#291 Lake Louisa State Park

I found a place called Lake Louisa the year before and tried to pick the spot that would give a little shade and privacy. There wasn't that much available when I was doing the reservations so this was as close as I could get to nice.

We began backing in and I spent a well a fair amount of time trying to get it just right because I knew were going to be there for a minute. I wanted to maximize the site we were using. When utilizing India's help backing in I could scream and yell but it's hard for her to hear me and it makes you look like a bad couple. I had to back in and out 50 times to get it just right.

I had India back there and she was supposed to be looking in my mirror to give me direction. Sometimes that wasn't working and I'm told her that if you can't see my mirror I can't see you. Even though it's a little bit repetitive it doesn't always go perfectly well. Instead of screaming and yelling from the cab of the truck I just put it in park, went around back and told her what I needed. I did this like four times and with togetherness, we figured it out.

I had it just Goldilocks right and began to set up and later we met some folks that we would come to know as better friends.

They were Jeanne and Tom They live in Kissimmee Florida and they are retired and they like to RV camp once a month for about a week.

Jeanne came over and said something to me that based on my prior behaviors was quite a compliment.

She said I noticed it whenever you guys were backing in the rig in there was none of that yelling and fussing. You went back and just gently talk to your wife and I said well I was probably complaining some. She says well it's just talking and I was just so impressed with the way you did it. There was none of that screaming and yelling from the cab like I see some people do and you just worked together as a team and I was very impressed.

I guess I was a little surprised because even though I was using my inside voice I was still complaining a lot to India about how her direction was given.

I said that was great. It made me feel good to know that I'm probably improving.

Jeanne told us about her cat and although it travels, they don't let it outside unattended. She also said something you don't hear very often the cat is trained to walk on a leash.

This is very unusual in the cat world.

She warned me about coyotes and alligators eating Bert and all these problems. I said he's been all over the country and survived so far so if there's risk in everything but I just let him do what he wants to do.

India and I tried to keep up the pace of going hiking 2 miles or so every other day. There were lots of trails and most were horse trails. We would walk around the various lakes. One was called Dixie lake. We never walked around Lake Louisa because it's enormous.

We did go up there one day towards Lake Louisa and walked the nature trail. At the end of the hike which is about 2 miles plus we walked along the banks of Lake Louisa and took some nice pictures.

I remember on one of our hikes we followed a horse trail, actually a lot of times we went horse trails.

Mainly because they were so well-groomed by the mowers or bush hogs.

This spot made me imagine tying your horse off to rest and just sitting on the bench looking at the lake

We went down one that was probably going to be about a two-mile hike. When we got to a certain point there was a fellow, I guess it looked like we were being nosey as I was taking pictures of his horse.

This was the equestrian part of the park

We didn't know if he all that friendly or not but he spoke to us when we said hi. He said just so you know when you go down that way much further, you'll be up to your chin in flood water so you're not going to be able to pass.

Turns out he was friendly and we took his advice and did kind of a bypass. The only problem was this added ½ mile or so to the walk. It was about midday and about 85 degrees. I swear Miss India was whooped it was probably a 3-mile walk and there was a point when she looked a little pitiful. I said if you want to stop here for a minute I can keep going and come back for you in the truck. She says I think that I'm going to have to stop here period. I walked on up the way maybe ¼ of a mile is where the truck was parked. I came back and picked her up, she was just done, overheated, and tired. We got her hydrated and back to the Rv for a cool shower then she was fine.

One of my favorite hikes was when we would leave out of the campground and take a left and go around one of the big lakes. On the last fourth he would go across to where there was an intersection of State Park and an old orange grove.

I found out there's an orange grove nearby and I guess seeds fly through the air by the wind or birds. We found some wild-grown Tangerine trees in the middle of a forest. I just stopped and pulled off quite a few of them and shoved them in our pockets and ate them along the trail. I did this two or three times but each time I just enjoyed the gift of a sweet treat from a tree in the forest.

It was just so weird to see something so domesticated in the middle of a wild forest growing offering fruit to the passing hiker.

We went to a UU church one time but it was about an hour away up in North Orlando and that turned out to be too much trouble.

I saw this flowering tree at the edge of the UU parking and just wanted to capture it

This was just pretty

I enjoyed taking pictures and hiking at Lake Louisa and enjoyed our visit quite a bit. On one of our hikes near the big lake we saw where wild boars had hosted a big rooting party the night before. I had not seen their work before

Tom and Jean had offered to or suggested that if we wanted to see Disney we might just try to go to Disney Springs. It's a fun little place to enjoy the atmosphere of Disney without entering the park. There are restaurant shopping and outdoor entertainment in the evenings. From the parking deck, you can hop on a resort bus and tour all the different Disney resorts. They assume you're a guest and ask no questions about who hops on or off the bus.

Don't get me wrong you can't go swimming or anything but you can walk around no one will ask you any questions.

So, here's my creepy observation. People are having their family and their children at these resorts with themes like The Little Mermaid Resort or Cars or the Hippie Resort. It was all pretty cool but you know because it's fun and it's Disney they leave the kids and unattended. They're on their own to do what they want to do all day.

They are of the illusion that there's some sort of security and your children are 100% safe in every kind of way because you're at Disney.

Well, here's what my observation was that India and I are nice people but let's pretend that we're not nice. What if we're crazy pedophile-awful people.

We park our car at Disney Springs parking day. We walk into Disney Springs we have lunch we get on any one of the resort buses and then we go to the resort. When we got off, we were interacting with families arriving with luggage checking in. I'm glad there was no security but there was no security of any kind.

We walk down to where the dorms are and we walked around towards the pool was and sometimes people were inside the fence where the lifeguards are and sometimes, they were kids just out playing on like the sculptures and stuff. I saw several children under 7 just kind of diddling about playing with the outdoor sculptures unattended.

I guess I just wondered what would keep me from approaching a small child like that as a bad guy and just somehow offering him candy and a puppy. My observation was, really nothing. The weird part is that there's this notion that you and your family are so incredibly safe but I don't get where that feeling comes from other than, I don't know.

It's just something I might tell Jeanne to tell her son who's a manager there. It just seems like a possible breakdown in Security.

We had lunch with Jane and Tom at Disney Springs and had a nice visit. They just kind of asked us if we enjoy Disney and we said yeah but it's just a little pricey. She said well we have two free tickets for you. I said oh my god. We were so thankful. I wrote a very long blog like that in another post so I'll stop here about our Disney day.

We went to Disney a few days before departure day and we left on a Sunday and I'll just say generally we enjoyed the Lisa and enjoyed meeting Jane and Tom.

Sun Feb 17, 2019, Lake Louisa State Park Site: 055- Sun Mar 03, 2019 (14 nights)