The Everglades and South Florida

The area known as "The Everglades" is divided into four major areas, Water Conservation Area 1 which is managed by the Feds as the Loxahatchee Wildlife Refuge, Water Conservation Area 2, Water Conservation Area 3, and Everglades National Park. These are all artificial boundaries imposed on one large ecosystem that is basically a giant freshwater marsh that flows south from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay north of the keys. It is a monotonous landscape unless you are down in it and then it gets interesting. The sawgrass grows about ten feet tall and will slice your skin like surgical scalpels. The alligators will probably not bother you but there is now a population explosion of Burmese Pythons out there that are giving the alligators a run for their money. It is a natural system turned crazy by the ten million people living along its boundaries mostly on the east in the cities of Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach. The drainage system is purely artificial and regulated by giant pumps and spillways much as they do in the Netherlands. It is an area that is both strange and fascinating. An area whee we see Iguanas crossing the road every day and parrots in our backyards. A place that gave Dave Barry at the Miami Herald a lifetime of material to write about and Miami CSI seasons of scripts for their shows. You either love it or hate it.

GIMPshop! at Plastic Bugs

Here is GIMPshop based on GIMP, Gnu Image Processor, sort of the free version of Photoshop. I have used GIMP in the past but my complaint has always been that it just does not look like Photoshop. Well, now it does. If you scroll down and get the 8mb GIMPshop for Windows you will have a free software package that is every bit as powerful as Photoshop but costs $0 instead of the $600 or so the PS costs. Get it. It is GREAT.

Get the download for WindowsXP here and read about Gimpshop and its various distros and view some screenshot comparisons here at http://www.plasticbugs.com . The various elements of GIMP have simply been rearranged to agree as closely with Photoshop as possible.

Update: The plasticbugs.com site seems to have been swamped. You can get the windows install for Gimpshop here at http://blog.yumdap.net/archives/20-GIMPshop-for-Windows.html

Katrina Landfall

Katrina is making landfall down south of us around the Broward/Palm Beach County line. That is about 40 or 50 miles south of us. She is a minimal hurricane now with sustained winds of 75 mph. It is rainy and windy here. The winds must be sustained around 40 mph with gusts to 50 mph. We have heard no thunder but the wind is howling like a banshee. It is not a major storm event up here on the north side of the storm but it is blowing hard enough to do some minor things like blowing limbs out of trees and blowing any loose objects around. The storm should begin decreasing in strength as soon as it starts moving over land. The good thing, knock on wood, is that so far we have not lost power. That is a very good thing.

Katrina Approaches

Tropical storm Katrina is approaching the coast of SE Florida. Right now the forecast track takes her to landfall at Fort Lauderdale, a good sixty miles south of us. We are getting rain showers and gusty winds. At this point they winds are not as bad as those we get in thundershowers. The core of Katrina is small at this point but she is forecasted to intensify slowly and should be a minimal hurricane at landfall. We are just far enough away to miss the damaging effects of the core winds but with hurricanes one can never be totally certain about what they are going to do. We have our hurricane shutters in place having put them up for our trip out west. Of course, they will remain in place during this storm and probably for the remainder of the hurricane season. I will update the blog if any unusual weather events occur during the day. Landfall for the storm is not predicted to happen until tomorrow morning.

Home Again

Rewind to Thursday, August 18. We departed Tranquility Cove, my mom and dad's place, about 9:30 AM. Our plan was to drive part of the way, stop in a WalMart for the night and continue on the next day. About 4 PM we stopped in Ormond Beach at a WalMart after calling the store and asking if it was ok. We saw about a dozen signs that said, "No Overnight Parking." We called the store manager again and they said staying overnight was ok with the store but the city of Ormon Beach had an ordinance against it and that we might be awakened by the cops asking us to leave. To avoid that we left and did not stay overnight in Ormond Beach. Continuing south we called the Walmart in Titusville and they gave us the ok. This was only about 60 miles further so we gave that a shot.

Pulling in to the parking lot we located the proper spot after calling and driving around a bit. We finally got parked and started our generator to run the A/C. It ran for a few minutes and then stopped. Seems the fuel line was pulling some air bubbles in around the fuel filter. I worked on it for a bit and it would run but then stop after a few minutes. Looking at the map and seeing that we were only two hours from home I decided to spend those two hours driving instead of working on the generator. We arrived here at the Mothership Base at about 9:30 PM and have been sorting through mail, unloading the camper, and calling our ISP to get our internet service restored. More on that later but for now let's say we are glad to be back home after a fantastic trip.

Homeward Bound

We are on I95 60 miles north of the Georgia/Florida State line. Nice to have this cellular modem on my laptop to post while moving. Great too for checking email. We had a great time at Mom and Dad's in SC and had a chance to unwind from the trip. I need to calculate the total miles we have driven but I can estimate that it is well over 7,000 and probably more like 8,000. It has changed our perspective of distances to travel. The leg from SC to FL seems like a short hop. Based on the patterns we have established on the trip this normally would be a one stop distance. It is just shy of 600 miles from Mom and Dad's to our home. Based on the way we have been driving this would entail an overnight stop along the way. If we do stop it will most likely be a WalMart stop as we have gotten pretty comfortable with "dry camping" after having done it a few times. We realise now that the Mothership is quite self contained and capable of independent dry camping for two days without trying and much longer if we were to use careful management of water and fuel. Well, that is the update for now traveling at 64.4 mph on I95 as indicated on the GPS display.

Tranquility Cove

We are parked in my mom and dad's yard where they have a full hookup for the Mothership. It is time for a breather and to spend time with family. We will spend some time here before moving on to Florida.