We have been here in Palmetto, Florida, too long. Our original plan was to arrive in October, stay until Jan. 1, then head out west. But the best laid plans, as Robbie Burns said, gang aft agley (don't go right). And so, after a broken back, a totaled car, and a wife who had shards of glass embedded in her right arm, we decided to stay parked while we worked out these annoyances.
But now we're ready to move on June 1. But the dream of Alaska will have to wait another year.
You know you're ready when you begin to hear details of the villagers' lives that are 'way too much information. Jo learned at cards the other day, for example, that the mobile home in the park that was painted a brown ka-ka color, similar to dog excrement, was thought to be blue by the owner who turns out to be colorblind!
The raccoon that sneaks through our yard and makes Chai sit up with a look of "What the hell is this?" has been trapped by the park management for fear that he is rabid.
But we have met some pretty neat people, too. There's a pleasant woman we met while wallowing in the pool this past weekend. She told us her husband works 12 hours a day, seven days a week, as captain of a dredging barge out of Port Manatee, just up the road. And his 12 hours of work occur through the night. As a result, she has to leave their tiny trailer while he sleeps during the day: hence wallowing in the pool. The captain was just reassigned to another dredging project up the Florida coast. So they hauled out today for their new camp ground.
We walk around Terra Ceia RV Resort each night and we seem to be in a dead zone. There are about 240 mobile homes and slots for motor homes in the park. The mobile homes are mostly closed as their owners have headed back to Michigan and other points north. But we usually meet Bill and Donna, an elderly couple who always walk around the park in a counter-clockwise direction, while Jo and I walk in a clockwise direction. Bill invariably tells us we are headed the wrong way. They, too, head north in another week.
When we leave, our plans now are to drive up the west coast of Florida, staying in state parks along the way. They we head west to Mobile, Alabama, and over to New Orleans before hanging a right and driving up north along the Mississippi River. We'll head for Memphis, Tennesee, St. Louis, Missouri, and then move into Illinois to visit the capital, Springfield. We want to participate in this 200th birthday year of Abe Lincoln and Springfield is the place to do that. Then we plan to head through the depressed part of Indiana (unemployment of 26 per cent) and into Michigan to visit some of the friends we made while living down here in Florida. Then, inshalla, we cross the border into Canada to visit with my sister, Rose.
We'll let you know how all this unfolds as we find unique people and interesting places.
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