A Rainy Day Here in Georgia

I have heard the same thing over and over from my friends today--it’s raining and I’m cold.  For those of us who have traveled north from the not so warm south have really noticed the difference in temperature.  The forecast doesn’t appear too promising for the next couple days.

Gene didn’t feel to perky today, still suffering with a sore mouth from several shots of Novocain and having his mouth open for several hours yesterday afternoon.  With his unperkyness and the lousy weather, it was a day to stay inside.  He kept himself busy with a tax return and I got a little ahead with my meal planning and cooking for dinner tomorrow.  This afternoon we went out briefly to Camping World; then it was home for a nice nap.

Not much to report today so I’ll let this be it.  We’ll get out and about tomorrow.

Dental Work

We were not at all enthusiastic about coming 250 miles north with all the winter weather still hanging on, but this has been a very pleasant day.  The temps are a little cool, but the sun has been bright all day.  Plus, the green leaves on the live oaks in our campground give the illusion of spring.

Gene’s dental appointment was this afternoon.  I didn’t go with him because I had cookies to bake and dinner to prepare for my brother.  This was his first appointment and was supposed to be short with just an evaluation of the tooth needing repair.  Since his appointment was at 1:30, I expected him home no later than 3:30.   When 4 o’clock came and went I began to get worried.

As it turned out, the dentist had rearranged her afternoon schedule to accommodate Gene and she was able not only to do the evaluation and x-rays, but also prep his tooth and put on the temporary crown.  Great!  Now we only have to wait for the crown to be made and he has an appointment to have it put on the 19th.  Tomorrow, we’ll sit down with our maps, brochures, and guidebooks and make a plan for our stay in Perry.

Dinner with my brother was great.  Hadn’t seen him since Thanksgiving, so it was good to catch up again.  He has had back surgery since then and was not feeling up to a long visit after his first full day back at work.  We’ll have plenty of other opportunities to visit during the next 3 weeks.

There you have it for today.

Landed in Perry, GA

Well, we didn’t get away quite as early as expected, but still we were parked and set up in Perry by mid afternoon.  Thankfully, and exactly what we like, our drive from Silver Springs was uneventful.

We don’t really have a plan for our visit here.  Our first priority is to get Gene’s tooth fixed.  We, of course, want to spend some time with family.  My brother lives in Macon, I have a nephew and his wife and son who live in Perry, and another nephew and his wife in Warner Robins. We could easily spend countless hours with them.  Besides family, we want to get to Andersonville as well as Plains for the Jimmy Carter stuff.  RVing friends, Mike and Gerri, are just a few miles west in Pine Mountain and a visit with them is almost certain.  So we have plenty to keep us busy for the time it will take to get the tooth repaired.

Gene has an appointment with the dentist tomorrow afternoon.  We should know more then and will be able to make a few plans.

That’s it.  I’ll be back tomorrow.

Farewell to Silver Springs

Friday morning was busy around the house.  Gene got the tires aired up and the hitch cleaned and greased.  I got all the laundry done.  I don’t especially like the laundry facility at this campground, but it is cheap.  I think I washed everything in the house.

Ocala claims to be the horse capitol.

A large chunk of the afternoon was spent visiting with Bill and Helen.  We are so glad we were able to work out a time to get together again before we left Silver Springs.  They are heading out west this year and we are heading north.  Who knows when our paths may cross again, but one thing is for certain, they will cross and we look forward to that time.

There are some beautiful horse farms around the area

We hadn’t hiked in a couple days, so even though the weather forecast predicted rain, we went out anyway.  It was cold and wet, but we had a good hike.  We closed in the gap on the Florida trail which we skipped over before.  With todays hike, we have done 26 miles of this trail.  Actually, we’ve done that 26 miles twice, since we have to hike out and then return to the truck.  Today, we saw several patches of spring wildflowers and a few blooming trees.  Although it is hard to tell with the snow still falling in the northeast, I think spring is on its way, finally.

Horse playground?

This is our last day in Silver Springs.  We will probably get an early start in the morning for our 250 mile drive to Perry, Georgia.

We have enjoyed our stay here.  The weather hasn’t been real warm this winter, but it hasn’t been warm anywhere.  Ocala is a large enough town to have a variety of large groceries, a couple Wal-Marts, a mall, and a Hobby Lobby.  There is live entertainment at the Silver Springs attraction every Saturday afternoon and it is very reasonably priced if you buy the season pass.  If you’re staying a month or more, it’s worth it.  It is an easy day trip to Daytona on the Atlantic coast and Cedar Key on the Gulf coast.  Other cities are within range of a day trip--Orlando, Tampa, Gainesville.  There are several state parks within 75 miles of Ocala and we have found the Florida State Parks to be very worthwhile.  We have enjoyed the hiking in the area.  Although we have spent most of our hiking time on the Florida Trail, there are trails in most of the state parks and many trails in Ocala National Forest.  Despite my original fears of dying from snake bite, we only saw that one tiny snake on our first hike.

We have not been overjoyed with our campground.  When we come back to this area, we’ll select a different place to park.  Other than that, we have no complaints.

That’s it for today.  Tomorrow night I will be writing from Perry, GA.

