|
 
Saturday, December 15, 2001 - New Florida
38 miles. Montverde, FL to Mouse Mountain Campground, 5 miles north of
Davenport, FL
After yesterday's marathon cruise (we left before
7:30 and got in about 5) we have decided to take it easy the next two days.
Today was about 38 miles. We headed towards Oakland (pop. 700) where we picked
up a paved rails to trails bikeway. It was swarming with pedal pushers of all
ages, sizes and stripes. We saw more humans self-transporting themselves than on
the rest of the trip by far.
In Winter Garden (pop. 9745) we had lunch and stocked
up, headed the wrong way out of town, reversed and turned south on C.R. 545. It
was now past noon with the mercury pushing 90*. This was a great cruise for the
next 17 miles. Leaving development behind we crested a ridge, a high point, and
took a break next to an orange grove. Large semis were plying the road hauling
the ripening crop for juicing. Miles away to the southeast could be seen Oz-like
spires and temples of Disney World. We were not to come any closer.
The orange groves here are growing on dry sand ridges.
In fact for several miles the scene is reminiscent of Fruit Ridge Ave. north of
Grand Rapids. The orchards here are irrigated with treated waste water from the
city of Orlando. There is quite an infrastructure to move the water over the
requisite distances. The last miles pass thru a scrub live oak savanna. Since
there are apparently 110 species of live oak in Florida there is an Oak for just
about every ecological niche available.
This pleasant stretch ended when we turned east onto
U.S. 192 where New Florida, as epitomized by Orlando, Disney World and just
about everything along the coast, came to the fore. Condos, strip malls, gaudy
gift stores, gated communities and hotels, all with many acres of parking lots
dominated the roadway, giving a hint of the great number of visitors for the
area. We were happy to turn south away from this but the whole area is
"ripe for development" were very deep in the Sixth Dimension.
Five miles brought us to our campground. There are
three close to each other and we had to check out all three before we found one
were we could pitch our little wall tent, the other two didn't allow tents. Of
the the several hundred sites in the three parks ours was the only tent to be
found. People don't camp anymore. They live in RV's. Such is the state of
"camping" in America in the 21st century.
|
