Up at 8:00 this morning and on the road by 10:00. It was moving day and today I was heading north and a little east of where I was there in the St Petersburg area. It was only 150 miles, but it still took almost 4 hours to drive up to the town of McIntosh Florida.
   This little town is located just about halfway between Ocala to the south and Gainsville to the north. I found an old run down RV campground there on the east edge of the town about 4 years ago, and I have been coming back every since.
    'Sportsman's Cove' probably had it's hey-day back in the 50's-60's when people came here for a weekend of fishing and camping. It looks as though it has been going down hill ever since then. Still, it reminds me of what I picture 'Old Florida' as being like, even though I have no idea what it was like way back then.
    The campground is laid out with camp spaces every which way. Some sites are missing electrical hook ups, some are to small for most of todays trailers and some are just too muddy to pull in and out of. So it is surprising to find that most of the available sites already have units on them. So I had a choice of a couple different spots but ended up out on the very end of the high land in a site off by myself. Discribed as the 'best' site in the place, I have to admit that the view is certainly the nicest. It looks out over what use to be the main attraction, the lake. These days after more than 5 years of drought a few years ago, it is just now starting to fill up again after the heavy rains of the past two years.
    Of course there is a reason while no one was in this spot when I showed up, that being that the shore power is kind of iffy out here. While it is suppose to have a standard 30 amp, 240v  hookup, which is what my trailer uses, it evidently cuts out quite often if the load gets much above what a standard 120v outlet has. Since the things in the trailer that draw the most current are my micro-wave and my electric kettle, I figured I could probably be okay, and so far that has been the case.
     I managed to get the trailer in position and unhooked finally. I had a bit of a problem in that I didn't get one of my safety chains completely unhooked when I reached under the truck to let it loose. As a result there was a good jerk when I tried to drive away from the trailer with the truck. Lucky for me I was going really slow as there isn't much room out at that end of the peninsula, so all I did was pop the front of the trailer off of one of the blocks before stopping and figuring it out. It all got sorted out in the end and so now it is all set up and working fine. I'm looking forward to a couple nice days here before my girl friend flies in on Friday. We are going to hang out for a few days and then head off to the island of St Croix in the Carribean for a week of contra dancing and laying on the beach. I can't wait.
   I'm tired right now though, so I'm going to finish this up and go to bed. Below are a few pictures I took this afternoon after setting the trailer up. They show the view from my kitchen door.

Lake at Sportsman's Cove RV in McIntosh Florida

Jan. 26, 2015

The view out my kitchen door. Looking out on what was only a grass prairie a couple of years ago. With all of the rain the water is now back up to the bottom of the banks where my trailer is setting.

Lots and lots of birds out there. In just a few minutes I picked out coots and several species of ducks, herons, white ibis and egrets, a bald eagle, a osprey, several buzzards and a whole flock of sand hill cranes that landed out there in the middle somewhere.

Nearly sunset, my favorite time of the day.

On the other side of my trailer is the rest of the RV campground as well as the old marina. There still isn't enough water in the lake for a motor boat to get out, but I would sure like to have one of my canoes or kayaks with me right now.

A view of my trailer and truck. We have now been together for more than 7 years. We are all starting to show our age, but still ready to go explore some place new.

brk*