Greetings from stormy Miami! We arrived here at Thompson Memorial Park (Pod 9, site 16) under cloudy skies, scattered showers, and a low temperature of 70 degrees, down from a high of 81 earlier. We've been driving all over the great state of Florida, primarily on the State Park Trail, with one or two detours into RV Parks and one National Forest Campground. It's been a lot of fun, especially with this "winter" weather they have down here. When it is in the 50's they apologize because it's so cold...We're like, hey man, it could be a lot worse! Although I gather it's been a semi-mild winter at home (so far...February and March are lurking), still, it's better to be in Florida in January I think. Which is why, #1 there are so many Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Quebec etc. license plates here, and #2 why all the State Parks are full! We have learned - the hard way - that we have to make reservations for camping if we want to be in a particular State Park, especially if it's a weekend. Last night at Highland Hammock, near Sebring, we got the last site (we had made a reservation luckily) and the campground was as full as a Fourth of July weekend would be at Luddington State Park in Michigan. It was wild - full of kids and bikes and campfires and dogs. It was very hard to put the scene together with the date of January 21st...And while we hate to committ to a certain time and place - and we've hardly had to in the past 10 months - while in Florida we realize that we are here at peak camping time. So Reservations Are Us. We have sites booked all up the East Coast of the state for later this week and next! We're even going to stay at a couple places for more than one night!! bring on the trumpets!! it's gonna snow in Hell next week and pigs are going to Fly!
Meanwhile, a few notes to make here. First of all, while in Houston we were invited to stay at our Nephew-to-be's townhouse, as well as his folks' home, but we were in a rush to get down to Galveston, so we politely refused. We enjoyed meeting the Jacksons, they are terrific people, and we had a great couple hours with Jared (the NTB). And he told us that Texas is the only state that can legally fly it's state flag at the same height as the US flag, and the only state that can have a flag as big as the US flag! We knew we were seeing a lot of Texas flags flying with the Stars and Stripes and looking suspiciously evenly aloft. Now we know. Texas - It's Bigger Than France.
Secondly, in Florida, you have to go North to go South. Up in the Panhandle and within the Tallahassee and Suwannee River region, you are closer to Georgia than you are Miami, and the accent tells you that. As well as the grits and gumbo and chicken fried steak.
And thirdly, once more, we are seeing the destruction of agriculture for the construction of population centers. We camped at Lake Louisa, near Clermont, and there were a few orange groves there. But also a lot of building going on. The ranger says "There are still groves in the South". Many of the Groves are sold when the younger generation decides that the farm way of life is not for them, and the land is almost too valuable to farm, as the cities stretch out into the countryside. The groves across from Lake Louisa State Park won't be there this time next year - they've been sold to a developer. Where the people who are buying the Townhouses and Single Family Homes are coming from and where they are working, I don't know. Maybe it's people from up North, coming to enjoy the July in January weather. But it sure makes you wonder how long it can last, farmland disappearing like this. Where is the food going to come from? There seems to be no shortage of oranges or peanuts or milk or beef or flour right now, but how can this go on forever? Will we soon be importing our food from China as well as our tee-shirts and toys and tennis shoes? And what is the solution...force some one to farm the family Orange Grove? I imagine labor is a huge problem here, just as it is within the California agricultural industry. Who's going to pick the oranges? But mostly, I just hate to see the land be bulldozed and turned into shopping centers and gated communities and highways and condos. Once it's gone, it's gone forever. I sure have never heard of a development being razed and then planted in corn. What is the answer, I don't know. But it's certainly something to worry about...and you know, Kevin says I am not happy unless I have something to worry about...
Meanwhile, we spent time down here in the Sunshine State renewing acquaintances with long lost cousins. Well, Harry isn't long lost, I have seen him since the Charles and Florence Silcox contingent moved to the Clearwater area over 40 years ago. But I hadn't seen Bruce. And we met up with him and his wife Donna for dinner on Thursday night and had a great time together. Bruce is a line man for the county (oh, sorry Bruce, I had to get that in), actually for Verizon. He and Donna have a son - our first cousin once removed I guess - who just got married on Christmas Eve and is living in Miami. Pictures will follow. As for Harry - and his wife Joyce, who is from Chestertown - we met up with them at the huge RV show going on in Tampa this weekend. We jumped in and out of RVs for a couple of hours together, and then we went over to their house in Ruskin for dinner on Friday night. It was so nice. Joyce is a terrific hostess and we sat back and let her take care of us. It was such a treat to have a regular dinner in a regular house. And we could take all the time we wanted to talk and laugh and get to know each other again. Their son Chris came by - another cousin once removed - and apparently there is a grandson named Jacob, son of daughter Hope, who is the only grandson ever born. :)
What his relationship is to us, I'll let you figure out. Harry had a lot of childhood Silcox with Silcoxes stories to share - Marty, do you remember playing "house" with Harry? Hmmm... And he had some great memories of working with Dad around the Farm; one story in particular involved accidentally losing a rake in the chopper...uh oh, we know what that felt like!! Anyway, it was a simply terrific reunion all the way around and we look forward to Bruce and Donna's visit North in the near future, as well as Harry and Joyce's next visit. We owe them some serious hospitality!
Back at the RV Show - we looked at all sorts of RVs and Campers, from the 1.8 million Coaches, to the pop-ups and tag-alongs. But overall we didn't see anything we wished we'd gotten instead of this Sportsmobile. We sure could appreciate the extra space - and frankly, it seems amazing that we have lived in this limited space for so long - but in the end we are glad we could be "this" kind of camper. It's been perfect for us. Now, next time, maybe one of those beautiful Silver Airstreams...but only if we won the Florida Lottery yesterday.
We'll be here in Miami for a couple of days. Kevin's Dad has his birthday on Tuesday, so we're tickled we'll be here for that. From here we plan to do some camping in the Everglades, then up along the Atlantic Coast for a week or so, on into Georgia. Amazingly enough, we have "only" about six weeks left. Hard to believe. Our brains are so full of sights (and sites) we've seen, we can barely keep them straight. It has been such an incredible trip. And of course it is not over yet. But the call of home is near and we are starting to think about it - our next project of course looms large on the Horizon - and I, for one, am really looking forward to living where the bathhouse is in the house you live in, not half a mile down the dark campground road. Sorry, but that's just the way it is. But, until then, we are still OnTheRoad. WeGoMiami.
