Southward Bound

Holy cow, I can’t believe that we’ve been gone for two weeks and haven’t posted anything yet! For those of you arriving late in the story, Leah and I left on January 2nd to head South for a month - with no plan - and have landed in Little Talbot Island State Park outside of Jacksonville, Florida.

This is our first time taking a super-sized vacation with the Alligator Teardrop; our longest trip to date was ten days in Maine this past September. It’s not our first time traveling for a month together, however. We took a VW bus out West twelve years ago. And while that trip was adventurous, it was no vacation. The bus was an electrical and mechanical failure waiting to happen, and was the catalyst to the now-infamous “chardonnay incident,” as well as the “lose-all-power-including-windshield-wipers-and-headlights-at-dusk-in-a-snowstorm-on-a-deserted-road-near-Vale incident.” Fortunately, that trip bears no resemblance to our current one.

The day we left Trumansburg, NY, the temperatures at home dipped to 5 degrees, reinforcing our decision to head to Florida. Our first night was spent in a hotel in Richmond, Virginia, and our second night in a dear friend’s guest cottage in Greenville, North Carolina, where the lows reached 17 degrees. (While we think we might have stayed warm enough in the Teardrop, getting up to pee in the middle of the night would have led to potentially dangerous fanny freezing.)

That’s the only thing I miss: indoor plumbing. Living in a five-by-six box with my lovey has been remarkably easy, with the huge outdoors as our living room. And we’ve had no rain, though two days that barely topped 50 degrees led to some cranky moments, which were appeased by visits to the local bar to watch the playoffs.

On the way here, we sent a few nights in the Teardrop at Skidaway Island (now affectionately known as Skidmark Island) State Park in Savannah, Georgia. Saw lots of bald eagles and even some alligators. We decided to skip Jekyll Island (too many people) and Cumberland Island (dogs not allowed). We also decided to not go much farther South, since parks get more crowded as the weather gets more tropical. In fact, a couple of our lovely campground neighbors said that even six months out, they couldn’t get a reservation in any state park in the Keys.

So Jacksonville it is. We will be allowed to stay at Little Talbot for two weeks (we’re one week in now) and then we’ll have to relocate for two nights minimum. Where we head next is a mystery waiting to be solved, though I hear the manatees have gone inland to the warm springs, and we may follow them.

Overall, Little Talbot has been sweet with biking and hiking and miles and miles of empty wilderness beach to ourselves. The campground is a short walk from the beach, and the campsite is on a salty tributary that at low tide is a restaurant for wood storks, osprey, egrets, and pelicans. There was a loud influx of people this holiday weekend – the nerve!- but we survived with the help of a new cocktail creation by Leah (“The Southern Migration”) using ingredients from a roadside fruit stand. You can visit our cocktail blog for the yummy (and funny) story at www.feliciaspeakeasy.com

How does one fill one’s days when camping for a month (besides imbibing tasty cocktails)? That, dear readers, will be the subject of my next post. Stay tuned.

-Amelia

Upsides and Downsides

Mount Desert Campground is hands down the most beautiful campground in the Acadia region. A large number of their campsites are on the water (Somes Sound), and most have platforms for tents so the ground isn't all soggy or lumpy under your ass (if you are unfortunate enough to still camp in a tent like a girl scout). No reservations are accepted after labor day, and you don't need them. And our dog is allowed during the off-season.

The downside is that other people's dogs are allowed, too. The dogs across the street from us were barkers, and the owners were shouters. The mornings greeted us with the lovely sounds of chirping birds; barking, snarling dogs; and "PETER! PETE! NO! PETER!"

When you travel in a teardrop to the coast, it's hard to avoid an occasional trailer park atmosphere. Though Leah has quickly become an expert at backing into small sites, the more private sites just aren't accessible enough for us. So we were in a bit of a neighborhood. Besides our neighbor "PETER! PETE! NO! PETER!" , we were also near "KEVIN!!" and "Waaaaaaaaaaaaah!" That last one was an infant. I'm assuming there were grownups in the site with it, too, but they we relatively quiet, perhaps because they lacked brains large enough to provide them the ability to master language, which goes hand in hand with thinking it is a good idea to bring an infant tent camping, and with the absence of opposable thumbs.

Quiet hours were still quiet, so technically we couldn't complain. No generators. And most of the people were very nice and friendly. A couple of our hipper neighbors were in airstreams.

I do miss having a living room. Because we have a sturdy waterproof screen tent with rain flaps, the two brief periods of rain were not a problem. But we had a couple of very cold nights. The teardrop gets steamy inside, so we turned in early. I would have liked to sit at the picnic table longer, drawing or playing music. The campfire only gets you so warm.

In the eleven days we were gone, we only went out to one restaurant, for brunch. (And they didn't have mimosas. What's the point of brunch without mimosas?). We visited our marine mammalogist friend Courtney in her ocean front home and pigged out on the biggest lobsters I had ever seen, caught fresh that morning. Otherwise, we were content to enjoy home-cooked meals in the teardrop galley, with sake (Leah) and gin and tonics (Amelia) tying to win the "drink of the week" title.

(I'd like to imagine that this Maine restaurant spelled 'cocktails' wrong on purpose, only because it hurts me to imagine otherwise.)

-Amelia

Cocktail time

It's always cocktail hour at the Alligator Teardrop Lounge. Here I'm shaking up some Tomato Zingers.

-Amelia