Full Moon, Thieves and Friday the 13th

I survived the full moon on Thursday. I did the Indian way of trimming my long hair on the full moon. It's still long, even though I whacked off a few inches. I only wanted to trim a tiny bit, to get rid of the inevitable split ends. I meant to do this at winter solstice, but the date escaped me. I was so busy then (like now!) sorting out water wars and plumbing woes.

Since I am not a hair dresser, cutting my own hair is not easy. By the time I got it all nice and neat, it was more than the planned half inch, it was more like 2-3 inches trimmed off. But it looks nice and should keep growing. It falls to my belly button, so it's not really short.

Then Friday the 13th rolled around, survived that too. Phew!



But my neighbor had her bicycle stolen. Next to her is another campsite with an adult tricycle for sale for $200. It was stolen too.

Learning this really  creeped me out because this means the thief or thieves were right next to my wheel estate, near my bedroom window at night. Harley had been barking off and on, I would check to see what he was fussing about but I didn't see anyone and I wasn't specifically checking on my neighbor's bicycle either. My neighbor has a dog too, but he is pretty friendly and he was of course locked up inside when their bicycle went missing outside. He's not really a barker either. I've never heard him bark except when the squirrels annoy him and he is outside.

Later the maintenance crew found both bicycles in one of the park's lakes. Not sure which lake, we have several ponds to choose from. Hopefully I will get the rest of the story. I am a tad curious which lake where.

Who would steal bicycles then toss them in the pond? Is this the same person(s) that are getting some joy out of vandalizing the campground restrooms at night? It's all kind of stressful to think about. Most campgrounds and RV parks are fairly safe. Many campers have things scattered around outside and they pretty much just stay there.

If you travel with a bicycle, get a heavy duty locking cable and use it. I am so paranoid about my beloved bicycle that even when I have it stowed on the back of my motorhome for travel, I use the heavy cable to lock it to my roof access ladder.

A thief will have to work really hard to steal my bicycle.

However, it's been brought up that Florida does attract many types of folks in the winter. I guess thieves, sociopaths and psychopaths want a snow-less winter too. There is always the illusion too, that when one sees advertisements for sunny Florida and the year round use of the beaches, that one can show up and just flop on the beach all day. Life will be grand.

My bicycle and my visiting friend's bicycle were both locked up and attached to the 8 foot 8 ton picnic table plus both were covered, though a bicycle looks like a bicycle even under cover. Luckily neither were stolen.

Phew!

Both cables are so heavy that a thief would have to work pretty hard to cut them loose and thieves being notoriously lazy, will look for easier prey or sites that don't have a yappy guard dog and motion lights.

I have solar motion lights on the picnic table too. If anyone walks by at night the lights come on. This way  they can see to steal the bikes or steal the lights.

Handy!

I am always hoping the motion lights will startle them that they are too close to my site. This campground doesn't have set paths, so folks do tend to wander right through the sites to get from the three loops, A-B-C. It's shorter to cut through the sites than to walk the roads. Usually after dark, most folks have cars, I think everyone here has a car or truck except me. So most are in their cars at night coming and going, not walking around in the dark.

Since the campsites are irregularly sized and it's a park like setting with trees, ponds, open grassy, weedy areas and wild shrubbery, it's just the nature of the beast that folks wander around on the grassy areas rather than the paved roads where they have to compete with cars and pickup trucks.

During the day we see cop cars and citizen's neighborhood patrol trucks riding by. Even the rangers ride by and I believe they ride by at night. But I guess they can't tell if someone is riding a bicycle, whether it's stolen or not.

I am kind of an obsessive maniac about locking my bicycle. It's a treasure to me to be lucky enough to own one and enjoy the torture of riding it almost daily. I need the exercise, so I try to ride it often. But I lock it up the minute I am not sitting on it.

Some days I take Harley to the dog park about a mile and a half or more from here, depending on which route I take. I have to leave my bicycle outside the fence at the park. There is no bicycle rack because most everyone arrives by car or truck. Harley becomes super impatient, singing and hollering in his basket while I take time to lock the bicycle up (attaching it to the fence) before I get him out of his basket.

He is super impatient about wanting to get inside the off leash dog park before it vanishes into thin air.

When we come home again, I lock my bicycle the minute I climb off  the seat. Harley doesn't mind waiting. Matter of fact, sometimes he resists getting out of his basket because he would prefer I ride him around for hours and hours. Silly dog.

Last night, every little noise had me on high alert. I must have checked on my bicycle 50 times over every little noise I heard. Steal my chairs, take the rug or thief the lights, but please don't steal my precious bicycle.

Life is goof.

Thank you for stopping by today!