The Savage Traveler: Winter Trip 2016-Hillsborough River 1

Wed. Feb. 17-Sat. Feb. 20: Hillsborough River State Park is in the same county and about 45 miles away from Lithia Springs so we could take our time breaking camp on Wednesday and still leave by 11:00 check-out time. We stopped by the headquarters to use their WiFi one more time and then drove to our next campsite. We had stayed at Hillsborough a few years ago with Ann and Shelby and had good memories of it. Campsite 99 is at the back and outside of the farthest loop of three. It is a bit shallow but opens into the woods and as the whole campground is very quiet this time of year, it will be nice for our stay.

Our campsite, overlooking the long leaf pine/live oak hammock

Lunch is served. Note the thermometer reading.

This beautiful web was between our campsite and Bill's

Bill Asher introduced himself as our next door neighbor and told us that his wife, Lynn, who is ten years younger than he, had flown home to Indianapolis on Sunday to go back to work. He and his rescue greyhound, Hoosier, were staying for a couple of weeks and then driving back to Indiana. We ate a quick lunch and got all settled in for a two week stay. Marv made corn bread and Bill came back over to invite us, along with a few other nearby campsites, to come over for a Happy Hour/Get Acquainted time. Wayne, from two sites down, was the only other camper who came, saying his wife, Diane, was relaxing after their travel day. Walter from the other side of Bill said he had some business to take care of in town so he’d take a rain check. The four of us visited while our cornbread baked. Then Marv and I biked over to the Rec Hall for their bi-weekly potluck. A couple at Highlands Hammock had warned us about the poor impression they had had of the potluck here. But it turned out they had attended the first ever for the park, and the volunteers had learned some things from that. There were lots of people and lots of food. People were friendly and went around and introduced themselves and told their hometown. There was a 50/50 raffle to benefit the park and the prize amount was $47! We didn’t win that, but we did win a door prize that was a glass candy dish with a bag of cherry jelly hearts. Knowing the glass dish wasn’t a good idea for camping we gave it back for them to give away next time. But we kept and enjoyed the candy. J A Park Ranger talked about things that were happening at the Park the rest of the week, and it became clear we had come at a perfect time, as you will read later in this blog. Thursday mornings they offer coffee and doughnuts as a fundraiser for the park, so we biked over to the Cedar Landing pavilion for a get-acquainted session with Rangers, volunteers, and many campers. Again they went around and had people introduce themselves. Afterwards we biked to the “Poolside Café” (the big pool is closed from Dec. 1 until the water can maintain itself at 70° for three days) and tried to use their WiFi to do a few things. First we went to a website called EventBrite and purchased tickets for a very special event at the park. Saturday there was going to be a Rendezvous with reenactors at Fort Foster, a reconstructed fort from the second Seminole Indian War. One can only access the fort by tram for an escorted tour three times a week with a park ranger. We had toured the fort with Ann and Shelby last time we visited and there was no Rendezvous then. Now they are beginning to offer a fundraiser for the park called “Dinner Under the Stars”. It was the second one held so far and they are only going to offer two more this year (March and April) but hoped to increase the program next year to Friday and Saturday, at least. The reenactors, in costume, would stay on after the Rendezvous and show us around the fort, where we would eat dinner. They take a maximum of 25 diners and we wanted to be certain we were among them. Having secured our tickets, we slowly downloaded the LSJ in sections because we couldn’t get the whole thing on the slow internet. We biked back to our camper and made lunch to eat outside at our camper. While we ate, a park truck pulled up to Bill’s campsite and three rangers got out and then helped Bill out of the truck and carefully seated him at his picnic table and put Hoosier into the camper. They talked a long time and then a bright yellow firetruck pulled up and two or three EMTs got out and started taking Bill’s vitals and thoroughly checking him out. We were mighty curious but stayed where we were and didn’t intrude. After a while one of the EMTs came over and said Bill wanted to talk to us. We went over and Bill told us that they wanted him to go to the hospital to be checked out because he had fallen while walking Hoosier when he (Bill) got dizzy and weak and his right foot started to drag. He asked if we would take care of Hoosier for him. Of course we agreed and, while he gave us some instructions, the EMTs inserted an IV and asked him to hold still while they took some more readings of his heart that were being sent to the hospital. Bill told us how much to feed Hoosier and how often to walk him and, oh by the way, he’s diabetic and we’d have to give him two shots a day of insulin! It was too late to change our minds and Bill had no options so we told him not to worry and we’d take care of everything. Bill was calling out instructions as he was loaded into the Rescue truck that had showed up by then and then he was whisked away to Florida Hospital Tampa, leaving us with a sad-eyed, diabetic, old Greyhound. For the next 28 hours we changed our schedule in every way, built around Hoosier’s needs. We pretty much spent our time walking Hoosier regularly and reading at our camper, with Hoosier stretched out on his bed outside or on our living area rug when we were indoors. He is a really sweet, quiet, mellow dog who was not any trouble other than the insulin issue. We did no biking during this time but did LOTS of walking. While walking Hoosier we attracted a lot of attention either from people who were interested in him as a greyhound or by people who had already met Hoosier and knew that he wasn’t our dog. The people two campers down, Cathy and Mike, had been aware of the EMTs, etc. and offered to help in any way. We wanted to go into Zephyrhills to watch MSU vs Wisconsin basketball in the evening so we asked them to walk Hoosier at bedtime, which they were happy to do. Before we left Bill let us know he was staying overnight at the hospital and we explained our plan for the game. After MSU beat them handily we got back to the campground around 11:15, walked Hoosier one more time, and brought his bed over for him to sleep with us. It was a very long night of not much sleep for us. I had made the mistake of drinking two big glasses of mango ice tea so I was hopped up on caffeine and had to get up frequently to use the bathroom. Hoosier had to go out every three hours, with Marv walking him each time. At 7:00am Hoosier was pretty clearly up to stay so we started our day the earliest of the trip.

