Postcard from Florida

 20 - 22 Jan 2010
(Chattahoochee, FL)

Lots of shade in Chatahoochee KOA

After our 2-night stop in Gulf Shores, AL we were on our way to Chattahoochee, FL... just east of the state capital in Tallahassee, FL. The campground is in a rural setting with an excellent canopy of trees, mostly oak. Annie discovered acorns and did her best to clean up the grounds. I was scared to death she'd get sick but I can now confirm 2 things: she didn't get sick, and acorns come out looking pretty much the same as the way they go in since she just swallowed them whole. Which is pretty much the way she eats everything!

Annie doing an acorn survey

We made it into the town of Chattahoochee to do some shopping and found ourselves at an IGA grocery. My maternal grandfather, in the tiny Central Valley hamlet of Lockeford, CA, owned an IGA. It's probably just IGA today, but at that time IGA was the abbreviation for Independent Grocers of America. My grandfather's store had the innovative name of Lockeford Grocery. He had that store from well before the Great Depression and kept a lot of farming families alive during that economic disaster. After he died in the late '60s my mother told me that as late as 1968 there were still a couple people paying back what they owed at $5 per month. So that makes 2 trips down nostalgia lane on this trip: a Piggly Wiggly and an IGA grocery store.

Other than enjoying the quiet there's not much to recommend a stop here. So to liven things up the weather magicians sent a nasty T-storm our way. It got wet and ugly outside but, other than a few places where wind blew some water in past the slide-seals, we got thru it OK. The neighboring town of Quincy (12 miles away) wasn't quite so lucky- they were hammered by a tornado.

Off to Wildwood, FL.