Category Archives: Travel

The pros of the apocalypse

19 Monday Dec 2016

Posted by in Depression, Florida, Grace, Travel

≈ 2 Comments

I’m camping in Blue Springs State Park this week, famed as a home to manatees in winter time. I’ve visited this park before as a day visitor, more than once, so it’s not new to me. But this morning while I was walking Zelda, I was imagining myself in a post-apocalyptic world. The kind where plague has taken all the people, not zombies. I wasn’t scared, it just felt incredibly empty. Every other time I’ve been here, there have been lots of people, but of course, that was never before dawn. Then I spotted some manatees in the water and got much more cheerful, because probably if the human beings all died out, the manatees would have a much better chance of surviving. The pros of the apocalypse.

Last night, it rained. My weather app — which honestly, seems fairly useless, except for the immediate weather — had been claiming rain for days, including an entire afternoon of lightning and thunder yesterday, but it didn’t happen until 4:43 AM this morning. I can be so precise about the time because I woke up and it had barely started, a little tap-tap-tap on the roof of Serenity, but as I lay there wondering what that noise was, it really started. It went very quickly from tapping to torrential, which sounds a lot like being inside a drum. Or maybe a heart beat. I haven’t had nearly enough rain in Serenity, because I do enjoy it so much. Last night, I could hear the difference in the sounds of the rain hitting the roof and the rain hitting the plastic vents over the fans. It was music, definitely. Albeit slightly boring music after ten minutes or so. Plenty of rhythm, but a lack of harmony.

Despite the rain and the bleak apocalyptic thoughts, I’m really happy to be here. Right now, I can see a cardinal sitting on a branch outside my open door. There have been squirrels darting through the trees—or maybe one very busy squirrel. I’m surrounded by trees and greenery. It’s definitely not the most peaceful park I’ve spent time in—the train tracks must be incredibly close because wow, the trains are loud when they rumble through—and there must be some kind of construction going on nearby because there was a lot of heavy equipment moving around, including those annoying backup beeps, earlier this morning. But it’s not a parking lot, it’s a park.

I spent the last two weeks sitting in a campground that was a parking lot: trailers on either side of me, nothing separating me from my neighbors, and my view consisting entirely of people stuff. My goal was to finish Grace or give up. I did neither. I didn’t get very far, but I did come up with a new ending and a new plan, so I’ll be persisting. But I did learn that I should really, really not sit still for so long in a place that doesn’t inspire me.

While I don’t seem to get a lot of writing done on the days that I’m moving from place to place and planning moves takes energy that I could be putting into writing, my level of depression rose steadily over the past couple weeks. Or my mood sank steadily? And the trap that is depression was sucking me in: I knew I was starting to feel bleak but I lacked the energy and motivation to make a change. It’s really only today — gloomy apocalyptic thoughts and all — that I’ve been able to wake up and realize how much I had lost my joy. That’s because having a cardinal sitting on a branch avoiding the rain brings it back. I don’t want to live in places where I have to search to find the beauty, even if they are cheap.

Of course, that does mean that I should earn some money and that means that I should be writing Grace right now. So off to do it! It’d be nice if I could get out of the scene I’m in and back to a scene with Grace and Noah together. Not that I know what happens in that next scene, but I’m a lot more likely to find out if I keep writing than if I wait for inspiration to hit.

 

Owls are cool

15 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by in Florida, Grace, Randomness, Serenity

≈ 2 Comments

I saw an owl this morning. Two of them, really, although the second one was a black blur on the wind. I wouldn’t have recognized it as an owl if it were not flying in collusion with the first one. And the first one… well.

It flew across the sky in the pre-dawn light, clearly a bird. Clearly a big bird. My brain had to process. What is that bird? In Florida, the default on a big bird is vulture. That’s what we’ve got the most of. But this bird didn’t say vulture to me. The wings were wrong. The flight was so smooth, such a glide, so quiet. Eagle? No. Hawk? No. Falcon?

