despite the dirt. Or maybe because of it.

I liked the campground even more than the diamond fields. (Thanks for the recommendation, Carol!) It was a really nice layout, lots of distance between sites, and a real sense of privacy. From the sliding door of the van, I could see nothing but forest. This morning I ate breakfast (yogurt, granola, and delicious blueberries — perfectly ripe, so that they popped in my mouth instead of deflating, the way that mediocre blueberries do) sitting outside and watched a deer bounding away through the trees. It really was bounding, too. Or maybe bouncing? Three big leaps and then it disappeared. And there was a great walking trail, the Little Missouri River Trail, which was half dirt path through the woods, and half paved walkway along the river. Peaceful and pretty and scenic.

I’d only been able to get a reservation for one night at the campground, though, so after breakfast and digging in the dirt and a nice lunch (grilled cheese and tuna on gluten-free bread and an apple of a type I’d never had before, Lady Alice, that tasted almost flowery sweet), we headed out.

I know exactly how what happened next happened. It was me not being careful about double-checking what the GPS in the van was telling me to do. I really should know better by now. But the GPS wanted to take me down a road that was closed, so I asked it for a detour. It gave me a detour. A big detour. Instead of being in Mississippi, I’m now in Memphis, Tennessee. By the time I figured out what had happened, we were so far along the northern route home that I just sort of shrugged and took it.

Between kayaking, digging for diamonds, and driving many hours, I haven’t gotten much writing done in the past few days. But I think maybe that was my subconscious at work, too. I gave my current version of Grace to a writing friend last week. She’s not the kind of friend who would ever say “Give up ” but if it bored her, she wouldn’t finish it. And if she had issues with it, I’m pretty sure she’d tell me about them. Even if she didn’t, silence would be as meaningful to me as any criticism. Obviously, it shouldn’t be—letting a single person’s opinion discourage one is a terrible attitude for a writer—but… Well, anyway, she got back to me today and told me that I have to finish the book because I can’t leave her hanging. And that she was humming “Kiss the Girl” all day yesterday, which makes me smile. So tomorrow is going to be a writing day and I think my plan will be to have two big driving days over the next week — one to get me deep into Alabama and then the next to bring me back to Florida — rather than lots of short hops. That way I just might get some good writing in on the days when I’m not driving. One can hope, anyway!

Lake Catherine Redux

22 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by in Campground, Reviews

≈ 8 Comments

sunrise on Lake CatherineSomehow four days have gone by and I have to leave Lake Catherine today.

I would rather not.

I would like to move in here, to sit in my campsite and listen to the kids playing (so many kids! so much laughter!), to wander around the park and hike on its trails and kayak on its lake for, I don’t know, forever? I guess I’d get bored eventually. But I haven’t even done the hard hikes yet! And I only kayaked once!

I’m not sure how the past three days passed so quickly. They were the kind of days where one moment flows seamlessly into the next, where you never think, “What should I do now?” because there always feels like an obvious next thing to do.

Obvious next things included some cooking: granola (made, for future reference, with oats, pecans, pine nuts, chopped dates, dried cranberries, dried blueberries, coconut oil, maple syrup, honey, and cinnamon); a mushroom and asparagus omelette with hollandaise sauce; a spicy veggie hash topped with a fried egg; grilled chicken breast marinated in yogurt and herbs on mixed greens; and chicken salad with veggies and lime. Also a delicious cantaloupe with prosciutto one day; strawberries and yogurt with my granola every morning; baby carrots and celery with avocado ranch dressing for snacks… yes, I ate well. I mostly do, anyway, but… well, once before I questioned whether I am happy when I am cooking creatively or whether I cook creatively when I’m happy. I don’t know the chicken-and-egg relationship of those two things, but the happiness/food circle was definitely in full flow.

Another obvious next thing was some cleaning. The pollen here is so incredible that everything gets coated with a sheen of yellow powder in about two hours, so I’ve been steadily dusting. But also I desperately need to do laundry, so I took the opportunity of having an almost empty clothes cupboard to clean it out and re-organize. I was grateful to find no sign of mice. Less grateful when I did the same thing to the top drawers in the bathroom and kitchen because there was plenty of evidence of mice in them, grr… I also washed the incredibly dirty van, most of it with just a jug of water, no soap, and a dishcloth that is likely to never be clean again, but all the windows with Windex. Plus swept and washed dishes, rearranged the dog’s beds, changed the sheets… the usual sort of cleaning stuff.

Lots of walks, mostly with Zelda. Mostly just meandering around the campground, but we hiked on the shortest trail — 2 miles — on Sunday and it was terrific. It was hilly and narrow, running along a stream, with occasional bits steep enough or slippery enough that I regretted wearing sandals instead of sneakers or my hiking boots. About halfway through, Zelda was done, so I had to persuade her along for awhile, by walking out to the end of her leash, then crouching until she came to me, rubbing her ears and telling her how good she was, then doing the same thing all over again. I should probably not have made that our third walk of the day.

Eventually, the path led to a small waterfall with lots of kids playing. Zelda walked in the water for a while and perked right up. At the end of the trail there was a bridge that reminded me of nothing so much as the one on Tom Sawyer’s island, wobbly and shaky and so, so fun. In fact, this park in general reminds me of Tom Sawyer’s island. There are packs of kids running around everywhere — also biking, skateboarding, scootering — and it sure seems like they’re making friends with other campers, not just hanging out with people they know. They’re really cute. One of my neighbors has that perfect kid laugh, an uninhibited gurgle of joy. I love the sound of it.

And today I kayaked. I should have tried sooner, but I wasn’t sure about the walk to the water. The kayak is something like 35 pounds and unwieldy. My site is far enough away that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get it to the water’s edge — well, and more to the point, it would be annoying to get there and then be too tired to have fun on the water. Plus, then there’s the getting back to the camper part. But I should not have so underestimated myself. Not only did I make it to the water, no problem, I had fun kayaking.

I brought Zelda with me, and made her wear her life jacket. I wish I’d been willing to risk my phone to take a picture of her because she was adorable. She was not sure about the kayak for a while, but eventually she settled into hanging over the side, her front paws in the water, and let me paddle. It was gloriously beautiful. At one point, a butterfly fluttered by — yellow and black, not one that I recognized at all — and I thought, “I am on a lake. In Arkansas. Kayaking. With butterflies.” Which sure seems like stating the obvious, except — I’m in Arkansas! I feel like I should be pinching myself regularly. Not that Arkansas was some dream destination of mine, but maybe it should have been. It’s lovely. I think it’s more that I can’t believe this is my life right now.

Possibly one of my very favorite things about Arkansas is that a great many small boys, ranging from reasonably little — 4? — to reasonably big — 12?, inform me that they like my dog. They’ll be walking by or riding their bikes and they don’t say hi or anything, they just call out, “I like your dog!” After the fourth or fifth time, I finally settled on my response, which is to call back, “Thank you, I do, too!” But it is so endearing. I’ve had some nice conversations with the ones moving more slowly, about spring break and fishing and their own dogs, and that’s been fun, too.

So yeah, I like it here. But off I go, because a) I have to be back in Florida in ten days and b) I have a reservation tonight at Crater of Diamonds which sounds so incredibly cool and c) my time is up and the campground is full.

But it is with a definite sigh of regret. Two thumbs up for Lake Catherine State Park. Oh, but their showers — you get no control over water temp or pressure! You push a button and the water flows for a minute or two. Hot and hard, so I’m not complaining, but I definitely wasted my first minute or two trying to figure out how to make it not quite so hot. Doesn’t change my two thumbs up at all — this place is paradise (a perception helped by the absolutely fantastic weather of the last few days) — but it definitely struck me as notable!

Lake Catherine State Park, Arkansas

19 Sunday Mar 2017

Posted by in Campground, Grace, Randomness, Serenity, Travel

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I’m sitting outside, computer in my lap, both dogs roaming around in the piles of dead leaves around me. The sun is shining, there’s a cool breeze off the lake blowing wisps of hair into my face, the birds are incredibly noisy, and I am feeling supremely content. The only improvement in my mood would be if I could write myself through this stupid scene in Grace. Actually, the major improvement in my mood would be if I could finish Grace and move to some other project, but enough said about that.

Yesterday, I left Oklahoma reasonably early and took the scenic drive to Arkansas. The first part was by far the most exciting: the road that my GPS took me down—well, up, really—was a logging road. Dirt and gravel, narrow and steep. It was ten minutes of thinking, “Oh, shit, what happens if I run into someone else on this road?” And then I did run into someone else, two someone elses, in fact!

