2020 Covid Adventures

Hard to believe the first 2020 post is in late May!   Crazy times we are living in no doubt.  Coming into the year, we didn't have any big trips planned for the Pineapple other than going to the keys as our friends just bought a place in Key Largo, that included a 30A hookup, so we were down to get down there as soon as they were settled (will do ASAP).  The weekend we planned was the weekend FL went on lockdown, so our trip was canceled in everyone's best interest.

Fast forward two months and the Governor, William J. Le Petomane declared our State Parks open, I was on Reserve America the next day....   Our go to KPPSP was sold out as well as JDSP.  I went with option 4 as Gamble Rodgers was predictably sold out and the keys were not open yet.   That option being Highland Hammocks SP in Sebring.  Only about 20 min further than the prairie but a completely different experience.   HHSP is one of the oldest SPs in FL having been made a park in the 1930s before there was a SP system.   The CCC did a lot of work in the park and much of it is still in place.

Anyway, we normally would be at our annual Cuong Nhu Annual Training Camp for the holiday weekend, however, the virus took care of that this weekend, so when the campsites came available, I nabbed one as they were going like hotcakes.

I took off of work on Friday and of course started prepping earlier in the week.   My goal was to be on the road Friday by noon, but was really shooting for 11 AM.   We got out at about 11:20 so that was good.  The trip up was uneventful, but the days leading up I made a small mod I had been sitting on for a couple years.  I had picked up a GMC logo and finally got around to figuring out how to mount it the grille (original logo was metal above the grille).

Subtle but I like it.  Have another smaller one for the back.  This came off a 2000s Pick up. 
The ride up was our typical run to the prairie but we zipped right by the turn off at FL 700 and kept on US 98 to Sebring.    Headed right to park and arrived a few min ahead of my desired 3PM arrival.  The site was pretty tight and max size was listed at 24'  (we are 23') .

You can see how close the neighbors are.   The spot behind us filled in too, it was snug but ok.   At least we had shade on the Picnic table.  You can see Lucy enjoying some ribs at the table.

Orange Bird bellied right up to the bar, but I had to cut him off until Happy Hour later as it was only around 3PM. 

Including a park map so you can follow along for the pics of the park.  I highlighted our camping spot with a red square on the upper right near the bathroom symbols.  Our spot was about 100 ft below the building inside the red square I made.

While the girls weren't interested in a bike ride, I unloaded them and set off by myself up to the Loop Drive.   There were storms, not too close as still sunny, but close enough to be sucking up the air, so it was fairly breezy when I set off to bike.  My favorite trail is the Cypress Swamp Trail and I headed straight for it.

I noticed on the ride that were hardly any people on the loop trail.  In fact I think I only saw one car on the whole way and no other people.    The first part of this trail is through a lush forest of cypress trees.  The water was very low as I have been here when this section is wet.  The sound of the brisk breeze through the trees and the birds was so peaceful, I stood there for some minutes just drinking it in and relaxing.

This is the best part of this trail in my opinion.   It reminds me of the video game Myst that came out in the 1990s (first person logic puzzle game).  You can see how low the water is.  Usually it's a bit higher.  If you look at the pilings you can see the high watermark. 

Screenshot from Myst.  You can see the similarity, especially if it would have been overcast.

Me enjoying the solitude with my Tiki Tony original T-shirt.  The Tiki Pirate is patterned after a dead pirate in the cave on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney World.

More Myst like boardwalk.  Again this area is usually pretty wet.

I stopped to look up at the oak branch and thought this was an awesome shot.  Unfortunately, it's a bit back lit, so the bright greens against the blue sky are muted.

As it was late in the afternoon, I did one other trail, The Ancient Hammock before heading back.   On that trail, I heard a large animal in the brush and it was pretty close when I startled it (I never saw it though).  I'd guess it was most likely a deer by the sounds of the crashing through the brush as it took off.    A couple minutes later I was thinking that I hadn't seen any squirrels (only brown anoles) and then a startled rustling in the tree above me and a half eaten wild orange fell on the ground by me.   I looked up to see a squirrel bolting across a branch up and away...

On the ride back to the campground, I saw what I THINK was a bobcat in a flash through the brush.  I think bobcat due to the color flash of fur that I saw and the size of the animal, but again was just a quick glimpse and it was gone.

Through many camping trips, kabobs have become a favorite as they are easy to put together and easy to cook on an open fire.  This was marinated chicken, pepper, mushrooms, onion, and pineapple

Cooking on a wood fire, I made a nice bed of coals and started cooking.  usually I brush off and cook right on the camp ring grate, but due to the Park being closed for 2 months (and not used), the grate was rusty, so I threw our grate over the grill to keep the food off the rusty metal. 

