This post is a lot later than I planned for it to be, but it couldn’t be helped. On our last full day at Hart Springs we had to say “Goodbye” to our sweet, sweet Bella. Even though we have known this day was coming, and we are SO grateful for the more than 2 years of time we did not expect to have with her, it was and remains an incredibly painful loss. I have found it immensely difficult to even write about this stay and especially about her passing without my eyes welling up with tears, so it has taken much longer than usual to compose and prepare this post. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Hug and love your furry family member(s). We never have as much time with them in this world as we would hope.
We lost an hour of sleep the night before thanks to another year of the ridiculous Daylight Savings Time that congress keeps putting off doing way with. After dumping our tanks we left Silver Springs State Park on Sunday, March 8th around 12:10 pm for an almost-two-hour drive to Hart Springs Campground outside of Bell, Florida. This would be our second time staying there, and as you can see by the dates in the title we stayed 23 nights this time. Which is, of course, long for us in that we usually stay somewhere 14 nights. But it costs the same to stay here for a month as it does to stay 2 weeks, so…here we are for 23 nights.
We would have stayed a month, and in fact planned to do so when we made the reservation last year, because at the time we were looking to move to Mexico in April. But plans change. Now we’ll be starting our 6-month stationary stay in Georgia on April 1st, so this turned out to be a kind of “warm up” for that.
Hart Springs Campground
Hart Springs Campground is part of the Hart Springs Park, a 200-acre recreation area that borders the Suwannee River and is filled with Cypress hammocks and Pine tree stands, as well as one of the largest spring-fed swimming areas in the State. Visitors can enjoy fishing and swimming, as well as hiking along the Suwannee River Wilderness Trail or boating along the 55-mile Gilchrist Blueway Trail.
Or maybe, like us, enjoy strolls along the half-mile-long boardwalk where you can see the springs flow up out of the earth and merge with the Suwannee River while surrounded by Cypress trees, Cypress knees and the sound of various wildlife. Unfortunately, like most swamps, springs, streams and rivers we’ve visited over the past 5 years in Florida, Hart Springs and the Suwannee River water levels were much, much lower than when we were here 3 years ago. The level of the springs area was so low that there were NO jumping sturgeon seen during this visit. So sad.
The campground is part of the park, separated by about a half mile of woods from the springs. There are 67 sites and yes they are on top of each other with little to no vegetation separating the sites.
Our site was a fairly level mixture of grass and gravel and had room to put up Cindy’s screen room at the edge of the woods toward the rear of Nomad. Ours was a full hook up site, but they ask you to only use your sewer hook up to empty your tanks on Tuesdays and Thursdays to help manage their waste water treatment facility. That was a new one for us, but we did it, of course.
This place was REALLY crowded compared to the last time we were here. But for the most part it was quiet and we never heard anyone having wild, noisy, late-night parties.
During dinner we watched the first episode of the second season of “The Last Thing He Told Me.” This season is supposed to be an adaptation of the second book, which is coming out soon. I have it on my hold list at the library.
First Week
On Monday we decided it would be best to put the cover flaps on Cindy’s screen room because rain was coming later in the week. I also grilled up several meals, set up our new Ring Doorbell Camera, AND made a reservation at a fancy steak restaurant for our 29th wedding anniversary that would occur in 3 weeks.
Tuesday morning I resealed all the lower trim on Nomad, especially where we still had a small leak by Cindy’s side of the bedroom. Just before sunset we hiked down the paved trail to see if we could spot some fireflies after the sun went down, but no such luck. Did find a small alligator in a pond on the walk out.
Wednesday I finished “Twelve Months”, a book by Jim Butcher that Ann and I were reading together, then enjoyed a phone call with her at the end of the day talking about what we liked about the book and things that stood out to each of us. It really means a lot to me to share books and interests that we both enjoy with her.
I also started watching “Scarpetta”, which is based on the Patricia Cornwell books about fictional Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta. It was an interesting mixture of past and present (her first and latest books) and while I initially had trouble picturing Nicole Kidman as the title character (based on how I had pictured her in reading the books over the years) I felt like she really captured the essence of Scarpetta and I enjoyed the first episode.
For once, the weather forecast was accurate and it rained all day on Thursday. Turns out we still have a small leak but nothing like we had earlier. I’ll have to do some extra sealing in the coming days when everything is dry.
That night we watched the season one finale of “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy” and we were very pleased with the freshman season of this show. Cindy and I both agree that Paul Giamatti’s villain is over the top, but I like it and Cindy is put off by it. I have a feeling that, if he shows up again next season, he will be toned down a bit. We both love Tig Notaro’s character; she is SO damn cool all the time, lol.
The weekend was pretty boring, which is good.
Amber and Abby
Tuesday morning we drove 40 minutes to a Publix grocery store near Gainesville. All the gas stations we saw were pricing regular unleaded at $3.98 a gallon. But, amazingly, we found a station on our route that was selling it for $3.68 a gallon, so of course we filled up while the getting was good.
Amber and Abby drove up from Orlando to spend a few days during Abby’s Spring Break from school. Amber got a hotel room for them in nearby Chiefland and then joined us at Nomad for dinner.
They spent Wednesday with us at the campground and the three of them hiked down to the springs while I stayed home and off my knee. That night they all insisted I watch “Moonstruck”, a movie I had never seen. I was not impressed and wasn’t sure why it is thought of so highly by some people. As they say, to each his own. That night we all enjoyed pizza at a place in Chiefland. It was pretty good and I guess that’s why it was so busy.
