I woke to a grey dawn (sunup is very late down here) that gave way to a blue sky and rising heat. Everywhere was dripping wet following last night's rain but that was no deterrent to the squirrels crashing about in the trees and the lizards scuttling around on the little fence next to our site. The shower block was clean, to a certain degree, and the water copious and hot, or at least was hot when I'd worked out which twist of the faucet offered hot water. The park itself was small but wooded with oaks strung with Spanish Moss, indigenous palm trees and pine trees.
Mrs T and I sat out front in the gathering heat and were accosted by our neighbour, who was camped in an Airstream Motorhome. He had the tell-tale red numbers of the Wally Byam Caravan Club International (WBCCI) emblazoned on the front of his MoHo (see how I'm hip with the groove?). His number was 23, one of the original numbers issued by Wally Byam himself and originally allocated to our neighbour's father. Wally Byam, by the way, is the inventor of the Airstream and his company built them for many years. Amongst Airstreamers, Wally Byam is much revered so it was great to meet the son of someone who'd been on one of Wally's celebrated Caravans to Mexico. The MoHo was all done up like your grandmother's kitchen, all faux wood and beige carpets, which is not to our taste at all. In the centre of the dashboard was mounted a 25” CRT television, enveloped in a carpet covered cowl, and by the steering wheel was a 10” mono CRT screen for the rear view camera. The guy had said that it wasn't a new MoHo and I'd have pitched it being built in the late seventies or early eighties. It was actually manufactured in 2000! Stand by for social comment, folks, avert your eyes if you're of a nervous disposition; this is where American industries did and still do go wrong. In North America, the ad men tell you that bigger is better, especially if encased in wood and/or carpet. Sadly for the American public, this goes against the general run of technology, where smaller and lighter is better and wood, faux or otherwise, is to be avoided at all costs. Things covered in carpet are akin to having a mullet and thinking you look cool.
Moving on...... we had a slow start, did some washing and generally took our time. After lunch we jumped into the car to go to New Smyrna Beach, to see the Atlantic coast of Florida. It was going to about a 90 minute cross country run and I was wavering a bit but, as is usual with these things, I'm glad we did make the trip. Central Florida is a nice enough place and the roads are pretty good but it was the coast we wanted so as we crested the Intra-Coastal Waterway bridge and saw the ocean ahead we were really quite excited little toads. Beach access in the US is often taken by houses, apartments and hotels but I'd read about a public parking lot with access to the beach on East 23rd. We went there but found no parking lot, although there was pedestrian access. Oh, and a great big tortoise scuttling about. Mrs T crested the little wooden bridge on the dunes and called for us to come look and wow, what a sight. Laid out on either side was a sandy beach, stretching as far as the eye could see in both directions. Midway between the sea and the dunes was a roadway marked out on the sand and loads of cars parked along it, glinting in the sun. The Atlantic surf came rolling in and it looked just like in the guidebooks, only better for being in three dimensions.
We made our way back up the beach strip and eventually found the vehicular access to the beach nestling between two apartment buildings. $3 later and were driving down the sand between the markers getting very excited about driving onto the beach, and legally so. We set up camp not far from the car and all of us made straight for the surf. Now Mrs T is not what you'd call an enthusiast for the water but here it was blood warm and the rolling surf made a great place to unwind and let off some steam. It's a few years since I've been in the sea and had forgotten the stinging that afflicts your eyes when sticking your face into salt water. It's doing me good, it's doing me good I kept repeating to myself, but it didn't, it just made my eyes sting even more!
We spent three hours on the beach before being chivvied off by the Beach Patrol and we had a wonderful time. The Tadpoles enjoyed it but we did, too, which is probably good when you're all together for seventeen days. We followed up with a terrific meal in Flip Flop's restaurant, where the food was good and inexpensive and the ambiance was very relaxed; it was a fine end to a good day.
Arriving back at the campground at about half past ten, we found the place had been run though by another major rainstorm and that we had no power from the pillar next to the trailer. The A/C was off, as was the fridge and with the temperatures so high, we really needed both. The fridge we set to LPG and the lights to battery, but no power, no A/C. I fitted the extension cable to the trailer and dragged it through the wet bushes so that we could try with the next (unoccupied) site's power and, thankfully, that worked fine, albeit that it could only be temporary. Another sticky night was on the cards for us but at least we had some cool air to play with. Tomorrow was to be Harry Potter day so everyone was showered at 11pm and the preparations for the day were made before we turned in. This was turning out to be a great holiday but boy, what a lot of work for the grown ups! Also, as there's no rest for the wicked, we knew Harry Potter was really going to do us in. Yawn, g'night all.
No comments:
Post a Comment