What is That Sound?
~Sunday, April 2, 2023~
Day 1,023 (Travel Day)
Did I wake up in Jurassic Park or something? Above our trailer was the most unusual conversation between 2 prehistoric sounding creatures. Having never really seen them, my research went by the sound
they make and the habitat they prefer. We found out that they were a pair of…….Sandhill Cranes. These non-migratory birds are pretty darn smart when it comes to choosing a good sunny, warm place to call home. Not only do they have a unique sound, but a large anatomy as well….about 47 inches tall and a wingspan of 7 feet. Having already been in the marshy, boggy environment of the Okefenokee and the Everglades, I don’t know how we missed spotting them before.
In addition to unusual creatures, there were a large number of frisbee golfers making up for lost time from the course being closed yesterday due to the rowing regatta. With quite an impressive course and the number of participants we see each day, the sport must be popular for Floridians. In the campground, it was business as usual for a Sunday with a turnover of campsites, including our own. Just as we were about to leave, we noticed our neighbor left a jack stand behind, so I called the office where surprisingly, a real human picked up. We said we would be by to drop it off on our way out. But before we were hitched up and ready to go, the owner of said jack stand showed up, and kindly thanked us for our neighborly gesture. Us RVer’s have to stick together.
Now that the ants have really taken a liking to our bait, our fear is that their electric “path” could be disrupted by moving the trailer today. And I was right. Darn it! Even a few hours after our arrival to the new campground, they weren’t into it (literally). So we’ll leave it overnight and hope by morning, they’ll find it again. We’re just grateful that they haven’t gotten into our food (knock on wood). We’d be much more aggressive if they had.
With our time remaining in Florida, most of our drives to new campgrounds will be short; by short I mean less than 5 hours. Hmm….it’s interesting how 5 hours used to seem so long at the beginning of our 2-½ year journey. Today was a 74-mile drive to our campground of Wickham Park on Florida’s beautiful Space Coast in the city of Melbourne, FL. It gets its name from being the home of America’s manned space program where all of its important milestones began here. The gentleman ranger was welcoming but a little arrogant in his description of how he ‘runs the park’. And I guess we should feel so lucky to have already paid 11 months ago when he said they recently had a rate hike; the rate had gone up from $24/night to $39/night for non-county RV’ers. County residents pay about $15 less. But we get it as the county residents are paying their share of taxes to maintain these parks, although we are grateful that not every county or city adopts that rule. But for full-hookup sites, the new rate shouldn’t be shocking. The campground is a mixture of spacious sites with others that might as well be on top of each other. About a 100 yards from our site is a coin laundry and restroom facilities and it looks like we’re in for a little frisbee golf entertainment once again. There are also 2 small lakes (more like ponds) for fishing and plenty of nature trails. We remember choosing our site in Loop B for its location on the end which has a large, grassy area to our left making us feel we have an even bigger site. So instead of 2 neighbors, we just have the 1 to our right with plenty of space between. Plus, our westward orientation allows for some pretty nice sunset viewing. Though our site is very nice, we’re making note of a few others that back up to water. Jotting certain site numbers down for future visits also adds to our ammo of trying to get the best sites. Whenever we’re researching the best places to stay and the ideal site locations within them, we try to book as early as possible and use online tools like photos and site maps to help us make the best choice. We don’t always have this information at hand, but putting in the effort when we do has given us a 90% success rate in what we’ve chosen.
With a week gone by, it was time to hit the supermarket again. We’ve really lucked out with grocery stores being in close proximity to our campground. This Publix was only 3 miles away. In talking to one of the clerks, I discovered another blast from the past when we got on the subject of where each of us grew up. When he said he was from San Carlos, CA, I think I had a brief moment of hallucination. He was shocked when I told him that’s where my husband grew up. It turns out they went to the same private high school playing the same sports. I just had to call Jeff to see if he recognized the name, which he did. What are the chances? This really is a small world after all!