Thanksgiving at Davenport Landing

We spent a few days before Thanksgiving hanging out in Ocala, Fl. We were trying to find a place that we might be able to volunteer with people who were in need or didn't have family during. Unfortunately for us, but not for those we were hoping to serve, every place we called said that they were completely booked up with volunteers and couldn't take us. So, we decided to drive into Ocala National Forest and try to find a place to camp and have our own Thanksgiving celebration.

Ocala National Forest has a ton of places to camp and do things throughout the day, but very few of them are free. The only place we could stay for free was the Davenport Landing campsite which only had primitive camping available 2 miles down a dirt road. We ended up staying there for three nights. At the campsite we met two men who were camping there as well, both of whom were very friendly.

Ben seemed to be in his mid 30s. He seemed to be using the forest as a way to escape recent troubles in his life. He drank heavily and was not shy about making crass jokes, but he was never rude or disorderly. He even apologized about the fact that he would make offensive jokes when we first got there, saying something along the lines of "I don't mean to offend people, but I laugh to avoid crying." It was rather sad actually.

Dale was an older gentleman who made his money mining gold in Alaska. He's been traveling all around the country since he retired. His favorite places being Maine in the summer and Arizona in the winter. He recently bought a small Toyota motorhome quite similar to ours and does all of his own mechanical work on it. He didn't drink or curse, but seemed to enjoy Ben's company.

For Thanksgiving itself, Kathleen drove out to Walmart and got a rotisserie chicken, a few instant fixings and mini-pies (apple for herself and pecan for Andreas). Boiling some water for the mashed potatoes and stuffing, we had ourselves a full Thanksgiving feast for two with plenty of leftovers for the next few days. Adding in the bottle of wine we purchased in Alaska and it was quite the feast.

 

For the most part we just hung out at this campsite, playing games and relaxing. On Friday we went on a short hike at the trailhead near the camp though, which was lovely. There was an old Native American burial mound and information about some of the settlers that lived here in the 1800s. It was also just a lovely walk through an ecosystem very different from what we have at home.

 

We've started using Aiden's love of sticks to put her to work. A lot of the firewood we use is medium sized sticks which are easier to break than cut. Some of them are pretty quick to snap over a knee, but some of the larger ones we've been using Aiden to play tug-of-war and break them around a tree. She loves it and we get manageable firewood so it's a win-win.