HELP ME - never believe what you read on the internet . . .

Ok, maybe I'm being a bit premature, we got here around 4:45 and the office was closed - we found a map taped to the door with our name on it. Even though Di had called in her cancellation, and I called a month ago to confirm her cancellation, they had two sites with my name on it. Ok, we can straighten that out in the morning. Problem is, after a 10 hour drive and our expectation for a decent campground (it was rated 3 & 4 in Woodalls), we don't want EITHER site!

We pull up, are looking at the sites - the hookups look like they've been chewed on by Bigfoot (and Bob thinks he may have heard him while he was grilling our burgers). We do have 50 amp service (which we don't need as it's 40 degrees cooler here than it was in Key West), the water pressure is minimal at best and the electric was clicking on and off at first (it's stabilized now). As for the cable TV, oh - puleeze. . . We've got a chewed up cable. So we set up - I get the antenna fired up and I've got 2 TV stations - football and Nascar. Oh, what did I do to deserve this??

Ok, we're keeping an open mind - the "clubhouse/gathering hall" was closed, as was the game room, you already heard about the cable tv (unless it's only available in the clubhouse??), I didn't get close enough to the pool but it sure didn't look heated, the general store was closed, as was the park office.

We get set up (such as it is) and decided to walk to the marina, that boasts a "Manatee Lookout" - I've been suckered yet again by an evil marketing genius - "Manatee Lookout" is the name of the marina. To be fair, they DO have pictures of the manatees there. . . But, wait - there's the restaurant they promised and it looks OPEN! It's got a bunch of neon bar hangings in the window but when you get there, it's a shack that may fire up a hot dog for you if the bartender is sober enough but the crowd in there is definitely redneck! Bob and I peeked in and were humming the theme song from deliverance as we quickly walked away. . .

So now, I'm sitting at my laptop with the precious (but desperately needed) two bars of internet connectivity underneath a television that has football. I guess that's better than Nascar, eh?

Oh - and I forgot to mention - Bob believes that the motorhome is going thru some sort of voodoo 25,000 mile curse. Not only did we have our initial problems, and the recurrence of the microwave dying, the bedroom tv only plays audio (we get no picture) ~ and ~ the mice are back!

We're driving away from Key West today and I went to get a bagel out of the bread drawer and discovered that the hoagie rolls, hamburg rolls and bagels had been seriously chewed through. Our mice are discriminating enough that they didn't touch the whole wheat bread and whole wheat english muffins we had in there. I wasn't taking any chances - I threw the whole lot out.

We were contemplating staying in FL and blowing off Hilton Head and even the Washington DC portions of this trip but as of this writing - we're not staying HERE!! The plan stays put, we'd rather take our chances with the cold and heading north. . .

Perhaps we'll unlock the door and venture out tomorrow since we've paid through tomorrow and were originally slated to leave Tuesday. Maybe I'll luck out and find my pessimism was ill-deserved.

Then again, maybe not. . . I'll keep you posted!