Fortunately, I was on the side that could tuck into the hill, so I pulled over as far as I could without winding up crunched and they passed by on the scarier side, waving at me as they did. But the adrenaline and the excitement and the… the sheer FUN of the uncertainty was great. I was so worried that the road was going to come to an abrupt end and I would have to figure out how to turn around or how to back all the way down. Backing all the way down would have been disastrous. And then when it let me out onto this itty-bitty two-lane road, which turned out to be the scenic highway, I was so pleased. I stopped at a bunch of scenic vistas and took pictures of clouds. Look, more clouds!

Clouds on the Talimena scenic highwayI had just enough glimpses beyond the clouds that it was obvious that it was a really, really pretty road. In better weather. Someday, I will try again.

Arkansas, meanwhile, has been delightful. I emerged from the clouds into sunshine and spring, just as I’d hoped. For a lot of the drive, the woods alongside the road were simultaneously autumn and spring — lots of trees that hadn’t lost their orange and red leaves from fall yet, interspersed with pink plum trees. (I think plum trees.) But very lovely.

Because I needed dog food, I wound up coming all the way down to Hot Springs, and then beyond to Lake Catherine State Park. (Zelda will consistently eat Fresh Pet and their website lets me know where I can find it locally, but it’s not always available within a 50 mile range. I couldn’t find it in Oklahoma or my first stop in Arkansas, Mena, so I kept driving until I did.) The park had one campsite available, because of a cancellation, and it was available for four days, so I took it. And here I sit, ridiculously cheerful.

It’s the sun, I think. Well, and also, the campground is packed with happy families having fun camping, which is enjoyable to listen to. There’s water (surprise, a lake at the Lake Catherine park!), and trails, and people with boats, and kids on bikes and skateboards and it feels like… Spring? Vacation? Joy. It feels like joy.

Last night, I sat in Serenity watching other people’s flickering campfires and smelling wood smoke and appreciating the bare branches of trees against the dark sky with its sprinkling of stars. This morning, the sunrise was golden-orange against the same dark branches. I couldn’t find gluten-free granola in any of my most recent stores, so I’m baking some of my own and the van smells delicious, of coconut oil and baked oats and cinnamon. I’ve got a Verizon signal, but no T-mobile, so my internet is very limited, but I will still be able to talk to R today. The previous campers left behind a rawhide chew, so Z is having a very good time burying it in the leaves, then moving it to another spot and burying it again. All these little random pieces, they add up to happiness.

And now I have to open up Grace and ruin my mood. *sigh. But I’m going to give it one hour, timed, and then I’m going to do other things: a hike, maybe; dragging out the kayak, maybe; making myself some delicious lunch, maybe. Maybe all three!

Sanders Cove

15 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by in Campground, Personal, R, Travel

≈ 6 Comments

On Sunday, I was chatting with R and he asked me how I was doing. For some reason, maybe because it was R, maybe because he sounded genuinely interested, maybe just because of the space I was in, I opened my mouth to answer, “Great,” and instead, “I’m really getting tired of camping,” slipped out.

There was a pause. And then he said, ever so politely, “How unfortunate.”

I laughed.

Yes, it is unfortunate to get tired of camping when one lives in a camper. I wrote to a friend recently that I’m one of those sensible campers who, when it gets too uncomfortable, says, “Okay, it’s time to go home now.” Ah, yes, home. That would be right where I am, right? Which at the time was a crowded campground in the dreary rain.

Fortunately, yesterday I left said campground and headed north. I was a little worried about the drive: I’ve been aiming for two hours between destinations but yesterday was five. I shouldn’t have worried. Five hours is actually better than two, I think, because somewhere past two hours but before three, I hit the fun driving zone where being on the road started to feel like an adventure again. I was driving through cute little Texas towns — Athens, Paris — and along roads with real ranches. Also roadkill galore — dead deer, skunks, armadillos. Younger R used to get upset about the roadkill in Florida, but northern Texas has Florida beat by a mile. Or maybe their vultures aren’t as efficient. And so many places with lawn statues for sale! Bugs on bicycles, giant dinosaurs, all kinds of fun stuff. I drove through a town called Canton that obviously has an incredible flea market (on the first weekend of the month), with probably a mile of road that felt like an event waiting to happen. A ghost flea market.

