Last of Florida, Wandering toward Gulf Wars

Thursday had me awake around dawn because that is when all the truckers are leaving the rest area.  So I was up and going also, and heading north with the threat of rain to come.  As mentioned before, truck butt cover totally water tight, truck bed is not so water tight.  Rain means find a place to hole up and not be driving, so time to get some things done.  First that Oil change, hey look there is a ford place, stop and get oil changed, maybe a hour spent not driving in the rain, but the free wifi does tell me that not far uo the road is a denny's and those usually have free wifi. So once the truck was done (and they made sure to tell me that I will need new tires soon because mine are at the just enough that they are still ok, but any less and they would be trying to get me to buy new tires right now.) I went a mile down the road and spent some time relaxing in the old familar but slightly different Denny's using their electricity, wifi and updating this blog.  It was nice to just avoid the rain and sit and relax.  I had nowhere to be and no time frame to be there in.  I waited out the worst of the rain, used the internet to find a nice looking campground a few hours north in the National Forest, this one having a shower (dude, I wanted a shower after the stickyness that was southern Florida, and I hadn't had one since Sunday and had been doing a lot of hiking/other exercise.)  So the rain was not looking like it would actually stop anytime soon but the worst was over, so I put a towel in the worst culprit for leaks and went off toward the north.  I had a wonderful drive long not the interstate.

Making the turn toward the campground, I discovered the problem with flat states, dirt roads and rain.  The first stream crossing wasn't bad and I went for it, the second was a little deeper and I went for it, the third was deeper still and I didn't go for it.  I didn't want a shower that bad.  So I turned around and headed back toward the main road.  I then headed toward the interstate because interstates have rest areas and my app told me there was one only a couple miles down from where I would hit the interstate.  Unfortunately that meant no shower for me.  I gave myself a moist towelette bath and called it a night.  Even though along the way I had suddenly gained an hour by entering the central time zone.  I was tired and it wasn't even 8pm and I was in bed and asleep very quickly.

Friday had me up with the sun (6am local time).  There were a couple state parks very near me that could be interesting, but those don't open until 8am, so what to do with an hour or two? Answer: Laundry.  Nearest laundromat is about ten minutes from the first of the state parks, so off I went.  Got there about fifteen minutes before they opened, which was just enough time to gather up all the dirty clothes and strip the sheets off my bed (woo hoo clean sheets).  Laundry went well and took just over an hour, I got lots done of my German chemise.  Then I went off to Florida Caverns State Park.

Look me in a cave.

Swamp of northern Florida

Spelunking is fun.  Unfortunately this was a developed for tourist cave.  In that otherwise no one can actually see it as the average height was only a couple of feet before they took out a bunch of limestone to make it walkable.  This is one of the first times where I went spelunking and the temperature inside the cave was considerable more than outside.  It was a cold day for Florida.  After my cave tour I did some walking around outside, which with the rain from the day before was just a bit damp.  And very pretty.  I got some really muddy feet and wasn't wearing the right shoes, so my I want a shower desire started up again.  It was still before noon when I had walked as much of the park as I wanted to, and gone on my cave tour, so off I went to the next state park.

Learning how to use the camera to take selfies the right way.

The next park was only a few miles down the interstate, so off I went.  Looking at the map it looked really easy, so off I went toward the interstate.  The road I picked took me to the interstate, and then up and over it, without any way to get on to the interstate.  I ended up on some back roads and eventually made it to Falling Waters State Park.  There might have been a couple dirt roads involved; these did not have streams crossing them, just many mud puddles.  Came to the park with the truck a little dirtier than if I had used the interstate and it took me at least twice as long, but I had fun.

This state park has a campground, so I got a campsite (Tent only was all that was available, but I was told this is because of the size of the parking space, and as I am a normal sized vehicle, I had no problem.)  I parked myself in my campsite, and went off to see the waterfall.  I would post a picture except that my camera had not turned off properly at the last stop and had eaten all the battery life, so no pictures for me.  This is one of the coolest waterfalls as the water is actually at ground level and then falls into a sink hole.  It is also Florida's tallest waterfall at 73 feet.  (Did I mention this state is flat?  In case you forgot, Florida is flat.)  The walk took maybe an hour and by the time I had gotten back to the campground I had exhausted the trails of the park.  Therefore shower time.  A now cleaner Vivian was able to put clean clothing on a clean body.  I then took some free afternoon light time to actually put my laundry away from the morning, make my bed and in general just clean my room.  I also put duct tape over any of the holes that were letting in light.  Realized that I need more foam between the door and truck bed at the bottom of the back of the truck, maybe that would help the water issue.  Noticed that the campsite had electricity, and it worked so I charged up my electric devices. I wanted another chemise for my Italian, so I cut one out, since I really didn't want to learn smocking yet.  Decided I didn't have time to actually sew it before the sunset, and went to bed because it was cold and dark and I had had a very productive day.

I can sew and appreciate nature at the same time.

I was up after sunrise, not much after but enough that I could tell it was going to be a beautiful day.  Out came the sewing machine, and a chemise was sewn.  I did all the machine work, and then packed it back up.  Decided to wait on the hand work and headed west.  Left the park around 11am and was on my way to war.  Florida took a couple hours to get through, Alabama was only about an hour, and now I have made it to Mississippi.  I haven't bothered switching myself to central time as I discovered it is time change weekend so I would just have to change all my clocks back tomorrow. War opens early tomorrow morning, and it looks like I'm going to be rest area sleeping again tonight, as at this point I'm only about an hour out and have had really good luck so far with rest areas.  None of them have felt unsafe and they let me sleep as much as I want.  I am appreciating the cooler temperatures up here.  I don't sleep well when the nightly low is above 65 degrees, I like snuggling into the covers.

War here I come.  I still need to do some sewing, as I tore one of the straps of my Italian and didn't realize it until trying to make it a new chemise this morning.  I also have some finishing work on said chemise and there is also the smocking on my German chemise.  I realize I only had one decent chemise back when I packed for this road trip and I am so glad I thought to just throw in the roll of light weight linen.  Soon there will be three chemises.

I'm going to try to be out of touch until after war next Sunday, so no worrying about me.