The bird settled on a tree branch and finally my brain — in my defense, it was early, before coffee — put together the flight, the time of day, the size of the bird, its silhouette on the tree branch, and the calls of Whoa-whoa-whoa-whooooo that I was hearing and said, “Owl.”

Actually, it was more like my brain said, “Owl. Owl, owl, owl, owl, OWL!” I’ve seen them in captivity and I’ve seen them in photographs and once or twice, I’ve seen one in the wild from a far distance when someone else has pointed it out to me, but this was my first real close-up of a wild owl. And then another one flew by, and the first one joined it and they tried a different tree. I tried to follow them, but they moved again, out of the campground and deeper into the fenced-off forest that surrounds the campground, and I resumed walking my dog. But my morning no longer felt prosaic and dusty, but a little bit magical.

Owls are cool.

In other news, I’ve been having the most amazing time writing. Not, alas, writing Grace. But approximately 16 days ago, I got impatient and frustrated with myself and I decided that every day — every single, solitary day — I would write 1000 words of fiction. Not careful polished words, not words where plot and characterization mattered, not words that built to something, that were part of some larger whole, just… words. Quick sketches. Snippets of scenes. Bits and pieces of story. But a thousand of them every day.

I missed one day, because it was a moving day. That was the day I left Trimble Park and spent the night in my dad’s driveway, so it included cleaning and organizing, drying and stowing the kayak, loading up the camper, and then much sociability. Apparently I just didn’t even think about writing that day. But every other day for the past two weeks, I have written 1000 words and wow, I have been having so much fun with them! There is something about the freedom to write terrible words, the joy of pointless words, that has let me get madly creative. Most of the words have been starts to stories, world-building that goes nowhere, but I’ve had magic and vampires and dramatic confrontations, children of the gods and immortal courts and SO. MUCH. FUN.

I’m trying not to stress about the future. A writer who only starts things and never finishes them is really never going to earn a living, even if she’s trying to subsist on ramen noodles and other people’s driveways. And I’m still working on Grace every day, even though what mostly seems to happen is that I have a great time writing for a few hours and then grimly open the Grace file about mid-afternoon and stare at it until I can escape into feeding and walking the dogs. But yesterday I actually had some Grace insight and my 1000 words of fiction included several hundred on Grace, so maybe today…

Reptile Heaven

01 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by in Florida, Travel

≈ 2 Comments

I built a campfire the other night, right before sunset. While the sun slid down into the water, which rippled with pink and purple and rose and gold reflected light, and the sky gradually grew dark, I watched the flames flicker and leap. Doesn’t that sound lovely?

It would have been if I hadn’t spent so much energy worrying about alligators. My campsite is right next to the water and the fire pit is about eight feet away from the edge of the shore.

I don’t know what my thing is about the alligators. I mean, yes, the dogs are the perfect size to be alligator meals, and yes, alligators are actually much faster than they look when they’re resting, and yes, they’ve got the whole dinosaur, primeval, lumpy reptile thing going on…

But still, people don’t often lose their pets to wandering ‘gators.

And while this park definitely has alligators in it — I’m fairly sure I saw an eye peering out of the water at me the other day and my neighbors claimed they’ve seen one clearly — the alligators are just as likely — more likely, actually! —  to be small. Two foot long alligators, not ten foot long. Rodent-eaters, not dog-eaters.

In the darkness, though, the water felt much too close.

At one point — and this was rather cool — I thought I saw a shadow by the edge of the water. Not an alligator shadow, an animal shadow. Like a cat. I told myself I was imagining things, and then the shadow started moving. It was on the other side of the fire and it wandered by the edge of the water, a dark motion against darkness. For a couple minutes, when I wasn’t sure whether it was really there or not, I thought of fae and fantasy, creatures out of Patricia Brigg’s novels or JK Rowling. Then it moved enough into the light that I was sure it was real and I decided it was probably a raccoon.

Yesterday my neighbors found a snake in their campsite. I am 90% sure that it was a garter snake, but the dad told the kids it was venomous, maybe just to make sure they stayed away from it. Why take chances, after all?