The girls came back on Thursday and hiked around the area some more. Then Amber and I watched three episodes of “Scarpetta” together (she is a fan of Cornwell’s books too) while Grandma and Abby played Scrabble out in the screen room.
Friday morning we met them for breakfast at Huddle House in Chiefland before they left to drive to Jacksonville to spend the day with Amber’s aunt. During our travels Cindy and I have seen many Huddle House restaurants, but never tried eating at any of them. It wasn’t bad, but I can’t imagine we’ll ever do so again unless we have no other choices.
Over the weekend we watched a recording of our youngest granddaughter Jade in a play for her school’s drama department. Very much appreciate her mom sending us the link so we can enjoy seeing her perform on stage.
Third Week
Tried the paved trail again as sunset approached hoping to see some fireflies, but they still hadn’t made an appearance in this part of the state yet. We did see an alligator lying on the bank of the pond on our trip out. Then, on our way back in the dark, I shined the flashlight at the pond and saw two different sets of eyes in the pond water shining back at us.
On Tuesday morning, Cindy and I went down to the springs. She hiked the 3/4 mile paved trail while I drove out to the main highway and down to the springs’ entrance. Then we spent about an hour strolling on the boardwalk next to the Suwannee River. It was very quiet, calm, and peaceful. My knee would pay for the walk the rest of the day, but it was worth it to enjoy the woods, water, and scenery together.
Thursday morning we did our grocery shopping (on a weekday!) and bought Cindy a flash drive she could connect to her phone to download the 45,000 photos/videos she has. It’s nice that you can transfer those directly now instead of first moving them to your computer and THEN to a hard drive. Saves some time and is easier.
We took a little side trip to Fanning Springs to see a remnant of the original bridge there that crossed the Suwannee River and is now a monument. Interesting bit of history.
We gave Bella a dry shampoo bath. Feels like she is going downhill very fast and that we’re going to have a heartbreak soon. Honestly, anytime is sooner than we want.
Friday morning I did our taxes. This administration’s “tax relief” did absolutely nothing for us, which was no surprise.
We found out Ann had her house under contract and will probably close around the end of April and be moving to Virginia. She is following her dream and we are so happy for her.
Bella was still not doing well. She used to love her walks, but lately she would just stand and look around while Cindy would try to coax her to walk with her. Sometimes she would walk, and sometimes she would not, which was not like her at all.
Bella
Saturday morning Bella was still doing badly so we took her to a vet in nearby Trenton. We were worried that she was finally succumbing to her kidney disease, though she did not have all the symptoms we were told to look for. It could have also been that she had another bout with a UTI. As we waited in the room we were preparing ourselves for the worst and knowing that this might be our time to say goodbye to our sweet Bella.
The vet (who was great, by the way) came back in with the results. Yes, Bella did have a UTI, a very bad one. BUT she had also progressed to stage 4 of her kidney failure. She could possibly live a few more months at stage 4 and we will take all the time we can get with her; but as we have said before we will not allow her to suffer no matter how heartbreaking it will be to lose her.
And it WILL be heartbreaking.
The doctor treated Bella for her UTI, which will take a couple of days to eliminate. The plan is that we will bring her back on Monday morning to see how she is doing. But we leave Tuesday morning for Georgia, so we’ll have to see a vet there when her time gets closer.
That afternoon I finished watching “Scarpetta” and, like everyone else, was left wondering WHO that was at the door in the final scene. I’m sure Amber and I will discuss all the possibilities.
Saturday night Bella seemed even worse, though it might have been the UTI medication working. She hasn’t really eaten anything in the past 36 hours. We watched her closely through the night.
I’ll be honest with you, I walked out into the living room Sunday morning fearful that I would find Bella had left us during the few hours sleep we got. But she stirred when I touched her and got down out of my recliner to go outside, though very slowly and stiffly. She still had no appetite for even her favorite foods and, again, no desire to take a walk.
We took down Cindy’s screen room that morning because rain was forecast for Monday. We had also planned to go grocery shopping on Monday, but since we scheduled a follow-up appointment for Bella on Monday morning we decided to do our shopping on Sunday instead. Then we tried to get as many things packed away as possible in case our Monday is fuller than we expect, since we’re leaving at 9 am on Tuesday.
Bella would not eat all day and was doing worse throughout the day.
Monday morning Bella would still not eat and was very lethargic. She lost her footing and stumbled several times, which was one of the major signs of kidney failure. We could not let her suffer. After a lot of tears we knew that we would have to let her go when we went to the vet’s office that morning. We took a final photo of the three of us together, trying not to weep, then put her in her bed in the backseat of Voyager and made the sad drive to the vet.
Even now, two and half weeks later, I cannot put the words down without my eyes filling with tears. It is too painful to relive. I wrote a short “Remembering Bella” post on my personal blog, but I still could not write much detail without weeping. When I’m better able, I may write about the experience on my personal blog at a later date, but for now I’ll simply say we held Bella as she crossed the bridge and while it was the hardest thing to do it was also the only thing we could do for the sweet girl we loved and still love so much. It truly is the last, final, and best act of love you can give to your furry family member. She left this world peacefully in our arms as our hearts broke in loss.
Bella was a part of our family for 13 days short of 15 years, but she will live in our hearts and memories for the rest of our lives.
I cancelled our anniversary dinner reservation for that night as obviously neither one of us felt like celebrating. We’ll make up for it at another time.
Thank you, and thank you for following The Wandering Wetheringtons.
