Dog Days of Summer

Dogs days of summer are upon us. We are still hanging out working in the Alligator Lake Recreation Park here in Lake City, Florida. With all the visitors we have had even on the hottest days here we have been keeping pretty busy with our duties. When we are not driving around on the Gator picking up trash, checking out the trails, cleaning the bathrooms, checking the trash cans and keeping the rental pavilion cleaned between uses we have been keeping busy with creating more handcrafted items, working on my websites, and entertaining my granddaughter during her visits while out of school. We have also had the big air conditioning unit die on us so we have had to replace it with two small window AC units. Thankfully, my brother was in town and able to install them properly. We had also, finally, ran out of propane and he helped me put in one of those “Stay-A-While” propane kits so that we can use the smaller, portable propane tanks you can exchange at our local Walmart. It seems to be working fine. We haven’t tried filling up our onboard tank with it. Instead, we have the smaller tank’s propane going directly into the RV. Don’t forget to keep your onboard tank’s valve off when you use one of these.

We had a dry spell for about a month but mostly since May it has rained quite a bit each month. This keeps people away from the park and it’s nice to know that the two coats of rubberized paint we put on the roof while we were still at Olustee Beach is still holding. The paint can states that it would last 10 years but we will probably redo it every other year just to be on the safe side. Of course, we may not have this RV by next year if we can ever find another one that we can afford and is big enough for all 4 of us. Yes, my youngest daughter, Katie, is still staying with us more and more except for when my granddaughter was visiting. She would much rather stay at my brother’s house hanging out with his pack but times are tight for his family too.

We do enjoy staying here in the park. We would really like to start traveling again. Other than the little problem of having to get another RV or getting a new motor for our current one we will also need to start saving up for campground fees and gas between each park. Then we would have to get new tires all the way around. That is 7 $250 per tire cost we really cannot afford right now. This old thing only gets about 8 miles to the gallon. From my research that is standard for most Class A’s and Class C’s out there. It would be neat to have a travel trailer but that means we will have to buy a truck to pull it. Not to mention that I would need to learn how to pull it, back it into camping spots, and make safe turns. I guess if I can drive a 30-foot class A then the travel trailer shouldn’t be a big deal. That reminds me I need to get my blood pressure medicine refilled.

I would still like to get on a predictable posting pattern for the website and I still have two Florida State Park Reviews that I need to finish from before we stayed at Anastasia but there are so many other things getting in the way. We have been making lots of items to sell and were getting ready for the big Florida Folk Festival in May but because of an application snafu, we were rejected on the day we were supposed to check-in. That cost us some big bucks. Now, with having to replace the AC unit we were supposed to pay for the big Christmas on the Square event in Live Oak, Florida for December but, sadly, that deadline has passed. Since we can’t seem to catch a break with the vendor’s fees I decided to create my own online store of all of our handcrafted items. That way we can start saving the fee costs of Amazon Handmade, Etsy and HandmadeArtist charges monthly and again when we actually sell something on them. http://swcstore.southernwomencrafts.com This new online store will not be opened, officially, until after the new year. That should give me a couple months to get all of our products online, looking good and making sure the website works as it should all the way from looking to buying to shipping. We have a newsletter function we are trying out for the site to begin collecting subscribers so please wander on over there using the above link and sign up. We hope to be sending those out once a month for now.

There are no workamping tips this month, or campground reviews, or even visits to one of our local Florida State Parks to talk about right now. We did go the Rum Island Springs county park for my granddaughter’s birthday last month which was very nice. We set up the canopy tent first thing in the morning over a picnic table and waited for the relatives to show up. She got to go swimming most of the time while we were there. It is a really nice little park but extremely busy every single day. The port-a-potty needed to be changed out and there was some trash in the picnic and swimming areas that we picked up but the park was shady and the water was ice cold. Next time we hope to be able to rent one of those inner tubes to float down the river a little ways just to see where it goes.