Leg 13 – Grayton Beach to St. George Island, Florida to Manatee Springs, Florida

For some reason, I really didn’t like the campground on St. George Island.  Perhaps it was the man quizzing me when I first got there about how long I was going to stay, perhaps it was because the camp sites were too close together, with no privacy.  Perhaps it was because my bike tire keeps going flat.  I’m not sure, but I didn’t get good vibes from it, and I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

I was also frantically trying to find a place to stay for the next night and was having no luck.  As lucky as I had been the day before finding a place, this day my luck had shifted, and I was finding nothing.  I finally found a place called Manatee Springs State Park.  It was not on a coast, so I wasn’t particularly happy about that, and it was a bit far, considering my driving record so far.  Google maps listed it as 3 hours 25 minutes, so I figured that would be about 7 hours, the way I’ve been driving.  But I felt like that was the best option, so off I went.

Usually I wind around back roads, but this day I was so funky, I just hopped on the highway and drove.

I arrived at 3:15. Record drive time!  Didn’t see anything interesting along the way, didn’t find any stops I wanted to make, I just drove.  I had left around 11:15, so that was a four-hour drive.  Not 3.25 hours, but I’ll take four over seven.

I pulled into the park site and was surrounded by tall old cypress trees, dripping with Spanish moss.  It was lush and green and mystical.

 I checked in (the process was seamless – Florida has their system figured out, and I love that about them) and drove to my campsite.  I was in #17.  I considered that a good omen.  The number 17 has always felt lucky for me.  It backed up to the swamp, and that was another good impression.  Unknown to me when I booked the site – it had a sewer hookup!  Those are like gold I am learning.  And the spot was only $20 for the night.  Which ends up being $33 when you add in all the little extras that nobody likes to advertise.  It also had electric and water hookups, so it was fully stocked.

I should add that as I was pulling into the circle that held my campsite, I saw a mama deer and her spotted fawn.  That was another good omen.

I pulled my van in so I could start hooking up.  When I got out of the van, I immediately felt the weight of the humidity.  The air felt like it added 100 pounds to my shoulders and made me walk through jello pudding.  I started hooking up, and the camper next to me was at about the same place in his hookup process.  About halfway through, he looked up and said “Is it just me, or does the air weigh a lot here?”  I chuckled and said that I had noticed that.  I was trying to get the lid off my sewer hookup pipe (something you treat very carefully, so things don’t come flying out that you aren’t prepared for) and was struggling.  I was so tempted to ask him to help me.  I’ve made it a rule that I don’t ask for help.  If I need help out here vanlifing on my own, then I don’t deserve to be out here.  Then he said, “I just dropped my pliers on the ground, and it is such a long way down.”  I felt like that would have been my opening to barter - me picking up his pliers for him unscrewing my sewer lid.  But I didn’t.  I just laughed again.

I finished hooking up and went out to explore the campground.  That is becoming my routine.  I like to see what the campground has to offer, then I plan my outing for that night and the next morning.

It was magical.

I walked through a swamp forest with dripping Spanish moss and tall cypress knees sticking out of the water, and plant life that coated the top of the water – small, four-leafed plants that looked like tiny four-leaf clovers.  They gave the water an eerie look, and I imagined an alligator hiding under them, getting ready to rear its head and gnash its teeth at me.

I came to a small river.  It was crystal clear, and fish were jumping out in the middle.  When I got closer and could see the bottom, I saw large fish swimming along the bottom, lazily just kind of hanging in one place as they slowly waved their fins.  Then I saw a turtle on the bottom.  Then another one.  Then another and another and another!  Then I saw some turtles coming to the top for air.  Then more.  Suddenly the place was alive with turtles.  Aha!  I had found my turtles!

It looked like an amazing place, and I planned to investigate it at length tomorrow.

I came back to my campsite to have dinner and read my book.

I got everything prepared and sat in my camp chair facing the swamp forest that I backed up to.  I kept hearing noises in the palmettos that covered the forest floor.  After a short time, two small bucks came out of the palmettos and stood about 10 feet away from me.  They both had horns, one had larger horns than the other.  I could see the velvet still on their horns.  They came closer to me.  I suspected that they had been fed by campers, since they were very unafraid of me.  I just talked to them for a while, then they eventually slowly moved away, sniffing the ground for morsels. It was a special moment.

I had a human-interest story from the day, as well.  As I was sitting there reading my book, the woman from the campsite next to mine came over to introduce herself.  Kathy, she said her name was.  She told me about the travels they have done.  It sounds like they have been all over the U.S.  On this particular trip, they had been gone three months and were just about ready to head home now.  I didn’t get a special story from her that night. That was still to come.

