La Belle

When we were at the Tampa RV Show, we received a brochure for an RV Park called Whisper Creek in La Belle, Florida.  The park looked very nice from the pictures and they were offering 4 free nights with "no strings attached."  No sales presentations or anything.  So we decided to check it out and stay there for 4 nights beginning Sunday.

After about a 1 1/2 hour drive south from Bowling Green, Florida, we arrived at Whisper Creek.  They assigned us site #428 in The Glenn section of their resort.  The sites are all grass but level and very big with full hookups.

The older section of the park is primarily filled with nice park models a lot of which have added on sun rooms or screened in porches.

After getting set up on Sunday, we went into town to get some groceries.  We decided to try out a Mexican-Italian Grill in town called Panchos Corleone.  We split their Nachos Supreme and boy were they good.

Whisper Creek has a lot of activities going on daily.  The first activity that we could not pass up was the ice cream social on Sunday night which gave us a chance to meet some of the very nice people living here.  The weather was very nice and warmer than what we had been experiencing.  We got our 10,000 steps in every morning and even went to the pool a couple of days.  Chuck also learned a new game called Petanque which is a lot like bocci ball.

On Wednesday, we decided to take a day trip over to Moore Haven and Clewiston that are near Lake Okeechobee.  We are far enough south now that we began to see the sugar cane fields like we saw last year when we were at Lake Okeechobee.

It is so flat here in southern Florida.  Below is a sugar cane field that had been recently burned off and harvested.

We haven't traveled on an interstate since we were in Wildwood and have traveled on more back roads in Florida this year than we ever have.  These back roads are maybe not as "scenic" as Utah or Montana, but they are still beautiful in their own ways with farms, ranches, and little towns.  Best of all:  not much traffic!

We first drove to Aruba RV Park in Moore Haven to check out the park and to visit Jim and Linda, a couple we had not seen in years that we had known from all the years we used to go down to the camp on Kentucky Lake.

Aruba RV Park is located off a canal that leads to Lake Okeechobee via a lock.  It has several sites where you can tie off a boat to a dock located right behind the site.

Jim was telling us he had recently caught a 7 lb and an 8 lb bass and had thrown it back where these docks are.  Hmmm...wonder if they're still there??

After a nice visit with Jim and Linda, we drove over to Clewiston which Chuck had been too many years ago when he and Jerry would come to Florida fishing.  After driving around town and picking up a few groceries at Wal-mart in Clewiston, we headed back home.  We decided to go to Panchos Corleone again before going back to the RV.  And it's official:  we think Panchos Corleone has the best nachos we have ever had.  (Sorry Garcias!)  :)

Wake up to a scare!

On Friday morning, I woke up and noticed the electricity was out.  The surge protector had kicked off the electricity a couple of times last night before we went to bed due to low voltage but this morning it was kicking on and off about every 5 or 10 minutes...which is not good.

And then, we both started smelling something that smelled like an electrical fire.  We jumped out of bed and started sniffing around trying to determine where the smell was coming from.  Chuck ran outside and disconnected the electricity and started sniffing around the inverter and the outside of the motorhome.  He could not smell anything outside but it definitely smelled like something electrical burning or had burned back in the bedroom.

Of course, we always think the worst, and figured we would need to take the motorhome somewhere to be looked at.  As I started making up the bed and picking things up to get ready to leave, I happened to smell the control for the electric blanket and we determined that was where the smell was coming from.  Phew!!!

Man...what a scare!  But thank goodness, it was just the electric blanket.  Chuck opened the controls later that weekend just to see if it looked like anything had burned but we couldn't see anything that had burned.  Just the smell.  Anyways, that electric blanket is going straight to the dumpster!

We don't know if the low voltage is what caused the problem with the electric blanket but we did know we could not stay on that site any longer because the low voltage could cause other problems.  We drove around looking at other sites in the campground but with the low voltage issue, we really didn't want to stay at Peace River any longer at all.

I called the office and told them we would be leaving because of the low voltage issue and asked that they credit 2 nights back on our Zone Pass which they did.  I had remembered seeing a sign for Torrey Oaks Golf & RV Resort a few miles back north.  I called them, they had availability and accepted Passport America which meant our site would only be $20 per night.  Sweet!

Torrey Oaks is a nice park and we were assigned site #146.

What was most difficult about the site was trying to place the motorhome where the tires and the jacks would land on the concrete runners.  I got Chuck backed in where the driver side tires and jacks hit the concrete but not the passenger side.  And we had to cut a few limbs here too.  But other than that, the park and the people are very nice.

