I spent one night at an iOverlander boondock in the Richloam Wildlife Reserve but it wasn’t that great even though I look pretty self satisfied. The road in was a mess and I had to walk some of it to make sure my 9300 pound GANNET2 wouldn’t get stuck. I had no desire to have to wade through swampy muck to attach my winch to a tree.
The campsite such as it was amounted to nothing more than a wide spot filled with discarded bottles and cans. I picked them up and put them into a pile intending to bag them in the morning.
It looked like a nice evening and we were settled for a quiet night. Two trucks passed by in the dark and I wished them well. I had tried to drive deeper into the forest but I found muddy water filled ruts too uncertain for my traveling home to cross. I backed up quite a ways to get back to the camp site. The trucks, presumably handled by hard core muck drivers, did not reappear. However in the morning things got worse.
We awoke to the sounds of rain. The place was already soaked by the passage of Hurricane Nicole and more water on the ground didn’t make me feel good in my heavy two wheel drive van on soggy ground, getting stuck was not on the agenda. We fled and I forgot to pick up my neatly collected trash! A public gesture gone to waste!
Florida is absolutely packed with public lands. Public beach access is a state law not always enforced with fairness in mind but the state also has nearly 200 state parks and dozens of other roadside places to pull over, like random city and bounty parks and reserves. Add in utility district public lands and wildlife preserves as well as three National Forests and there is much to explore even far from the more famous beaches. The blue spot marks Potts Preserve, free camping with an online reservation.
The campground is vast with scattered picnic tables fire rings and grills. There are quite a few water faucets to water horses labeled “ non potable” but our Berkey water filter handles that problem like a champ so I attached a hose and filled our tank. There was also a vault toilet for me to empty my porta potty. All free and available up to a week at a time. Amazing Florida.
There was some sunshine the three days we were here but mostly it was overcast and damp.
Rusty loves the grass and we took several romantic walks in the woods. He has calmed down a lot since I first got him in 2016 and three hour walks are no longer part of his routine. I hate seeing him age but the gray on his chin means less strenuous times for me…
Rusty and the vault toilet, a gray speck on the horizon in a vast field:
There was another van around the corner and out of sight in another stretch of campground but the occupants never made themselves known when Rusty and I walked that distant part of the field. After they left I was alone for a day. An employee came in a golf cart each weekday at 4:30, circled the field, waved and disappeared. I took cold showers using buckets and the abundant tap water. I read. I watched downloaded movies, the muddy bloody remake of All Quiet On The Western Front. I napped. Bliss.
Thank you Southwest Florida Water Management District for the abundance of camping and the irony of non potable water.
Some disorganized cavalry person forgot their horse blanket. Rusty looked annoyed when I suggested he might like it. We left it where we found it, a huge heavy lump. There’s a cold horse out there somewhere poor thing.
Then Gino from Detroit turned up in an RV he bought on a whim from some guy who inherited it and then his wife got sick of seeing it in the driveway until Gino came by with cash. Gino is a mechanic and tow truck driver and he admits the RV needed some slight work but he bought it for a thousand bucks. He’s been living in it for three years driving all over the place.
I drank rum and then chased it with Busch Lite from Gino’s fridge. I drank one for every three of his but we put the world to rights as we gradually grew less coherent. Rusty kept an eye out for our safety. Happily I had already given him dinner.
Of course this was the night our other CLIQ lounge chair broke. $200 comfortable folding chairs badly made. The little CLIQ chairs work fine but the high backed models seem poorly made. We’re getting replacements but there’s nothing to say they will hold up any better. Sigh. Van life requires portability and it’s a pain.
It was pleasant to spend an evening talking nonsense with my neighbor but beer notwithstanding Rusty and I were on the road by seven in the morning.
I really enjoyed Potts Preserve but we had places to go with the New Orleans airport our goal by Monday the 21st.
Before the break below you see the very comfortable, east to open CLIQ lounge chair. They don’t seem to last.
