Changing Perspectives

1/30/22
It had been cold (25) overnight but promised to warm up more today.  We started out with a treat for breakfast - croissants with huckleberry jam!  These are those mini croissants from Trader Joe's, which kind of boggle my mind.  They come straight from the freezer, looking like flat rocks that would be good for skipping, into the oven and then emerge like beautiful buttery puffed up pastries!  For us, this is a special start to the day!

We visited for awhile with the lady camped next to us, maybe a little younger than ourselves but not by much.  Her trailer is her home, and she handles everything that goes with it on her own.  Cheers for her!  I'm pretty sure I could learn to tow, park, set-up and take down, along with the maintenance required, but she has mastered that already!  I think she said that she had been living this way for 4 years, and spends some time each year with family in different locations.  Have you read or watched Nomadland?

It's a fairly recent book and documentary-ish film about the population of Americans that live in their RV fulltime, either by choice or circumstances.  The movie version follows a main character (Francis McDormand) as she found herself faced with choices between housing and life's necessities at retirement age.  I'm reading the book right now, and I'm finding it more and more thought provoking.  We do meet quite a few people who no longer have a sticks-and-bricks home, for reasons of their own, and mostly by choice.  We also meet a lot of people who, like us, live in our trailer part of the year and maintain a home somewhere for the remainder of the time.  We are doing what works best for us, and hope to continue that and re-evaluating our choices for our best life as we go.

We did a little wandering and exploring today.  We walked a bit to an area below the dam that is frequented by fishermen.  There was a sign posted that stated that a horn will blow as a warning for impending rapidly rising waters.  And later I found a news photo that showed that the day prior to this, all the sluice gates (is that the correct term?) were opened due to high water in the reservoir, and the area we stood in to talk with one of the fishermen today was far underwater yesterday.  We did not hear any horns blowing today!  By the way, the fisherman was looking to catch striped bass and catfish, but was skunked so far.

We also took a drive to a local park to find the half-bridge that we had heard about.  It was an old decommisioned bridge replaced by a new, larger model, but still standing the partial distance.  Next to it were some displays about the Indian mound located there and the history of the area in the war of 1812.  I think it was the Creek Native Americans that had lived in this area.

1/31/22
Today was departure day for us, and we set out on the road traveling further east to Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park in Whitesprings FL.  Last week we were back and forth repeatedly over the time zone line, and as you might know, the automatic time zone adjustment on our electronic devices don't just change on a dime!  So we had one clock permanently set to Eastern Time Zone and the rest of the clocks pretty much stayed on Central Time Zone.

We took the scenic route (off interstates) again and had a nice drive, mostly in Georgia and then into Florida.  Some easy comparisons between the states that we made:  rural Florida counties seemed to not be flourishing and the major industry seemed to be logging.  Rural Georgia counties seemed to be more agricultural and developed.  Maybe it has something to do with the lay of the land, or other factors I'm not aware of.  Just a casual observation.

This campground is part of the grounds of a memorial to Stephen Foster, the musician, and an annual folk music festival here.  We spent some time walking around the campground loops, after all, it was a balmy 60 degrees this evening!  There are a number of very nice looking buildings on the grounds here, even the bathrooms look fancy! Between the Spanish moss and the colonnades, I'm feeling plantation-like!