We got our 10,000 steps in on both Friday and Saturday and I got a nice blister because I wore the wrong socks. :(

Chuck had to do a little more maintenance work on the slideouts on Saturday.  He had noticed that the bottom layer of whatever type of plastic or sheathing is on the outside bottom of the slide was coming loose.  He glued it back together and then re-caulked the edges with silicone caulking.  He also dusted the outside of the motorhome and washed the tires and wheels from where they had gotten all dirty from the tire and alignment work on Thursday.  And I got caught up on laundry...again.

Hopefully, we have gotten all our maintenance work done on the RV.  We are looking forward to some warmer weather and meeting up with Ken & Bonnie and Neil & Nancy at Pine Island on Thursday for two weeks and then with Donald & Anna at Daytona in February!

Orlando & Peace River Thousand Trails

The air filter we were waiting on at Alliance Coach didn't come in until later in the afternoon on Tuesday. Since it was so late in the day and since we could stay an additional night in their campground for free, we decided to wait and leave on Wednesday.

We got our 10,000 steps in on Tuesday afternoon by walking across Hwy 44 to the latest "town square" of the Villages, Brownwood Paddock Square.  The Villages has three "town squares" that contain restaurants, shops, theaters, and the center of the square where musicians perform regularly.  Brownwood is still under construction and has several vacant shops to fill up but it probably will not take long considering how popular The Villages is with retirees seeking a new home or a winter home.

On Wednesday morning, we got kind of a lazy start and still had to make up our mind where we were going to go.  Part of what complicated our decision is we wanted to go by Classic Coach (the company who did our renovations last year) for some minor warranty issues and we wanted to go by a commercial tire place to have the front passenger tire looked at because it had an unusual dip over about a 6 inch section of the outer edge of the tire.  Plus, we wanted to use our Zone Pass that we had purchased in December and take advantage of our 30 days of "free camping" at their campgrounds.

Three Flags Thousand Trails (TT) was full in Wildwood so that was out.  Orlando TT further south in Clermont was available only until Friday.  Peace River even further south in Wauchula was available the entire time.  We decided to spend one night at Orlando TT, go to Classic Coach in Lakeland on Thursday morning, and then go to McGee Tire (a commercial tire dealer) also in Lakeland on Thursday afternoon, and then drive south to Peace River TT and stay there until Sunday.

When we arrived at the Orlando TT, there were only 4 sites remaining to choose from.  Based on their recommendations, I chose site #148, a 30 amp site with sewer where the satellite would work.  Orlando TT has some very nice sites with plenty of room between them, but site #148 was not one of them.  The site was very, very close to your neighbor on the utility side, was unlevel, and had a huge tree over it that Chuck had to trim some of the branches off of to keep from scratching the roof and slide-out.  The park is huge with a lot of activities and recreation available.  We think it would probably be a good campground at which to spend several days if you could get a better site.

After getting set up, we headed to Walgreens for presciptions and Nips, to Wal-mart for groceries, and to AutoZone for a digital tire gauge.  Then we headed back home and got caught up on laundry.

On Thursday morning, we left later than we intended.  We had to return the digital tire gauge to Autozone because it was not working consistently on the motorhome tires even though it was rated for pressures up to 150 psi.

Since we were having work done on the motorhome at two of our stops today, we drove separately.  Our first stop was Classic Coach where they took care of a couple of minor warranty items from the renovations they had done for us last year.  After leaving Classic, we drove to McGee Tire to have the front tire looked at.  They recommended rotating and balancing the tires and checking the alignment.  After that work was completed, we drove another 36 miles south to Peace River TT in Wauchula, Florida.

When we arrived at Peace River, I checked into the office and was told we could only get a 30 amp site with no sewer today and then be put on a waiting list for a 50 amp site tomorrow.  Since we were only going to be here for 3 nights, I thought we would probably just stay on the 30 amp site. After driving around in the car, I chose site #C-59 which was at the end of a row because it seemed more level and had more room.

Like Orlando TT, the campground has a lot of activities.  It is also surrounded by the Peace River on which a lot of people kayak.  Just a little cold for that right now...even in Florida.

Annual Maintenance at Alliance

We arrived at Alliance Coach in Wildwood a little after 11 am on Sunday.  We wanted to get set up in time to watch the NFL playoff games plus one of the sales rep from Alliance who was at the Tampa RV Show suggested that we get here early because their "campground" behind their building fills up fast on Sunday.

There were several sites available when we arrived; but by 3 pm, all of the sites were full and they had to start parking the RVs around the building for electrical hookup.

Since we had a couple of hours before the Broncos/Patriots game, we got our 10,000 steps in walking around the Alliance facility and the nearby Sparr Farmers Supply store which had a big parking lot that equaled about 500 steps around its perimeter.

We got back to the camper in plenty of time to watch all of the Broncos game and were thrilled that Broncos won and are going to the Super Bowl.  We are BIG Peyton Manning fans and are hoping to see him and the Broncos go all the way and win the Super Bowl.

We checked in with the Alliance Service Desk early this morning and went over our list with the service representative.  Chuck spent all day watching and learning from the service techs who were working on our motorhome while I spent all day in the waiting area reading a good book.  By the end of the day, they had gotten everything done except for replacing the air filter which should be in by noon tomorrow.

Besides the maintenance items (oil change, fuel filters, etc.), they adjusted the door latch (so I can now open the door with just one hand instead of two), they fixed the entrance step so it would automatically come in like it used to when the motor was started and they fixed the blower on the dash A/C (which happened to be controlled by the same blown-out fuse as the entrance step), and they installed the motor that Carefree Awnings had sent to us for free on the door awning.

When we were at the FMCA rally in Gillette, Wyoming, last summer, we told the Carefree service rep that our door awning had gone out twice and had not worked for the past 4 or 5 years.  The Carefree service rep told us that they had improved the awning motors since then and mailed us a new motor for free.  Alliance installed it for us today and we have a working door awning again!

After the air filter comes in tomorrow, we should be on our way to...we don't know where yet.  Somewhere in Florida.

Tampa RV Show, Strawberry Shortcake & Friends

We left the camper early Wednesday morning and drove about an hour west to the Tampa RV Show.  This is one of the biggest RV shows in the country.  The tickets serve as a two-day pass.  We spent the first day looking around at all the new motorhomes and even looked at some of the new fifth wheelers.  We're not looking to trade or switch back to a fifth wheel but we always like to look at the new features and layouts.

Montie and Ann, our friends from our Defeated Creek camping days, invited us over for dinner Wednesday night.  We got to see their beautiful new house and Ann fixed us a delicious dinner of spaghetti and meatballs.  They taught us a new card game and we even got in a game of SkipBo Ann and I beating Montie and Chuck....again...like last year.  :)

We went back to the RV show on Thursday and spent the day visiting all the vendor booths.  We didn't really see any new products this year that we were interested in but I picked up a lot of campground and resort information.  We did buy an "As-Seen-on-TV" food chopper that Chuck is anxious for us to try out for making homemade salsa.  We also talked to the Tire Minder sales rep about the problems we were having with our monitor not holding a signal when disconnected from the charger.  The sales rep told us he would give us a new one if we would bring him our old tire monitor.  We weren't planning on coming back to the RV show but he said we could also take it to their office in Stuart, Florida, .

After we left the show on Thursday, we stopped by the Parkesdale Farm Market for a strawberry shortcake.  At first, I think Chuck thought I should order two, but after I got the shortcake, he remembered how big they were and was glad I just bought one for us to split.  We also got a strawberry shake to split later after dinner.  Both were delicious!  :)

On Friday, we drove around checking out other campgrounds in the area and further south on Hwy 27.  Later in the day, we decided to take the tire monitor back to Tampa to the RV show to get the new one that the sales rep from Tire Minder said he would give us.  We thought we might have to pay for admission and parking again; but since it was so late in the day, the RV Show didn't charge us for parking or admission (which saved us $26).

On Saturday, we drove over to Palm Bay to visit our friend John from Maine.  We had a nice visit with John and he took us to lunch at Young's Buffet.  We hadn't eaten Chinese in a long time and it was very good.  We just ate too much!  After lunch, John drove us through this neighborhood near him that has wild peacocks living there.

Aren't they beautiful?  I think peacock blue is one of the prettiest colors there is.  We were hoping to see one of the male peacocks spread its feathers but no luck today.

It was a very busy few days but we were so glad to get to see and visit with our friends that we hadn't seen since last year.  Next, we head back north to Wildwood to get some yearly maintenance work done on the motorhome.

Back to Themeworld

We left Wilderness RV Park in Silver Springs Tuesday morning and headed south to Davenport, Florida, where we had reservations at Themeworld RV Park.  We are going to the Tampa RV Supershow (about 45 minutes west) for a couple of days plus we are want  to see some friends in the area while we are here.  I imagine we will also go to the Parkesdale Farms Fruit Stand for some of their delicious strawberry shortcake at least once while we are here.

