On to the next Campground from Unspoiled Hell

On the way to Camp Do-Not we spotted this waterspout in the distance. Maybe you can see it in the red box. Or maybe I'm lying. By this time we were delerious with heat stroke because Dad refused to turn on the AC in the car because it dropped the gas mileage by 2 mpg. These days I run the car AC in the dead of winter with 8 inches of snow on the ground. Photo by Joyce Stone.

Sadly, it is time for us to end our idyllic week at Manatee Springs State Park and move on to another Campground from Unspoiled Hell.

In the 20 or so seconds it takes us to pack our belongings, I stop to reflect on the highlights of our visit:

(A) I found an opossum skull. Aside from satanic rituals, I could think of no practical use for it, but I kept it anyway. I now proudly display it in a cardboard box in the attic.

(B) Watching moths go up in little balls of fire in the kerosene lantern – an early, crude version of the electronic bug zapper.

(C) Picking up garbage the raccoons scattered during the night – the SAME garbage I picked up the day before, and the day before that, ad infinitum. This vicious cycle of scattering and picking up has been going on since the time Indians roamed the area and had their garbage scattered by raccoons. I think some of the garbage I picked up WAS Indian garbage.

As we depart, we wave a fond farewell to the Bobs, who have threatened to someday return to their home, if they can get Bob out of the lawn chair.

As we head south, despite my fervent desire that we turn north in the direction of home, we pass many fascinating sights. They were too expensive, so I don’t get to see them. But we stop at some of the less interesting sights, which include:

Reptile Land – This linchpin of the Florida tourism industry features, among other things, a caged duck that plays a piano. I am not kidding. You put a quarter in the slot and the duck uses its bill to bash out a tune worthy of any 10-year-old after $5,000 worth of lessons.

I also feel that Reptile Land sells a superior quality plastic alligator, and now one of those is on proud display with the opossum skull in the attic.

Weeki Wachee – I don’t actually see the show, but I use the bathroom in the lobby and I am impressed.

Miles and miles of dead orange groves – There they are in all their natural dead splendor, those famous Florida orange groves you hear are threatened every time the temperature plummets below 85. They are a stark reminder that Anita Bryant no longer lives in Florida.

We arrive at our new home, a campground on Sannibel Island. We call it “Camp Do-Not,” because everywhere you look is a sign telling you what you cannot do. We spend one night there, immobilized in our tent. Although the rules forbid it, we break camp and leave the next day.

We wend our way northeast, to the interior of Florida, where the humidity is always higher than the temperature, even inside most homeowners’ ovens, which few residents use because they find it less expensive and more convenient to do their cooking on the sidewalks.

There, we complete the final leg of our journey across the heart of darkness of Florida, and I promise that next week’s column will be the last I write about camping, at least until I run out of ideas again.

Next week: Satan, the devil goat.

This column was published in the Northwest Florida Daily News on June 9, 1988 and is used with permission.

About the author:

Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”

Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.

As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.

Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .