Marion County

Ahhhh, yet another air conditioned, cool library. This one is the Marion County headquarters library in Ocala, Florida. It's huge! They have over 40 computers here. Lots of great books and magazines, too.

Jesse and I stopped by to read our mail and perhaps do a little catch-up on blogging. While in Ocala and on the way here, we stopped at a natural foods mart to get some soymilk. When we got back into the jeep, it wouldn't start! No turnover or anything....

This jeep has been through two starters already with the previous owner. We tried some trouble shooting in the parking lot and were figuring that was probably what the problem was. Since it's a stick, we tried to pop the clutch. After 5-10 minutes of pushing the jeep up and down the small incline in the parking lot and having no luck, this army guy comes out of the local recruitment center to give us a hand. He helps us wiggle the starter, bang on the battery cables, etc. We figure out that the problem is corroded battery clamps. Get the thing started and drive to a auto place, replace the clamps and get some duct tape to fix a hose problem. Woohoo, nothing too serious! Man, what a workout though ... I was the one pushing the jeep most of the time.

Our jeep now sports a holstein cow that's J B welded to the hood. You can wiggle the whole car by moving the cow. It looks dashing riding up front, above the pretty green Vermont license plate. We've gotten several smiles and comments over it already. A couple of little old black ladies walked by and admired the cow, saying they had salt and pepper shakers like that once.

This entry is a little bit disjointed because I only have a few minutes in which to compose it. Dang time limits.

Jesse and I are figuring out what to do next. So many possibilities! We've been bumping around the cheap campgrounds in Ocala for awhile now, now we're thinking of doing the free campground route, or perhaps moving upstate or even to Georgia for a different change of pace.

I'm starting to get a little mopey at the onset of hiking season. I want to be out there! There was an AT/FT hiker staying at Lake Delancy campground the past few days. Great charecter to talk to! Turns out he had run into my mother while she was doing the whole trail angel thing in Tennesse when I was out hiking that year. Maybe I'll do the LT again this spring...

I hope to run into some hikers when we get up to the smoky mountains. Part of the reason I got J B Weld for the cow instead of superglue is because I left my backpacking stove at home and figured I could make an alcohol soda can stove with it...something you can't do with superglue. That way I could go backpacking for a little bit while I'm up there.

Time to go,