Down to 1st on the list for a site. Hot water is still out (since Friday). Base Maintenance must not have heard about Home Depot. No cold water either. I heard that a camper forgot to disconnect his water hose before he pulled away. That at least should be fixed today.
Rt 96 goes right down the middle of Tyndall AFB. The FamCamp is between Rt 96 and Pearl Bayou below.
Pearl Bayou
We started on the site list as number 8 and are now number 4. Still no hot water. Maybe later today. Back a couple of weeks ago six of us from the campground played golf with the Happy Hackers a local group that plays on different courses each month. This time it was at Tyndall.
This should have gone out yesterday but somehow I must have saved it as a draft. Well here it is.
Before they started using the new overflow sites basically those in overflow were squeezed into two files of 4 campers each and everyone had to move forward each day. What a pain. Now we get an overflow site and stay there until we get a non sewer site. I do miss the opportunity to chat with overflow neighbors each morning to see how many times they got up to turn the circuit breakers back on. But I do not miss it all that much. We were 8th on the list for a site yesterday and now we are 6th. The hot water tank leaked and now there is no hot water (for showers) in the Rec Hall until Monday. The inclination is to blame base maintenance but they probably can’t get whatever they need over the weekend.
Last night we went to the Gazebo for the Friday night hot dog roast. Bring your own hot dogs everything else is there. Guess this is the last one until after Lent for us anyway. Later three of the campers got out guitars (plus John also brought his Fiddle) and they played for the 25 or so of us who were there. Good time. I really wanted to sing but I thought that it was more important not to drive everyone away.
Gazebo
Gazebo, inside with John and his fiddle
With no hot water for the showers we have gone to combat mode. Probably no need for underwear either. Since overflow in most military campgrounds is dry camping (no electric, water, sewer or cable hookups) this is still a pleasure even without hot water. After all they do call what we do —camping.
Ate breakfast out, went to church and the commissary and will now play golf before the super bowl.
The maximum stay in a campsite is 60 days. Then you have to vacate the site and rotate to overflow behind anyone else already in overflow. Then when your turn comes up you can move into a non sewer site and go on the list for a sewer site. Overflow is like purgatory – partway between heaven (sewer site) and hell (no site at all). Today was our turn to rotate into the dreaded overflow. As it turned out we got lucky. Instead of the old overflow area where campers share 20 amp electrical service and have no cable TV, we were assigned a space close behind regular sites and were able to plug into 50 amp service and cable TV. Below is regular overflow and below that is our temp site.
The name comes from Latin. Corvus meaning crow and marinus meaning pertaining to the sea – sea crow. To dry off they strike an erect pose with wings outstretched facing the wind. Since some of the ones below are not facing the way others are facing I would say they can not figure out which way the wind is blowing. They are sitting on the fishing dock across from the 11th fairway of the Pelican Point Course. I have been told that two alligators still live here but we have not seen them yet.
Leons: Looks bad but they have great donuts. My Navy friend (you always have to be concerned with Navy friends) is always trying to convince the woman who works there that she should not serve me. I almost have her telling Navy jokes.
I got curious about where campers here were from. Couldn’t see all license plates because some people were not home and I did not want to walk into their site to see rear plates but the following gives some idea:
FL 16, NY 2, MI 4, AZ 2, PA 6, TN 3, MA 4, NE 1, IL 4, TX 5, MO 2, WI 3, KS 2, KY 3, AL 3, CT 1, SD 2, OHIO 6, WA 2, MT 1, MN 1, AK 1, VA 1,
Additionally, the Uncle Sam figure below is on 33 sites. These identify site occupants as friends of Dick and Marie who have come here every year forever and have given them as gifts. They left the day we got here this year so we are hoping that is not a sign that they want Uncle Sam back.
The Community Activities Center contains a Ticket office (good deals), internet cafe(with computers), wireless center, Oasis ( snack bar)($3.50 breakfast), and Pizza Pub.
CAC
Pizza Pub ($4.95 pizza buffet every M, W and F
Last Sunday we were invited to our friends Class A (those are the big drive them yourself rigs) for dinner and to watch football: Great hosts, great company and mixed football results:
