Routine Established

Sunday, 26 May
Eastbank COE Campground — Bainbridge, Georgia
Temps: Lo 59F / Hi 91F (15C / 33C)

No specific activity or theme for this post, so I’ll just intersperse photos from these past few days throughout the narrative.

With some of the spillways on the Apalachicola River side of the Woodruff Dam open …

… a portion of the fishing platform is under water …
not that it stops one of the anglers from stationing himself there.

We can’t call the campground our own anymore.  At least not for another day — and even then, we won’t be alone next week, but there will be a lot fewer campers after tomorrow’s mass exodus.

Mui’s favorite bird (so far in our travels) … the Eastern Bluebird.

By 8:00p on Thursday, all but two of the sites were filled with campers pouring into enjoy the Memorial Day long weekend.  Early Friday, the occupants of those last two sites set up camp to make it a full house.  We braced ourselves for a lot of revelry, but except for a few sites that were party-central, most campers were here just for a relaxing time.  Since swimming with alligators isn’t a popular pastime, and there are no other amenities for kids here, it’s been a mostly-adults holiday weekend here at Eastbank.

Based on eye color and size (it was bigger than what my reference sources indicate
is average for a yellow-bellied slider), I’m ID’ing this as a Suwannee Cooter.
Anyone disagree; let me know.

I’m not calling what we have fallen into a rut; but rather, a routine.  Sounds better ;-)

Taking advantage of the cool mornings — a fleece jacket feels good — we have our breakfast on the little patio we created for ourselves in front of the coach; go for a walk over to the Jim Woodruff Dam and back; read, draft blog posts (me), and relax in the shadow of the coach as the sun moves from behind us to in front of us, and our shade gives way to full sun; do chores inside the Phaeton in the hot mid-day hours; enjoy happy hour in the shade of the trees that filter the rays of the sun; and call it a day after the sun sets in Florida on the far side of the lake from us.

Based on my limited knowledge of damselflies and dragonflies, I am guessing these
are both (above and below) dragonflies.  My internet connection is too crummy to
figure out what type they are, so if you’d like to ID them for me, go right ahead.

The only break in routine was when we drove the 24 miles (38 km) over to Marianna, Florida on Friday to shop for produce and fruit, and pick up a few things from Lowe’s.  We also stopped by Wal-Mart to pick up some AMDRO ant & spider granules, which comes in a shaker-bag for easy dispensing.  So far, so good.  Regular monitoring and reapplication of ant spray and granules over the weekend has kept the ants at bay.  Keeping fingers crossed that we stay ant-free for the remainder of our stay.

Mural by Curtis Everett on the wall of Pilcher's Barber Shop
on US 71, approaching Sneads from Marianna.

Campers two sites over from us weren’t as lucky.  Some (a lot; really a lot) of the pesky Argentine ants used a broom that had been left against the coach to climb up the sides and on to the roof, and infiltrated the coach.  They pulled up stakes and left yesterday to deal with the clean-up elsewhere.  I saw them spraying, so it wasn’t that they weren’t trying to keep the ants at bay.  That site, however, was one of the party-central spots and there was a lot of cooking and eating outdoors, which I think contributed to their problem.

  Looking across Lake Seminole to the Woodruff Dam in the pre-dawn hours.

The goal of this net-fisher is to catch the legal limit of 50 fish (mostly mullet);
he already had 10 in the bucket when we stopped to chat with him at 7:00a.

The question of whether or not the Canada geese family that visits us are being fed by campers has been answered with a resounding “yes.”  While most people are doling out bread, our neighbor came prepared with a container-full of corn, which he disperses liberally whenever the family comes by.  He is an equal opportunity feeder, however.  The bird feeder he put up has attracted a whole bunch of small birds, providing me with several photo ops.  Is it wrong to feed birds by putting up bird feeders?  I never thought so, but if it’s OK to feed them, then what makes feeding the geese wrong?  Something I need to cogitate on further.

Cardinals — male (left) and female.

House Finch (male)

Guessing these are female house finches; they showed up at the same
time as the colorful males came by to check out the bird feeder.

In the right light, the Common Grackle (male) has beautifully iridescent feathers.

Red-shouldered blackbird

Shunning the bird feeder, this Eastern Kingbird catches his own meal.

The squirrel can’t get to the bird feeder, but joins A house finch
to pick THROUGH seeds THAT HAVE FALLEN FROM THE FEEDER.

We continue to have beautiful sunsets, which I can’t resist photographing.  They do make a great way to wrap up a post.

From Saturday’s brilliant orange and red “curtains down on the day” …

… to Sunday’s golden finale, all of the sunsets have been eye-catching.

And that’s a wrap for our first week here at the Eastbank COE campground.  Don’t expect our routine to change during week two … but who knows ;-)

Drip-Dry Station

Friday, 24 May
Eastbank COE Campground — Bainbridge, Georgia
Temps: Lo 64F / Hi 91F (18C / 33C)

We have a stacked washer and dryer in the Phaeton.  I love the convenience of being able to throw in a load of laundry whenever the mood strikes … provided we have full hook-ups.  The Whirlpool washer allows me to not only set the wash cycle (from heavy soil to hand wash), but also gives me the option to set the spin strength (no spin to extra high).

I especially like the no spin option for delicates and trekking clothes, but where to then dry the clothes without getting a puddle of water all over the floor was the question.  The answer — the shower stall, of course.  Mui went to work and built me a drip-dry station, which solved the where-to-hang problem.  He did this little project a while back — way before we started fulltiming — but it wasn’t until my friend MBZ asked me to point her to the post that I realized I had neglected to do a write-up.  This post remedies that oversight.

It’s possible to use a PVC pipe for the rod, but we had some kiln-dried wood bars at
home, so Mui cut one of those down to size instead.  Next step, drilling pilot holes
in the custom-cut rod for some screw-in hooks.

Left:  An eye hook at either end of the rod to thread the chain.
Right: Screw-in hooks spaced along the bottom of the rod to hang clothes that aren’t on hangers.

Left: hooks screwed into opposite sides of the frame of the skylight over the shower …
Right: … hold up the chain that is threaded through the eye screws.

Installation complete.

Left: When not be using used to dry clothes, the drip-dry station is a good place to hang
damp towels; it is a particularly good place for bulky toweling robes (not pictured).

Right:  When not in use, or when we want to close the skylight cover, we can store
the rod on the same hook where the swiffer is stored.

When Mui installed the rod, we anticipated storing it as noted above.  Turns out, the rod is high enough that we do not need to remove it when showering.  Since Mui has taken to hanging his toweling robe on one of the hooks, the weight keeps the rod in place even when we are in driving-mode.  We also tend to keep the skylight open most of the time, so that hasn’t been reason to remove the rod either.

One more use of the shower stall, which gets used once — maybe twice — a day.  It’s all about using space efficiently, isn’t it?

I Walked to Florida and Back Today

Wednesday, 22 May
Eastbank COE Campground — Bainbridge, Georgia
Temps: Lo 70F / Hi 93F (21C / 34C)

Although I am managing to process and upload photos, and post to the blog periodically,
our internet connection here is very much hit and miss … miss most of the time.
Reading the blogs I follow is going to have to wait for a while, I’m afraid.

Leaving Mui to work on his project, I took off to find the trailhead to the Jim Woodruff Dam.  Little did I know then that I would be walking to Florida and back.  Turns out that the state line for Georgia/Florida is about halfway up the access road to the dam — about 7/10th of a mile (~1 km) from the campground via a short, but rather steep trail that starts behind Loop C, runs through a heavily wooded area, and connects to the paved road.

