Finally, the day came to leave Sanford. Margi and Jim finally left one hour later than planned, a little after 1 pm.

The first leg of the journey was selected as a stop along the way to Apalachicola Florida, to cut the drive time down. But where to? Jim attended high school in Gainesville and remembered the Payne’s Prairie State Park, driven by, but never experienced. Margi’s sister, Lois, and brother Joel both had visited the park several times and loved it. So, this became our first stop.

We like to travel through Ocala National Forest to Silver Springs and then to hwy 441 north to Pearl’s, a gas station south of Payne’s Prairie by about 2 miles. Pearls is best known for its pit BBQ. We usually stop by Pearl’s on the way to or from music festivals at Suwannee Music Park and usually get a slab of ribs and a pound of brisket. We ordered a half-slab of ribs and a half pound of brisket. We had leftovers for a week (I am pretty sure that Pearl’s made a mistake and gave me a whole slab – whoohoo).

We arrived at Payne’s Prairie State Park around 4pm and set up quickly.

They had power, water and sewer connections.

Our site, like most, was very nice. The sites all have a good portion of forest between them that provide a good sense of privacy.

While a little buggy, we solved that problem with a little DEET.

While enjoying the evening, which turned out to be fairly cool, Margi spotted a local next to the log just behind the trailer.

It is not a coral snake, just looks similar. Margi wasn’t too freaked out.

It had rained a little earlier, but remained clear after our arrival. We slept in the next morning and finally got out around 1 pm.

One of the nice things about our trailer is that the refrigerator and freezer can run on electric or propane. So, to keep everything cool, we decided to turn the propane on and switch the refrigerator/freezer to propane.

We decided to go up hwy 441 and find the closest Walmart in Gainesville to purchase ???. When we arrived, we found the monoxide detector was loudly beeping. I switched the propane off while we shopped. Not understanding why the detector was beeping, I turned it on again to see if it would be ok. We then stopped at Culver’s (a great burger place) down the road from Walmart. Margi went in to purchase our lunch while I found a place to park and wait. The detector started beeping again. CRAP. I turned the propane off. I decided to hook up the power station that I borrowed from Ryan and Jess. It is a 1,000-watt battery-powered Power Station and with the pull of the refrigerator/freezer running around 335 watts, so it should keep things cool for about 3 hours. The next leg of our trip to Eastpoint Florida would take us about 5 hours. But the refrigerator/freezer is well insulated and can handle being wit