And when I was walking Zelda, we came upon a turtle in the road. It immediately stopped being a turtle and started being a dark green and yellow rock, head and feet drawn inside. Zelda was more curious about why I was stopping our walk to take a picture then she was about the turtle. I guess turtles don’t smell as interesting to dogs as Spanish moss does.

I also had to chase a little lizard out of the kayak. It wasn’t an anole, which I’m used to seeing everywhere. Instead it was brown and patterned. If I had more data, I’d try to find out what it was, but as it is, I think of it as mystery lizard. I considered taking it kayaking with me, but decided that it probably wouldn’t be very happy and if it fell in the water, I’d feel guilty.

This morning, while walking Z, I saw another critter in the woods. No idea what it was, except maybe a very big armadillo? It was far enough away that I didn’t get a good look at it, and moving quickly, but the silhouette looked wrong for every animal in my mental repository of Florida appropriate animals. Including armadillo. Anteater and tapir were the shapes that came to mind.

So yes, animals. Reptiles. Great campground. I love all the little moments of excitement that random strange animals bring into my life.

Today’s plan — some writing, hopefully lots of it, some kayaking, probably not enough of it, and then a relative visit in the evening to see the Christmas lights go on and listen to Christmas music. Tomorrow I’m on the road again, although headed nowhere in particular.  I can’t believe it’s December already. I am as frustrated as can be that I’m still making no progress on Grace, back to wondering whether someday I just need to give up. But today won’t be the day.

The epitome of the everyday

28 Monday Nov 2016

Posted by in Personal, Serenity, Travel

≈ 6 Comments

I posted a picture of this morning’s sunrise, completely unedited, to Instagram using my phone. (You can see it on the side of the blog, in that Instagram widget, if you don’t use Instagram. I’d post it here but I’m out of data for the month on my internet plan.) It was so pure — the sun sliding up the horizon, completely unencumbered by clouds. The sunset last night was amazing in a totally different way—lots of clouds, lots of layers, many shades of purple and red, going on for what felt like forever. And the sunrise yesterday morning was pretty nice, too. The night before, sunset, also spectacular. Sunrise that day, also lovely.

Sunset and sunrise are so ordinary. We all get them, every single day. They are the epitome of the everyday, in fact. Ha. And yet, in my current life, I spend so much time appreciating them. It’s something about being in new places all the time. Well, okay, also sunsets (and rises) over water are twice as spectacular as the ones without water. It’s the reflection that does it, of course. And when you’re sitting on a bench next to a fire pit watching the sky while a giant, gawky bird with legs longer than its body goes flapping by, awing you with the miracle of flight, appreciation comes easier than when you’re sitting in rush hour traffic, worried if you’re going to make it to the daycare before they start charging $10/minute.

Of course, the corollary to spending more time appreciating sunset and sunrise, water and birds, spider webs and flowers is that I also spend a lot more time wondering how I’m going to get my laundry done. Or whether the grocery store is going to have coconut milk. Or how to find a vet when the dog has yet another ear infection. It’s like my life is simultaneously sort of ethereal and sublime and also really mired in the daily necessities of existence, much more so than when I lived in a house and the question was just, “Do I need to do laundry?”, not “How am I going to get my laundry done?”

On Saturday, I was walking the dogs with my friend, E. I was crossing the road when I glanced behind me and saw that she and B had paused. I was the one carrying the clean-up bags, so I paused, too, to see if I needed to go back. Z kept going, though, tugging me along, so I took a few slow steps forward. Then I looked around and realized that I was standing on the double yellow lines, in the middle of the road, walking forward along them. It felt… thrilling. There was absolutely no traffic coming, so it didn’t feel dangerous. But the yellow lines beckoned the way ahead of me, like the yellow brick road in the Wizard of Oz.

I said to E, “I don’t think I’ve ever walked on the yellow lines before. I’m not really a middle of the road kind of person. I’m a safely on the side of the road person. Or better yet, a sidewalk person. It’s sort of weird.”

