Ayla Anderson

Tale of the grand fail

This week was a pretty spectacular disaster. On our way to the new site, we made plans to spend the day at the Kennedy Space Center. Dakota is a huge space nerd and had wanted to visit it for a long time. We made our way, camper in tow. Unfortunately, we were expecting more of a history of space flight exhibit space and really it is more of a theme park aimed at children. It was still really cool! But most of the things were for kids: there were rather gimmicky alien outfits singing and doing crowd participation at the food court, 3D movie theater and arcade, and stuff like that. They did have a really nice few exhibit spaces and we really enjoyed the Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibit, though we did have to wait in line for about an hour before we could get in. The tickets were really expensive, and the parking was too. The best part was their Challenger and Colombia memorial, for which they had families of those who died create large shadow boxes of items that exemplified each person.

After our expensive day at the Space Center, we headed to our campsite (add feelings of foreboding here…)

Originally, we had planned on staying at the Hungryland Wildlife and Environment Area, but there were very few campsites. It was dark when we arrived but the site we found was right off the road like the other campsites, all were unmarked by the way, and had an already established fire ring area. Early the next morning, a warden came a-knocking and said we were actually not in an official site, it was just one that had been used previously by others. So we had to move, but at least he didn’t get us a ticket. He told us we would for sure find space at the JW Corbett Wildlife Management Area. So off we went.

We found the area he told us about, and while we were driving deeper and deeper into this swamp, we found it to be absolutely packed. Like, PACKED with all kinds of campers that looked abandoned, huge water buggies to traverse the swamp, and tents and tons and tons of people. As we kept going down this horrendous road, we drove by a dead coyote handing by someone’s tent by its rear foot. Everyone had hound dogs that were chained up, one person had even installed security cameras on their trailer. We finally found a space where we could technically fit, but it was sketchy and super close to another person’s camper. We figured it would be ok as the other camper looked like it had been left alone for months, untouched. The area just felt really unwelcoming and strange, like in the movies when the outsider walked into a bar and everyone turns and stares. But we didn’t have many other options.

The next morning, at 4 a.m. a truck came screeching in right next to us, four feet from our camper, with its music blaring and honking its horn. In a fit of rage, I ran outside and demanded to know what their problem was. Apparently, they were honking to get their friend up who was going hunting with them (screw anyone else who may be sleeping when they needed to kill some hogs) and told me we were too close to his buddies camper and if he came back to get his camper, we were in the way. I was dumbfounded that the other camper could even move! It looked abandoned! So I told him we would move and that we didn’t know it was even occupied, and they didn’t have to be so rude about it. Eventually, they left with their big buggies and Dakota and I moved the camper. But there was nowhere to go that we could get to, the roads were destroyed by idiots driving around in the mud. We ended up getting stuck, losing keys, having to destroy a bike lock, the generator stopped working, and poor Dakota was so sick. He usually doesn’t get sick, but he had a fever and just looked miserable. And it was 1,000 degrees, muggy as all hell, and there were crazed swamp people barreling down the road with their baying dogs. It was madness!!!

We were able to move our camper enough that a truck should be able to pull out that decrepit trailer, and he didn’t even show up to get it. The assholes that woke us up at 4 a.m. came back super late at night and I didn’t want to leave the house unattended with them around.

down from their buggies and kill the hog with a knife instead of shooting it. Another fun fact: sometimes, if they catch male hogs that still have testicles, they “taste” bad with all the testosterone in their system. So they will just slice the hogs’ balls off and let it go, to be caught again later with all the testosterone out of their systems. Delightful.

This was also over New Year’s, so there was a warden driving around at night trying to catch people setting off fireworks. He approached us and was like what the heck are you folks doing out here? Bro, we don’t know.

Needless to say, we were very happy to finally leave this week behind us. Can’t win them all.

It wasn’t all bad though, we were able to go on a quick rollerblading trip in Palm Beach and I was able to visit a prison that participated in inmate dog training programs for a future podcast episode.