Change of Plan

Yesterday was a day to regroup and work through the logistics of making a change in our original plans for leaving Silver Springs.  It came about like this.

A couple weeks ago Gene made the comment that something unusual was going on with one of this teeth.  Of course, my advise was to eat on the other side cause we don’t go back to the dentist until November.  Wednesday evening that tooth broke in half so I guess it must be November already.

Seriously, now was the time to decide what to do about getting the tooth fixed.  We both have crowns, so we recognized right away that is what was needed--a time consuming event.  The question became do we stay in Silver Springs, move to our next destination (Savannah), or the next (Macon), or go on back to Nashville to our trusted dentist of the past decade.

Yesterday, Gene got busy with all the things that needed to be done to get this issue resolved.  One look at the weather report for Nashville quickly dropped that possibility off the option list.  We don’t love our dentist that much.  We also quickly dropped Savannah from the list.  We weren’t planning to spend very many days in Savannah and if we had the tooth fixed there, we would miss out on our time with family in Macon.  Well, that narrowed down our options.

The next priority became to find a dentist either here or in Macon.  Gene went to the campground office to see if we could extend here and to get a dentist recommendation.  We also e-mailed my brother and nephews to get recommendations from them.

Extending here was not a problem and when Gene called the dentist the office recommended, he was able to get an appointment.  He was also able to get an appointment with the dentist my brother recommended in Macon.  Time to made a decision--stay here or go on to Macon.  It came down to whether we wanted to stay here where the weather was just a tad warmer or go on to Macon for family and the other things we want to do there.  Since our hitch had already started to itch, we opted for family and a new locale.

We spent the remainder of the day getting organized for an early departure, doing a quick run to Ocala to pick up a few items, deciding how to spend our last two days in this area, canceling reservations in Savannah, and doing the mental exercises required to get your mind around an unexpected event.  That done, all is well.

Gene’s appointment is on Monday, so we will leave Silver Springs Sunday morning, a day earlier than originally planned, we’ll put Savannah on the list for another trip, and we’ll have a nice long visit with family in Middle Georgia.

Today will be a house cleaning and chore day.  Friends, Bill and Helen, are stopping by later this afternoon for one last visit before we all leave central Florida.  So I better get up from here and get busy.

Black Skimmers

By the way, the photo on the Cedar Key entry of shore birds on the beach has now been named.  I thought they were some type of gull, but couldn’t find them in the gull photos I looked at on the internet.  With a little more research, I learned they are black skimmers.  I haven’t done enough research to know if this is a type of gull, but at least they have a name.  I always like to know what’s in the photo.

Cedar Key

Several of our friends recommended we go to Cedar Key.  Located on the Gulf coast about 70 miles southwest of Gainesville, the Cedar Keys are a cluster of small islands with the main island a laid back fishing village reminiscent of what they call “old Florida”.

Island Hotel established in 1859

Today we wandered along the few blocks which make up this historic village.  We got there about noon and immediately went in search of Tony’s for the famous clam chowder.  The small dining room, which will only seat about 30, was full except for a table for 2 which we took.  A steady stream of folks came in while we were there, many ordering at the take-out window.  Tony’s won the World Championship honor for the clam chowder last year and clearly it was in a class of it’s own.

With our tummies full, we walked the streets, stopping in a few of the shops.  This is an artsy town and the local merchants exhibit and sell works of the area artists.  We also stepped into the public library and the Island Hotel to get a peek at the inside of these old buildings.

Cedar Key was much older, more rundown, and more artsy than we expected--all of which made it that much more charming.

A few of the town cats

We didn’t go directly to Cedar Key, but instead drove from Silver Spring all the way to the coast via highway 40.  With the exception of a small section in Daytona, we have driven the entire width of Florida on this highway.  Of course, state route 40 does not actually go to the coast, but ends at Dunnellon.  We made a little jog and got onto county road 40 and made our way to the gulf.

The end of Highway 40

Even though it was a cloudy, cool day, we really enjoyed our trip to the Gulf coast.

Our Hitch is Itching

We managed to entertain ourselves close to home today.  We just didn’t have the enthusiasm to wander off.  I think hitch itch is setting in.  This usually happens about the third week of a month long stay.  Three weeks is about our limit in any one spot.  In that amount of time, we’ve seen the area attractions and still had plenty of down time.  The big discount in renting by the month instead of by the week is significant enough to keep us signing up for month long stays.

That being said, we still didn’t want to just sit in the house on such a beautiful day so we found our way to a trailhead.  Nothing like a 7-mile hike to make you rethink sitting in the recliner all day.  Every time we have hiked during our stay in Ocala, we have done a different section of the Florida Trail.  There are a few gaps along the way, but we have completed almost all the trail from Marshall Swamp to CR 484, a distance of about 15 miles.  We’ve also done nearly all of the 8 miles across Juniper Prairie Wilderness in Ocala National Forest.  We can definitely tell the difference the exercise has made.  We have a way to go, however, before we are ready to tackle those 12+ mile days we expect to do on the Appalachian Trail in May.

Even though we are ready to leave this area, there is still one place we just must see--Cedar Key.  The forecast for tomorrow looks great, so we’ll be heading west early in the morning for the 100 mile drive to the Gulf coast.

Until then, safe travels and hike light.