She laughed at me and then her expression changed. I could see her go thoughtful  before she said, “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever walked along the yellow lines either.” So then she joined me in the middle of the road, and we walked down the yellow lines until we reached the corner and another sidewalk. It was ridiculously fun, in the way adventures that aren’t really adventurous can be.

On Friday night, I grilled steak and asparagus and roasted white sweet potato for a simple yet very tasty dinner. On Saturday morning, I made spicy sweet potato hash with a poached egg for breakfast. The sweet potato was orange that time. On Saturday night, I baked chicken thighs with lemon and capers and a little garlic salt, roasted purple sweet potatoes, and made a salad of mixed greens, apple, radish, cucumber, red onion, and a fig balsamic vinegar. Three different meals, three different sweet potatoes, all of them delicious.

I don’t know why those stories felt connected — something about the ordinary, the everyday, the sameness of sweet potatoes at every meal? But I don’t have time to ponder the relationship of adventure and the mundane in my new life anymore. Or to write about loneliness and joy, which was what I was thinking about while I watched the sunrise this morning and which is definitely worthy of a blog post of its own.

Instead, I’m going to solve the problem of getting the dog to a vet, not worry about the laundry, and write at least a few new words on Grace. May all our Cyber Mondays be productive!

Lake Griffin

23 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by in Campground, Travel

≈ 8 Comments

sunrise-at-lake-griffinI’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.

liveoaktree

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!

Lake Louisa

19 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by in Campground, Florida, Reviews, Travel

≈ 2 Comments

This morning’s sunrise was beautiful, supremely lovely, beyond words to describe. The water was still and clear, not a person or a building in sight, and it was cold, so there was mist rising from the water. Enough of a breeze that the mist was drifting by quickly, a fast-paced cloud, and behind it, through it, over it, the sun was slowly changing the color of the sky. It was a pastel rainbow reflected in the water, so beautiful it was literally breathtaking. Surreal. Like being inside one of those scenic photographs that I skeptically think have probably been Photoshopped to death.

And there was a noise from behind me, not quite at the same time, but so loud and so weird that I thought some strange steampunk vehicle must be coming my way. It turned out to be a flock of tiny birds, shadows of black against the sky, spiraling up and away, and squeak, squeak, squeaking like tires desperately in need of some oil.

A huge spider — seriously, huge — had built a perfect web at precisely the distance from the walkway where I could admire how beautiful and precise it was without being completely freaked out by having a huge spider near me. One step forward and it disappeared, one step backward and it did the same, but at exactly the right angle, right position, I could see the fine lines of silk against the backdrop of blue sky.

The water had lily pads, lots of them, but also water grass, and the water grass looked like it ought to be out of some movie about the Jurassic. I’m calling it grass because it was shaped just like grass, flat stalks tapering to a point, but it was huge, probably at least four feet high, and thick as my arm, colored red and green, and when the sun finally rose high enough, golden as the sun hit it.

I should probably just grab my phone and go take some pictures. But it’s too late for the sunrise, and photographs, mine at least, never capture the real beauty of a scene. It would be missing the cool breeze, with air brisk enough that my nose got chilled. And the morning stillness that can encompass noisy birds, rustles in the brush, the occasional splash in the water, and yet still feel silent. And nothing about a photograph would ever convey the sense of awe I felt, the wonder.

Or, for that matter, the growl of my stomach and need to pee that finally motivated me to turn my back on the water and head home to the camper. Although I guess that’s probably just as well, although the idea of virtual reality photographs that convey the biological needs of the photographer really amuses me for some reason.

Anyway, beautiful, beautiful sunrise and Lake Louisa is a spectacular state park. I was only here for the night, but I’d love to come back here and stay longer while the weather is still cool. I was planning to get out of Florida as soon as I finished up some responsibilities and spent Thanksgiving with family, but it’s finally starting to get nice here. Maybe I’ll spend some more time wandering around the state parks instead.

