Camping in Silver River

I love camping.

Sarah and I have been wanting to go camping for a while, which is good because a campsite is much cheaper than a motel room. The idea of living in the wilderness and sleeping on hard-packed dirt for three nights isn’t high on Bill’s list of fun activities, so he elected to stay at a Howard Johnson’s in Ocala. As of April 20, Bill has logged 2325 miles.

We bought some cheap tents and some of those fold-up chairs, made a quick stop at the store to get stuff for sandwiches, pretzels, pickles, and beer, made a right on Route 35 and then a left into Silver River State Park. Normally I’m used to purchasing firewood at a convenience store (or the hideous consumer vacuum of Wal-Mart, sorry) but those establishments don’t sell wood in Silver Springs, Florida, so we had to buy wood when we got to the park. The pieces of wood were on the small side, so we loaded up the backseat of the Suburban with dozens of chipped logs. I saw some assorted strange-lookin’ beetles and crickets clinging to the wood that unquestionably escaped into the general seating area of the Suburban, but I wisely chose not to start a discussion about that.

When we first pulled into the campsite, site 38, we unloaded the wood into a dusty pile besides the fire ring, dragged the cooler over to the picnic table, and began the arduous task of putting up our tents. Tents fit perfectly into the nylon zippered case when you first open it – folded so tightly and precisely - but you despair as you unfold because you know that there’s no way you’re ever going to get that sucker back into that case. It’s not going to happen, and especially not for someone like me who isn’t a champion folder of things anyway. (In fact, I’m a bad folder of items. Maps, clothes…not good. Although I did help Jerry, the janitor at the post office, fold up the American flag sometimes…I suppose if I am assisted, I can fold. Ah, wonderful domestic me.)

The campsite itself wasn’t actual dirt; it had been covered with tiny white rocks that lay in a thin layer of white sand, which I found to be strange. We initially tried to push our metal tent stakes into the milky-colored gravel, but they would only go about a quarter of an inch into the ground. Off to the side of the campsite was a patch of pine-needled dirt that was big enough to fit our tents, so we moved them a few feet over.

And here’s the other thing about tents: (and I already knew this and fell for it anyway) whatever the measurement printed on the outside of the packaging is, it is divided by about 50% when the tent is actually erected. Our tents were labeled as kids’ tents, but the measurement said 6’ by 5’. I’m about 5’5”, so I figured I can sleep in a six-foot-long tent just fine. Well, aren’t I stupid sometimes. I couldn’t even stretch my legs out all the way unless I propped myself up on my elbows, so I had to sleep shaped like a curve, and there was a tree root that was running underneath the area where my stomach was. I didn’t realize this until it was pitch black outside, of course, and there was no way I was going to even consider moving the tent. After the first night I got used to the root and slept with it digging into my abdomen for the next two nights. Worse things have happened to me.

Sarah and I were standing above the blobs of nylon that were assumably going to turn into tents, minding our own business, jamming the interlocking tent poles together, and listening to the local country music station on the radio of the Suburban. After about five minutes, a smiling, visored, pink-outfit-wearing middle-aged woman astride a bicycle cruised into our campsite. The woman engaged us earnestly in small talk, telling us that she too was originally from New Hampshire, and she told us she was staying in Silver River for a few weeks. She gestured to an RV, faintly visible behind a tangle of woods, parked at a site far off in the distance. I felt glad to have such a friendly neighbor – although after a minute I noticed her husband was lingering on his bicycle at the edge of our site, apparently not interested in offering an introduction. After a few minutes of pleasantries, the true motive behind the woman’s sunny banter became clear: “So, anyway,” she said, flashing a brilliant RV-owning smile, “do you think you could turn your music down a smidge?” Now, I swear that the music was in no way loud enough for these people to hear at their site. (We proved this through experimentation.) And it was country music, not gangsta rap or heavy metal or something. This was the soundtrack of pickup trucks, honky-tonks and whiskey, not drive-bys, profanity and illegal narcotics. And it was five o’clock in the afternoon. And there weren’t even any fellow nature lovers staying in any of the sites around us to irritate.

So much for friendly neighbors.

We spent our time at Silver River State Park avoiding the sinister bicycle-riding couple, (deemed the Bicycle Nazis) who were really the only other people staying around us. They would glide by at intervals throughout the day, casting sideways glances at the derelict girls in Site 38 who polluted the air with their raucous musical tastes. Luckily we avoided future run-ins, and didn’t really interact with any people – although one night, at about ten-thirty, a truck pulled in to the site next of us. A fire was lit and extinguished in an hour, the people apparently slept in their truck, and they were gone by the time we got up. It was a bit bizarre, but it was amusing to spy on the campground guy roll up in his golf cart the next morning, dismount, and proceed to use what appeared to be a giant, thunderous leaf blower to smooth over the rocky white surface of the campsite that had been briefly occupied.

