Run and Rest

Today is Wednesday, August 29th. We are now farther up the road. In Clarksville, TN to be exact, just 1.9 miles from the Kentucky boarder, one of our short stopovers on our way west. In two more days we will have been on the road for three solid months. Can you believe it! Would you like to take a guess as to how many miles we have logged on the fifth-wheel in this time. Sorry, I didn’t hear you. Anyway, we have traveled over 3,000 miles. Yep, that’s right, and we haven’t been anywhere yet. According to our truck log, it has gone 6,000 miles in the same time period. We have kept the road hot. So far, we have been in five states.

Nothing special took place while we were at the State Park in Cordele, GA. We just had a rest from the drive and the two weeks we acted the tourist in Florida. The Cordele park was very nice and roomy, but again plagued by those nasty little black gnats that are common to south Georgia. They did have a nice museum of military history from the Revolutionary War to the Gulf War. They have a number of typical aircraft and other military equipment exhibited from the various wars. You see pictures here of a B29 Super Fortress from WW II and Tanks.

We pulled into the Trav-L-Park in Chattanooga that we stayed in on a previous jaunt south. You remember, the one that is on the Civil War battle field. This was just for a one-night stay. It was hot. We were tired. It took a while to get the trailer positioned level. On the boards. Off the boards. On the boards again. The sweat was poring off us and we were ready for some cool air. I plugged in our 50 amp land line (our electrical cord for those of you not in tune with RV talk) expecting the air conditioner to give that special “kick on” sound it makes, already anticipating the cool air to come. Nothing. No reassuring air conditioner sound. Carolyn went into the trailer to check if anything else was on. Nothing.

In situations like this we have another card to play. I slipped on the adapter and plugged into the 30 amp socket. Bingo! That welcome sound of the air conditioner was heard. But wait, we are paying for 50 amp service. We complete our set-up operation, and I call the office. I tell them the problem and they say they will send someone. In a while, a knock on the door. I open the door and a guy with a white mustache and a cap to match said, “You got 50 amp.” “Can’t be”, I say, “it’s not working.” “Yes it is”, he says. We went outside to the utility post. He had some sort of gage plugged into the 50 amp receptacle that had two red lights glowing. “See, you have 50 amp”, he assures me. I am not convinced. I unplug from the 30 amp and plug into the 50 amp. “Your air conditioner won’t come on now. It will take five minutes to recycle.” “It doesn’t take that long”, I tell him. We wait. Nothing happens. I unplug the 50 and plug in the 30. Bingo! Again. I could not convince him that the 50 amp was not working. He says there is something wrong with my system.

We cooled a little while and I decided I was not happy with only 30 amp. With 30 amp, when we try to use the microwave, it trips a breaker. The site next to ours was empty and that utility post was in reach of my electrical cord. I unplug from the 30 amp, drag the cord to the next site and plug into the 50 amp. Bingo! Air. I went to the office and told them that I was using the service from next door since no one was there. “We have someone coming into that site later,” they tell me. We discuss the situation and they say it will be OK, they will put the new arrival in another spot. Problem solved.

We did our usual for the evening and decided that we were tired and prepared for bed. We are getting into bed around 10 pm when we see lights and hear noises from the site next door where we are plugged into the service. We raise a shade. Sure enough, there is a large motor home setting up next door. I had better check this out. I pull on something presentable and go out side. I speak to the guy who just climbed down from the Motor Home with two dogs, a woman and another male. He says they have the site reserved. I say the office said no one would use the site. They have to have 50 amp. I want to have 50 amp. In a nut shell. I went back to 30 amp and called it a night. We were leaving early the next morning anyway.

So, we arrived in Clarksville. We rest a couple days and continue on our way. Next stop is Edwardsville, IL, close to the Saint Louis area. Rest a couple days and move on. Booneville, MO; Lyndon, KS; Russell, KS; Colby, KS. It is our “run” and “rest” period until we reach Colorado. When we get to CO, we will have sat down in nine states. I’ll get this posted to the blog before I run out of WiFi somewhere up the line. You’ll hear from us again down the road.

