Anniversary Trip - Part 1

 Twenty years ago when I married my best friend and lover on Jan 20th, no one could have predicted what January 2021 would be like.  I won't delve into politics, but suffice to say two decades ago, no one could have foreseen what has transpired in just the last 12 months.  A country poised on the brink of war after the assignation of a general (most US citizens have no idea how close it was), then a world wide pandemic,  a country trying to come to grips with racial inequality, and finally political unrest, climaxing with the events of January 6th.   Almost seems closer to the late 1960s than the 2020s, but here we are.

I only bring all of this up as our 20th wedding anniversary and 'second' honeymoon plans were drastically altered.  Instead of re-living our first and going to Utah to snowboard for a week, we ended up in the Space Pineapple rolling around Florida for a week, as I had zero desire to use an airport or spend hours on a flight with others.

In order to mitigate exposure, we discussed a number of options and ultimately decided on a 4 day FL resident pass to Walt Disney World with a couple of days tacked on the front end at a state park we had never been too before.

As Lucy's busy work day is Saturday, I planned a Sunday morning departure.  This gave me all day Saturday to prep and load the beast for the run.   I changed the oil, performed a full PM on the mechanicals and finished up the waxing I had started a week before (see previous post) as I had gotten it about 80% done. Our daughter helped with the loading and by the end of the day we were fairly ready to go.  A trip to the store for some supplies and a run by work to fill my cooler with ice and it was just loading the fridge and some other stuff in the morning.

Sunday AM, we actually got out of the driveway on time for a change!!!!  Good thing too as it was about a 4.5 hour ride to the campground.  Two stops, one for gas and potty break, and the second for a potty break and picking up some last minute stuff at a Publix just a few miles from our destination.

Sure Google says 3.75, but that's in a car doing the speed limit.  Warp Speed in the Pineapple is 65, but I was pushing on 70 for a good bit and the MPG showed it  (7.9 lol).  The next tank I got over 10 as it was all 65 or less.  Honestly straight drive time was about 4hrs on the way up taking out the two stops.

We arrived at the campground around 3:30PM or so and set up.  It was already cold and we knew it would be chilly the whole stay with predicted lows in the high 30s.   We were smart this time and brought an electric heater.  I like the heater as it is an electric radiator and not a red element heater with a fan to dry out the air in a hurry.  We didn't even use it the first night.  It was around 50 in the coach when we woke up and I plugged it in while I made coffee.

We had set up a ranger pontoon boat ride for 11 AM so it was an easy start to the day.  We waited until almost 10 so it would warm up a bit, and pedaled over to the old oak tree.

As you can see it's a BIG oak.  Second biggest one in the state and estimated between 300-500 years old!  Pictures don't do it justice.  The canopy is over 100' across.

We did a little geocaching here, and Lucy found it.  We signed the book and went to go on our boat ride.

Turns out there was a miscommunication and the boat captain didn't come that day, so we pushed it back to the following morning.  We then hiked all the trails in the park at a whopping 1.5 miles total.

The park isn't really that big and while nice, it's right off of the highway, so lots of noise and ambulances going by.  It quieted down in the evenings though.

Tommy had to have a photo shoot for his Instagram account so I supervised from the lounge chair.

Dinner was tasty with shrimp and grilled veggies.  As it was still really cold, once the fire started dying we were inside.  Pretty early too, about 8PM both nights!

The next morning, the boat ride was a little earlier and we were up and at them pretty early as we were packing out after the boat.  Got a jump and got everything inside packed up and the dinette put back in the table set up before we went.  The ranger was nice and it was just us on the trip.  We left a little early and came back a little late, so that was nice.  They lake is pretty big and we only saw a part of it.  The ranger said it was 12th largest in the state at 9500 acres and part of the Harris Chain of Lakes.  I took a lot of video on the trip so need to get that edited and put up.

We got back and put the bikes up, took a quick shower and were on the road around noon.