Friday was the nicer of the two days. Ellen went off on her morning bird walk and I went for another bike ride. She walked the Bear Swamp Trail and saw no bears, but she did see a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers chiseling a nest hole in a big pine.
I took a short ride to Shanty Pond, the closest campground to Salt Springs. It is a primitive campground with only a vault toilet and a big hand pump for water. The sites are well spread out and flat. It was nearly empty. It seems like a good cheap alternative to Salt Springs, were it to completely fill or if you just wanted to get away from the busier Salt Springs campground ($8/night, $4 with Senior Pass).
On the way back, I stopped at the Salt Springs Marina, a ramp and dock area across the water from Salt Springs. I rode over to a dock building that turned our to be covered slips for pontoon boats. As I was riding back towards the ramp, a woman came out of the building and asked what I was doing. I replied that I was just looking around. She then chided me by telling me that the dock area I'd just been at was off-limits and I shouldn't be there. I pointed out the large sign that said "Area Open for Day Use Only". She then told me that it was closed and "There ain't no talkin to stupid!" and then stomped off. I guess she won't get the Florida Tourism Award.
Late in the afternoon, Ellen and I walked back to the fishing canal so I could practice some more with my tenkara rod. I tried a new fly called "Jim's Killer Worm" that looked sort of like a tenkara fly with a hot pink worm attached to the tail. It was pretty easy to follow but didn't catch anything. There were a couple of nibbles, but nothing took the hook. I think the long worm tail was a bit too long for the small panfish and they grabbed the tail and it had a couple nips taken out of it.
While I didn't catch anything, we had quite the audience. Not only was the Great Egret back, a Great Blue Heron joined him as well as a pair of Red-shouldered Hawks who hung out in the trees behind us, not more than ten feet away. Also a Belted Kingfisher flew in and landed not far away. I don't know if they were all looking for a meal, but it sure looked that way. Sadly I had to disappoint them.
Saturday was a bit of a washout. It was wet and cold through much of the day although we took another walk along the Bear Swamp Trail. Still no bears and the Pileated Woodpeckers were absent from their nest hole worksite. It was actullly very quiet along most of the trail, but we ran into a couple of pockets of birds and saw most of the woodpecker species here and some new warblers inclding a Black-and-white Warbler, one of my favorites (because it is really easy to identify).
One last bit of flycasting practice just before sunset (not that there was any sun). The egret, heron and one of the hawks came to watch, but I had no nibbles. As I was leaving, one of other fishermen came by with his pile of filleting scraps for the egret. The heron helped him polish them off. It then started to sprinkle and get cold and I headed back to the van for dinner.
Sunday started cold, wet and gray. The rain had stopped but the ground was still wet from the overnight soaking. Happily I had packed up the chairs and the bikes last night. We had our first Speedy challenge this morning and a big one—the toilet stopped flushing. There was plenty of water pressure at the sink faucets, so I felt it had to be a problem with the flush valve or the line. The way the toilet is installed, it would not be possible to get to either without removing the toilet, not a prospect I desired.
We considered staying around another day to try to figure it out and then finding an RV place that might have the a new valve, not a good scenario. It seemed the most likely problem was a blockage in the valve, since all the connections were fine and a little water was getting through. When I ran water into the shower sink, there was a fair number of black granules, probably from the new raw-water filter that I first attached when we arrived at Salt Springs several days ago. I thought that this might be the cause of a clog.
My plan was to try and back flush through the valve. I drained off some of the water from the main water tank, disconnected Speedy from the site's city water tap and opened the valve that allows the water tank to be filled from city water. This meant that there was a short clear path from toilet valve to the tank. I attached a garden nozzle to the water hose, set it to jet stream and connected it to the city water line. I pointed the nozzle up the valve exit, opened the valve and spayed a long jet of water.
Amazingly, it worked. Water flowed again. We could leave and would not have to find RV service or remove the toilet. We were on our way south by 9:30 AM. We needed a bit of provisioning and the route passed Orlando, so we stopped at both a Whole Foods and a Publix to shop. Going through the area seemed like we were passing a giant 40-mile-long mall. It was just mall after mall with constant repetition of all the big chain stores over and over, punctuated by subdivision after subdivision. Our destination was the the Dupuis Wildlife Area Equestrian Campground, about 200 miles south.
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