Last night we splurged and stayed at a state park instead of a truck stop! The reason for overnighting at truck stops is simply because they are our easiest, fastest and safest option during a pandemic. We just pull off the freeway and we’re all set for the night. The first few days we were trying to make decent time across the country.
The state parks are a splurge not because of expense (generally quite cheap) but because they require extra driving time to get there. Often they have good shower facilities, which typically I would be very happy to take advantage of, but because of the pandemic we are avoiding public facilities. I can wash my hair in the van (with a bucket) but it’s a nuisance and time consuming. My personal hygiene is suffering, and with it, my mood!
However, I was completely entranced with the scenery at the state park last night. Florida sure doesn’t look very much like the desert southwest!
We managed to make it to Lake Griffin State Park shortly before dusk. We barely got there in time to walk a little before the sun went down. As soon as we got parked in our slot, we leaped out of the van to run and take a few pictures before dark. It’s very beautiful. Here’s some pictures from Thursday evening:
We also took a quick walk again this morning before getting back on the road.
We have a full day’s drive today to reach tonight’s destination, a national park campground in the Everglades.
On Thursday we drove east across the northern part of Florida, and then turned to head south. It’s becoming more scenic as we go south. We had no issues with the trip Thursday except for personal issues at home!
At one point in time some months ago my friend Sandy and her daughter Daphne were considering adopting our dog, Kai. They did a lot of dog sitting for us, and then around the time our sweet old dog Rosie passed away this summer, Kai started living mostly with Sandy and Daphne. All was good for some time, but then Sandy got a new job and decided she didn’t want to take him when she moves this spring. We arranged to have Kai live with Serenity (aka Darren) in Boise starting in May when Sandy moves.
Then while we drove through northern Florida yesterday, Sandy texted asking if we could transfer Kai to Serenity sooner. Apparently Kai’s behavior has been going steadily downhill, to the point where I can’t believe it’s the same dog. Sandy is understandably frustrated.
I don’t know what to think. Kai had been doing well with Sandy since this summer. But she says that recently he’s taken to stealing their stuff and chewing on everything and threatening to bite them when they try to get their things back! And he licks them non-stop. I’m wondering what’s wrong with him? And he’s howling non-stop, apparently trying to get them to give him more food! He’s always liked mealtime, but I can’t imagine why he’d be so out-of-line demanding. He was never like that.
I don’t know what’s wrong. Kai has always needed a firm hand and not everyone likes being a disciplinarian. They have occasionally bribed him with food to get him to quit howling or give them their stuff back. Is he just seeing what he can get away with to score extra food, or is there more to it than that?
Kai has been extremely well behaved for 15 years and I can’t imagine him losing all his training just because he’s in a slightly more indulgent household. I can hardly believe he would be that bad unless there was something wrong with him. As we listen to Sandy describe Kai’s recent dramatic personality changes, John and I are wondering if Kai might be getting dementia. There’s no cure or even effective treatment for that – he would eventually have to be put down.
I don’t know what to do. We had thought that Sandy and Daphne had wanted to keep Kai through April. But no one anticipated that Kai would undergo major personality changes over just a few months. Here we are, driving along in Florida, wishing we could simply go and get Kai and try to figure out what’s wrong with him. If he just needs some firmer limits, I could get him straightened out in a few days. If it’s dementia, I would not be able to do anything to fix it. It’s so hard to figure out what’s going on when we’re not there.
He went to the vet recently for regular shots and he seemed fine, but he’s probably going to have to go again to see if the vet can figure out what’s wrong. I’m sending Sandy doggie aspirin, in case Kai’s strange behavior is due to pain. It’s often hard to tell when dogs are in pain.
We could try to send Kai to live with Serenity asap rather than in a couple of months from now. But I’m not sure how to get Kai from Albuquerque to Boise. Originally we were going to drive him up there at the end of April. But it’s only the beginning of February and we’re in Florida. Typically it’s possible to fly pets – I know at least United and Delta have pet shipping services. But I just looked on the internet and both of those airlines have stopped providing this service during the pandemic, apparently due to scheduling difficulties more than any actual covid concerns.
I also wonder if I should burden Serenity with a potentially senile dog, but Serenity is an experienced dog owner and has known Kai for Kai’s whole life, having lived with us for longish periods of time during these past 15 years. However I also just found out that Serenity is currently having major roommate drama, and I’m not sure how that will play out. Maybe I shouldn’t be sending Kai to Serenity right now after all! I feel helpless out here driving across Florida. I’m not in the mood for sailing or vacationing right now, not with difficulties at home!
If I’m not careful, this blog is going to become some sort of therapy journal rather than an interesting account of our travels. I don’t think I’m a very good traveler, lol. Or maybe no one likes hurtling down freeways all day long and staying at truck stops for nights on end while things are going down back home!
