Hanging around in Georgia…

Since I don’t have a schedule, I’m staying at the Harvest Moon RV park in Adairsville, Georgia for a few days instead of just overnight because…why not. Weather was beautiful, park was very nice, I needed to get my laundry done, the usual. WiFi sucked but…meh, I’ll survive I suppose. Adairsville has a humid subtropical climate most of the year. But not while I visited. Very nice. During the days, 70’s, at night in the 50’s. Adairsville used to be a small Cherokee village until they were forced out in 1838 by land thieves based on the Indian relocation act. An illegal bill that was struck down by the Supreme Court after the Cherokee people sued for redress. The Cherokee were known as one of the Civilized Tribes as they had early on in the 1780’s adopted and tried to integrate into ‘white’ society. President Andrew Jackson ignored the SCOTUS ruling in favor of the Indians and forced marched them on the ‘Trail of Tears’ on which nearly 5,000 died. Asshole.

There’s hardly any Indian history left around here, after it was brutally destroyed by the land grabbers that flooded this area after the Indians were forced out. There is, however, a pioneer graveyard right behind this RV park.

And I found the opening in the fence and visited. This is the newer section. I took this shot to show the contrast between this part and the old part. I was thinking that so many of these graves having just a simple wooden cross indicated poor economy in the area. That’s probably true of all era’s here. I’d guess that many would over time scrape up enough money to purchase a stone grave marker. Here’s some recent graves where they have the fancy headstone. Then we get into the older section of the graveyard. This guy didn’t even beat the average age at death for the time, he was only 31. See the fresh flowers? Family is still tending their ancestors graves here. This couple died in 1881 and 1897.  This is the really old section. These graves are all of the same family members. They segregate themselves even in death with that cement surround. Since this land wasn’t stolen until after 1830, none of the headstones are older than that. Interesting tour. There’s my RV over there. I did take my bike off the rack and ride around the area but there’s really nothing around here. Not even a bar within riding distance. Most everything is in closer to town…about 5 miles from here. Damn.

After I’d tended to all my chores, visited the graveyard again, and enjoyed the weather over three days, it was time to continue south. If there was something to do around here, I would have stayed longer. Whatever.

And here I have just crossed into Florida. Hmmm. It’s flat. But lots of green. And water.

Well, damnit, clouds forming over Orlando just as I’m arriving in town.And here I am at Lost Lake RV Resort, in Apopka, Florida. I didn’t stay in this site long, couldn’t seem to get the RV parked right, so it was always leaning. And, too much sun all day made it so I’d have to run the A/C too often and too long each day. Moved across the street a few days later.Not too crowded when I arrived in late October on the 21st.This is out back of the park. Way over there is a horse place. All fancy like. They do show horse shows there. I happened to visit one day when they were prancing around the show ring before the day of the competition. Fun way to kill some time. This pile of wood and detritus there is where I was able to burn all my old tax records I’d been carrying around far too long. Must have gotten rid of 25 pounds of unnecessary weight.These 3 cranes are a permanent fixture around here. They’re sisters and were born right next to the park, and haven’t really ever felt the need to leave. They are not tame, this is as close I could get to them without them quickly hurrying off.A week later, and I’m settled into what became my permanent site. Nice shade trees meant I’d seldom need to run the A/C but they didn’t interfere with TV. WiFi sucked until I sent a complaint email to the contact listed on the web site. A week later and they’ve gone through and replaced all the old equipment with new. Worked much better after that. I could now watch online movies if I was careful to do so only on off hours when other people weren’t online.

The web mistress thanked me for telling her about the problem and mentioned that the office staff KNEW the WiFi sucked and that they were always getting complaints, but the dummies had just never bothered to tell the webmasters. Typical.

See that sand all over around and under my RV? There’s fine sand all over this state it seems. The whole state is made of sand. And a lot of it is in this RV park. One day, I’m riding my bike around the park, rubbernecking, moving slowly, when I find myself in a 2″ coating of fine sand on the roadway washed there by a recent rain storm. Tires come to a halt, and in slow motion, I topple to the ground. My right side shoulder and hip take the hit. Oh-oh. They are hurting a little but not enough to slow me down much. Two days later, I fall again on fine sand. Also onto my right side. Three days later and my back freezes up. Have to wear my back brace. It’s old and falling apart so have to drive in pain to Home Depot to buy a new one. Three days after that, my back pain and stiffness is easing up and then my hip starts in. Looked up the symptoms and seems as though I’ve got bursitis of the hip. Not fun when trying to sleep at night. Or when sitting at my computer station. Can’t avoid rolling over on that hip during the night and waking myself up. Endless routine of heat, cold, aspirin. Lasts 4-5 weeks. All this time so far, I can feel my shoulder but it’s really not a big deal. Then as the hip pain subsides, the shoulder pain gets worse and worse. What the hell? OK, well, I’m not going to complain too much because these things are one at a time instead of all at once.

[And now six months later, I’m still struggling over whether or not to stop at a clinic and have a doctor look at the shoulder. Six months with shoulder pain? Don’t seem right. Is it a strained ligament? Or is it like tendonitis or something? No bruising or anything though. One small sore spot. Doesn’t seem like a joint issue or broken bone.]