Marv and Hoosier try to download the paper at the cafe

Friday was a very quiet day, like Thursday afternoon, of walking and reading in the sun. We took a two mile walk with Hoosier before lunch and all the others were at least around our camping loop, with lots of folks asking about Bill. We tried again to get the LSJ even though we had found that all the files we thought we had gotten the day before turned out to be empty. Friday was no different. We finally heard from Bill late in the afternoon, when he said they wanted to take one more MRI, which they hadn’t done yet, so he was afraid he’d be staying another night. We fed Hoosier his dinner and Marv gave him insulin for the third time (that never did seem to go very well) and then we put him in Bill’s camper while we caught the 5:00 tram ride around the park. As a free service the ranger picks people up right at their campsite and, when the tram is full, drives around the park on the circle road, with frequent stops to talk about the park and all it offers. There was another ride at 6:30 but it was dark by then. While we were on the ride, Bill called Marv and told him that he was being released and would be back this evening. The tram dropped us at our campsite and we brought Hoosier over to our camper for the evening while we made dinner and relaxed. Bill’s son drove him back to his camper about 8:30. When we had handed Hoosier back to his human companion we went out to do some downloading at a McDonald’s and to buy groceries at Winn-Dixie. We knew we were going to sleep much better than the night before. Saturday was yet another gorgeous day. Since the rain at Highlands Hammock and the couple of cool days at Lithia Springs pretty much every day had been sunny and mid-seventies, with nights in the low fifties, perfect for sleeping. After breakfast I made tuna fish salad and Marv put together half of an Asian chopped salad mix we had gotten from Winn-Dixie. Then we read while waiting for Jackie Himelright and Ed Smith to come. They were traveling from a week at a rental house on the Ocean to Sun City to stay the weekend with friends from Ed’s FFA days. They stopped by our campsite, where we ate lunch, visited, and took a short walk behind our campsite to the Wetlands Trail and partway down it. It was nice to see folks from home and we laughed about how we have to come to Florida to get together. (Pictures will be added later, when Jackie sends them.) We were all sorry we would miss the candidating sermon of Liz Miller as Edgewood’s new pastor and remarked on the unseasonably warm 64° they were having in East Lansing. Everyone knows it won’t last but it’s nice to have the February respite. By the time they left it was time for us to get ready for the Dinner Under the Stars. We drove our truck to parking lot #1 so we could give Bill, who was also attending, a ride. Ranger Bryan was waiting there for the 23 people who had tickets. We took the tram across the highway and near the fort, where we got off and walked past a sign that said “Back to the Present” pointing to the tram, and then one that said “Enter the Past”, where we were met by a navy personnel and an army private who were attracted by the “ruckus” we made and came to escort us to the safety of the fort. It was a good thing they did, because along the trail we could see Seminole warriors following our progress from the palmettos and grasses. We were hustled into the fort and seated at 5 picnic tables, with a soldier, marine, or sailor in period uniform and in character at the head of each one. Marv, Bill, Walter and I ate with Ensign Sean (the same Ranger who drove Friday evening’s tram) who regaled us with the history of the fort and the Seminole Indian Wars while we ate a delicious dinner of mashed potatoes with beef stew on top, corn bread or garlic toast, cider, and bread pudding. A nearly full moon climbed overhead and shown so brightly we hardly needed the torches, lanterns, and candles that lighted the fort in a magical way. After dinner the whole group had a presentation by Lieutenant Luke, who was in charge of the fort since General Foster was away on assignment. He told us about the ammunition used in the cannons and a little more about life in the fort in 1837. Then we went to the Quartermaster’s Store and Ensign Sean told us about the daily ration for each man and more about how they lived in tents outside the fort, coming in only when they were under attack. Next they took us outside to a big campfire where the four Seminoles we had seen on our way in told us more about the wars from their point of view. The Seminoles were the only tribe that never surrendered. The wars ended when the US forces had to turn their attention to other matters, including the Civil War, and just walked away from the conflicts. In the firelight the four warriors were an impressive sight and their stories were exciting and amusing, in turn. Finally, we went beside the fort and the soldiers fired a small cannon, after first going through the whole protocol for priming and preparing it. The cannon shot was a big roar and the flame shot out about 8 feet; SO impressive in the moonlight under a canopy of stars. We walked back to the tram and returned to the campground around 8:45 feeling like we had truly traveled back in time.