Powerful Words^™

I purposefully headed away from the Interstate today. I wanted to see what it was like in rural Florida. I had already traveled the Ocala area with Charlie (Ralinda), looking for feed and tack stores and soaking up the lay of the land there. After she headed back to Wisconsin, though, I wanted to see what non-horse country was like.

So I headed for Crystal River from Tampa via Highway 98. There was a long stretch of solid businesses, then I broke out of civilization and into what I am not sure is proper to call swampland. Actually, the land was a lot more solid than I had pictured. On the map, it looked as though I was headed for really watery flats that couldn’t possibly support human enterprise.

I dove off of Highway 98 and into Homosassa Springs, just south of Crystal River, and I discovered a really impressive community of businesses, surrounded by a really interesting community of people.

There were several roadside restaurants all lit up for Christmas. Like everything else Christmasy in this balmy state, it seemed so out of place I was surprised to remember it’s Christmastime. I stopped at a roadside BBQ hut, and thought I had caught them after hours, until a woman in a blue apron came walking quickly down the hill and across the small parking lot from the house next door. I ordered a bit of smoked mullet and a corn salad. Wow. It was so good, and so inexpensive, I almost thought about going back for more to get me cheaply through the next couple of days.

Next, I stopped at a complex of inviting, colorful buildings as far as I could possibly drive before dropping into the river. I wanted to ask directions to the nearest campground for me and my Jeep. In addition to a two-story bar and restaurant mini-mallish kind of arrangement where someone was belting out Margaritaville, there were several buildings that looked like rental cottages, although I’m pretty sure some were permanent residences right in the middle of everything. One building was easily identifiable as a motel. There, they gave me directions to the nearest RV park, where I pulled in after hours, hung out watching Netflix and working in my 3′ x 4′ living room (the front seat) until it was time to slip back to my bunk and snooze.

RV parks are one of the most prevalent businesses in the area due to the warm weather tourism and snowbird population (retired folks who fly south or the winter). This morning, as I got further from the city and deeper into the forest, I discovered a backwoods kind of community where they talk with hillbilly accents and treated me with the utmost hospitality. I mean “hillbilly” in the best way and with some affection, since some of my relatives are bonafide hillbillies from The Ozarks.

At the Chiefland garage where I stopped for an oil change, a young gentleman 80 years of age was telling a friend he had sold about 50 of his guns, and that left about 50, and he didn’t know what he was going to do with them now. I learned from the owner’s wife that the deer in Florida are smaller than in Nebraska. I saw the family’s mudding trucks up on a big trailer. The tires were the size of picnic tables.

I looked at an old travel trailer (just in case it might work behind the Jeep) that had previously been used in a hunting camp. At least three people came through wearing camo shirts or jackets, and I finally felt comfortable breaking out my camo hoody. I had covered it up with another coat to hide it in Sarasota, so they didn’t know I am a hillbilly.

The interesting thing about rural Florida is that it all seems to run like a top, much more professionally and smoothly than I might have imagined. Even with lots of well-worn buildings, you get the impression the towns are clean, well organized, and buzzing with commerce of all kinds, from antique shops, fishing guides and charming local taverns to chain restaurants, insurance offices and dollar stores. There are a lot of dollar stores–maybe to serve the lower-income population?

Leslie at the garage had provided well for her children, who would be leaving home in the next few years. She had gone back to school, and will have her nursing degree by the time the kids have moved on. She was friendly and I felt genuinely interested in talking with me, just like everyone else I met in town.

Maybe the townspeople know they have to be friendly and care about their customers to be as successful as they are at business. Or maybe they are so successful at business because they really care to be friendly.