Crystal River and Thanksgiving

I’ve spent the past two weeks in Crystal River FL, north of Tampa.  The RV park is huge, by far the biggest I’ve ever seen.  I arrived after dark and was apparently blocking the gate with my RV.  This woman got out of her car and proceeded to bitch at me.  I finally said “What in the hell would you like me to do?!”  I couldn’t back up with her behind me and she wouldn’t shut up long enough for me to read the sign on how to call someone.  I finally just turned my back on her and called the night clerk, who came and let me in.  Eventually I got set up in my site and went to bed, it was a long day. 

Most of the time it was cloudy and overcast, but not too cold.  I visited some local attractions  including Homosassa Springs Wildlife State park.  It’s a really nice park with a nature path running all the way around.  There are many animal exhibits including a big pond with an underwater viewing window to watch the manatees.  I was there at feeding time so they were ‘relatively’ active.  Manatee really just hang out on the bottom of the pond or river and float to the top for a breath of air now and again. They don’t do much else.

The next day it was supposed to rain, so I got caught up on all of my unfinished projects.  I was exhausted, but I no longer have a to do list.  This is a first!

Florida has several long Rails to Trails, Withlacoochee being the longest at 46 miles long.  In the past, I could have done it in one day, but since I haven’t been riding much this past year, I decided to break it up.  The first day I rode 15 miles with no problem.  Two days later I went 30.  Uh oh!  I wasn’t sure I had enough in the tank to make it back to my truck.  The muscles in my legs were burning so bad I actually had to stop and walk a little bit.  When I got home my hips hurt so bad I had a hard time making it up the stairs.  How shocking that last year 30 miles would have been a warm up.  If I didn’t know it before, I know it now, I spend way too much time on the couch.  I’m totally disgusted with myself – now that I’m retired, I have absolutely no excuse not to be out hiking or biking or something every day.  So I’m committing (in writing) to do some form of exercise every day for the next 30 days.  That should get me back into the positive habits I used to have. 

The next day I went on a 5 mile kayak trip.  It was beautiful!  The water was crystal clear, I could see all kinds of beautiful fish and turtles.  Some of the fish were huge, and they were jumping all over the place.  When I got to deeper water, I actually came across a couple of manatees, a mamma and baby.  There were 2 people already there and it was the most amazing experience.  The baby was so curious, it came right up to us.  It was nibbling on my kayak and sticking its nose out of the water to touch our hands.  It even rolled over several times, showing us his belly.  We decided he really liked the attention and apparently liked to be scratched.  A bit farther down the river I was paddling along when suddenly a different manatee came up right underneath my kayak.  It almost tipped me over and I admit, I was so surprised I screamed like a girl!

The following day I went back to the Withlacoochee trail and did 15 more miles out and back for a total of 30.  This time it wasn’t so bad and I actually enjoyed the trail. That is, until I saw speedo man. I was cruising along, minding my own business when I look up and here comes a man in a bathing suit.  Let me just say, it was not a pretty sight and one I would prefer never to see again.  But alas, I did see him again.  At some point we both changed direction and I got a 2^nd pass at him. I kept looking for someone to confirm what I just saw, but I was alone on the trail.  How nice it would have been to have someone to laugh with.

My next day’s adventure was a 7 mile hike in the Florida ‘wilderness’.  It was basically a dirt road through the brush.  Nothing too remarkable, but a nice day for a stroll.  I heard some very large beasties in the bushes. I've seen wild boar and several signs notified me there were bear in the area, but all I saw was a small alligator.  I did see some bear poop that wasn't on the trail when I passed that way the first time....

I headed back to Kissimmee to spend Thanksgiving with my mom and cousin Jennifer, her husband Stuart and their 3 kids, Naomi, Braden, and Ashley.  They were in town visiting all the parks so I didn’t get to spend much time with them.  They were staying at a really nice resort nearby so we decided to head over there for Thanksgiving dinner since they had a huge dining room table, and more important, an awesome pool and Jacuzzi.  But first they came to help me take the couch out of my RV.  It was not a easy feat, in fact, we ended up having to take it completely apart.  It’s now in pieces in my storage unit.  Mom wanted to cook everything the day before, so the only thing left was the turkey.  While that was cooking, I took the older kids, Braden and Ashley, kayaking.  It was fun and they actually got the hang of paddling.  That left me with nothing to do but sit back and relax.  While it’s a well known fact that I’m not particularly kid friendly, I must say I really enjoyed these kids. I even volunteered to take them into DC when I go up there next month t clean out my storage unit.  Crazy, right?  By the time the turkey was done, we were all starving.  Everything was delicious of course, but the best part was spending a holiday with my mom and cousins. I really enjoyed getting to know Jennifer and her family better. I knew her as a little girl, but we haven’t seen each other in many years.  This past year I’ve gotten to know her again and I really enjoyed reconnecting. 

After dinner we decided to brave Wal-mart for my first (and last) (early) Black Friday.  It was a mad house, but I did manage to snag a TV and 2 Wii games.  We were home by midnight.  That got me in the mood for shopping, so on Fri Mom and I headed out.  We had a long list of places to go for both shopping and errands.  One of which was to get a toll road pass, which they sell at either Publix or CVS.  After a long day, we were heading home when I remembered the pass.  I intended to stop at a CVS near the house, but we passed a Publix first, so I pulled in there and got it.  Of course, I had CVS on my ‘list’ so 5 minutes later when we passed it, I pulled in.  Mom asked me what I needed and I said the toll pass.  We both burst out laughing and decided we were pretty tired after our long day.  We had one more stop at Big Lots; I was looking for a table.  I didn’t find the table, but I put some kitchen towels in the cart Mom was pushing.  We headed up to the front and Mom kept walking, like she was going out the door.  I said, wait, my stuff is in the cart.  She said OK and kept walking toward the door.  We each repeated ourselves several times before I grabbed the towels out of the cart and got in line. (Apparently she thought my ‘stuff’ was my purse, she didn’t know I had merchandise.) The lady in front of me asked if my mom had Alzheimer’s. I almost choked to death to keep from laughing out loud, but waited till we got outside.  By that time we were both hysterical.  We were both literally just ‘stupid’ tired, but not suffering from Alzheimer’s just yet