Her husband came over after a bit and we chatted for a while.  They both seemed like genuinely kind people.  I told them my story, and he told me to ask the lord for the answer to my question of “what do I do next in my life”.  I’m not a religious person anymore, but I respect when people have a belief that gives them comfort.  As long as they don’t use it to do harm, I am happy for them.  It is interesting, though.  I have run into this situation often enough that it makes me think.  For myself, I don’t believe western religions’ concept of God, but I do believe there is something out there that we can’t see or hear or feel, but it has some kind of power.  Maybe it is energy, maybe it is love, maybe there is a divine power…the jury is still out as far as I’m concerned.  But what I have started doing is talking to John as others would talk to their God.  So I say “John, where do I go from here?”  I think he is going to help me.  I just need to be patient.  Sometimes my Other Power is Mom.  So I sometimes ask her.  Sometimes my Other Power is Mother.  This being not my mother, but the Mother.

I remember, when I was young and before I had started going to church, thinking that God was Love.  Or that Love was God.  Not too long ago I read an article by someone who said that they thought that God was all the kindness in the world.  It occurred to me that this thought was along the same vein as me thinking that God is Love.  I might just stick with that.

I’ve been processing again.  The trauma this time, not just the grief.  I’m not sure why suddenly I feel the need to process the trauma.  Really wish I didn’t have to do that.  It is very painful.  I suppose it needs to be done…

Some lessons I have learned about vanlifing:

1.       Remember to shut the top vent before driving off.  It slams up and down your entire drive if you don’t.

2.      I know you don’t want to, but don’t flush your toilet paper into your black holding tank.  Mine got plugged and I had to drive for three days smelling poop until I figured out how to get it unplugged.  That was a much worse gag reflex than keeping your dirty toilet paper in a little bin inside the bathroom.  I found one with a sealable lid.  That works very well to keep it from stinking up the bathroom.

3.      Get at least a 15’ water hose.  I started out with none, thinking the campsites would provide them.  They don’t.  Then I got a 10’ one, because I have no idea of lengths and distances.  It was comical, to see my van wedged in diagonally so I could hook up my water line as well as my sewer, as the water plug in and the sewer pipe are on opposite sides of the van.

4.      Unless you are really comfortable being out in the wild by yourself, don’t boondock.  I think the younger people can do this.  They are still naïve and don’t understand that there are boogeymen in the dark.  Or if you have a dog with you.  I learned that I can’t boondock.  I always considered myself comfortable out in the wild by myself.  I’m not.  I watched too many psycho horror movies when I was young.  It makes me sad that I can’t do this, as there are so many beautiful locations to camp off the grid.  I would do it if there was someone with me.

5.      Check the oil every time you stop for gas.  This is just a good habit to get into in life for all vehicles.

Can you tell that I am avoiding processing the trauma…?  Squirrel…!

I have been so happy with this campsite that I booked myself for another two nights.  I keep saying that I don’t like to sit in any one place for multiple days.  But I was feeling like I needed an extra day to sit tight.  I was feeling a little harried.  Needing to look for a place to stay every night takes a good chunk of time, and I feel like I am missing many things that I would like to see because I spend so much time every morning looking for a place to stay, then I spend so much time driving to the next place that I don’t have time to stop at a place if it looks interesting.

So I am sitting here writing and drinking coffee and feeling at peace.  This is good…I needed this.  I needed some peace.  I would also like to explore this swamp and river extensively.  This swamp gives me peace.  Interesting.  I wouldn’t have guessed that. 

There is something in the depths that whispers to me.  It isn’t a dark energy, but something warm and kind and compassionate.  She understands my pain.  She wants to help me.

It isn’t raining now, but it rained in the night.  I can hear the raindrops falling off the leaves of the trees.  I hear the cicadas trilling.  I hear the birds sending their messages along the bird telephone line – one sings, then another and another and another respond, paying the message forward.  A bunny comes out of the palmettos and nibbles grass as it approaches me, twitching its nose and watching me warily with one large brown eye.

Brown.  Brown was the color of his eyes.

Not a deep muddy brown, but more of a milk chocolate brown. With flecks of lighter brown in their midst.

This is how triggers happen:  you are just living your life and some small thing starts a thought process – the bunny with the brown eye took me to the color of John’s brown eyes.  Then the wave washes over me and I start sobbing.  At least I don’t do it every day anymore.  I did that first year.  As time carries me away from the rawness of grief, the sobbing eases in frequency.  And magnitude, I suppose.  In that first year, it would knock me to the ground.

I have started finding podcasts of the history of each state as I drive through.  I have been listening to Florida history.  Two men, bless their hearts, created a podcast in which each episode that they made during Women’s History Month this year was about women in the history of Florida. There are women who were great politicians, and women who were great writers.  I haven’t finished all the podcasts…I can’t wait to hear who else they talk about.

It’s coming, I can see – women are finally starting to be given their due in the media.  In a good way.  It makes me happy to see this.