Sarah’s little sister Felicia lived nearby, so we took her camping with us for two nights. We went hiking, and hiking through woods in Florida is a severe contrast to hiking in New England. In my past hiking experience, there have always been hills or mountains to scale, a goal of elevation to accomplish. In Florida, everything’s flat, so a hike could be synonymous with a stroll through the woods – just depends on how long you want to walk. However, it was beautiful in a different way than at home: the woods of central Florida reminded me of a rainforest, moist and layered with brighter greens than northern forests that are opaque with dark evergreens. And the novelty of seeing different kinds of palms mixed into the greenery didn’t wear off, either. The conifers in these woods produced pinecones that were about twelve inches in length and lay around like discarded spiny basketballs. We arrived at a swampy area at one point on the Silver River trail, and I looked desperately for alligators to no avail. The only noises were the sporadic jumps of fish out in the water and the fingernails-on-a-chalkboard hum of locusts.

I love camping.

I love to forage in the woods for small sticks and pine needles to use as tinder and kindling; it gives me a sort of primal feeling, as if I’m a cave woman searching for fire-starting materials so I could roast the meat of a woolly mammoth my mate had clubbed in the head. Before long, Sarah had the fire flicking the air in dashes of brilliant orange as we perched before it in our fold-up chairs. I have always taken great pleasure in campfires; I love the smoky smell, I love people’s faces when colored by firelight, I love the crackling sounds and the violet-blue flames at the bottom, the hottest part of the fire. As dusk began to take over the campground, coaxing the sky on its slow journey from periwinkle to ink, lightning bugs began to appear all around us in a shimmering spread of tiny dancing strobe lights. It was so beautiful that I would turn away from my beloved firelight to walk towards the darkness just to see them. I tried to catch a few with my bare hands, running around like a child on a Halloween-night sugar high, but the lightning bugs would always see me lurching at them, slyly turn off their glowing abdomens, and not relight until they were several feet away from me. Slick little fireflies.

Another thing about camping that pleases me is the wildlife, and I adored the waves of small brown lizards that scampered around the edges of the woods in brief spurts of motion – they were most easily identified by the sounds of leaves rustling as they relocated. I was delighted when I was in the bathroom, looked down at what first appeared to be a large hideous beetle crouching in the corner, and realized it was a tiny toad (a gopher toad, I later learned) the color of Army fatigues. I scooped up the miniature amphibian into my hands and looked him in his glass bead eyes, the color of onyx shining even in the sickly fluorescent bathroom light. Undoubtedly I was talking to the toad as well, though I don’t recall the nature of our conversation. He was a good guy. I brought him to our site to show Sarah and then allowed him to hop his way back to the forest.

One night, while we were in our tents, there was a distinct shuffling noise coming from the picnic table. In the morning all suspicions were confirmed: on the ground lay the last slice of pepper jack cheese, half-consumed, clinging to its plastic wrapper beside the empty bag that had held our sliced turkey. But who was the mysterious creature?

That night, while sitting around the fire, we heard scuffling in the woods, off to the left of our site. I was wearing my brand-new headlamp (I always wanted a headlamp, for some reason…make fun if you must…but now that I own one I am much happier with my life in general) and held a flashlight in my hand as I scanned the palm-treed darkness. Sure enough, after a while of tense anticipation of the wild animal that lurked in the shadows, two silver eyes reflected the beam of my flashlight. We sat still until a smallish raccoon with a striking white mask ambled to the edge of our site, eyed us for a minute, and retreated. Despite the messes that raccoons always make when allowed access to human food and trash, this creature was a gorgeous animal. After seeing his eyes shine from within the brilliant white fringe on his face, I wasn’t even irritated about the pepper jack anymore.

Nighttime was cool at the campground, but by about 9 am, the Florida heat seeped in, which would wake me up in a sweaty tangle of humidity, carbon dioxide, and flannel-lined sleeping bag. My first order of business upon waking up was to unzip the tent and perform a clumsy twisting action to get out into the heat-soaked fresh air.

After three nights of sleeping on tree roots, we arrived back at the Howard Johnson’s in Ocala to meet Bill, who was excited about the ‘photo shoot’ we were about to do for the University of Minnesota. Dick Bianco, a professor there, helped design the heart valve that Bill received in his surgery last year, and Minnesota will be a future destination for the three of us. For these future Pulitzer Prize award-winning photos, we dressed in tie-dyed Minnesota T-shirts (maroon for Bill, taxi-cab yellow for Sarah and I) and had the front desk woman at Howard Johnson’s take some shots of the three of us, sweltering in high-weight cotton in the Florida sun, Bill astride his bike.

-stephanie