It was a nice day on bike roads dropping down south through Georgia. I should have written down the highway numbers and referenced to towns like I usually do, because if the van stopped it would be pretty hard for a service vehicle to find me, if I just told them I was on a road in Georgia heading to Florida. Eventually they would find me, but I don’t like to wait.
Finally, I made it to Florida. Google even welcomed me like
she usually does at state line crossings. But in just a few miles the sign said
welcome to Georgia. I was surprised when google didn’t welcome be back to
Georgia, but then maybe you only get one welcome to each state, and that must be
the case because when we crossed back into Florida, google was silent.
After being on two lane roads for most of the day it was traffic shock to merge onto I 10, and then I 95 through Jacksonville. I was glad Saint Augustine was close. After stopping for provisions at a Publix, I charted a course for the KOA, and as I was getting situated, I was greeted by the ever-elusive Rosita Spoonbill.
Even though I was now ahead of schedule, I was only staying
one night here as I wanted to get down to Titusville and do some more exploring
in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuse.
Before heading south, I thought I would stop at the camper
land store and see if I could get some more information, or a replacement for
my tv antenna booster, that doesn’t seem to be working correctly, and won’t
shut down if you are connected to cable, and it makes the picture fuzzy.
Pulling into Camper land I was 20 or so minutes before they opened, and I thought I will do a channel scan here and see what happens.
It pulled in about 6 channels that I started looking
through. One of the channels was a weather channel, and at this very moment a hurricane
was heading for Florida. Gee I thought they just don’t tell you anything on two
lane roads in
Now the guys behind the counter didn’t think IAN would amount to much on this coast. However, the woman who knew stuff, even knew stuff about my Winegard Antenna had a different take on the hurricane. She advised to be cautious, and stay away from the Gulf Coast.
She also said the antenna booster box that I was looking at is all part of a much larger system that involves the antenna, and wires, and cables, is expensive, and they couldn’t do it today as they only have one technician. I didn’t bother to explain how I didn’t like to wait and thanked her for her help and time. I figured I would just take the thing off the wall and see what it is. And besides I wanted to go to the wildlife refuge, and maybe see if I could find Artemis.
As I drove out into the refuse I found Artemis, but all the pullouts were blocked with barricades, and the road is to narrow and busy to just stop in the middle. So, I drove out to the Atlantic ocean just to wade in a ways, and on the way back I really wanted a photo of that rocket.
At the pullout with the best view, I said screw it and drove
around the barricades and got out my camera.
Soon everyone was stopping. Including one fellow who set up
his tripod. I got to chatting with him and he told me that tonight a Space X
rocket was taking off from the other side of the NASA complex.
Hum. First a hurricane I didn’t know about, and now a rocket
I didn’t know about…I'm out of the loop
Now I couldn’t exactly see the launch pad from where the park is, but I pulled up NASA TV so I would know when it was launching, and when it did, I was outside. I heard it before I saw it, and it streaked across the sky with a red tail of fire. It was so clear you could see when the first stage dropped off, and when its own rockets started so it could land on a drone ship 400 miles off the coast.
Everything went perfectly on this launch. The Space X satellite was placed into orbit, about the time the first stage landed on the ship.
I went back to the Merritt Island Refuse the next day and did
some birding. I spotted lots of Great Egret’s. Several Great Blue Herons. More
Little Blue Herons than I can count, and bunches and bunches of Coots.
Having a day off of traveling was a nice break, and one of
the things I did besides birding is I took the Winegard off the wall and pulled
off one of its power wires. Doing that I could tell that the rest of it is
buried deep in the bowels of the van. Maybe as deep as where the voice lives. I reconnected the wire, and Winegard came to
life, searching, scanning, and displaying how many channels there are.
Now I have TV news, and yes indeed hurricane Ian is heading
it looks like to the gulf coast of Florida.
Since I have airline reservations out of Fort Lauderdale on
Saturday October 1, I’m thinking my best option is to head to Lauderdale, and
it has turned out that was the best option so far.
I made a reservation at a KOA in Fort Lauderdale, for the week as going to the
Everglades doesn’t look like a good idea.
The first day Tuesday here was the worst weather we got.
We had sheets and sheets of rain. The pond that was only about ½ full has filled up. Most of the park had inches of standing water, so much water that this catfish escaped the pond and was found in a pothole.
Lucky for the the fish that he was wearing proper catfish catching in potholes gloves. The fish was repatriated with the pond, and hasn't been seen since.
We never had much wind just rain, and more rain. There
were two tornado alerts issued. The first one touched down at a regional
airport about 11 miles from here, and tossed several plains around The second
was at 1:23 am
This one touched down only 3 miles from here and busted a large tree that totaled a car with a trump bumper sticker.
I now know why the one park I stayed in had on its literature
that the restroom and shower buildings could be used for emergency shelter.
This park doesn’t have that so when your phone screams a alarm at 1:23 you can
only consider your options. Mine was to stay put, mainly because if a tornado
was right here you would probably be ripped to shreds by flying debris trying
to make it to the shelter that isn't here anyway.
Before the hurricane hit, when I asked locals about it none were
too concerned, even though preparations were under way on the gulf coast. The feeling
I got from them was if it wasn’t happening to them then it really didn’t
matter. Pretty much a response I would expect from a red state like Florida.
But alas socialistic government aid is on the way as I write
this.
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