Normally when cooking on a ring like this I will use the grate to extend the cooking surface by sliding the grate to the left in this pic thus doubling the cooking area (when we have a bigger group).

The rest of the evening was sitting around the fire chatting with our neighbors who also had their fire going and were about 15 ft away from us (social distanced).  Turns out they were from Davie, FL.

The next morning we rousted our daughter and managed to get her on a bike by 11AM.   If you look at the map, we left the campground and biked up to the long east west line at the top of the map.  It was an easy pedal over fairly hard ground a rutted trail the rangers drive on.  It was canopied with trees so not a bright sunny midday scorcher.

We went about halfway and you can see on the map where it curves south and across the county road to the Loop Drive.  That was the path we took.   I saw the flower above and felt it was picture worthy.   I still need to identify it.

The girls wanted to do the Cypress trail.   Today there was more wildlife as this guy was out sunning.  He was 6-7ft long and just off the boardwalk.

This little one (about 18 inches long) and there was a second one nearby as well.

There were about 30-40 of these fish breathing the water right at the top (their mouths were partially out of the water).  I believe they are Tilapia (invasive exotics) and they are trying to get additional oxygen as the water level is so low and the amount of available oxygen in the stagnant water is probably fairly low.

A quick internet search supports my theory:   "It's a warning sign pond oxygen levels have dipped to dangerously low levels. As water temperatures rise, a pond's ability to retain oxygen declines. ... If the water column cannot respire to maintain healthy oxygen rates, fish resort to gasping on the surface."  -  https://www.bobluskoutdoors.com/news-updates/fish-gulping-air-surface-pond-lake-2016-06-2803

Naya had walked ahead and another couple had gotten in between us.   I almost walked by her quietly sitting here just a few feet off the trail.  She said the other couple didn't even see her there.

As a child in Pennsylvania we called these Punks, but most people I know call them Cattails.  Anyway, they make me want to eat a hot dog.   A quick google and I just learned that the rhizomes are edible.
I had wanted to do a few more trails, but the girls were hungry and said it was getting too hot out.

Back at the campsite, I was very surprised and how many people had left of a Saturday of a holiday weekend.   The sites did all turn over with the park being full again Saturday night.  Although we had shade for the table, the coach had alot of sun and the AC worked hard to keep it comfortable inside.

 As mentioned earlier, during Memorial Day weekend, we are away at our annual martial arts training camp.  It's a four day event that is held somewhere in the US with hundreds of attendees from all over our country and others.   This year, due to the virus, it was cancelled.   After we had made our travel plans, an idea was hatched for a Virtual Training Camp via the Zoom app.    Unfortunately, Zoom is a bandwidth hog and our cell connection was kind of weak where we were at.   One of the highlights of the weekend is Skit Night.   We tuned in and used a projector to show it on the ceiling of the motorhome.  The weak connection made the video jerky and buffer alot, but we could follow along.

 Here we are having some dinner and watching skit night.   I had brought in one of the chairs to set up in the walkway next to the bar.

The hosts of skit night.   Usually people come on stage and perform and then these guys turn around and lampoon them and it's usually pretty hilarious.   This year a good portion of it was pre-recorded but still pretty funny.

Afterwards, it was back outside, with more logs in the fire and we made a few phone calls to our friends that we should have been with this weekend.

Sunday breakfast was basically an egg McMuffin with egg, bacon and cheese.   Delicious!

Sunday morning bike ride.   It was overcast from the start this morning with a threat of rain all day.  We were glad we left home as it was pouring rain the entire time down there all weekend.

If you look at the park map above, this is the bike loop in the upper right hand side of the map.  Pine flatwoods with sugar sand.  Luckily for us the trail had an orange clay type surface that had to have been brought in just for the trail as right off it, it was all the white sugar sand you find around FL (including my yard).

Following the trail south across the park entrance road, we came across this newly constructed pavillion.  It was so fresh the wood still smelled.  We took a 5 minute break and I tried to get Naya to smile for the camera.  This is what I got.   Additionally, she has laid claim to my bike as she has outgrown the muscle bike.

We then rode over to the Wild Orange Grove Trail and walked that in both directions (point to point trail).  It started to rain a little and it was lunch time so we headed back to camp.

As the afternoon went on, the weather started to deteriorate and by 5 or 6 it was raining steadily but not hard.   Such went the plans to visit other trails.   Luckily, one of our dinners was fajitas so it cooked up on the griddle inside the coach.

