General Gun Season

I suppose one could argue that the sandy tracks of the Ocala National Forest are as close as a Florida driver might get to snow. However the main tracks, technically National Forest Roads, are firm and easy to drive as quite a few people have been out here and gone pounding sand with their ATVs and four wheel driver monster vehicles. Then along comes a couple of old pansies in a two wheel delivery van trying to get neither lost nor stuck. We did fine in our unsuitable comfortable home on wheels.

We are nether rock hoppers nor skiers so we decided early on we want nothing to do with the extra cost and complexity of four wheel drive. I am of the opinion that four wheel drive is for four wheel drive experts who want to enjoy the excitement of a thrilling drive and then go to home, hotel or the giant RV to sleep the sleep of the just. Trawling your home through motocross tracks is not my idea of fun. Thick soft sand is a problem and we did slip and slide a little but I got the 10,000 pound van through it with a gentle touch. We have the tools to deflate and reflate the tires for real sand driving and in March we have a date to install a proper front winch to help us recover ourselves if we get stuck. Our vision is having the tools to encourage us to visit lonely sand beaches and. not worry if the heffalump gets stuck in a. sand pit. My wife is looking up off-road driving courses for me to take to learn the basics. I prefer asphalt by far to driving in dirt but needs must...from time to time, and I don't want gravel or dirt backroads to stop us exploring. So we practice!

 

We looked around for a camping spot on the edge of the no hunting Juniper Prairie Wilderness which is open for dispersed camping year round but has no roads to support the wilderness designation and keep vehicles out of the actual wilderness. We found an eminently suitable spot but by some coincidence it was already reserved by the presence of an empty mosquito net tent. It may have been abandoned or not in daily use but we figured it would be mean to park next to it and intimidate the occupants were they to return unexpectedly, so we drove on.

There may have been a second suitable spot and so we drove around looking for a secluded parking place on the edge of the hunt-free wilderness but came up with nothing suitable.  It was mildly annoying as we had been looking forward to stopping in one place for a few days but somehow our vacations end up being more nomadic than even we intend.

I study Google street view and satellite views of the roads and wilderness to try to get an idea of what we might find. I am astonished how few people do that when traveling around the Keys. "Where's the police station?" they ask plaintively on their super duper modern cellphones and never think to ask Google maps to locate "police"  or "hospital" for themselves. However satellite views do not show vertical rise and fall on dirt roads which are not covered by street view! Fortunately Florida is quite flat but even so some of the small sandy hills surprised me when we got on the National Forest Roads. Cameras tend to flatten gradients so the huge dip in the photo below is hidden unless you know it's there.

We could hear gunfire in the distance, often ignored by young Rusty but when he realized the distant popping was shooting he ran for the van. Happily Rusty has come to associate us with safety and he is smart enough to run to us when he is afraid. Besides which I am not keen to get killed by accident so we took limited walks and stayed on the main roads. It was not our time to be in the forest. Quite aside from the usual rain showers and gray skies that accompany most of my days off and make the wilderness less appealing then  bright Florida sun... When I retire I expect Florida will go through a cataclysmic period of sunless rain as every day will be a day off for me and the gods will notice and sent rain as punishment. Next weekend I am working so it should be sunny and very pleasant while I am stuck at my desk. Take advantage.

The National Forest threw sand everywhere and as we drove the main road back toward civilization at dusk we passed a lonely car wash in the woods. Okay then, we said to ourselves it's a sign. We are not believers in the "everything happens for a reason" meme as we have seen too much unsolicited useless misery in our travels but clearly this empty car wash was put there at the side of the road for our convenience so we took advantage. This is what you might call a blue job, a term that was coined in our sailing days in a spirit of ironic detachment, so my wife sat inside reading her phone while I wielded the various brushes and unguents to make the van sparkle once more. Rusty sat across the parking lot, front was crossed watching my work with a critical eye. I could hear him beaming "You've missed a spot" as I struggled to cover the leviathan with soap suds. I do often feel like a mahout taking care of his elephant as I work on van chores. Later I got my own back as dinner prep is a pink job. Rusty jobs are mostly to sit and look pretty which seems unfair until you remember he has no rights and has to do as he is told (with limited success by us). Tethered to the van in a freeway rest area:

