March 11, 2006

March 11, 2006

Bradenton / Lake Manatee State Park, Florida

YEAR 2 DAY 267

 

Today was sunny and hot. The thermometer on the dinette window of the trailer read 98 degrees this afternoon. Time to turn north !

This morning I was going to unhitch Harvey from Dee-Dee, but realized that would be unnecessary if Joanne caught a ride with Julie this afternoon into Bradenton, to do some grocery shopping. Julie told us last night she was going to Wal-Mart today. No sense unhitching if we don't need to use the truck to go anywhere. I phoned MTS Mobility and paid the cell phone bill. I took some photos of our lovely campsite. The sandy parking area is surrounded by Palmettos and Live Oaks, dripping Spanish Moss. I took Bo for an obedience training session. I administered flea treatments to Teddy and Bo, and heartworm medication to Bo. We took Bo for a walk to the lake down the winding paved trails that run through the campground to the lakeside picnic area. When we got to the lake there was a sign warning of alligators in the water. HA HA HA ... I always find that sort of signage amusing. Strange sense of humour, I guess. Bailey the Golden Retriever was romping in the lake, and Bo saw no reason not to join him. The 2 dogs romped and splashed, having a great time. In the meantime, an elderly woman on a park bench beside the lake was chastising Joanne because I was allowing Bo to romp in these alligator infested waters. Well ... you know ... I didn't actually see any alligators in the water. And they don't really find little Yorkshire Terriers all that tasty, do they ? ! ? In my Northerner's naiveté, I didn't perceive the danger to be that great, but I could be wrong.

As we walked back to the campground, I found a huge tortoise on the side of the trail. I had Joanne stand back with Bo, as I took a photo. A little Hispanic boy came down the trail on his scooter. He stopped, looked at the big tortoise, looked at me standing over it, and said "is that yours ?" HA HA HA HA HA ! Yeah, kid, me and my turtle are out for a stroll. I thought I'd give him some quality off-leash time. HA HA HA HA HA !

Back at the trailer, while Joanne prepared lunch, I installed a new smoke alarm. The old one malfunctioned a few days ago, so I bought a new one at Wal-Mart in Bushnell. One morning it started sounding an alarm for no apparent reason. We were still in bed, so it wasn't caused by cooking. We couldn'tfind any reasonable explanation, so I thought the best thing to do was to declare it malfunctioned, and time to replace it. We had lunch, then Joanne went into Bradenton with Julie to do some Wal-Martin'. I read for awhile, then took a nap. After napping, I downloaded and processed the photos in the digital camera. As I was finishing that, Joanne returned from shopping. I took the laptop outside and began to work on this journal entry. It was too hot inside the trailer. I put the air conditioner on for a few minutes, but the voltage meter in the trailer indicated that the campground's voltage output was low, and I was afraid of damaging the air conditioner by running it on low voltage. As I sit in a lawn chair beside the trailer, typing this, I'm seeing little lizards scurrying by.

We had a shared dinner with Julie and her mother, Christine. I brought our barbecue over to their campsite, and barbecued burgers. Julie and Christine prepared seasoned yams for the barbecue, as well as a tomato and onion salad, and baked beans. Joanne provided a chocolate cake she baked the other night. We sat around their campsite visiting and chatting until late in the evening. It was a lovely, warm night, with bright moonlight.

DSK