Check Your Nuts

 

St. George, South Carolina

For the past 7-10 days, the weather forecasters have been talking about the potential for a tropical storm coming into the Tampa Bay area.   No one was too worried about it being anything but a big rainmaker.  No one, except me, that is.  :)

The forecasters only gave it a very slim chance of forming into a tropical storm. 

Well, guess what?   It just became our first named storm of the season, and Tropical Storm Andrea is heading our way.

Last June Al and I missed our “window of opportunity” to leave town when Tropical Storm Debbie came in.  This year, we didn’t want to do the same thing, because one thing we have learned about hurricane’s and tropical storms, is that the forecasters are much better at predicting where they will go than they are at the strength they will become.   Tropical storms are known to spawn tornados and we really don’t want to ride one out in a motor home.  Better to get out of town than wait and see what forms, in our opinion.

So….on Tuesday, we left Tampa and made it about 200 miles north to Jacksonville, Florida, which is on the east coast of Florida just south of the Georgia border. 

On the way to Jacksonville, we ran into a few pretty hard patches of rain.   We had the windshield wipers on and all of a sudden, one wiper started flopping and going the wrong way.  We were afraid it would fall off, but were on the interstate and couldn’t stop. Al turned the wipers off and we drove without them.  Fortunately, he had recently put Rainx on the front windshield, so mostly the rain just beaded off and we could see to drive.   Not the best situation but it would have been much worse without the Rainx.

We finally found a place to pull over and Al jumped out to see what was wrong with the wiper.  Of course it was the one on the drivers side.  It turned out there was a little nut that was loose.   He tightened it up and we were good to go.

Or so we thought.

We drove a bit further, it started to rain pretty hard again, and the wiper started flopping around again.  So, off the wipers went again and on we went on the interstate with no windshield wipers!  It was nerve wracking, but we felt it was safer to keep going than to stop on the side of the interstate.  We could see, just not as well as we liked.

When we got to our destination it had quit raining finally and he got some better tools and tightened the nut a little better.

The moral of the story is to check your nuts regularly so as not to lose your wipers! 

We had planned on going a little further north to Brunswick, Georgia, but the wiper problem took the wind out of our sails and we decided to stop in Jacksonville, at Pecan Park Rv Park.  It’s a nice place to stop 2 minutes off the interstate.  They have all pull through concrete pads and it was perfect for an overnight stop.  We stayed there last fall along with Jim and Dee from Tumbleweed.

This morning, we got  up not really knowing where we were going to go, but we knew we needed to get further away from the Tampa Bay area.

We finally decided on St. George, South  Carolina, which is just outside of North Charleston.  We are staying at Jolly Acres Rv Park.   It’s a real nice little family owed campground that Sherry and David recommended last year, when we were running away from another hurricane! Thanks guys, we really like it here.   There’s nothing much around, but it’s a lovely little park and right off interstate 95. 

We just found out that Coastal North and South Carolina are in a tropical storm watch, so  it looks like we need to move a little further inland.

We may head west into South Carolina, or just keep going and going back to Asheville.

We have a lot of places nearby that we’d love to visit, it this darn rain and storm would just go away and let us play.  The entire southeast part of the United States appears to be wet.

 

And….to top off all my other problems, it appears that we have a couple of hitch hikers along with us.  We keep hearing little Green Tree frogs singing.  Al says they are outside, but they sure sound close to me and they give me the willies!  I think they are probably hiding in the vents or awning covers on the roof.  I hope they don’t find a way inside.

Look What the Rain Brought

 

Wesley Chapel, Florida

On Saturday morning, we were out on the patio by about 6am.  We had both cameras, waiting for the fox to come back.

I quickly realized my big zoom was too much for the fox, should he come, so I made some adjustments.  Too many cameras, too many lenses.  :)

We had  put the birdfeeder inside the truck overnight to avoid attracting the fox to the campground, where he really shouldn’t be.  We love seeing him, but don’t want him getting too tame and expecting food.  He needs to have a fear of man.

We sat there quite a while without seeing the fox, but we did have a few other of our friends.

A family of Sand Cranes flew right over.

A Tufted Titmouse, who apparently was just dropping a mighty big peanut seed.

Sharing with a friend.

 

We decided to walk down to where the otters hang out and see if they were around.

No otters, but we did see this Yellow Crowned Night Heron.

After a beautiful morning, a slow moving front came through, bringing a ton of rain.  Fortunately, it wasn’t windy or severe, but I did hear of two nearby houses getting struck by lightning.  Not real comforting since we live in a motor home!

This morning, we were up and outside early again and again we were rewarded for our efforts.

This next picture is our view from out patio.  The brown reeds you see in the middle of the photo, are cat tail reeds that are growing in the drainage area behind us.  Before yesterday, it was dry directly behind us.   Today we have water and actually saw an otter swimming right behind the rig.  No decent pictures though.

The sound from the frogs was almost deafening.  I kept wanting the remote control to turn them down!

I saw a small Red Shouldered Hawk on the bank on the other side of the pond.  He was hopping around in the grass chasing his breakfast.

I know how nature works, but I don’t like to see it. 

When he flew up to the sign, I saw that it was a frog.  Poor little frog. 

Mockingbirds hate hawks and crows because they steal their babies.  

This Mockingbird was dive bombing the hawk as he ate his breakfast.  I was afraid I would zoom in and find the hawk had a baby Mockingbird.  I was relieved it was a frog, but I’m sure the frog didn’t feel the same way.

Like, I said.  We have a lot of frogs.  This little blue heron was also dining on a frog.  I just hope the frogs stay on their side of the boundary!

It’s amazing what you see, if you just take the time to watch.

Here is a blurry photo of a Daddy Cardinal feeding his baby.

A close up of the red eye of the Yellow Crowned Night Heron. Taken with LC (little cannon) at full digital  zoom.

Al got this shot of a male Cardinal  also with LC at full digital zoom.

and a strange site coming up the bank.

A cute little Titmouse posing nicely for me.  I really need to pick off those old dead leaves that are ruining my picture!

 

 

Yesterday was the first day of the 6 month long hurricane season, and of course there is something interesting forming down south.

The weather forecasters are watching a weather mass that will probably bring some tropical weather up here by the middle of next week.

They aren’t predicting it to become a hurricane, and don’t expect much except for some rain.  However, they do think it will come our way.   My experience with tropical systems is that the forecasters are pretty good about predicting where they will go, but not so good at predicting how strong they will be.

So……what do we do? 

We were planning on leaving the area and heading south later this week anyway.   South doesn’t appear to be our best choice now.  We had already ruled out our beach camping at Red Coconuts Rv park because they are full and we couldn’t get a site the week we wanted.   We were thinking of going back to  Kissimmee Prairie, but now we’re thinking if we leave, we should get out of Florida.

I’m not too worried about the storm, but then again, you never know, and I would rather be safe than sorry.

I guess we’ll make a decision today or tomorrow.  Last June, we were in the same situation and we waited too long to make the decision to leave and we were stuck here during tropical storm Debbie. 

Decisions, decisions.