Tuesday, February 18, 2003
The final day of our trip was a journey from summer into winter. We began to see traces of snow in South Carolina and noticeable amounts of snow in North Carolina. As forecasted, Virginia had been hard hit by the storm and the ground was covered in increasingly deep layers of snow as we drove north to Fairfax. We arrived home to find the house, the driveway, and Monika’s care covered with 2 feet of snow! There was only 1 lane plowed in the middle of the street and I could not get the truck into the driveway without a lot of shoveling. Fortunately we still had an hour of light to do this and even more fortunately our neighbors saw our predicament and came over with shovels to help us clear enough of the driveway to get the truck off the street for the night. So nice to have good neighbors!

And so it was that our trip ended with a groan rather than a bang, but it was a whale of a lot of fun while it lasted. Someone once said that a journey is not about what you see so much as it is about how the traveler changes. Certainly we saw a lot, and I don’t know how much I’ve changed, but over the 6 weeks I learned several lessons. To wit:

1. I’m not as young as I once was, but I’m not as decrepit as I could be, either. After our first air mattress failed, we slept on the air mattress on the ground and got used to that quite well. It turns out that having the chairs to sit in and prop yourself up for dressing is the really critical part of the furniture issue—we don’t really need cots for sleeping. Also, my left shoulder joint, which had been hurting quite a bit in the early part of the trip, didn’t prevent me from doing any of the necessary camping chores and gradually got better.
2. Planning a trip far in advance is vastly overrated. This trip was basically unplanned, and many of our most enjoyable moments like the pow-wow or the dolphin encounter were serendipitous. Our way of travel is with a basic strategic outline for the trip, but fleshing out the details as we go. That approach also allows us to take necessary “rest and relaxation” days that we seem to need every couple of weeks at a minimum.
3. Estimating driving distance for a flexible trip like this is difficult and I distinctly underestimated the total trip distance. The direct distance from Washington to Key West and back thru Pensacola was around 2,000 miles and I thought we would add about 1,000 miles with all the side trips. In fact, the total trip mileage was 4,900 miles, so a safer way to estimate mileage for this kind of trip might be doubling the direct route mileage, or even a little more. But we certainly did see a lot of nice things in those miles.
4. Florida has a wonderful set of state parks—over a hundred in all. We camped in 11 of the 41 state parks that have camping facilities and found them generally in excellent condition. Most restrooms are unheated but have warm water, showers, soap, and either a dryer or paper towels. The reservation system for the campgrounds is cumbersome but works. However, the more popular parks are booked out up to 11 months in advance. That favors folks who plan well ahead, but we made reservations only 1-2 weeks in advance and generally found sites for one of the parks in our targeted area. None of the state parks allowed gathering of firewood, so bringing wood, buying it, or scavenging it from the side of the road is advisable. If you keep your eyes open, it is amazing how much discarded wood you will find—if all else fails check our the construction site dumpsters.
5. Raccoons are smarter, or at least more persistent, than you think. We eked out a tie with them on this trip and plan to be winners on the next trip. However, much like generals who are preparing to fight the last war, we have to not only prepare for raccoons but also beware of the critters we might meet on upcoming trips out west. In particular, finding bear-proof containers could be a big issue for trips out west or up to Alaska. I’ve seen the lowly black bear open locked food chests with a single swat of his paw on the lid, and grizzly are a lot bigger and stronger than black bears.
6. Florida in the winter is colder than you expect. We wore a lot of our cold weather gear in the mornings for most of the trip. The weather north of a line between Tampa and Orlando seems to be noticeably cooler than in the southern tip of the peninsula. However, even northern Florida is warmer than Virginia and we didn’t see a snowflake for the entire time we were there.
7. Many of the conveniences of modern life are unnecessary. We lived without kitchen appliances, beds, TV, radio, newspapers, etc. We were amused to see some campers with satellite dishes, so clearly some folks would rather take all the conveniences of modern life with them. Maybe we should use different names and call that approach “RV”ing rather than “camping”. The essentials for camping are shelter from the elements, a bed of some sort, and food plus a way to cook it. In our case that translates to a tent, a sleeping bag, and a Coleman stove. That said, we did use our cell phone to check in with my son every few days, a digital camera to take pictures, a portable computer to store pictures and the journal, and an electric heater for the tent, so we certainly weren’t “roughing it”. Having a campfire was nice both psychologically and sometimes physically for warmth even tho we didn’t use it to cook—difficult cleaning the soot off the pots.

So if you’ve ever had a yen to travel and can adapt to this approach, all you really need is the tent, sleeping bag, and stove, and you’re in business. This country has many wonderful places to go and things to see winter, spring, summer, and fall. So altho we plan to visit Florida again next winter, we will be off to new places betwixt now and then. Maybe we’ll see you on the road somewhere! Look for a “Desert Sand” colored Toyota Tundra truck with many stuffed animals on the dashboard and Volksmarching signs in the back window. If you see that combination you just might see us either inside or taking a walk in the area. Or, as the 1950s author Kerouac might have said to himself before he traveled around the USA and wrote his famous book: “Hit the Road, Jack!”