Whew, sorry to dump all that on you. Here, have a beautiful picture of Florida. There will be more beautiful pictures next post!
Here is Mobile, Alabama, as seen from the freeway Thursday morning.
Here’s the tunnel under Mobile Bay or river. Or something. I don’t know how to tell the difference out here. It’s just all water everywhere.
John says the battleship is the USS Alabama, which is part of the largest battleship class ever made in the US.
I guess this is technically yet another bridge, but these long flat stretches seem more like freeways through water than what I’d typically think of when I picture a bridge.
Around the time we crossed into Florida it seemed much greener. The trees were no longer bare for winter.
More bridges. I believe this to be just past Pensacola, Florida.
The lighting is all wrong for the picture, but it was pretty on the shore.
Next stop – our first night in Florida we’re going to spend at Lake Griffin State Park.
Today I am miserable. Yesterday was too hard with all our trailer wheel issues, and last night I didn’t sleep. When I don’t sleep, I become depressed and easily overwhelmed. We got to visit with Monica for a few minutes in the front yard last night, and then a few minutes in the backyard this morning. Then we left.
I was weeping! I am exhausted and I didn’t want to leave. I just wanted to spend a few days resting and visiting Monica. It seemed so sad just to show up for a grand total of 10 minutes of conversation when we haven’t seen her for a year! So I got all upset about this damn pandemic, and now I am getting a migraine. I resolve to do what I can to stay mentally and emotionally positive, but meanwhile, at the moment I’m just trying to keep it together and not completely lose my shit. It did not feel right to simply leave Monica like that. But we’re all just trying to keep her safe.
So off we went, on the next stage of our trip. Around noon we crossed from Texas into Louisiana and were caught in a traffic slowdown due to construction. As we eased to a stop we suddenly heard an alarming noise. Did the semi-truck behind us just hit the back of our boat? We couldn’t tell. It sounded like we were hit, but we weren’t pushed forward. He obviously didn’t hit us very hard, but hanging off the back of our boat is an expensive outboard motor. It wouldn’t take more than a gentle tap from a semi grill to ruin our little outboard!
We inched forward and off into a handy rest stop. The semi behind us continued on by, which I took for a good sign. Surely he would have stopped had he hit us? Or maybe not. Just in case, I took photos of him as we pulled off and he passed us by.
John parked and got out to inspect our boat. He said everything was fine. Whew! I am going to be glad when this boat is in the water where it belongs!
As I look out the window, it’s mostly flat, with periodic swamps and ponds. The streams are muddy. It’s all very muddy. I’m seeing dull greenish-brown grass and leafless deciduous trees mixed with some pines. I don’t think that early February is Louisiana’s best season. It’ll probably be beautiful in another month or two. I expect February isn’t the best season anywhere in the country. (Except maybe in Tucson. And Florida!)
Lots of water though.
Shortly after we crossed into Louisiana we saw a town that had apparently been hit by a hurricane. This was near Lake Charles, Louisiana. Lots of trees were down, and a huge percentage of roofs were covered in blue tarps. Some houses appeared to be uninhabitable. It seems like such a travesty. We see these things on the news all the time. It’s somehow a lot more real as we drive by and imagine what it must be like to live here, day after day, week after week, long after the storm wrecked your life.
Now we are in farm country. It reminds me a little bit of the fertile valley in Oregon where I grew up. The soggy fields, sallow for winter, are rimmed with thin strips of oak and pine. The neon green spring grass is just starting to appear in patches.
I believe this to be Baton Rouge, although I’m starting to get confused.
We did not go through New Orleans, instead we skirted around it to the north. Unfortunately we aren’t doing any sightseeing on the drive out because we’re towing a boat.
I’m not sure that I took any photos of our brief pass through Mississippi. Our pass through the foot of Alabama was even shorter, but that’s where we stayed Wednesday night at a fancy rest stop; the Alabama Welcome Center. Lol, what an oxymoron. A fancy rest stop. But it was!
We didn’t go inside the facility. I just took these pictures through the window.
The pretty gazebos were lit up for the night.
When we got there, just after dark, the truck parking was empty, but it filled up by morning.
We slept fine at the truck stop and started out in good spirits today. The first section of the drive was through more of endless west Texas. I thought it was very ugly. Flat and brown.
Eventually small juniper bushes appeared, which were much more scenic. I never realized I was such a fan of juniper! After awhile the juniper became interspersed with scattered scrub oak and it started to look like what I think of when I picture Texas – rolling grassy hills with oak trees.
I was in the midst of texting Monica, and Serenity, and one of my client’s moms (all separately), when John’s phone and my phone both started ringing at the same time (caller ID “spam risk”). We had two phones ringing and multiple texts binging when suddenly a truck horn sounded. John started to pull over, saying, “There’s a problem.” Wha? What is going on? Absolutely nothing had been going on and suddenly far too much was going on. Turns out we had completely blown a trailer tire.
