Happy Days at the Sun ‘n’ Surf

How We Be

We be hot. Picture Dave and Sam McGee, smiling in their crematorium, rolling down the road. We complained so long about the cold, that we don’t want to complain about the heat, BUT …. It’s April 21, or close to it, and we have moved north of Fort Lauderdale, kissed our beach vacation days goodbye and are headed for our next job in Bushnell, Florida. We are in a little town called Frostproof, in the heart of Orange Grove country, in a nice, shady and green park with about 600 and some RV sites. Dave took a ride around on his bike and got in five miles without seeing all of it. Many, many sites that we would call permanent. Twenty-two bucks. A real deal.

We went all the way down the Gulf of Mexico, to the area at the end, called “land of ten thousand lakes, bordering the Everglades. It was almost the highlight of our year, for me, and I almost missed it. I wanted so badly to see the area that Peter Matthiesen drew on when he wrote the Mr. Watson trilogy. We actually found it, at the end of the island of Chokoloskee, and there was a building there designated as Ted Smallwood’s store and museum, but it was closed. Isolated, and trashy, from neglect and hurricanes, I figured well, this is is, what did I expect. In such a tourist area, we have paid and paid and paid to see “museums” of dubious quality. So when we came back the next morning and were greeted with the sign quoting $3 each, I was ready to bail. Davey saved me, once again, from myself. The store wasn’t really a store by today’s standards, it was Ted Smallwood’s store, just as it was in 1910 when Mr. Watson was killed right down at the water in front of the store. Killing Mr. Watson was a community project with everyone participating except the Smallwoods (and Mrs.. Watson) It was such a hard existence and the people lived in fear of Mr. Watson, who was reputed to have killed others … a story told many times, many versions.

Anyway, I just loved it. And the Smallwoods are still running it. The fourth generation is blonde and wears cutoffs and has her baby bumping around in a baby scooter. The store used to have the post office, too, but they gave it up.

We crossed Florida on Alligator Alley, through the Everglades. The highway is fenced most of the way, to keep the gators out, no doubt. The Everglades are not the tangle of vines and orchids I imagined, but rather miles of sawgrass, gently moving in a sheet of water about 12 inches deep. The water comes from Lake Okeechobee, in central Florida, and moves about 100 feet a day. The water has always come from Lake Okeechobee, but it isn’t natural anymore. After a flood in the 30s, a huge dike was built around the lake and 1400 miles of dikes and canals were built to feed the Everglades. After it became clear that fertilizers from the sugar cane fields near the lake were contaminating the Glades, and other balances disturbed, the federal government actually sued the State of Florida because they were letting the Everglades be destroyed. The State passed an act to clean it up, but apparently it was too little, too late because in 2000 Congress passed the comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan which will cost 8 billion and take 30 years to complete.

Fort Lauderdale was great, mainly because we got to go to the Southeast Publications office and meet the people we talk to all the time, and see the plant. Dave got to spend time with the artists and see how they do everything on computers. We were treated really well and it cemented our feelings of being on the SEP team.

Hurricane damage is evident everywhere. Some folks pick up their debris better than others. I’ve never seen so many $100,000 cars, but for a change, there are a lot of clunkers, too. Like maybe they came from Cuba. The birds sing at night, here. And there are many, many french Canadians. They are easy to spot because they smoke, have deep tans and wear black socks with shorts. Sometimes white knee-highs. They are apparently quite aloof, although when you can’t speak English, of course you don’t start a lot of conversations. One couple we met was still riled that Pres. Bush introduced a bill that limited Canadians to a 30-day stay in the U.S. What was he thinking!?! Obviously Jeb talked to him, because there are towns in Florida that would really suffer economically if the Canadians quit coming.

We drove down to Miami yesterday. Whew! It is so under construction, or reconstruction, it is very hard to get around in. There are no RV parks down there. Where property values are high, many little parks are selling out. We saw Miami Beach and loved the colors, the art deco motifs. We had a delightful lunch in Hollywood Florida at Giorgio’s Bistro. We sat outside and scored the boats that came by, everything from rafts with a motor to powerful Cigarette boats and a few REALLY big yachts. We were served by Roberto, a beautiful Latin boy I intend to work into my fantasies as soon as I can, and congratulated ourselves for once again trying local fare (it doesn’t always work out).

Occasionally I read a How We Be letter and realize that I rarely tell you all about the hard parts of this lifestyle. Nothing is really hard, but some parts can be tiring or maybe a little scary. Today, for example. We stopped for lunch in a town that had a large parking lot (K-Mart closed or something) where we could swing in and have room to get back out on the highway easily. When we got back in the Bird, buckled up, in gear and ready to go, suddenly we realized there was a man in a wheelchair/scooter, directly in front of us. Not only in front of us, actually touching the grille of the bus!! He apparently came up close to the bus, along the driver’s side, and rolled around the front. If he had not had a huge umbrella attached to his chair, we would never have seen him and would have just run over him. Arghhhh!

Traffic wasn’t too bad on the highway coming up the center of the state, but it was hot and as usual, it isn’t always easy to find a place to stay. We use a directory of RV parks (Woodall’s) and a Passport America directory, and we call ahead if we can. Sometimes it’s hard to know how far we can expect to get in a day, not knowing the road and conditions. Today, I found a place that wasn’t too far off the road, and was a good price and maybe had a pull through so we don’t have to unhook. But when I called them, I couldn’t get anyone. Got a message that I couldn’t understand, couldn’t hear. But we went there anyway, hoping the gate wasn’t locked (like the last place where our reservation was taken at RV Central and they didn’t give us the gate code. It’s hard to back out with the car hooked up.) As it turned out, no one was at the first RV park . When we settled into this second place in Frostproof, a good ole boy next door told Dave the guy down the road was shutting ‘er up because he couldn’t stand the french Canadians – says they are too much trouble. I wonder if that was his message. Life is definitely better when we don’t have to go too far, too fast, so these little irritations don’t amount to much. The bumps are bigger when you’re tired.

Love to all,

Sam