More Rain Ugg | Workamping in Florida

More Rain…Ugg! It rained a lot before we got here and it is raining more still. We have had a couple of days of freezing weather this past week that, hopefully, killed off most of the mosquitoes. In the past several days, our park ranger, Catherine, just informed us that we have gotten another 4 inches that has soaked into the ground but the forecast for today is for another 2 to 4 inches of the wet stuff. Of course, it will get colder here and the sun will come out just in time for our first Thanksgiving holiday that we will not go home for.

Mom and I have decided just to hang around this quiet, little park, and enjoy the sunshine and cook our turkey breast with a couple of our traditional family side dishes. That means no table filled with desserts that my grandmother has been baking for the last 10 days. This year, most of our family members will be spending Thanksgiving with the in-laws and Christmas at granny’s house. My aunt Sherry, from Denver, will be with my grandmother this Thanksgiving and they plan on a quiet little dinner as well. Of course, we will call everyone to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving and catch on all the latest family gossip.

Anyway, we are working on our various craft projects and planning out what we are making for Christmas gifts this year. We have been encouraging all of our children and grandchildren to make gifts this year instead of buying them. No one can really afford a bunch of presents anyway and it is just nice for the parents to include their kids in the gift making and wrapping process. My daughter will be baking her gifts again this year and making gift baskets. Always a yummy prospect. And I have been updating our websites and getting more of our handcrafted items posting online for sale on our various online stores but mainly building up our inventory on the SquareUp Marketplace. We hope you will take a look at what we have to offer.

Also, with this lousy weather we cannot do a whole lot in the park on our volunteer assignments. There haven’t been a lot of visitors this week anyway so everything is still clean just very damp. Once the sun comes out and dries off the area we will be back to blowing leaves off the paths and roads, cleaning bathrooms, making sure the kiosks have pamphlets and maps and riding the gator picking up any litter and moving any large tree debris from the pathways. The weather also cancelled our View the Stars in the Park event here at Big Shoals because of too much cloud cover. Stephen Foster Memorial State Park has been working for the last two months putting up millions of Christmas lights in time for the annual Festival of Lights event beginning December 5th. From the few times we were in Stephen Foster after dark it will be well worth the $3 per person charge they are asking.

There has been a new event posted for our Big Shoals State Park area called the 1st Day Walk in the Park. They are asking for the regular park admission price but there will be park rangers from Big Shoals and Stephen Foster leading walking tours of the Big Shoals Public Land Area trails and picking up trash along the way. Since, that is moving day for us we will not be participating in that event. But if you are in the area we hope you will stop by and walk the trails in our area. There is lots to see and enjoy here.

We hope you and yours have a safe and happy Thanksgiving holiday no matter where or with whom you are spending it with. Remember all the Florida State Parks will be opened on Thanksgiving, get your exercise after eating your great family meal or just enjoy. Click on the link: http://www.floridastateparks.org/resources/sp-newsletter.cfm for Florida State Parks Thanksgiving schedule information.