We hadn’t even felt it, so a trucker had to alert us. By then it was shredded and we had ruined the rim.
John had a spare and everything he needed to get it changed.
It took awhile for John to get it changed, because with the tire essentially gone, the trailer was too low for him to fit his jack under it properly. He had to start off the asphalt and slowly wedge the trailer a bit higher and a bit higher with bricks until it was high enough to accurately position his jack on the asphalt.
You may be wondering why John happened to have bricks. I have no idea. He may have been carrying them to use as wheel chocks. John always has handy bits of wire and rope and bolts and things, but bricks? Like the handy-mechanical version of Mary Poppins. I can just imagine us as we’re pulling out of our driveway at the start of our trip, “Oh honey, did you remember to bring the bricks?” You never know when you might need bricks.
I found it stressful standing by the freeway with the traffic wizzing by at 80 mph and John’s head under the trailer. We were fairly far away from the driving lanes, but I felt very vulnerable and just couldn’t stop imagining the worst.
At least it was the right side wheel so John wasn’t laying on the ground literally next to traffic. And at least the weather was beautiful and we had a wide, grassy shoulder. And at least it was broad daylight! It would have been so much more dangerous after dark.
Often the cars and trucks would move over into the lefthand lane, but when they came by in a big pack, they couldn’t.
The van would rock every time the trucks went by, so I was more comfortable standing outside. A friend of mine recently mentioned that I should include more selfies in my posts, so here you go:
Maybe she didn’t mean one of me looking worried and stressed by the side of the freeway with a disabled boat trailer!
We finally got underway and spent the next hour calling several tire shops in western Houston before we were able to find one that could sell us two new tires with wheels, which they said they could have ready by the next morning. We ordered our new tires and continued on our way towards Houston.
We had made it about two more hours toward Houston when the OTHER trailer tire blew. We pulled over and had no idea what to do next. We were in the middle of nowhere, still two hours away from Houston. We only carry one spare and we had just used it on the first blown tire!
We’ve been AAA members for decades (literally) and we never, ever use the coverage. It’s fancy expensive coverage for RV’ers so we gave them a call. The customer service agent was quite friendly, but when the tow truck driver called us back he apologized and said, no, he couldn’t tow a boat. Nor could he bring us the spare tire we needed.
However, he did give us the number for a local repair shop and we called them. Thankfully they were able to come out and bring us a spare (at great expense, of course). Our only other option would have been to unhook and leave the boat and trailer by the side of the freeway while we drove into Houston looking for a spare trailer tire.
I didn’t take any pictures of our second tire disaster. I was feeling grumpy. I just sat in the van as the trucks wizzed by, while we waited for the local repair shop to bring us a new spare.
That night we finally made it to Monica’s house. We spoke to her briefly in her front yard, and then we slept in our van on the street in front of her house. We didn’t want to stay in her house and inadvertently expose her to covid. The likelihood that we would be infected is very low, as careful as we are. But Monica turned 80 last month and has not been able to get a vaccine yet, so we just want to be very careful with her safety.
And we are off! The last half-hour prior to departure is always nerve-wracking for me. Am I forgetting anything? I was finally buckled in the van, ready to go, only to decide to hop back out and run inside for one more (probably completely unnecessary) item.
What you’re looking at in the picture is our camper van towing a small 19′ sailboat with an upside down kayak strapped on top. The sailboat’s mast is down and strapped on top of the kayak. When in the water we will put the mast up and we will be towing the kayak behind the boat.
We started off with a headwind but were generally in good spirits. I honestly didn’t think we were going to actually leave on February 1st, which was initially just an estimated date; the beginning of February. But sure enough, we were on the road by 8:30 AM. It’s been one year and three days since my cancer diagnosis. I’m glad I’m on the start of a big adventure and not in the hospital fighting for my life.
Monday afternoon I tried to attend my cancer support group zoom meeting while speeding along in the van through the far west edge of Texas. The zoom meeting didn’t work very well, and I will probably not try it again if I’m in a moving vehicle. It was hard to hear and I was having bandwidth issues. I was so focused on trying to hear and trying to keep from dropping the call altogether that I didn’t feel like I was successfully connecting with my friends. They didn’t understand why I wasn’t acting excited about my trip, when actually I was just struggling to hear them and keep my internet stable.
We spent Monday night at a truck stop. We parked way in the back, very far from the trucks who were starting to line up for the night.
We were sure we’d be out of the way back there, but by morning the entire gravel lot had filled, and we we realized were the doofuses parked horizontally while everyone else was lined up in efficient lines. Oops!
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