R. Shaefer Heard COE Campground

Aliner high on a steep bluff

Aliner high on a steep bank

It is 99 degrees at 5:50 p.m. in town.  I think it must be cooler where we are.  We are in the shade and there is a nice breeze off the lake.

It is scary backing just the truck down the steep driveway to our site.  It was hair-raising backing the Aliner in.  But I got it done, even managing to miss the tree at edge of the drive after several — no, make that MANY– tries!

Aliner at R. Shaefer Heard Army Corps of Engineers campground

Our site

The campground is gorgeous.  There are all kinds of sites.  There are some that have smooth, grassy lawns gently sloping right down to the lake.  We drove by that section earlier and there were kids splashing in the water.

My only complaint about the campground is that something died in the nearby woods, and we get a whiff of it now and then.

We haven’t done any hiking since we got here.  When we are active, the heat really gets to us.  If we take it easy, it’s not bad.  It helps being a Florida native and adapted to hot weather.  But we do take a nice air conditioned siesta in the afternoons.

Sunset over West Point Lake

Sunset over West Point Lake

Last night’s sunset over the lake was gorgeous.  A breathtaking palette of mauves and oranges.

I brought my new mushroom book by Michael Kuo and have been studying it.   It is an excellent guide — a great addition to my library.  I am praying for rain so that mushrooms will sprout up while we are here.  It’s never too hot for me to hunt them!

We may get thunderstorms tomorrow.  In fact, it sprinkled lightly

Another sunset shot

Another shot of that gorgeous sunset!

earlier, and we are getting occasional flashes of lightning and distant thunder now.

It’s a pretty steep path to get from our site down to the water.  But there are trees to hold onto.  It has been too hot for us to want to fish, then deal with cleaning them, but we will probably do that before we leave — especially if it cools down a bit.

We are loving being here.  It is so peaceful, so beautiful, and it feels so safe.  We normally don’t like to return to the same campground as there are so many others to explore.  But this one is special to us.

Rocks at the edge of West Point Lake

Rocks at the edge of the lake in front of our site

And the fact that Ron’s senior pass makes the sites 50% off makes it irresistible!

The Aliner at sunset

Ron relaxing by the Aliner at sunset

Family Get-together at Mom’s

We left Hillsborough River on Friday, March 26 for a final family get-together at Mom’s with Gail and Mike on Saturday before their move to Texas.  Note the yellow ribbon around the old live oak tree!

Mom has 5 rural acres, so we were pleased to have free camping!  There is also a septic tank where a mobile home site used to be, so we also had our own private dump station!

Joan and Jerry had just arrived home from a trip to Tennessee when Mom called and told them Gail and Mike were coming to her house.  So Joan and Jerry jumped back into the car and headed to Live Oak.  Although Jerry is older than the rest of us, he has more energy than all of us put together!

This was the most wonderful family get-together we had in a long time.  Nothing but joy and love, mixed in with a subtle sadness that our little family was going to be geographically split apart.

And some of us wondered if we’d all be able to get together again.

But mostly it was laughter and just the fun of being together today.

Ron and I were fortunate because we knew that we would see Gail and Mike again next weekend to help with loading the truck.

Joan and Jerry

Joan and Jerry

Ron and Joan

Ron (my husband) and Joan

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