In Paris, I stopped for groceries.  Google let me know that I had a choice between two local stores or Walmart, so of course I went to one of the local stores. Wrong choice, I guess, but at least I didn’t need much. The dog food was $16.99 (instead of the $12.99 I usually pay); the only granola that was gluten-free was actually Chex Mix; and I should have read the label on the yogurt before I bought it because I took one bite this morning, and only then discovered that the second ingredient is sugar. Oh, well. They did have these mega packs of meat that I wavered over for a while: $19.95 for four or five packages of different things — pork, chicken, ground beef. If I had a bigger freezer, I might have gone for it. Generally speaking, though, it was not a grocery store conducive to the shopping habits of a single person on a restrictive diet. I bought myself some spice gum drops as a consolation prize and even they were a disappointment. (I can’t remember if I mentioned this before but HEB, another local Texas store, has the best spice gumdrops I have ever tested. They might have spoiled me for all other versions.) It was still fun, though. In the past month, I’ve been to Trader Joe’s, CostCo, and Walmart, because they had things that I needed/wanted. But they’re all alike. Trader Joe’s in Texas might as well be Trader Joe’s in Florida or in California. Wandering around someplace different was good for me.

Post grocery store, I continued north to my campground. It’s my first Army Corps of Engineers campground and what a pleasant surprise. I’m not particularly good at researching my campground destinations. It takes a ton of time, it uses up my precious internet data at an appalling rate, and I haven’t figured out my priorities yet. Does a good view beat a level spot? Sometimes. Is proximity to the showers good or bad? It depends. Most everything feels like “it depends” to me, except space between campers (the more the better) and access to nature. I would never have figured out how nice this campground was from the internet because one of its advantages is that it’s really hilly. The sites are terraced up the hill, so that they all get a wonderful view of the lake. And it’s still winter here! Unlike southern Texas, the trees are mostly bare, with the occasional exception of a white flowering tree that might be a sweet olive. I can’t say for sure, because I haven’t gotten close enough to smell them and it is so cold — 37 degrees when I was walking Zelda this morning — that the smell isn’t carrying on the breeze. Or maybe I’m just too congested to tell.

But my window looks directly west, over the lake. Last night, my neighbors down the hill from me were sitting out around their table, chatting with one another. I felt sort of silly as I kept opening the window to take picture after picture of the scene behind them, because they were looking toward me. But I also wanted to call down to them, “turn around, turn around, look at what’s behind you.” It was the most beautiful sunset I’ve seen in weeks.

sunset at Sanders Cove in Texas

No filter, no enhancement. It was really that beautiful.

Last night, I left all the windows in the van uncovered. In most campgrounds, it feels… vulnerable, I guess, to be sitting in the camper with the darkness all around me. When it gets dark, I put the covers over the windshield and front windows, close the blinds on the kitchen window, pull down the shades over the side windows, hang up a magnetic curtain over the sliding door window, and pull the shower curtain in the back. It’s part of the evening routine, usually done before washing all the dishes and taking the trash out. But I didn’t bother last night. Instead I went to sleep looking at the stars in the black sky, between the bare branches of trees.

So this morning — ridiculously early — I woke up when it got light. Not light because of the sunrise, light because of the full moon. Zelda thought it was probably time to get up and it took me a while to convince her that no, we were not going outside in the not-quite-freezing cold to walk. I wanted to say “walk in the dark” but it really wasn’t dark. The light wasn’t warm, it was a cool blue light, but it was definitely bright enough that we could have wandered around the campground without worrying about tripping or running into things.

When we finally did get up, at sunrise instead of moonrise, the moon was still in the sky. So were huge flocks of birds. I have no idea what the birds were, but hundreds of them flew overhead, close enough that I could hear the beating of their wings, like taffeta rustling. They were sort of quacky birds, not cheeping or trilling, but I don’t think they were ducks. As I’m writing, another huge flock is floating down the river. They’re white — sea gulls, maybe? Geese? I’m going to have to try to get a closer look, because I really can’t tell. They’re just white dots drifting along the blue water. The flock this morning was the typical dark spots against the sky, definitely not geese because they were much too small.

Between the sunset, the stars, the moon, the birds, the water — well, and most likely, the fact that it did not rain yesterday and might not today either! — I am, at least for today, no longer tired of camping.