Kissimmee

I need to correct a mistake that I made in my blog last week. I know it is hard to believe that I could make a mistake. As the saying goes, “I have made only one mistake in my life, that is when I thought I was mistaken, and wasn’t.” I told you that we were going to see a cousin in Brooksville, FL that I hadn’t seen in more than thirty years. Will I was wrong, it had been more than fifty years. So we had a nice “catch up” visit, but no advance in the genealogical knowledge I was hoping for.

We got to Kissimmee alright and settled into a fairly nice campground off the beaten tourist path, some twenty miles from the Disney attractions. We were there for five days and not another camper came into the park. It is mostly settled by permanent or full-time residents, but nice enough except for a few problems getting a strong signal on the WiFi service.

We were able to catch up with our daughter Debbie and meet her boyfriend, Mike Murphy, and family on their vacation trip from California to Florida. We were able to join them in several excursions in the area. One of the most enjoyable trips was to the Kennedy Space Center. It is an amazingly large place with lots of informational exhibits. It took us the whole day to get through it. I have included some pictures from this visit, a picture of one of the two launch pads, the fuel tanks on which the shuttle sets and the shuttle “crawler”.

The crawler is an amazing piece of equipment. This is what transports the shuttle to the launch pad. It is huge! I haven’t seen any info that tells how truly large it is, but you can tell from the picture that it is bigger than a house. The statistics we were given are amazing. It moves on eight tractor feet. Each tract has 57 cleats and each cleat weighs 2,000 pounds. You can do the math. That is one big “dude”! The crawler moves the shuttle from the hangar to the launch pad, a distance of three miles. This three mile journey takes eight hours and requires a lot of fuel. We were told that the crawler gets 35 feet per gallon. That is 150 gallons per mile. The trip starts at midnight. I don’t know if this is to keep it from view or they just have to start early to arrive on time.

We also went Airboat riding in the marshes, the purpose of which is to see gators and other wild life. Of course we didn’t see a thing except a few cattle in the water. It turned out to be another “Murphy/Parsons law” effect. But what would you expect with seven Murphys and three Parsons on board. We watched a group of the family do simulated sky-diving in a wind tower. We spent one, long, hot, tiring, enjoyable day at Epcot Center playing the tourist. So in the almost two weeks we spent in the Sunshine State we covered a lot of central Florida and went from coast to coast.

We left Florida early on Thursday morning for the 330 plus mile trip to Cordele, GA. We are now at the Georgia Veterans Memorial State Park. We will continue our trip from here on Sunday, August 26, going north and then west. We will be making short one, two and three day stops on our way to Colorado by early September. We’ll talk to you again farther up the road.

Gainsville

As indicated, the trip from Tifton, GA was a short one. People have wondered why anyone would go to “hot” Florida in August. Well for one thing, it is cooler here now than in more northerly spots on the map, and we have left the irritating gnats behind. In this area, we have not encountered any bugs.

The campground, Williston Crossings RV Resort, is one of the nicest we have been in. Nice concrete pads and patios, nice landscaping with plenty of room, full hook-ups, the security of a gated community with guards, and cable TV (which we never seem to watch). The only problem is that the sites are all back-ins and at 90 degrees to the road which is about ten feet wide. With RVs and vehicles on the other side, it makes it tight to maneuver a 55 foot rig into. The neighbor directly across the road came out to protect his vehicles from damage and helped direct me into the spot. It took a lot of inching back and forth, but we got it in position.

The highlight of this portion of the trip is being with our long-time friends and former business partners who live in Gainsville, and who we have not seen in some dozen years, Dan and Ann Sherwood. They are the most gracious hosts and have treated us royally. They took us to Cedar Key, FL, on the west coast, for lunch. We ate at one of those quaint places called Fog’s Landing, pictured here, then took in other points of interest. We have enjoyed wonderful meals in their home, which is secluded in the woods at the end of a half-mile private road. The woods here has its own entertainment, which I must tell you about.