My first county park

07 Monday Nov 2016

Posted by in Campground, Florida, Reviews, Travel

≈ 4 Comments

I am staying at the nicest campground I have experienced in my entire journey. It’s nicer than the state park in Pennsylvania, which was really pretty spectacular, and it’s nicer than the lovely independent campground in Vermont where I was so content, and it’s actually prettier than the state park on the beach in Florida that was recommended to me by multiple people. It might not be prettier than the beautiful campground on the coast in Maine, though.

But! The campsite is dramatically better. Better than all of them. It’s unequivocally the best campsite I’ve had in the past three plus months. It’s got a grill (would that I had charcoal) and a firepit with benches (would that I had firewood) and a view of the water. At the moment, I can’t hear anything but chirping birds and the sound of my fan, but there are also chattering squirrels and the occasional clunk of an acorn hitting the roof of Serenity. It’s serene and mellow but also efficient and ready for fun. I really do wish I had both charcoal and firewood, so I could grill some burgers and then sit around my comfortable fire after it gets dark. This being Florida, I suspect there are probably an insane number of mosquitoes after dark, but I’d pull out the heavy-duty insect repellant, because it would be so worth it. The benches by the fire pit look out over the lake and it’s probably incredible with firelight reflecting off the water as the sun goes down.

Here is a lovely irony about this campground: I’m only here because it’s really close to my dad’s house. When I check out on Wednesday, I’m going to find out how to make reservations for longer periods of time (today I just showed up) and I’m going to do my best to wind up with two weeks here (the longest you’re allowed to stay) at some point in the nearish future. It feels like a very good place to write a book.

And I have just wasted much time trying to upload a picture of the view from my window, but my internet is not obliging. So imagine trees draped with spanish moss, water with spiky grasses and a reflection of grey sky, and two sturdy benches around a fire pit. And I’ll stop wasting my time arguing with the internet — why, oh why, must you be so slow, oh internet? — and move on to writing my real words for the day.

 

 

St. Augustine

03 Thursday Nov 2016

Posted by in Boring, Florida, Pets, WIP

≈ 7 Comments

I am staying at a campground, a state park, on the beach. The lovely ocean with miles of sandy beach is easy walking distance away. And yet, I haven’t touched it and have only seen it once.

Traveling with dogs is totally worthwhile, but also more challenging than I expected. When I say “easy walking distance,” I mean easy walking distance for Zelda and me, not for Bartleby. It would be a long, long walk for him and an even longer walk for me if I wound up carrying him. But that’s irrelevant because dogs aren’t allowed on the beach. If I wanted to go to the beach, I’d have to leave both dogs behind in Serenity.

Want to know what else is not allowed? Leaving your dogs unaccompanied at your campsite. And actually, I’m pretty sympathetic to that one: the chance definitely exists that both dogs would bark in misery the whole time I was gone, if I wanted to leave them, which I don’t.

So I’m at the beach, but not enjoying the beach. Fortunately, I am enjoying my campsite. It’s pretty and big and quiet, tucked back in a corner of a reasonably empty campground. Two nights ago I was a little freaked out by its isolation as I listened to very loud rustling in the bushes, but I finally dug out my flashlight and shone it out on the raccoons climbing the tree about ten feet away from my window. I was then still a little freaked out — raccoons are kind of big when they’re so close and there were two of them — but hey, it wasn’t a bear or a serial killer, so I did relax enough to go to sleep eventually.

I’ve also had some really lovely walks around the campground. There’s a loop called the Ancient Dunes loop, which is supposedly a pleasant half hour walk (presumably for people who aren’t being walked by a fast-paced Jack Russell terrier), but is a fun up-and-down trek on a sandy path through the Florida forest. Lots of mosquitoes, of course, and they do love me, and a few too many spiders who built their webs across the path — sorry, spiders, for destroying all your hard work, and ick, ick, ick, spider webs on me — but it’s so primeval that you can almost imagine yourself in the Jurassic. Well, or at least a few hundred years ago. I think the trees are probably all too small to be good dinosaur territory. And the occasional signs explaining the history and the plants sort of destroy the impression. But it’s still fun to be taking our usual morning walk through such different territory.

