Change is Good

This morning, as I logged in to start writing this post, I came across an old draft post from January 2021. It was just a couple of paragraphs, but had a familiar theme…

“I’ve been wanting to start blogging again, regularly, in 2021. I’ve said that before, but this year is different. I am different. Chances are, the blog will seem different, too. And that’s okay. Change is good.”

I chuckle to think of the person I was in January 2021, having that thought. (I AM a different person than I was 10 or even five years ago. Older and wiser in many ways, that’s for sure.) Five and a half months later, I am basically the same person I was earlier this year, but we are living a very different life. Back then, we’d been talking about what we were going to do after Mike retired. I’d only started looking at campgrounds, thinking about making reservations, wondering how to make sure we’d have Internet connectivity so I could continue working remotely.

Fast-forward to today. Mike is retired and I have quit my job. I’m sitting on our new, much more comfortable sofa in the RV. The sofa is against the passenger-side wall of the RV, right behind the front passenger seat. I have a partially obstructed view, but can see beyond the driver’s seat out the front of the coach. We are parked in a campsite at the Yellow Jacket RV Resort near Old Town, Florida. It’s a pull-in site, as opposed to a back-in or pull-through. (We will have to back out of the site when it’s time to leave, but we’ll cross that bridge a week from now.) The front of the coach is about 25 feet from the riverbank. There’s a boat launch to the right of our site. In front of our site, on the river, is a floating dock where rental boats are housed. There are trees around our site draped in Spanish moss. It’s a lovely spot.

As far as wildlife — critters! — so far in the river we’ve seen turtles (the same kind you’d see in freshwater lakes, rivers, and ponds in Virginia), a snake, minnows, and several five-foot-long (or longer) Gulf Sturgeon. We have not seen any alligators in the river, yet, but probably will.

Mouse-sized Grasshopper

There’s a local man, named Hal, camped next to us. I asked him if I need to worry about alligators eating me and/or Belle if we swim in the river. He says I’d only have to worry if we were swimming at dusk or night-time (not likely!). Especially when the boat launch is busy and there’s lots of boat traffic on the river. Simply put, gators are more afraid of us than we are of them. He’d be more worried swimming in the ocean than in the river.

At some point, Belle and I will be swimming in the river. The only thing I am a little concerned about are the sturgeon. They can grow up to 8 feet long, can weigh up to 200 pounds, are sorta armor-plated, and have the tendency to jump out of the water. For real. There’s a warning sign posted at the boat launch.

The only complaint we have about our current location is weak cell signal, which means limited Internet access. The campground does offer Wifi, but it’s slow. That’s okay, though. We can survive without constant connectivity, I think.

For now, here are some recent pics I have captured.

Placemat from local seafood restaurant.

 

We finally got to eat alligator; pictured is a piece of gator tail appetizer.

 

Our coach as seen from the floating dock.

 

Turtles and view of Suwannee River from floating dock.

 

View while cooking dinner.

 

Belle likes this spot, too. Lucky for her, a small cliff separates our site from the water. (Less chance of her becoming gator food.)

I’ll share more in a future post. For now, I am going to go outside and enjoy the day.

13 Replies to “Change is Good”

  1. That really does look like a nice site. We plan to spend much of next winter in FL seeing what the state has to offer besides theme parks. Bridget is really interested in some of the springs and the manatee locations. She is doing much of the planning. I’m along for the ride…

    1. Richard, this is definitely a park I would recommend. We are going to try and see some of the springs while here. Fanning Springs is just upstream and there’s also a place called Manatee Springs State Park. This area is called Florida’s Nature Coast. It really is lovely.

    2. Hi, Richard. We finally got nice weather and I went to Manatee Springs today. It was amazing. I only had my phone camera along, but will share pics. We will try a different spring tomorrow, I hope.

  2. Best wishes on your new adventure! We’re going the opposite direction. We went full-time a few months before the pandemic and the writing was on the wall. It’s not gone well for us on many levels so we’re stepping out into another adventure. So 18 months later, we just closed on a little house that needs a whole lot of TLC. Change is indeed good. Cheers!

      1. All good. The pandemic really impacted things. In the end we had to ask ourselves—why isn’t is working, what would it take to fix it, and is that worthwhile for us? The answer came down to no. We’d rather go back to moto travel. That’s our heart and soul. 🙂

        Cheers!

    1. We meant to try it on our down south road trip a couple of years ago, but forgot. It had a good flavor, but was a bit chewier than I liked. It reminded me of a rarish pork chop. I’ll try again when there’s more than tail to try. 😊🐊🐸

    1. Yeah, thing about that the next time you eat caviar. Henceforth, every time I think “sturgeon” I bet I’ll imagine the sound of a giant fish slapping water

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