We are back in Orlando. We left Suwannee River at 11AM; one hour later than intended. We made it a whole hour before having to pull over for our first restroom break, which actually worked out well; we just went ahead and had some lunch. I've gotten better at packing the inside of the trailer. I was able to get to the kitchen and make sandwiches. I really had not planned on everyone else coming in and eating inside, but that is how it ended up working out. The dining table is fairly accessible.
We were at Turkey Lake Park and actually set-up by 4 o'clock. Yes, that means it took us 5 hours to make a 3-1/2 hour drive. But, I'll take it!!! I feel good about it. Everything seemed to go really smooth.
I'm not all that thrilled to be back at Turkey Lake Park. The last week has really spoiled me. It has been really great to be out living our adventure. But we have things to do here in Orlando and then we will head out again. It will also give us a chance to get by the church and get the trailer blessed. I had hoped to do it before we headed out the first time, but I just couldn't coordinate our schedule with Fr. Roland's. I was disappointed when we headed out without having had it done, so this time I will be more conscientious of our time.
I know that I missed a few days posting our activities, so I'm going to zip us back in time. Are you ready? OK, rewind...
Day 57 -
We go up and hiked the footpaths at the Suwannee River State Park. My goodness, it is beautiful!!! We had to drag Hannah out of bed. She really thought that I would let her skip out on the adventure. Silly girl, this is a family adventure and there were pictures to be taken!!! Aunt Kathy had specifically requested them. So we drug her out of bed and she begrudgingly tagged along. You can see her animosity in this picture:
I'm pretty sure that is why Samuel is giving her that look. :)
I think she ended up enjoying herself. It was a great time. The kids climbed trees, and on to rocks that hung over the river. They played at a waterfall that was fed by a spring. They tasted their first non-bottled spring water. They threw cedar nuts at each other and made very off-colored jokes about the cedar nuts that we were carrying back to the campsite in our pockets. We laughed A LOT.
When we got back, we ate some lunch and packed up all of the laundry that had accumulated while we were at The Florida Caverns and headed out to find a laundromat. The washer and dryer cost $2.00 each at the caverns and I refused to pay it!! You can never trust that the dryer is going to work in one cycle, so I had to guess that it was going to cost me $6.00 to wash a small load. I just could not do it. My sister had told me about 'Find Around Me', an app that I had downloaded, so I searched for Laundry Mats and found one near a WalMart. Danny dropped Samuel and I off at the laundromat and he and the rest of the kids headed out to do some quick shopping. Timing was pretty good. After I was finished folding the last of the laundry, I gave Danny a call and he was already on his way back to get me. Everything worked out great AND he had picked up a couple of Hungry Howie's pizza for dinner. A perfect day!
Day 58
With my laundry done, I had planned on spending some time cleaning. Our home is small and it doesn't take much to make it dirty. After I had my fair share of coffee and being lazy, I kicked the kids out of the house and cleaned the bathroom and mopped the floors. Ewww, the dust and dirt accumulates quickly. I vacuumed, wiped down the counters, put a few things away and WOW, what a difference. It is so much nicer when you can actually see the dining table and sofa. The only other thing that I had planned for this day was to go to The Spirit of the Suwannee and see their bat house. My old neighbor had told me about it, which is actually what led us to the Suwannee in the first place. (Thanks, Robin.) It was pretty amazing. According to their website, it is the largest known bat house in the United States and can hold 1/2 million bats. Ewww, can you imagine the guano??? Well, just in case you can't, I took a picture of it for you:
Yep, that's it, all piled up under the house.
I took more pictures than just that one, I promise. I even took a video and just as soon as I figure out how to post it, I promise that I will. The video is much better than any of the pictures that I took of the bats leaving the house. I tried to use the 'low lite' setting on my camera so that I didn't have to use a flash and disturb the bats (really, I was more concerned that the flash might confuse the bats and cause them to fly toward me), so the still shots show a whole lot of nothing. But with the video, you can see them and hear them. It was pretty cool. They just kept coming out...thousands of them. Then, as if that wasn't enough excitement for one evening, we went to the ice cream parlor there on the campground and had fresh, homemade ice cream. Hannah got a root beer float, Jacob had vanilla chocolate chip, Samuel had peanut butter cup, and gosh, I don't remember what Gracie had. But here's the best part...I had strawberry, cheesecake. It had just been made the day before. YUMMY!! It actually had chunks of cheesecake IN it. It was delicious. And after I finished mine...I got to taste everyone else's. They were pretty stingy, everyone except Gracie. She was the first one up offering. Dang, I sure wish I could remember what flavor she had.
Well, that was it. That was our flashback in time. It was a great first week!!
Thanks for flying with us!!
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