 

I haven’t made nearly as much progress on Grace as I was hoping for — it’s been hard to get back into the rhythm that I had going so well in Vero Beach and I swear that the mere existence of NaNoWriMo now causes my writing ability to freeze solid — but I’m hoping for today to be a better day. So hi-ho, hi-ho, off to write I go.

Paying attention to what’s there…

28 Friday Oct 2016

Posted by in Meditation, Personal, Randomness, RV, Serenity, Travel

≈ 7 Comments

I’ve bought a bunch of graphics apps recently — one for my laptop, a couple for my phone — in the hopes of producing better images. But I still forget to take pictures, making the graphics apps a little pointless. Alas.

But this week could have had some good photos. I’ve been doing useful things — doctor’s appointment, service on Serenity, visiting friends — but in between those useful things, I’ve had times when I had no place to go, no place to be. It’s sort of a weird feeling. I can’t decide to go home or back to the campground because I am at home and my home is not situated in a campground. I just have to figure out where home should be, in between movements, if that makes any sense.

The easiest option is always to just find a big parking lot. There are seriously a lot of big parking lots in the world. Walmart, grocery stores, shopping malls… sadly, Trader Joe’s never has big enough parking lots, but I can usually find a parking lot somewhere in which to sit. However, parking lots are mostly boring. (I say mostly because the one I sat in on Saturday for hours and hours had a rescue group looking for homes for puppies. I was too stressed about my dogs to appreciate them, but cute puppies everywhere definitely improves a parking lot.)

This week, however, post-my lovely scenic ocean parking lot, I’ve used my GPS to find the nearest parks. It’s been weird because I’m very close to… well, to what was home. On Monday, I was three minutes away from my old house, because I was visiting my storage unit. I hung out in a park that I spent seven years living not five minutes away from and had never visited. The next day, I went to one that was about five miles away. It was lovely. A beautiful county park, next to a big lake, with boardwalks through old Florida cypress forests. And the whole time I lived here, it was right around the corner and I never knew, never looked…

It’s a good lesson, but I have to admit, I’d still much rather be off exploring parks in new places. I’m doing my best to appreciate where I am — and I do, definitely, appreciate my time with friends and family — but I’m also yearning to be off again. I’ve got things to do in Florida, but I’m pretty sure Texas is calling my name. Soon. First, though, a few more weeks in Florida and a few thousand more words in Tassamara.

 

A Room with a View

24 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by in Randomness, RV, Serenity, Travel

≈ 7 Comments

On Friday, I left my campground in Vero Beach, with some unexpected regret. I really thought that ten days sitting still, all alone, was going to make me totally stir-crazy, but I was completely peacefully happy there. And the writing went so incredibly well — it was writing like I haven’t experienced since, I think, February 2014, which is an awfully specific date, but it was when Fen was spilling out of me like she was writing A Lonely Magic by herself.

I tried to convince myself to wait until the last minute to leave the campground, but that is just not in my nature. When I know I’m going, I need to go, so I packed up early and hit the road. But since I was on the road, I decided we should have a little adventure. I headed for Captain Forster Hammock Preserve, a dog-friendly park that according to Bring Fido included a pleasant 3/4 mile hike to a beach where dogs were allowed. I got lost on the way there and wound up driving on a dirt road for about forty minutes, through mud puddles galore, but eventually found it and took the dogs for a walk. Not, however, a 3/4 mile hike to the beach.

The post-hurricane mud puddles had turned the trails into slip-and-slides, as well as creating perfect breeding grounds for a mosquito world domination plan. When B sat down and refused to go any farther after about twenty minutes — I think we were getting close to the beach, but I couldn’t say for sure — I decided to take his opinion as law, and we turned and headed back to the van.

I’m one of those people with blood that must taste like mosquito ambrosia and as a result, I’m pretty mosquito tolerant. I’ve claimed before that my secret superpower is the ability to defend other people from mosquitoes, because a mosquito will always go for me if it has the option. I’m usually very good at ignoring them. But not even I could ignore those mosquitoes. They were very, very happy to have discovered me, but so prolific that some were even going after the dogs. Still, the park was beautiful. It felt like walking through a jungle, with palm trees and underbrush, but with nice wide paths.