Themeworld RV Park is one of the few Passport America parks that honors the 50% discount year round.  We have stayed here several times in the past.  The park has several rental cabins for rent and has recently begun building and selling small one-bedroom "vacation homes."

The park is located right next to I-4 but the traffic noise is not that bad.   The worst part is very few of the sites are level.  We have camped at different sites all over the park and every one has been out of level.

This time we had site #97 and it wasn't level either.

Later that evening when we were inside the camper, Chuck happened to look outside and noticed we were having a spectacular sunset.  I ran outside and started snapping pictures.

Pretty spectacular, don't you agree?

After the sun had set, the sky began turning beautiful shades of pink and blue.

That's what is special about sunsets and sunrises.  You don't have to be in the mountains or at the beach to experience a beautiful sunset.  They can occur anywhere...even on an unlevel campsite next to the interstate.

Last day at Wilderness

The weather was our favorite temperature Monday morning:  light-jacket weather.  Not too hot.  Not too cold. We got our 10,000 steps in this morning after breakfast and then headed to Wal-mart to pick up some groceries.

I think we have been to Wal-mart every day but one since we have been here.  It never fails.  I think I have made the perfect grocery list of everything we need and within an hour of unloading all the groceries at the camper, we think of something we missed.  

Marc and Rhea, our friends from Quebec, were coming over for dinner, which gave me a good excuse to clean the motorhome.  I had decided to fix lasagna for dinner.  For years, I have just taken the easy way out for my spaghetti or lasagna sauce and used Prego and added ground beef, and bell peppers and some onion.  Tonight, I decided to fix my sauce from scratch.  I let it simmer for about an hour before putting the lasagna in the oven to cook.  It was delicious!  (Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back there, Melissa!)

Anyways, everyone thought it was pretty good too.  The best part of the evening was just visiting and talking with Marc and Rhea and learning more about Quebec, a place we would like to visit some day!

A fishing trip remembered...

We woke up to cool weather but beautiful sunshine on Sunday morning.  We went to church in Silver Springs and then Chuck suggested that after lunch we take a day trip over towards Astor Park which is east of here on Highway 40.

Many years ago, Chuck and his brother, Jerry, would take a few vacation days every year and come to Florida fishing.  Most of the time, they would go to Lake Okeechobee.  You may remember from our post earlier in the year where we found the campground where they used to stay.

Well, one year they decided to try something different and check out several of the other lakes in Florida.  All of our families have heard Chuck and Jerry speak of fond memories of these trips and Chuck wanted to see if he could find some of the places where they had fished and camped before.

We headed east towards Astor Park and Astor, Florida.  We drove down a couple of roads trying to find where they had camped and fished around Half Moon Lake and along the St. John River but nothing looked familiar to Chuck.

We drove across the St. Johns River and found a restaurant they had gone to and even went inside to check it out.  The hostess was very kind and told us we were welcome to look around.  Of course, the original restaurant business was no longer there and several restaurants had operated out of that building since then.  Now, it is the Castaways Restaurant and it must be pretty good because it was very crowded for it being the middle of Sunday afternoon.

After we left the restaurant, I zoomed up Google Maps and found a campground on the St. Johns River that was not too far away.  We drove to Powells Campground and Chuck is pretty sure that this is where they camped. 

He called Jerry to see what he remembered about the campground.

What is so funny about their camping adventure here (although it wasn't at the time), is they both got very sunburned.  They got so sunburned that even their lips were sunburned and they could barely talk much less laugh about it.  I remember them telling us about their stopping at a McDonalds on their way back home and how the cashier could not understand what they were ordering because they could barely talk with their sunburned lips.

After leaving the St Johns River, we headed back towards Silver Springs.  We saw a sign for Half Moon Lake and drove down this very long sand road...

and followed the sign at the fork in the road

and down an even more sandy, bumpy road thickly lined with trees.

By this time, I'm beginning to wonder how Chuck and Jerry ever found this place.  Way back then, they didn't have Google Maps, a GPS, a cell phone, or a smartphone.  They may have had a map but that is all that "road-map Jerry" needed to get them there.  Sure enough, within a couple of hundred yards, we reached Half Moon Lake.

It was fun spending the day going down Chuck's memory lane of some old fishing trips.  And you know how it is with old fish stories.  They just keep getting bigger and better!

Back at Wilderness

When we arrived back at Wilderness RV Park in Silver Springs, we were assigned site #65, which is probably one of the best sites we have stayed on in the park.

The site is fairly level and faces the west so the "patio" side of the site is out of the sun most of the day.  Unfortunately, the weather was rainy, windy and/or cold most days so we didn't get to enjoy sitting outside much.