After dinner, we played Scrabble and Blockus and then we all read books until it was bedtime.

Monday morning arrived Lucy and I set out on our bikes and let the kiddo sleep in.   I wanted to be on the road before noon and hopefully by 11, as there were things at home to be done before going back to work on Tuesday.

We parked our bikes at the Big Oak trail and proceeded. to this old dead oak.  Considering there is another one that is 1000 years old, this one although dead looks older.  I expected a little plaque about it but there wasn't one.

Later on the trail there was this other one that was still alive.  The gap was about waist high and the tree trunk was about 6 feet wide at the bottom.

We progressed onto the Hickory Trail although I don't think this is a hickory tree.  It is not a Cypress, but has a buttressed root system.  A ten min google search did not provide me with and answer to I will continue looking for one.

Wild Oranges.   The trees grow all over the park and apparently squirrels like them too.  These were ripe, but too high for me to reach as I wanted to try one.

Lucy next to yet another large oak.  The area we were walking is the oldest biome in the park.

The Thousand year old oak tree.   It was a bit less majestic than I imagined and after traversing 3 trails to arrive at it (Oak, Hickory, and Richard Liebert trails), I find out it's right next to the road and had ridden my bike right past it twice this weekend already.....It was pretty beat up but still had fresh growth.   It looked like at some point concrete and rebar was use to try and shore up branches but it was laying on the ground and the dead limb was rotting away around the concrete. 

Wanted to quiz a ranger about it, but didn't get a chance before we left.

Continuing on the trail loop, we spotted a couple of slugs out enjoying the wet conditions

Interesting fungus that was green and scaly

Reminders of the virus were everywhere.  I have no idea what kind of flowers they are but....

When we got back to our bikes after hitting the Fern Garden trail and then doubling back on the Hickory and Big Oak trails, there was a very loud owl right above us calling.

It's odd to see one at 9:30 in the morning, but there was another answering back.   This unfortunately was the best picture I could get with my phone.  We researched it and figure most likely was a Barred Owl.   We watched it for about 15 min and it moved to a new roost where I got this picture.

Lucy said she saw it later when leaving and it had a small animal in its talons.

We got back to the camp and I immediately went into depart mode as the weather was holding for the moment and we wanted to get out.  I was hoping to get to the sewer dump before the masses, but by the time we rolled out about 11:05 there were over 15 campers waiting to dump, so I just drove right by them and would dump at home (even though I'd rather not drive with a tank of waste, I didn't want to spend the time waiting as there is no line to dump at my house -  I pull in nose first and the sewer clean out is right next to the dump hose on the coach).

Normally (as on the way out), I follow the yellow line to 'get out of town' if going to the middle or west side of the state.  For whatever, reason I decided since we got a good start out of the campground, I'd take the longer (adds about 25 min) was around US27 and the west side of the lake.

About the time we were going through Lake Placid I thought about the weather, as I had a last minute option to take a left at FL 70 and head back toward Okeechobee and Beeline Hwy.   A quick check on radar showed I had made the right calle as taking the yellow route would have been torrential rains most of the way.  Also that way most of the road is only 2 lane, so this way being longer was a safer option with wide 4 lane highway.

We hit about 5 min of heavy rain in Moore Haven and again between Clewiston and South Bay, but mostly dry or spitting.   Once on 441 coming through the sugar fields we could see the black clouds closing in.   It rained some more but when we got to Wellington it let up again. 

Hit another downpour in I95 in Boynton but it wasn't raining at our house.   I dumped the sewer and the girls got most of the coach unloaded.  I finished and helped load out the rest of the items and parked the coach.

On Friday when pulling out the coach, the top hinge pulled out of the fence post.   I rigged it up with the eye screw to hold it after I got the gate closed.  I was the longest lag I had on hand and we were ready to go.    Upon arrival, when I opened the very wet, very heavy gate, that lag pulled right out too.

We got the coach pulled in that gate closed and I backed out the lag and secured again, but knew I had to fix before I opened the gate again.  Before I could think about it, it started POURING and we got about 4-5 inches in the next two hours.   I came back to this on Wed after work and went to Home Depot and spent $1.43 on a carriage bolt two washers and a nut.   I had to use 3/8 to fit through the hinge and the longest was 6 inches.    I grabbed a paddle bit and recessed it a bit to get the nut and washer on. 

The gate is about 20 years old at least and in dire need of being replaced.  It made it through 3 hurricanes and it's in rough shape.   I think the replacement will be a metal frame with fence slats attached.