Rusty has got his van legs at last. My wife figured it out but he likes to get out of the van not to get away but just because he likes being outdoors. At home he comes and goes as he pleases with his own door and no fences or limitations. He doesn't stray but he likes having the ability to be alone when he wants. With the van its harder to accomplish which is one reason we stay away from organized camping. Wild camping not only gives us social distancing and peace and quiet but it also allows us to throw open the door and let the hound loose. We do have a long leash to make him legal where needed but on his own he goes a few feet away and sits and watches the world go by. Lunchtime in Orlando, where we bought to go food and parked behind a shopping center next to the grass verge; and there he sat, untethered, while we ate inside:

Slowly slowly we are pulling together the strings that will hopefully lead to a serene and well planned trip in 18 months. Already we look back at our early efforts on the road and are amazed how much we struggled with daily chores. Every trip is a learning curve and our next trick is to figure out how to take truck stop showers and where to camp in Florida’s Big Bend coast. 

Boondocking Holiday

I admit I am strangely in love with the Florida countryside. It's easy to be astonished by extra long sand beaches, if you like that sort of thing, and the tropical islands of the Keys hold their own obvious fascination if you are into the tropics and not everyone is. I like it, all of it, the cattle country in the center of the state, horse ranches and white post-and-rail fencing around Ocala, the huge live oak trees Up North and the Alabama back country along the panhandle. To me the sandy trails and scrubby pine forests of the national forests are as much worth exploring as the dreary mangrove flats in my own backyard. Rusty? He has mixed feelings, fear of the unknown mixed  with the pleasure he gets at being outdoors on a. sixty degree day.

Florida has 175 state parks ranging from Fort Taylor in Key West to every kind of historic site, forested backwater, canoe trails and alligator ponds up and down this most varied and under appreciated of states. Frankly I like living in the state that has given the nation and possibly the world the "Florida Man" memes. If you haven't had the good luck to laugh at Florida Man let me explain a bit. The Internet has given rise to reports of people in Florida doing stupid, preventable, harmful things in ways that are absurd and slapstick. Harold Lloyd made a very good living acting like Florida man in early films. Nowadays it is fashionable to deplore the antics of Florida Man but I enjoy slapstick and eccentricity writ large. Florida is a terrible place to be bored or to be a bore, and my fear for Key West while Layne Rusty and I go traveling for a few years, is that the bores will take over. Already Florida Man is extinct in the Keys. Especially in relation to Key West. So Florida is far from boring and to back that up the State of Florida is doing a surprising job of actually preserving the unique pieces of wilderness it can for future generations. Here Florida people can hunt and screw around in the wilderness. Me with a camera, them with guns. 

Sand and mud and water are the obstacles to a deep woods retreat in Florida. Dispersed camping as the National Forest Service describes it allows for lonely campers to hang in the woods for up to two weeks and this form of van life is known as boondocking, ie: parking without outside facilities, a form of vacationing most often enjoyed in the western States, places with scenic vistas, majestic grandeur and fewer people over a larger area.  In those places dusty trails are filled with rocks and slopes and the sort of landscape most often shown in 20th century cowboy flicks. Florida is to all intents and purposes a sandpit with high heat and humidity, insects and great swimming beaches. The bits in the middle belong to people who live here and can't take the time to go rock hopping in Utah but limit themselves to sand spinning on their ATVs in these more modest backwoods.

Layne and I did briefly think about buying a four wheel truck and putting a camper shell on the back but several features of such a vehicle dissuaded us. The cab has no pass through from the truck requiring the campers to walk outside to switch between driving and living. Plus access to the rear always requires several steps as the camper is set high on the truck bed. Against all this you get off road capability. Let's face it: we aren't on going on the road to do deep off-road exploration and we know it. We wanted comfort and simplicity and ultimately we will equip ourselves to risk our home on deserted sandy beaches in remote places but not to drive up cliffs or to ford jungle rivers. I like asphalt roads to be honest. A two wheel drive van works just fine for us.

We don't have hot running water in our bathroom and surprisingly my wife was agreeable with this eccentricity of mine as she found it unnecessary on our boat where we used solar showers. So I designed an outdoor shower with a blanket a couple of clips and the solar shower we carry on the van. We could use it inside but we'd rather be traveling in a climate that allows for outdoor showers.  Two kettles of hot water added to the shower give enough heat to make the shower comfortable we find. All this to not be parked in a campground with electrical outlets and shower blocks and toilets. Worth it? 

