“Florida’s climate is sultry, whether you visit in February or August. Its thermostat has but two settings: warm and hot.”---AAA Florida Tourbook 2010, p. 29
We left home December 27th traveling mostly independently until yesterday. But we are now pacified, no longer feral. We are ready to start the Florida Fantasy 50-day caravan run by our Airstream club, WBCCI.
Wearing nametags (as we will throughout the caravan), at 8:30 AM we meet the others under the truly giant oak for a “hot oatmeal topped with ice-cream and fresh fruit” breakfast courtesy the very nice (and looking healthy) members of the Big Bend Florida unit - excellent.
The Big Benders live locally and aren’t on the caravan. They say somewhat apologetically that the weather has been unusual; January was the coldest ever recorded. They also say they get out of Tallahassee, when humanly possibly, from May until October. Our Florida caravan is for 50 days starting yesterday, February 8. We do the math, looking forward to heat and humidity.
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| Marcia, Ed and Susan at the Florida capitol |
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| Unfortunately, I asked and they spoke: pro-life in a big way. |
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| The old capitol, now a museum. |
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| Butterfly ballot doesn't look like any big deal. |
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| Getting ready for a press conference on the environment, I guess. |
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| Yes, the new capitol building. |
At 9:30 a bus takes the group downtown for a tour of the very nice old state capitol. The not-so-nice high-rise new capitol is right behind it. The new one was built inches from the old anticipating the latter would be demolished when the former opened. People protested but the close proximity just wouldn’t do. As a compromise the wings were removed and the smaller space returned to its 1902 appearance, as a museum. It works out very well.
Afterwards we join Bill from Oregon for a very nice lunch downtown, noticing the earnest suited and very white young men and women everywhere, lobbying and chamber-of-commercing and politicking. Marcia and I then walk to the museum in the state building and are reminded of our loss of independence – we must speed-walk the museum in order to catch the return bus at 2 PM.
Thursday is a day on our own and we drive probably 20 miles of Tallahassee’s canopied streets. On the way back we explore Lake Jackson Mounds State Archeological Park. The latter does not take long – the mounds are unimpressive, even though the signs tells us they were occupied 1200 – 1500 AD, and built by hand.
I had a boss I admired for being nice and smart, a rare combination. I would tell him of my travels to the Mayan ruins in Mexico and Central America, and Inca ruins such as Machu Pichu. I’d add that I could never get interested in American Indians with their pottery making and basket weaving. He would ask me if I had ever visited the Indian mounds in the US and I had to confess I knew nothing about them. People tell me these Mississippi mounds pale in comparison to mounds elsewhere. Out of respect for Bill, and American Indians, I will try to keep an open mind for another decade or two. But that’s it.
It has been a pretty but very cold day and we have a drivers meeting scheduled for 9 PM under the oak. Al decides it is just too cold so we hold the meeting by CB from our rigs. Al and Gracie like to update us via brief CB announcements at 8:00 AM and 9:00 PM. They suggest everybody leave their trailer CBs on all the time until the end of the caravan. We comply, squelching out (we hope) extraneous trucker traffic. We have now truly lost our feral status.
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