Not able to put off our taxes any longer we headed to a location where we deemed there were no tempting activities to distract us. A couple of weeks before, when we’d paddled the Ichetucknee River, we met the Rosses at a campground where we were to pick up our kayaks. Although not very upscale, it was a beautiful location and in a remote area. So, we made arrangements to spend two weeks there and arrived on Friday, April 2nd. It was probably the best decision we’d made on our trip so far. The campground was fairly large and contained sites with full hookups, which we required, but also small cabins and primitive tent camping sites under a canopy of deciduous and cedar trees. The ground was practically devoid of any undergrowth, so the entire area was park-like and the most peaceful location we had yet encountered. Being off season for Floridians, it was virtually empty during the week and only populated by a handful of campers on the weekends. Thus we had the entire place to ourselves.
Some sites in the primitive camping area.
More campsites.
Every year we prepare our tax returns with Turbo Tax and have a program disk automatically mailed to us. Chris was certain she had received it and filed it with the 2009 receipts but after tearing the trailer apart searching for it we determined it had been left behind. You might say, “Well, why didn’t you just download it from the internet?” Remember we were in a remote location with only two bars of cell signal strength which we connect to with a Verizon router. Although it is faster than dial-up it is nowhere near the speed of cable. The Turbo Tax program was over 500 Megabytes in size. It would have taken a considerable amount of time to download, provided we didn’t lose the signal, and utilized a huge amount of our 5 Gigabyte monthly allotment.
A call to Intuit left us concerned that, despite the two weeks we’d allowed to complete them, we might end up filing for an extension. We appreciate the need for companies to outsource their support staff to countries that pay less than American wages, but we feel the quality of customer support deteriorates significantly when we can’t comprehend what the technician says and they can’t understand us. Jay’s nearly 24 years of Coast Guard communications training and his ability to use phonetic spelling and enunciate clearly, over both radio and telephone, was of no help. A process that should have taken no more than 15 minutes took well over an hour as the young, female, heavily Asian accented technician had to repeatedly take down our different shipping and billing addresses and credit card information. She assured us that we would have the disk within 5 working days and, because it was shipping from South Carolina, we thought it would be less, but we hung up dreading that we would never see a Turbo Tax disk.
The next day Chris received two e-mails from Intuit confirming the shipping of two disks; one e-mail had a disk shipped to our mailing address in Crestview, Florida and the other to our address at Ichetucknee Springs, misspelled as Ichetucqnee. At this point, our discomfort with the situation rose precipitously and we immediately made another phone call. This Asian assistant was more familiar with the English language, completed our transaction in an acceptable amount of time and, much to our relief, arranged for an overnight delivery. The next day we had our tax treasure in hand. Glad that we had possession of the disk, but dreading the task ahead, Jay installed the program.
In case you are wondering about when we received the disks that were mailed to us, the one addressed to the campground arrived on April 16th and the one sent to our mailing address arrived in our forwarded mail on – are you ready for this – April 24th. Glad we made that second phone call. Next year we’re starting taxes at the beginning of March.
The day of our kayak trip, two weeks before, we met Loye Barnard, a local resident and the woman who organized the excursion. She and her husband, Barney, owned an aloe plantation on Dominica, Jay and Chris’ favorite Caribbean island and she asked us to stop by for a visit when we brought the RV to the campground. Their incredible home is situated in a clearing tucked in the middle of 70 acres of woodlands just a few miles from where we were staying. The house is made from wood, inside and out. Kitchen shelving and even the counter are made from wide slabs of heavily varnished pecan, the bark still on the edges. The floor is yellow pine with a 4 foot wide undulating ribbon of pecan leading from the front door to the opposite hallway. All interior walls and the vaulted ceilings are tongue and groove pecan. When trees are logged and floated down rivers for transport, some sink before reaching their destination. Loye and Barney were fortunate to know someone who retrieves these sodden logs and acquired several unusually shaped ones. The bark was stripped, the underlying wood varnished and they now support the ceilings. Chris was so entranced with the unique features of the home she was moved to photograph it but neither her nor Loye’s schedules permitted the time.
We enjoyed hearing about their days on Dominica and viewing the aerial photos of their plantation, recently sent to them by a National Geographic photographer friend, as we sat in shady, breezy comfort on their screened porch. Our visit was a brief few hours and we left wishing we didn’t have to meet such a pressing deadline.
On April 14th we sighed with relief after dropping the completed tax returns at the post office and were free to attend the Tea Party at Jacksonville the following day. It was also a good excuse to see Wally Holdstein again and meet his girlfriend, Pam. We arranged to meet for dinner at the Jacksonville Landing where the rally was being held. In an effort to capture any rabble rousers trying to give the Tea Partiers a bad image, we dragged out the video camera, charged up the battery and tested it.
We drove in early to find a good place to park and get a lay of the land. Jacksonville Landing is a two-story U-shaped shopping and dining area with a multi-level, brick, central plaza much like the Baltimore Inner Harbor. A sizeable stage had been set up at the St. Johns River side of the plaza with the front facing in and Tea Party organizers were setting up booths and attending to last minute details while participants staked out territories on the balcony overlooking the scene. After Jay purchased a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag we wandered over to an area where a 2’ wide paper rolled up at each end like a scroll was stretched the length of two, long tables. It was a petition requesting Congress to abide by the Constitution that all attendees were asked to sign. We needed no encouragement and immediately grabbed two, bold markers and added our John Hancocks, in about the same size.
Our dinner table was situated next to a large window that overlooked the plaza and until the throngs assembled, we had a pretty good view. Our visit with Wally and Pam was wonderful but, because of Pam’s early work hours, they had to leave before the rally was over. After our goodbyes we moved to the outside dining area and Chris stood on a chair to see over the heads of the 2,000 plus patriots between her and the stage. The colorful Stars and Stripes, bright, yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flags and homemade signs of all sizes, shapes and colors popped up and waved when participants cheered in agreement with the speakers. It was an enthusiastic, but orderly crowd of over 3,000 and the positive energy was palpable. It made us feel that there is hope for this country after all with such good people willing to put their patriotism on display.
Stars and Stripes and Don’t Tread on Me flags held aloft as a sign of agreement with the speaker’s comments.
This woman was waving three flags!
One of the homemade signs.
Just outside a window at Chris’ desk was a pine tree the diameter of a 55 gallon drum. Every few days a Pileated woodpecker would land at its base, peck away bark and soft wood, and fill its belly with the insects residing therein. One day Chris just had to get a picture of this gorgeous creature and out came the long lens. Not having enough time or space to set up a tripod, she hand held the camera, fired off over 70 frames and hoped for the best. She was greatly rewarded with some amazing photos like the one below.
Watching him flick off large chunks of bark and dig into the exposed wood of this pine tree helped us understand the strength of his bill.
Note the gouges in the trunk of this tree.
The weather gradually warmed during our stay and soft, new leaves grew daily on the surrounding trees making our view even more lovely. With the taxes done and no future plans made, we decided to extend our stay beyond April 19th to the 23rd, and allow more time for Chris to create and post blog chapters and for Jay to finally patch the hole in the roof we acquired during our stay in Savannah back in November.
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