Tripometer – 15,534 mi
Gas Gauge – 1239.387 gal
Location – Tomoka State Park, Ormond Beach, FL
Lodging – $25
Cans of OFF – 4
We woke this morning to the dulcet sounds of the Caterpillar back hoe driving to and fro mere feet from our trailer assumedly clearing debris from the hurricane. What a way to wake up. Kelly took her computer, work materials and a big poofy jacket to the communal BBQ pit area in the RV park where there was just enough cell signal for her to do her work. She worked just long enough to get all of the really important items complete before her fingers started to get numb from the cold. Good God, we need to find warm weather.
Paul had the rig packed up by the time Kelly was done her work and we were on the road by 11am this morning. Roughly a mile from our campsite we saw the tower above. Neither of us are sure of this, but we’re guessing that this was the elusive cellular tower that should have been providing cell signal to our RV park and the surrounds. It looks as though it may have lost its top in the hurricane. There was a fair bit of debris and several dismantled electrical boxes at the base of the tower. We guess we shouldn’t expect all of our fancy cell signal apps to predict hurricane damaged cell towers.
The damage from the hurricane was very evident in the sunlight. There were work crews every mile or so along the highway through this stretch of Florida clearing debris. Kelly commented that we should have felt safer sleeping last night as the wind had knocked down any dangerous trees well before we arrived.
Continuing a trend from the last couple of weeks, the advertisements for lawyers were well over 50% of the ads on the radio today. Most were hawking for hurricane-related lawsuits. We found it sad that in lower income areas the radio is so crowded with people trying to make a buck off of other people’s misfortune.
Finding a campsite along Florida’s eastern coast has proven more difficult than we had hoped. It is the middle of the week so we were able to find a campsite but the weekends are going to be a real pain in the butt. We will likely have to stay in a beautiful state or local park during the week and then move to a much more expensive and much less appealing site on the weekends. After last night’s experience with our cell phone signal we chose a state park to drive towards but we didn’t make firm reservations until we arrived and saw the signal strength for ourselves. Tomoka State Park was one of the parks that Paul’s family stayed in during a trip to Florida in 1986. It is just as pretty as he had remembered. We settled into our sandy campsite this evening knowing that though it’s still cold tonight the weekend was going to be much warmer.
Tonight as we fell asleep enjoying the quiet campground. We could hear the distant sound of waves on the shore.