Day One - The Start...and The Turnaround

We departed Orlando at 11.30am on Saturday, June 23, headed for north Florida and Suwanee River State Park. Yes, it's the river immortalized by Stephen Foster, as in "way down upon the Swanee River," also titled "Old Folks at Home."

The drive was about 200 miles, and since we hauled our mini-house along with us, it took about 5 hours. The campground is about 25 miles northwest of Tallahassee. Here's the park entrance sign...

We pulled up to an attractive but empty ranger station. Fortunately, we had already reserved and paid for the night.

The weather was cool for late June, and we looked forward to a hibachi dinner and campfire that night. Until we parked in our site and stepped out of the car - Mosquito Attack! Amid the swarms, Peter valiantly set up the tiny trailer and we prepared to eat microwave dinners inside. 😠

That night, Peter couldn't sleep. It turns out that while he set up the camper, he twisted his right knee. It swelled up and was extremely painful. Since we were on Day 1 and 5 hours from home, we decided to turn around to see our regular doctor rather than take our chances on the road. Of course, Peter couldn't drive, so there was Arlene, aka Lucy Ricardo, traveling down the Interstate, the trailer bobbing and weaving behind us like a cork on the water. Aargh.

The next day, we went to see our orthopedic surgeon (another indignity of old age) who x-rayed the knee, pronounced it inflamed by already-present arthritis, and prescribed a cortisone derivative to ease pain and swelling. Since we were in town, we stopped in to see Mom at the assisted living facility.

She was depressed and feeling very sorry for herself. So we decided to stay a while longer to see her settled. And here we are on June 30th, still in Orlando, still waiting to leave.

We desperately want to restart our trip and have decided to try again next Saturday. We'll stay in hotels for a few nights to catch up with our reservation at Badlands National Park in South Dakota. So that's it for now, but we'll leave you with a photo of the woods along the route to the campground at Suwanee.