Double–crested cormorant                                                                     

Once I was on the access road, it took me forever to walk the short distance to the fishing platform behind the dam.  Not that it was a difficult walk, I just made frequent stops to watch a couple of loons and a lone double-crested cormorant fishing on Lake Seminole.  A heron perched briefly on a distant log bobbing on the water, but it took off before I could ID it, let alone take a photograph of it.  There were a lot of swallows flying about; and even more when I made my way along the powerhouse perimeter fence and down the stairs to the fishing platform.  Apparently, these small birds are nesting in the nooks and crannies of the walls of the dam.  They didn’t stop flying for even a second, though, so no photos.

Common Loon

I wasn’t looking forward to climbing the steep hill up to the trailhead once I made my way back across the access road.  Remembering that one of the hosts had mentioned a pedestrian gate next to the locked fence at the back of the campground, I decided to check it out.  Not only was it an easier way to get back home, but I was rewarded with a hawk perched on said gate who kindly waited for me to take a photo before flying off into the woods.

Couldn’t say what kind of a hawk, but it is a hawk.

Mui was well into his project by the time I returned home.  After taking care of a few things around the Phaeton, I sat down to process photos from today.  That’s when I was interrupted by an eastern kingbird who flew in and perched on the grill.  Not wanting to scare it off, I watched it from the driver’s seat in the cockpit for a while, even managing a pretty good shot of it through the glass.

Eastern Kingbird

The highlight of the day was spending time with the family of Canada geese that consider our site as theirs.  They’d been by throughout the day, stopping to munch on grass before leaving for parts unknown, but came back and stuck around for a while as I sat in the shade of the trees where a welcome breeze allowed me to enjoy reading by the lake.  When Mui approached, they hissed a warning, but let him join the party too.

I’m not usually so enthralled with Canada geese, but I love watching the goslings.  If they are on the site when we return from our morning walks, they come running to greet us with their wings flapping.  Momma and Poppa stand on the sidelines, and except for a hiss or two, don’t seem to mind the enthusiasm of the goslings.  I hope this doesn’t mean that former occupants of the site have fed them; that would be a no-no.

I took some video, which Mui kindly edited for me … it’s 44 seconds long.

I need to remember more often that the camera takes video as well as still shots.

I’m including some still shots too so that those with limited bandwidth don’t miss out ;-)

With Mui busy inside the coach, my only recourse is to include my knees in the shot
to show the proximity of the Canada geese family to where I am sitting.

When Mui shows up with his camera, the family run over to him for their photo op …

… before taking off for ...
(Yeah, the perfect “The end,” but I have sunset photos to share.)

… an afternoon swim on Lake Seminole.

The Canada geese that visit us daily aren’t the only ones in and around the campground, but this pair is the only one that has a family.

The family wasn’t alone in their desire for an afternoon swim …
their cousins were swimming also, but they kept their distance.

Late in the afternoon, Mui and I went for a drive over to the dam.  Our purpose was two-fold,  First, to check out the paved road that runs below the access road to see how far it continued — turns out, not far.  Second, to check out the dam from the overlook in Florida.  While at it, we drove around Chattahoochee, the town that is nearest to the campground.  Didn’t take us long to do that; it’s a small town with not much going for it.  I did find a mural; will need to go back one morning to photograph it in softer light.

From Wikipedia: The Jim Woodruff Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Apalachicola River,
about 1,000 feet (300 m) south of that river's origin at the confluence of the Flint and
Chattahoochee Rivers.  The dam impounds Lake Seminole on the common border of Florida
and Georgia.  The dam is named in honor of James W. Woodruff, Sr., a Georgia businessman
who spearheaded the development of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint Project.

Left: View of the dam from the overlook in Florida.
Top Right: zoomed in View of the dam from our site.
Bottom Right: From the fishing platform at the dam.

As you can tell from this post … there’s nothing exciting going on with us.  But I do have some exciting sunset colors with which to end this post.  I was all set not to take sunset photos tonight since the view doesn’t really change.  But the sky clouded up a bit and that changed the colors and textures, so I once again found myself clicking the shutter at the edge of Lake Seminole.

Wishing everyone a colorful evening where ever your are.