And a look at the park, with that Fleetwood way over there as the subject. The RV with the white truck parked in front. It’s the same age as mine and note those large picture windows next to the door. I’ve been inside that model and I really like how it’s laid out. Wish mine was as cool as that one. Oh well.And here was what the weather was like the day before T-Day. Shirt sleeve and cargo shorts type weather. Took this shot just after coming home from shopping. Got myself 2 pounds of ‘low salt’ precooked turkey from the deli. They lied. Salty. But, next day I made myself turkey dinner with mashed potatoes, turkey gravy, corn on the cob, dinner rolls, big black olives I could stick on the ends of my fingers, and a fine dark ale. Also had a piece of bakery pie. It was a great T-Day for watching football. Everything tasted great, and I had 3 ‘leftover’ meals the next few days.

Many people were visiting family, friends, or going out for T-Day as most of the cars on my street are gone today. Often when I’d come back from shopping I’d have to make them move out of the way since many park right on the street.

I had checked with the front office to see if there was going to be a T-Day get together and potluck but this park doesn’t organize that sort of thing like other parks do. They don’t do anything for Xmas either, so when that rolled around, I got myself another deli turkey dinner and stuff that goes with it and once again enjoyed my own company. Oh, and watched a football game of course.Right across the main street from this RV park is the West Orange Trail. This is an improved, as in paved trail wide enough for 4 or 5 bike riders to ride abreast. It tends to try and stay in shaded, tree lined areas and is a beautiful bike ride. I rode on the trail several times a week. Going for miles in either direction. Sometimes all the way into Apopka. If you click on the link, the map shows in the center, Publix. That is an error. That green ground is the location of Lost Lake RV Resort. The trail is shown across the street. I’ve notified Google maps already of the error.

Anyway, as you look at the map, note all the freaking churches! Gag me. Jeese. Huge money thieving churches. One of them looked like a thousand people could be sucked into their vortex of lies and myths. And then one day, I rode into Apopka, my first trip into town, looking for a sports bar where I could watch a Seahawks game and guess what? Church after church after church right in downtown, many of them using storefronts from older but closed businesses, but not a damned bar anywhere! That is the way to drive men mad, close all the bars and build too many churches. Thank Darwin that religion is dying all over the country and less than 12% of the population go to church these days. They’ll all be closed soon enough. Still, it angered me because I was inconvenienced. And it’s all about me.

Then the biggest church in my area, just a week before T-Day, put out a sign right next to their 4 foot by 3 foot sign advertising their church. It was a 11″ X 8″ sheet of paper tacked onto a piece of cardboard, stapled to a stick and pounded into the ground near their driveway, 100 feet from the church proper, around 15 feet back from the roadway, and 10 feet from the sidewalk. They invited the homeless to join them for T-Day dinner and services. GAH! A multimillion dollar church with hundreds of parishioners, puts out a tiny sign that it’s doubtful any needy person would have ever noticed, just so they can tell themselves how good they are reaching out to the needy and all. Sign stayed up until mid-January but it was faded and in tatters by then. I only noticed it because I rode my bike passed there all the time. Church is huge. They have several buildings and a huge piece of land. Giant parking lots all over. Big enough for hundreds of cars. But they can’t afford a bigger sign for the homeless? Yeah, right.

Luckily, the Seahawks were heading for the Superbowl so they seemed to be on commercial TV enough that I didn’t miss any games. Plus the one time they weren’t on local TV, I was able to watch it online the next day. Yea!

I hadn’t planned on staying in this park more than a month, but some things came up, like the huge, nasty cold front that came roaring out of Canada into the US. The first few weeks I was here, the wintry weather just a couple hundred miles north of here got worse and worse. Nasty, cold, windy, wet, snowy! Even as far south as I-10, which is the freeway I needed to take to get to New Orleans. NO was having their share of bad weather too. And since I would be visiting and walking around all the time while there, who wants to be wearing a heavy jacket just to be a tourist? So I just stayed here in the warm and sunny Orlando area. We did have some huge rain storms roll in though. Coolish but not cold.

The other thing that came up was that during one of my once every other Wednesday shopping trips, my parking brake stopped engaging. Usually when that happens, I’d just have to bang the shift stick into the stop two or three times and it would work again. Not this time. Damn. Another repair.

But I put that off until I could find someone to work on it, or help me work on it. Since I’d hurt my shoulder, I didn’t feel good about trying to crawl under the rig and bang on stuff, so I was looking for someone in the park to help maybe? Or a mobile RV service? I called a few places and didn’t get a good vibe. So I just put it off for a while.

And suddenly, it was December 31st and I was still here near Orlando. Hmmm. Two months already. Time had passed quickly what with working on publishing blog posts about my trip to Europe and the Seahawks games. Maybe I’ll see if I can go to Epcot center?

Tune in next time and see if I made it there.

And that’s all from the year 2014. Done. Finished. Whew. I’m still 5 months behind since I’d taken such a long break back after I returned from Europe, but I’m getting there…caught up, slowly.