Crossing Into Florida

At 2:30 Wednesday afternoon Rusty Grackles making there raucous calls from every possible vantage point were the first to welcome me to Florida. Inside the Florida Welcome Centre I got my complimentary glass of grapefruit juice and was offered two maps of the state—the second one in large print. (In Georgia the welcome beverage was coke.) I was impressed by the massive size of the parking lot but my RV was parked with the truckers at the back and all the facilities and their entrances faced the other way. Plenty of the elderly in view mind you. For one accustomed to bilingual Canada here in the southern US the second language is generally Spanish. The speed limit is still 70 but for the majority of its length through South Georgia and into Florida the speed and lanes on I-95 was reduced due to construction. Luckily the traffic was not heavy although when I came out of Wal-Mart at 3:30 with bread and coffee cream the local roadway was bumper to bumper.

I suppose I need to send an official thank you note to the gang at work for gifting me with a GPS. Thanks to it and my MS Streets and Trips most of my State Maps remain unopened. It's particularly good when the right highway exit is unreachable due to traffic in getting one back on track—mistakes do happen, particularly when one is tired at the end of a long drive and many cities have a bewildering maze of expressways and belt lines.

Hanna Park in Jacksonville is a large heavily treed waterfront park. The front gate is a mile from the campground. It's the first time I've had to use a code to get into a washroom. The attendant inside the gatehouse was a mite snarky and among other things photocopied my driver's licence. It would seem these guys have seen everything. The camp store is open only on weekends and nearby there's a residence for the local member of the sheriff's department. A sign warning campers not to feed the local fauna included alligators. The entire park is built on crystalline white sand and palms are the dominant species. The beach is a considerable walk across three roadways and a dune system but once arrived the sand and ocean stretch unbroken for miles. Save for a jogger and two surfers no one was in sight. The place is quiet save for weekends.

Somehow the fact it's felt necessary to have a helicopter flying back and forth to surveil the area leaves me oddly ill at ease. It does more to disturb my peace and quiet than to give me a feeling of safety. A kid with dreadlocks was facing one of two police cars in handcuffs outside the Wal-Mart when I went in to shop and the two cops were obviously making a show of having caught the guy. Whatever the crime rate may be in this area I've seen no one since I arrived at my campsite and very little wildlife. I'm not over-anxious to meet an alligator at close quarters in a woodland walkway.