Boondocking is for the birds!

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Our next stop was in Florida. We were to dry camp for 5 days until our reservations in Orlando were due. Good plan but…

The two locations I had found online were not available. The first, which was really beautiful after driving on a dirt road for a while, turned out to be a private property with signs telling us to stay out. This was the first tight spot we had to turn the rig around in. The second one was beach camping on Amelia island which both Glen and I had watched a video of someone doing just that but the beach was closed to any vehicle because of clean-up of the storm’s remnants. Second tight spot with one of the crew guys directing me and yelling "You're doing it girl" totally amazed. He didn't know I had already had quite a bit of practice. Now what? I veered into a welcome center and when Glen asked what I was doing I informed him that I needed a good cry and thus couldn’t drive any further. Between my plans falling apart and Glen’s constant harping on me that such places do not exist, that it’s all baloney and now we’re stuck with no place to go, I felt like a real failure. So we stopped, searched the Internet again and came to a compromise: a dry camping site at $10/night but with potable water available and a dump site. OK. That would have to do. But it was getting late so we slept over in the parking lot to the constant hum of truck engines running.

Big Bass Campground turned out to be very pleasant except that a cold front was hitting the region for the next 4 days. Yes my friends, the exact period of time we were there with no electricity and a forever dying battery. Poor Glen would get up through the night to run the truck so he could fire up the furnace to heat up the trailer a little bit and ensuring that our holding tanks wouldn’t freeze. The temperature would warm up during the day to a pleasant 20 – 26 degrees C. but at night it went down as low as 0. I couldn’t believe it! Finally in Florida and we’re freezing!

This campground is located in the Ocala National Forest. You leave your money in an envelope at the gate. There was a nice trail that ran around the campground and into the forest. It was actually a road – pretty primitive in some places – which hunters used. Oh! I forgot to tell you that it was hunting season. So we would hear gunshots and trucks right outside the park. Made me a bit nervous to walk there but I didn’t think I looked like a deer so I took my chances and Cheeka being small would not appear worth shooting even if I put antlers on her.

We met a lovely young American couple from Seattle who were on their way to Miami to go over to Cuba for the first time. We had such good conversations with them. Theresa and Austin who are both in their late 20s decided to quit their jobs and travel after saving money for quite a long time. They lived very simply to keep expenses down. Theresa laughed that their friends didn’t like them as they never had money to go out. They didn’t even own a TV. They donated their hand-me-down furniture and made sure to keep only what could fit in their car including a small tent and sleeping bags. They looked so fresh and happy I kept wanting to hug them! Their plan is to ditch the camping gear and sell the car while in Miami and then take a plane (tickets already bought) to South Asia and backpack their way through there. Austin has already been so he knows that it’s quite safe for Theresa's first backpacking trip. Interesting enough is that Austin lived on a boat with his parents and sister since the age of 13. He absolutely loved the experience but his sister didn’t. I think he already had wanderer blood running through his veins. I told them that young intelligent people like them give us hope for the future by not being influenced by a materialistic society which makes most people want more and more but doesn't make them rich with life experiences or happy. Hopefully they will have kids and give them the same values. We need more people like them in this world.

I can’t say I was sad to leave Big Bass Campground as our next site was further south and I just wanted some nice weather.  But we did leave this boondocking site knowing that we might be back later on.

And now on to Orlando!