As we headed back inland, I was thinking about the rest of my plans for the day: grocery store, maybe storage unit clean-up,  hanging out in a parking lot until I could meet up with a friend for dinner, and wishing I could really just write instead. Noah’s being so very, very opinionated. Quick example:

She’d neatly sidestepped his earlier question, returning to ridiculous stories about her brother and other people in the town. He hadn’t wanted to call her a liar, but telepathy? Precognition? Auras? Sure, there were people who believed in those things but people believed in astrology and lucky numbers and the dangers of black cats, too. People could be stupid.

He didn’t think Grace was stupid, though.

As I was thinking that, I drove past a… well, sort of a park, I guess? It was a parking lot. With one pavilion and one picnic table and plenty of room for cars. But it was right by the water. Impulsively, I pulled into it and parked, parallel to the water. I got out my computer, and for the next three hours, I wrote to the sound of ocean waves, the smell of sea, and the feel of a cool breeze coming in through the open windows. It was basically paradise.

verobeachroomwithaviewOne of the absolute best things about Serenity, both as an experience and as an aspect of the make of RV I chose (a Winnebago Travato 59K) are her windows. A lot of RVs, especially the smaller ones, are pretty closed up. The wall space is used for storage and appliances and it feels like you’re sitting inside a box. But the Travato 59K has long windows running along the twin beds. In fact, the 59K basically has windows in every single place it’s possible to put a window. Even the bathroom has windows on the doors. When I was looking at it, I liked it because of the light it let in. I thought living in a box would likely be easier if it was a well-lit box. But now that I’ve lived in her for a while, I love it because of the views. I love lying in the bed at night, turning my head two inches to the left to see the night sky. And I love working in my office (the same bed, switching to a perpendicular position) and looking up from the computer to see trees and leaves and… well, sometimes ocean views. In the future, more ocean views, I hope, because although that was the first time I wrote from a parking lot with a view, it will not be the last. Campgrounds with ocean views are too expensive, but parking lots are a bargain.

In other news, Z and B are both sick. I spent the day at the vet on Saturday, emerging precisely $600 poorer. Ironically — or perhaps in just a not-very-amusing coincidence — that was how much I told my brother it would cost the previous day when I was debating whether I needed to take them. Yes, I can predict vet costs! Not a useful skill, really.

And not at all ironically, I was not happy about the results of my visit. Z has been refusing to eat. Not just her kibble but anything. No wet food, no treats, no people food. She rejected rice and roast pork on Friday. The vet ran a bunch of tests, came up with nothing, so sent her home with a bunch of medications and some special food. But since she won’t eat, I couldn’t get her to take either the medications or the food. My big plan for yesterday was to get some chicken and rice and see if she’d take that (nope), and do a bunch more reading about raw diets for dogs. I am somewhat grossed out by the thought of the dogs eating raw chicken in the van — raw chicken, ew! — and I don’t know how I can manage creating the veggie mixes with my tiny fridge, but I think it might be time to try. B, meanwhile, has another ear infection. Yep, life with dogs. Totally worth it, but still frustrating.

And much to my relief, on Monday morning, Z still turned up her nose at the special prescription food, but thought it was definitely time for some of her regular food. Yay! I knew as soon as I woke up that she was better, which was one of those puzzles — how did I know? But I realized after I’d been awake for a while that I knew she was feeling better because she woke me up when she demanded I move the blanket out of the way so that she could come snuggle. That’s the way she generally wakes me up and for the last few days I’d woken up on my own. I would really like not to have to wake up on my own again anytime soon. But I hope I won’t have to.

This week: lots of useful stuff, unfortunately getting in the way of the writing. But seeing some friends, getting a check-up, fixing some stuff that’s wrong with Serenity, spending some time with family — all good stuff. And I hope to squeeze in some more words around the corners.