There is a saying about making lemonade from lemons.
This is generally well-known and often recited when someone takes a bad item or situation and makes the best of it. This was also how my older sister described the scenario after I told her of our latest “R&R” (rest and relaxation) trip to Amelia Island.
My wife and I wanted to get away for a couple of days (for our back-to-back birthdays) and as fate would have it, some days on our calendars opened up for this last Monday through Wednesday. As I used to do when having to plan trips from home, I checked the Weather Channel and saw that we were going to be dealing with (what was SUPPOSED TO BE ) half a day of a rain system coming through. On the morning of the 24th, we headed out to Ft. Clinch State Park (on Amelia Island) just north of Jacksonville. We didn’t even get through Citrus County on the interstate when we started picking up the rain. Now, between the roads being wet and the “snowbirds” still being in our state, traffic slowed down substantially (but didn’t come to any bad delays).
It took us about four and a half hours to make the gates of the state park and as I was in the process of setting up the campsite, we put up with a steady drizzle. Note to self: LOOK AT ALL OF THE BLACK DIRT AROUND THE MIDDLE OF THE CAMP!
As the sun was setting and the constant light rain was still going on, it was decided that our first evening of the “R & R” outing would be spent playing cards. According to the meteorologists on the cable news channel, this wet stuff was supposed to have passed by where we were. Their forecast was just a bit off! As that night progressed, we could hear that the rains had mostly subsided, so we didn’t give it much thought as we headed for the bed. Now, many (and probably most) of you “senior” readers can attest, getting up in the middle of the night to take care of “old folks issues” hit both of us about 3:30 AM of the following morning, and all was still good in the neighborhood. At 7:30, I got up again to visit that “needed room” and noticed a puddle of water just under the air vent cover. I awoke my wife and asked her how many extra bath towels she had packed and commenced to dry the floor. Now, as I opened the camper door to throw the soaked towels onto the park bench, I got our second fun surprise. Right where I had noticed that strange black dirt (while doing the set up just 14 hours earlier, there was a small pond about 5 inches deep and reaching out about 25 feet from under the camp trailer to a point beyond the picnic table that was 8 feet from the trailer door. This R& R outing was becoming anything BUT rest and relaxation!
I forgot to mention that as the day before was my birthday, I offered Cecelia a light “Happy Birthday” as I headed out the door to find a park maintenance worker. Once I located a park custodian, he mentioned that 1) our site was just one of ten that had flood conditions and 2) we WERE NOT going to be able to change campsites. Once I got back to the camper and dried off my legs, we sat down to try to figure out how we could “make lemonade out of lemons” (or make the most of a bad situation). Now I carry a bunch of tools with me on the old “White Wheel Barrow” (pickup truck) and as we got to planning our scavenger hunt for things needed for the coming WORK, my wife asked me, “Didn’t you put a folding shovel in one of your tool boxes?” (And she was correct!)
Way down at the bottom of the toolbox filled with emergency-related tools, I had put an old army “entrenching” tool (foldable shovel). I had to move about 20 pounds of chains, straps and pulleys to get to it, but there it was! And, as an added help for the job, I had my trusty rubber boots there as well! It also turned out that just behind our camper, the ground sloped in a downward fashion. All I had to do was cut a 20-foot path with the shovel and let the water do what it does best (and find the path of least resistance).
It took about an hour to cut the trough as there was an old oak tree just behind the campsite. As soon as I shoveled out the last piece of earth, the water started rushing through the trench. In another 15 minutes, we had ground to stand on and by noon time, the ground was dry! YAY!
I have mentioned in previous stories that the best tools you can carry with you are NOT in a carry box, but in those things that are learned and stored in the memory banks! The more you learn and retain, the easier it is to make lemonade from lemons! I hope that Y’all have a blessed week until the next time we do this!
Steve Goodwin is a recently retired Christian conservative veteran (of the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division), who still feels that “duty to country” did not end when the military uniform got hung up. He and his wife Cecelia live on the edge of a beautifully wooded tract of land just south of the bypass, and are involved in not only church activities, but also attend school board meetings and local community action events as well.
