The next surprise

Here is the promised picture of the gyro on the back of the buggy.  Is it not too cute for itself?

Many of you will know that yesterday there was an horrific accident on I-75 South, just out of Gainesville, FL.  The cause was a wildfire in very dry, boggy land (think of acres and acres of peat moss) that they believe was an arson.  The smoke just overtook the highway, and drivers found themselves in the middle of it before they could stop.  One guy said he was out of his car talking with another guy who was out of HIS car when another vehicle suddenly smashed into the second guy's car.  Neither of them could see far enough to even see it coming.  At least ten have died and many others are injured.  Very bad.  All early in the morning Sunday. As it turns out, it was just lucky for me that I changed my mind about pressing through to Sarasota on Sunday.  I would not have been in the pile up; but I certainly would have been turned back.

When I stepped out of the camper shortly after 9 this morning, the whole campground was hazy with smoke.  Turns out that it was from the fire and accident south of Gainesville.  I was just outside of Lake City, which is well north of Gainesville, and that the smoke would be reaching us way up there was pretty astounding to everyone I spoke with. I went over to the office, and the folks there said that I-75 S was still closed in the area of the fire and accident, and that state troopers were detouring people off the highway.  Many of the people at the campground were overnighters, heading south, and were planning on taking a much slower alternate route to well south of Gainesville.

The smoke we had gave me a headache pretty quickly, and the drive to Sarasota would have been long without detours, so after talking with Jennifer about all this, I decided to change plans, and headed out in the late morning for the Florida panhandle and Apalachicola.

OK, you know by now that this will not be a lovely tale -- that seems to be the "nature" of this trip.  Took me well over three hours to finally make my way to the village of Apalachicola, which struck me as sweet as I hurried through in the late afternoon to get to a campground before sunset.  The campground I was looking for turned out to be more than 20 miles the other side of the village. And, of course, I took a wrong turn that took me another 20 miles out of the way. But I did find it.  I also found a sign at their version of an office that said "closed -- pick site A4, A6. or A19 and register [i.e., pay, in the morning".  Well. this is in principle OK; but A4 was well occupied and the exact location of A19 remains a mystery to me.  Luckily, I was able to force my way into A6, which is smack up against a lovely patch of poison ivy.  A7, with whom I share "hookups" was connected to the only water spiget (sp?) within remotely possible reach.  I don't think the people at A7 are here, but it's harder to tell in this place than you might think.  So, I will forgo water for tonight.  I have seen about seven older guys with pony tails walking around with those big white buckets.  The campground is right on the beach (which I, of course, cannot see from A6 for all the threatening foliage), so I'm just assuming that these guys are walking out to do some oystering and not moving human body parts around  . . .  I guess I don't need to say I'm a little creeped out.  (Jennifer thinks my imagination is over-active . . )

Tomorrow, though, will be better.  I'll be up early to go back to the village, and plan on camping at the state park on St. George Island, which I understand is beautiful. The island is about 9 miles out into the Gulf, so I won't be surprised if they haven't got cell towers there that will let my little WiFi  work its magic.  That's ok.  I'm now planning on a couple of days there just to get some time off from driving and practice my ukulele.

The road to Apalachicola is interesting.  Much of it reminded me of the roads going through the Pine Barrens in New Jersey.  And then suddenly the Gulf coast appeared -- absolutely beautiful.  All the houses along the coast are VERY high on stilts (with, of course, huge boats and RVs and SUVs parked right underneath them, go figure).  It's very quiet here now; but I'll bet it's really busy in summer.

So, the plan is to nose around a bit more over a few days.  Tomorrow, I hope to find a good book on Apalachicola and a coffee shop in which to park myself among the natives while I read it.  More tomorrow, then,  from the US Oyster Capital . . .