I struck my campsite at the Stephen Foster Cultural Center State Park in Warm Springs, FL, Monday morning, 8/23/2201, getting ready to head back to what serves as “Home” these days. Does anything really qualify as “Home” when you’re living either on a boat, vehicle, or tent? Took about three hours to do it.
Fold up the cot. Sit, rest, catch breath.
Lug the Alpicool 12V/110V fridge freezer to the SUV and plug it into the Bluetti Portable Power Station . Sit, rest, catch breath.
Strike Coleman portable table and bag it and put it in the SUV. Sit, rest, catch breath.
Pull up all the stakes and remove rain fly. It’s wet from previous night’s rain so I spread it over the picnic table to dry off. Sit, rest, catch breath.
Collapse tent, roll it up and stuff it in its sack. Shove it under the bed in the SUV and store camp folding camp cot on top. Plenty of room. Sit, rest, catch breath several times.
Fold up rain fly which is mostly dry by now, put it in its bag and toss in bin on trailer hitch carrier that serves as my basement/attic for stuff.
Super sweaty now because it’s hot, muggy and the start of an enervating heat index day. Gather up soap, shampoo, and towel, fold up Coleman camp chair (a wonderful, comfortable thing, by the way) and store it in SUV. Sit, rest, catch breath on the picnic bench before heading off to the showers.
Reading this you should get the idea that being a 79 year old with COPD is a bit of a pain in the pooper.
As I’m heading over to the showers it starts to rain. When I get to the shower building it’s POURING! Back at the SUV I find that where the tent had been is now covered by at least three inches of water!
It rained most of the three and a half hours it took me to drive the back roads to DeBary. Quite glad that I had new wiper blade installed at Jim’s when they replaced the faulty alternator. Oddly, looking at Google Maps, taking the Interstate, macadamized rivers of death, would only have saved me about 20 minutes overall.
Back in the swamp the river’s really up. The gangplank is on an upward incline to the boat where most of the winter it was just the opposite. Went on board, scooped leaves out of the cockpit drain, pushed back the hatch into the cabin. What a mess! A lot of work to be done so I’ve spent the first two nights back in the SUV and probably will for quite a while yet until I get the boat scrubbed up and knock back the mildew that’s formed.
Now I need to get a few things straightened out on the Montero. Get the hitch carrier off and situated. The box will still be a great place to keep extra stuff, though.
It may be a while before there are any more adventures. I have a doctor’s appointment in two weeks. I’ve been having some adverse effects from the new med put me on for the COPD. So there won’t be any “adventures” for the next month and the posts here will be slight. But I’ve gotten a taste for this camping thing again. There are some state parks fairly near by so I think I’ll be visiting them from time to time and will let you know about them.
Ciao.
One More Good Adventure 