In a time of pandemic the isolation of boondocking in a warm winter climate is a great thing. For us a crowded campground is outside our comfort zone at the moment and though we look forward to a vaccinated future we are unwilling to compromise months of isolation and hand wringing by being impatient at this rather unpleasant stage of the pandemic. I am learning to enjoy gravel roads and the van handles them very well. We usually roll around 20 miles an hour and so far we haven't caused furniture to shift at these modest speeds or to spill anything from our locking drawers. 

Thanksgiving should be a time to gather but this year it simply isn't. It is weird parked out in the woods like this but Layne is cooking steak and stuffing and Trader Joe's sold us a pecan pie and Rusty gets his share of protein. 80 degrees, the sounds of the forest and a rising moon.  Not bad.

Testing our MoonShade portable awning...weird fun isn't it?

Happy Thanksgiving wherever you are and stay safe this holiday.

Central Florida

We took a 90 minute walk all round the neighborhood after Rusty woke up. It might have been a tad shorter had I not overridden my dog, convinced I knew the way back and took him off in the wrong direction. After I failed to recognized any landmarks I meekly followed Rusty back to the van. My wife claimed she was awake. 

Van life used to be glamorized before the pandemic forced a lot of youngsters to think twice bout van travel on YouTube but for us old foges used to the vicissitudes of boat life waking up in a van is no big deal. Tooth brushing is pretty much as normal. In the limited privacy of a residential back alley wipes make for adequate shower substitutes. We chose not to install hot running water and a full shower on the principle that time spent in the wilderness would be good enough for outdoor solar showers heated by the sun or by our kettle. Our struggle to keep the van simple for travel to less developed places is an ongoing project. And our ideas are not at all suitable for people who like to spend most of their RV life in parks and campgrounds with full facilities.

The area around Coffeepot Bayou is pretty upmarket and as a result not only is the landscaping impressive but the homes vary wildly in style and decor, and not all of them are palaces by any means. However there are some splendid alleys where I like to walk Rusty with my camera.

Another reason I really like St Pete: an abundance of dog interesting alleys! Dale is not an early riser so we took ourselves off after our morning ablutions and headed to that quintessential symbol of civilization in any American city: Trader Joe's. I sat in the van with Rusty while Layne got in a masked line to shop, which is a rarity for her these days but Trader Joe's takes the pandemic seriously, lines masks and dividers for all. The line actually did move very rapidly and everyone complied according to my wife.

Our plan such as it was included a bit of boondocking, that is to say sleeping in the woods of the national forests of central and northern Florida plus a quick visit to the Custom Coach Creations factory to have our induction stove top looked at. The fan was not turning off whether Herself cooked on it or not and though it heated up just fine something was definitely wrong as the fan never turned off. Custom Coach Creations replaced it with an improved model, and rebuilt the countertop in two hours and sent us cheerfully on our way under warranty and free of charge. Amazing service always from that place. Highly recommended.

As you can see the overnight spot was not the cleanest and though I left the piece of paper in the picture for effect I did not include the couch with mildew so thick it had grown leaves on the cushions and looked like watercress, nor did I photograph the skeleton of a deer, I think that was what it was, completely picked clean. The signs along the highway warning of bear activity got my wife looking at bear spray offers on Amazon. I laughed and got a glare in return. Rusty was cautious on the trail and crept along like a caricature of a hunting dog and in the end I was proved right. No one and nothing disturbed us, as unarmed as we were, and the night as black as pitch made the cabin all the more snug as we watched Netflix and listened to our exhausted dingo dog snore heavily from our bed. It was a quick overnight stop and free of charge with no neighbors and only the sounds of passing cars nearby on the highway for company. On our morning walk deeper into the forest I found a lovely glade that would have served us better but for a quick overnight this did the job just fine.

There are national forests in Florida suitable for boondocking but I'd rather we preserve the myth that the only places to camp in the wilderness are west of the Mississippi, though those places are a lot more picturesque than the pine scrub and sand of our modest and largely unknown National Forests in Florida and a few points further north.