You see the little creature looking through the glass door in the picture above? That is one of the raccoons that shows up daily looking for a handout. This one female raccoon comes around at about 3:30 pm every day. She looks in the family room door and waits for Dan to bring some grub. This is made more remarkable since raccoons are mostly nocturnal and normally sleeping at this time of the day. Because of the heat and dry conditions in the area, it is hard for them to find enough to eat, so Dan, who is obviously an animal lover, decided to give them a hand. He makes a mixture of two types of dry dog food and one can of dog food with gravy and puts it together with some four or five bagels and hot water. He makes enough to fill some nine or ten good sized dog bowls, which he places in the back yard close to the edge of the woods.

When Dan goes out the door with the large bowl of food, the raccoon stands on its hind legs and waits to be handed a bagel, which she takes directly out of his hand without fear. The raccoon moves a little way off on the porch to eat while Dan fills the other bowls with food. Soon another raccoon appears, then another, then another until all the bowls are occupied with one or two raccoons eagerly eating. Then some foxes begin to show. They are small foxes with red color on the face and chest, outsized by the raccoons. The foxes have to “out fox” the coons to get a bit of food, since they are outnumbered. The fox family is a male and female with three or four offspring. The “daddy” has an injured left front paw and has to limp. The first night we witnessed this “wild life restaurant” there were 11 coons and 3 foxes. Last night, an opossum joined the group. I am told that as many as 22 raccoons have showed up to eat at one time.

We have continued to enjoy outings to places of interest with the Sherwoods, and more meals with the family, their son Danton and Shelton, Ann’s bother and other interesting friends of the family. We had a most interesting visit to the Museum of Natural History on the University of Florida campus and a long walk up and down 213 steps into Devil Millhopper Sink Hole. I understand that in years past, say the 1950s, the Sherwoods used to search for shark’s teeth here before it became a State Park and before the steps when one had to walk, crawl, slip and slide in and out of the sink hole.

The Sherwoods are busy getting signs, banners and decorations ready to welcome their son Lt. Col. Van Sherwood back from his second assignment to Iraq. Van has distinguished himself as an Entomologist and has made many important contributions to the Army effort, attested to by the awards and decorations he has received for his efforts to improve the health and wellbeing of the people of Iraq. He is returning to Gainsville on the 21st, with a big party on the 26th. He will be reassigned to Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, DC. We wish him and his family well and are sorry we can not join the party.

Today is Friday, August 17. We are taking a trip to Brooksville to see a cousin who I have not seen in some 30 + years. Brooksville is about 70 miles south of Williston. Betty King Kessler, is on my maternal Grandmother’s side of the family. I hope we can get some “King” genealogical information from her for which I have been looking for a while. We’ll let you know how that goes. Tomorrow we make the move to Kissimmee, only some 121 miles from where we are now, and meet up with our daughter Debbie. We’ll talk to you again from near the land of Mickey Mouse.
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Toward Flordia

Yesterday was moving day. We went from Winder, GA to Tifton in southern Georgia a distance of about 235 miles. This is only a short three-day stop-over on our way south. Boy, did we get a welcome. 101 degrees with 111 degrees heat index. And bugs…. in your mouth, in your eyes and ears. Little black gnats everywhere.

We had special visits again with friends and family during our week at Fort Yargo Park. We also took time to visit Chateau Elan Winery and Resort. It is a beautiful French Provincial mansion on 3,500 acres. Besides the vineyards and winery, it has four golf courses, seven restaurants, a 33,000 square foot Spa mansion and an Inn. You see a picture of a portion of it here. Also pictured is a tee shirt from the Winery. I liked the saying, it is perfect for me of course, but it cost 20 bucks. I am too cheap to put out $20 for a tee shirt, so I took a picture of it instead. In case you can’t read the tee shirt for some reason, it says:

“Vintage Person
Perfectly Aged
Over 70 Years
Still Improving
Reserved But Not Subdued”

Today, August 10, is a special day. It is Debbie’s (our daughter) birthday. The whole country of Ecuador celebrates her birthday with parades, fireworks and the like. It is nice of them, don’t you think? Of course it is incidental that it also happens to be Ecuador’s Independence Day. But when we lived there, we declared it “Debbie” Day. I’ll not tell you how old she is, but we are approaching our 50th Wedding Anniversary and she was born in our first year of marriage. So there!

So, this past week has been another week without mishaps. Do you think this might be a trend? The only trouble we seem to have is with the WiFi service. The park where we now are promised WiFi internet. Ok, we have it. Oops, it’s gone again. No, there it is again! On and off, like a firefly’s behind. When it is on it has very low strength and it takes longer than a dial-up service. We will most likely go out in town and look for a motel or restaurant that has wireless service. After all, I can’t post this blog without service.

We are here for only three days, then off to Florida. The next leg of the trip is a short one, only about 168 miles. We’ll catch up with you again when we reach Florida.

Week Nine

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We have talked a lot about that “infamous” bay window that we spent so much time and effort to have installed. We thought that you would at least like to see a picture of it, if you haven’t had the personal privilege. You will see the outside view in the attached picture of our campsite at Fort Yargo State Park, Georgia. The inside view shows its location in our dinning area. You know of course, it folds in for travel.

This is week number nine of our “road adventure.” True, we have had our share of ups and downs, bumps and dings, but we are determined to turn over a new leaf. We will be striving to make this truly a Travel Log and not a “Trouble” Log. This week has gone by without bruises, except on the arms and legs perhaps. We seem to have a way of creating those colorful little spots on parts of our body. This week has been a breeze. No dire mishaps or problems to speak of.

We enjoyed our stay at the Countryside Resort Campground in Lebanon, for ten days. We were able to meet a lot of new people. There were so many Motor Homes coming and going that we sometimes wondered if we were camping in a bus depot. We were there for ten days and had some five different “motor home” neighbors on one side of us. It is surprising what strangers will tell you about their personal lives, but we wont tell. I suppose they figure that they will never see us again, so who are we going to tell? We were also glad to have visits from family. Carolyn’s nephew and family, Charles and Cecilia Baird with son Charlie, an aspiring NFL football player, age eight, paid us a welcomed visit, and we had a good time at dinner with our friends the Martins of Indiana. We were also pleased to see the Trotter cousins from time to time.

We are now, as you may have gathered, at Fort Yargo State Park. This is our third trip to this park. We think it is just super nice. But it may be a while before we get back again………I know you didn’t miss me, between the last sentence and this one, but I have been gone….to dinner. We had spaghetti with Carolyn’s homemade sauce, cheese biscuits made from scratch, tossed salad with fresh hand chopped ingredients and fresh brewed iced tea. Boy, this camping business is sure tough. We ate at our dinning table under the bay window, looking out on the forest without a camper to block our view. Carolyn said, “You know, I could live here….if they only had sewer!” That, and the fact that they only allow a two-week stay.

Now, where was I? Oh yes, we are going to be traveling a long way before returning to this area. In our nine weeks of full-timing we have logged 3,635 miles on the Fifth-Wheel already. We are keeping track of all our expense in an effort to see it this life style is more or less expensive than the conventional “house” life. At this point, because of all the major outlay for the expensive mishaps we have had, the jury is still out on that. However, I can tell you how our expenses divide out. Our expenses for two months are running like this, not counting those “deductibles” with which we all suffer to keep the insurance companies afloat :

Campground Fees 28.5%
Food 17.5% (53.3% of which was restaurants)
RV Supplies 17.5%
Diesel Fuel 15.3%
Misc. 12.9% (You know, those things everyone has to buy.)
Truck expenses 6%
Entertainment less than 1% (one movie and two newspapers)

For you accountants out there, as they say in public statistics; the total may not equal 100% due to rounding. We still don’t know what all these figures mean, but we will let you know when we find out. Chances are that we will not return to this area until next Spring or Summer.

Our immediate plans have us here at Fort Yargo for a week, then Tiffton, GA for three days on our way to Florida for two weeks. I know what you are thinking, who goes to Florida in August? Well, we do! There is a good reason, and we will let you know about that in due time. We’ll be talking to you again on the other side of next week.