Chuck's trip back to St. John's Family Dentistry in St. Augustine went very well.  They use a new technology that takes a computer image of your tooth and actually makes the crown while you wait (unlike the old technology of getting an impression for the crown, getting a temporary installed, and then having to return to the dentist 3 weeks later to get you permanent crown).  The dentist was finished with the crown and even put in a filling in an adjacent tooth within a couple of hours.  Wow!  We're hoping our dentist back home in Nashville get this new technology!

On the way back to Silver Springs from the dentist appointment, we noticed these wispy clouds.  Can you see the seahorse in the clouds?

How about now?  If you look close, you can see his eye.

We spent most of the rest of our week at Wilderness doing a lot of little things that needed to be done (like fixing the screen door and getting new cables on Chuck's bike).  We also managed to get started on our 10,000 steps a day.  Most of the days it was kind of cold, windy or rainy.  On Saturday, it was warmer and very pleasant.

Later on Saturday, we had some fairly severe thunderstorms but the worst damage we had was our bikes fell over.  The rains were a good test for our new roof and guess what:  NO LEAKS!!!!!

An extra day in St. Augustine

Jennifer with RVRoof.com called us on Friday while we were walking around St. Augustine to tell us that they were going to need another day on the roof.  The polar vortex that was occurring across most of the country with temperatures at record lows also caused their shipments to get delayed.  The material needed to complete the top coat on the roof had not come in and Jennifer drove north while her supplier drove south so she could pick up the top coat material.  (We found out later she had to drive all the way from Green Cove Springs, FL, to Macon, GA.)

Fortunately, we were able to stay at the same hotel, for the same low rate, and in the same room, for another night.  The weather was cold and windy again so we spent most of the day Saturday just watching football games or reading in our room. 

We did go out for dinner to the Sunset Grille that was located just a couple of blocks down the street.  I had seen advertised that they had "award-winning" clam chowder so we had to check that out.  We both had a cup of the chowder.  It was very good but not as good as the New England clam chowder we had last year when we were in the Northeast.  We also split a shrimp combination dinner of 12 shrimp that were served blackened, grilled, and fried.  This was delicious also.

After our third night in the hotel, we were ready to be back home in the RV.  The hotel was O.K. for the price.  It was clean and comfortable and had free breakfast of cereal, toast, and pastries.  But by the last day, we were glad to be leaving.

Since we had a couple of hours before driving back to pick up the motorhome, we drove south a few miles to Fort Matanzas, a National Monument.  The word "matanzas" is Spanish for slaughters.  The river was named this because of the slaughters of the French by the Spanish in maintaining control of Florida when St. Augustine was established.

The one weakness to St. Augustine and the Castillo de San Marcos was this inlet to the south along the Matanzas river.

In 1742, almost 200 years after St. Augustine had been founded and almost 50 years after Castillo de San Marcos had been completed, the Spanish constructed Fort Matanzas to further protect St. Augustine from other intruders.

After its completion, Fort Matanzas successfully prevented an attack on St. Augustine by blocking the British from the south.

The National Park Service operates a ferry (for free) that will take you across the river to the fort but we didn't have enough time to take the ferry.  I got another stamp in my National Park passport book and we headed back to the car that was surrounded by more of those big, long-branched Florida trees.

I  wonder how old some of these trees are?

After leaving Fort Matanzas, we drove across the street to Crescent Beach.  The weather had been so cold and windy while we were staying in St. Augustine that we never went to the beach even though the hotel was right across the street from the beach.  We drove to a beach access and enjoyed the views for a few minutes on this nice sunny and WARM day.

The tide was coming in,

but there were a few people walking on the beach.

We stood there on the boardwalk and just enjoyed the view for a few minutes more before leaving to go pick up the motorhome.  I experimented with the Sepia setting which makes the photo look very old.

After leaving the beach, we drove to RVRoof.com to pick up the motorhome.  It was still in their shop when we arrived so we could climb up on their scaffolds to inspect the roof.  As far as we could tell, it looked great.  Then, Chuck pulled the motorhome out of their shop so we could try all the rooftop equipment (satellite, air conditioners, radio, and TV antenna) and they all worked fine.  The real test will be when we get our first rain which was predicted for later in the week.

Since we had not found any RV parks near St. Augustine that we liked, we decided to just go back to Wilderness RV Park in Silver Springs.  We knew we would have to drive the car back to St. Augustine on Tuesday for Chuck's dentist appointment; but it was only about a 90 minute drive and we preferred staying at the nicer and less expensive Wilderness RV Park until we go to the Tampa RV show later in the month.