Friday, February 07, 2003
It was overcast and drizzly. We took it easy today, driving north to nearby Dade City for the Volksmarch and then coming back to camp to relax by chopping wood and doing laundry for the afternoon. The Volksmarch in Dade City was roughly in the shape of an “X” with two short legs and two long legs radiating from the center of town. One leg went along what looked like an old, abandoned trolley or train line—it was wide and nicely graded but had not signs of tracks or other leftovers from previous use. Dade City was small and had distinctly different neighborhoods. Some areas were poor and had decrepit housing, some of which was boarded up or condemned. Other areas had nice, middle-class houses, and beside the park in the center of town there was a fancy condominium.

Downtown had an astonishing number of antique stores and several restaurants, but little else with the exception of one store that sold ceramics made in Dade City. We thought the ceramics were pretty but far too large and fragile to buy and take with on the rest of our journey. Among the several nice restaurants we passed while walking downtown, we found a real “tea room” restaurant that offered Greek and Cuban specialties, so we decided to have lunch after the walk. For those so inclined, there is also an ice cream parlor luncheonette and other more formal restaurants.

After finishing lunch we drove to the second walk in the area at nearby San Antonio, a small town boasting a college. The walk looked interesting but we decided we were both just too tired for it to fun, so we returned to camp after a routine Wal-Mart Supercenter stop for groceries. The rest of the afternoon Monika did laundry while I split up the last pallet that we had found and chopped it all into firewood.