I guess when you are about as south as you can get in the continental United States, north is the only way you can go, but we started driving north intentionally today. We’re going to be spending a few days in the Panhandle of Florida, around the Panama City area, and to get there is nearly 11 hours of driving, according to Google Maps. We planned to bust the drive up into two days so that we’re not spending one long day just driving. I was looking at the maps this morning at what the best routes should be and figured out that a very familiar place was almost exactly halfway. That place is Florida Baptist Youth Camp, where we had just spent three weeks. So this was our destination for the day.
Before we left the Everglades, we stopped at Royal Palms and hiked the Gumbo Limbo trail. We figured out eventually that Gumbo Limbo is a tree with reddish bark. The wood is easily carved and was used to make carousel horses before the advent of plastic. This short trail winds through a dense hammock of mangroves and Gumbo Limbo trees, often completely blotting out the sunshine.
Also along this trail was a small pond, looking very still in the early morning sunlight. One wonders, however, how many alligators are lurking just out of sight. We just enjoyed this from the trail.
Nearby is a Nike Missile Base, a relic of the Cold War, hastily constructed during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. All of our missile defense systems pointed at Russia over the North Pole, however, a real threat was the Russians use of Cuba as a possible launch location. So we pointed missiles in that direction also, and the missile base was built for this purpose.
They couldn’t put the missiles in underground silos, like everything in North Dakota, as they would immediately fill up with water. Rather, the missiles were stored in barns and outside on their launch pads. None of these missiles were ever fired, and the place was decommissioned and turned over to the National Park Service in 1979. One of those barns was preserved, along with artifacts and an inert missile. Interesting to see.
Kind of hard to head north, knowing that snow and cold awaits, but turn northward we must, so the rest of the day was travel. And it was a hot travel day, with temperatures around 85 degrees for most of the day. And now we are parked on the same campsite we were on for three weeks. Just like old times.
Our quest for the perfect donut was rewarded this morning. Wasn’t exactly a donut but it was a cinnamon roll, which I consider to be of equal status. On our way up to another section of the National Park, we stopped in Homestead at Knaus Berry Farm, a family farm and bakery that has been operated by the same family for over 50 years. According to some of the information we found, their cinnamon rolls are legendary and we decided to test this.
So we lumbered into the parking lot in our RV just as the school across the street was starting, which caused some delays getting into the place. But even sitting there on the street in sight of the bakery, we could smell the cinnamon rolls. Smelled so good!
We were going to pick up two for each of us, but the price was better for a half dozen, so we came away with six cinnamon rolls. They were soft and moist, just like gramma’s old recipe. I had one for a mid-morning snack a little later. It was fantastic. Just like gramma’s old recipe. Deb, our culinary expert, is convinced that they used lard in the recipe, just like gramma’s old recipe. This is the secret to an out-of-this-world cinnamon roll.
If you ever are in Homestead, Florida, go there. You won’t be disappointed.
First stop after the bakery run was Shark Valley. There is a visitor center here, but the main attraction is the lookout tower which gives a good view of the vast areas of grassland that makes up a large portion of the Everglades. This tower is seven miles from the parking lot, and is accessible by walking, bike, or a periodic tram that runs back and forth. The loop path to the tower is paved, making for an easy and pleasant bike ride.
We probably should have started a count of the alligators we saw on the way, or maybe not. We would have surely lost count. There were dozens. And those were just the ones laying right along the trail. Most of them just laid there with their eyes closed, unconcerned that we were taking their picture. At one point on the trail, we approached several people all gawking in the same direction and saw that they were all looking at some baby alligators perched on mama’s back and playing in the weeds. So cool.
It took longer than expected to drive here from our camp site, which left us in a dilemma: we had one more night reserved at the campsite; do we drive all the way back there for tonight or just move on and figure out a different place to stay for tonight? In the end, we decided to go back along the Loop Road towards our campsite since the fastest way go get back north would be on the Florida Turnpike.
So we headed west on US-41 along the north side of the National Park and drove into Big Cypress National Preserve. US-41 follows the Tamiami Canal, one of the waterways used to manage the flow of water through the Everglades area. For several miles as you drive west, this just looks like a wide ditch, with the occasional outfitter offering airboat rides. A little later on, however, once the road curves into the Big Cypress area, the terrain changes from grassland to stands of Cypress trees and other vegetation, and the canal, now shaded by thick stands of cypress and mangroves, is a haven for lots of wildlife, including scads of alligators. It’s hard to see them really well at sixty miles per hour, but we saw a lot of them.
We stopped at the Clyde Butcher Gallery. This guy is described as the Ansel Adams of the Everglades, and takes black and white photographs exclusively using large format cameras. His prints are usually quite large, with a big price to match. Cool to see and window shop.
Shortly down the road is the Florida Oasis Visitor Center. This marks the south end of the Florida Trail, Florida’s version of our North Country Trail. This runs 1500 miles across most of Florida and ends here. Also here is a boardwalk overlooking the canal, with dozens of alligators lounging around. Fun to watch them from a safe height.
We turned off US-41 onto the Loop Road, a 24-mile, mostly dirt road that goes through some dense cypress stands and mangrove stands. This reminded me a bit of the game drives we took when we were in Africa in 1990. Drive for a bit, stop and watch the wildlife. Drive for a little bit, stop and watch the wildlife. And again. And again. Along the road were lots more alligators, egrets, herons, and of course stands of trees that were beautiful in their own right.
The road was very bad in spots and with all the stops we made, it took us a long time. Add to that the 1.5 hours it took to get back to the campsite and we were ready to get out and take a walk, which we did. We walked around the campground for a while and stopped by the amphitheater where a ranger was giving a talk on the birds of the park. But the mosquitoes started coming out so we returned to the RV.
Tomorrow we start heading north. We’ll have to get used to the cold all over again.
It’s hard to grasp for us Northerners, being hot in January, but here we are, seventy degrees early in the morning, and the forecast calls for a high in the mid-eighties. We’ll just have to make the best of it.
First stop this morning was Nine Mile Pond, a couple of ponds amongst the grassy marsh and mangrove islands that is popular with fishermen and paddlers. Our intention was to paddle the canoe trail. Not all nine miles of it, but taking the shortcut in the loop, making it about 3.5 miles.
The fishermen were out in force, but we encountered only one other person in a kayak, otherwise we had the trail to ourselves.
This was a fun trail. The first half hour or so was spent navigating through small mangrove tunnels. When the paddles are longer than the tunnel is wide, it makes paddling rather difficult. But the tunnels eventually opened up into larger areas of water with clumps of mangroves scattered about, and some areas of marsh grassland where birds were busy looking for their next meal.
The trail was marked by numbered white poles. We would have been completely lost without them as this is a rather large area where every direction looks the same, at least from a kayak.
There’s no current here, so you don’t move if you don’t paddle and for the first half of the trip, we were going against a stiff breeze, which helped keep us cool in the increasing heat, but took more energy to keep moving forward.
Pole number 44 marked the beginning of the shortcut. Other poles marked the path of the shortcut, straight through a very shallow are with lots of decaying plant matter floating on the surface. It was like paddling in a vast bowl of soup, so shallow at times that the kayaks were hitting the muddy bottom, requiring more effort just to keep moving. Other times the water was a little more clear, and the wind, now behind us, would propel us along when we held our paddles in the air.
There was supposed to be some good wildlife viewing at a couple points along the trail, and if you were at the right time, a large crocodile has been sighted in these parts. Alas, we did not encounter the croc, but we did see and hear quite a few birds. And fish. And turtles. One large one was quite near to my kayak and I attempted to take his picture several times, from both above the water and below by sticking my phone in the water and taking a picture. But none of them really turned out well.
The whole loop took us over two hours and we got back shortly before lunch. We took a quick hike on a boardwalk trail to West Lake on the way to Flamingo, then made lunch in the visitor center parking lot at Flamingo, which is as far south in the Everglades and in Florida that you can drive without going to the keys.
After lunch we walked around the grounds for a while, sitting by the water’s edge and watching the manatees surface, and looking at a large osprey nest built right next to a canoe/kayak outfitter’s building. The activity didn’t seem to bother the osprey one bit.
Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the effort expended this morning in the kayaks, probably some of both, but we were both feeling somewhat draggy, so we went back to the RV and took a nap.
We then decided to take a bike ride. One brochure suggested a 12-mile loop consisting partly of the main park road, the Rowdy Bend Trail, and the Snake Bight Trail. The road was easy enough, but the Rowdy Bend Trail is an unmaintained trail that allows bikes for some reason. The trail is a narrow, overgrown mess that gets quite muddy in spots, and we were constantly hopping tree roots, getting slapped by branches, and walking the bikes through mud holes. Not at all what we expected and the brochure didn’t say anything about this.
It took quite a while to navigate the 2.6 miles of this trails and when we reached the Snake Bight trail, it seemed like a super highway even though it was only about a foot wide. It was relatively smooth, straight, and the branches are kept cut back.
For most of the trip back along the main road, the bike tires were flinging bits of mud up in the air.
On the way back to our campsite at Long Pine, we stopped at Mahogany Hammock, a stand of old growth mahogany trees that were missed when the rest of the area was logged for mahogany years ago. It is a thick jungle of trees and understory that would be impossible to get through, were it not for the boardwalk trail we were on.
Last stop was Pahayokee Overlook, which has another boardwalk trail to an overlook where vast areas of grassland can be seen. We got there just in time for the sunset which could be seen through the trees.
Back at the campsite, we had leftovers for dinner and watched our church service, recorded earlier today. The 9am service was quite empty. We weren't there and quite a few people stayed home because of seven inches of snow that fell yesterday. And here we are trying to keep cool.
We still had quite a few miles to go before reaching the Everglades so we made sure we took off on time. We were on the road by 8am. It was a little bit of a chilly morning but it was supposed to get rather warm, particularly as we were going south. It was also cloudy. Something a bit unexpected after so much sunshine over the last several days. The clouds stuck with us most of the day, which may have worked to our advantage.
To break up the 4.5 hour drive, we stopped at the John D MacArthur Beach State Park, which is near all the Palm Beaches (North Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, and probably a few more). This state park was established in 1989, and preserves some of what little beach front property there is along these barrier islands. The high-rises can be seen to the north and the south, but here is an oasis of beach and dune and trees, and part of an inter-coastal waterway.
I had expected this place to by very busy as it is a popular park, today is Saturday, and the temperatures by now were in the pleasant 70’s. But the clouds and the wind must have kept most people home, because the one parking lot we parked in was completely deserted, and most of the others had very few cars. The beach itself was occupied by perhaps a dozen people.
We took a pleasant walk on the beach and then headed back to the RV for lunch. After lunch we hit the road again. The snorkeling and the kayaking that this park offers will have to wait for another time.
Another couple of hours on the Florida Turnpike brought us to Homestead, where we fueled up and drove into Everglades National Park. We picked up some maps and suggestions at the visitor center, and then went to the Royal Palm Trailhead and took a walk on the Anhinga Trail. This is a short trail through the grassy swamp areas that offers a variety of wildlife viewing. We wandered about this area, seeing the alligators and the turtles and the herons.
Back in the trailhead parking lot, we had smoked brisket for dinner, another one of those freezer meals specifically for times like these when we don’t have time to prepare anything. This one was prepared weeks ago, when I smoked an enormous brisket which we enjoyed for several meals afterwards. Some of that brisket went into ziplock bags and were stored away for this trip. 3.5 weeks into the trip, and many of those freezer meals are now gone, opening up space for more ice cream.
Cell signal here is still good and we talked with family until got dark and then drove to our reserved campsite at Long Pine Campground. Beautiful evening and quite warm--it’s still 75 degrees. May make it a bit difficult to sleep.
I put together a collage of video clips and still photos into a video to show some of the things we have been doing the last few weeks. If it looks a little grainy, make sure that your YouTube settings are set to High Definition:
We spent our last night at the Florida Baptist Youth Camp. As far as campsites go, it was a good one. It was quiet, had full hookups, the price was right, and the neighbors were terrific. We couldn’t ask for a better spot. Maybe that’s why we stayed for three weeks.
We just pulled in to our new camping spot for this evening. We’re at the Manatee Hammock Campground in Titusville, right near Cape Canaveral. We arrived after dark and the office was closed so we were on our own to find our assigned campsite. It took two circles around the campground to find it. There are no campsite number designations anywhere, so we were going off a campground map that had no labels on the roads. It should have been easy. Just look for the only open campsite. But in a large crowded campground, an open campsite looks just like a single parking space.
Today we went to the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. I didn’t really research this all that much, just thought it would be cool to go see where all the rockets are launched. I did look up the launch schedule and saw that there were no launches during the time we would be there. Bummer. That would have been cool to see. I really didn’t know what to expect, but what I didn’t really expect was a theme park.
We were standing at the front entrance, looking at the sign listing the entry fees, trying to pick our jaws up from the ground, when two other couples came up and had the same reaction we did. There was that moment of indecision and then the resigned “well, we’re here”, before they continued to the kiosk to pay their seventy bucks a head for entry. We arrived at the same conclusion and soon were inside the complex, looking at the Rocket Garden.
I was strolling around the Rocket Garden, when I overheard someone ask a nearby park employee if any of these rockets had flown any actual missions.
“No ma’am,” he said. “If we wanted the real hardware, we would have to dredge it up from the bottom of the Atlantic. These are all prototypes or replicas.”
At least they had replicas here.
We explored the Gateway, the newest exhibit building whose theme was deep space exploration. I found this exhibit to be rather heavy on lights and sound and fluff and rather light on explanation.
I’m an engineer, give me some data!
I forgot to take a picture, so I got this one off their web site. Complete with the purple lighting
One display was a touch screen in which you were supposed to choose the optimal time to turn on the oxygen and the hydrogen to get the pictorial rocket engine to ignite successfully. My mission failed every time. This type of display would probably appeal to someone more accustomed to the fast reactions needed in video games.
In real life, I would have just turned on the oxygen valve and the hydrogen valve and struck a match. Works every time.
What I thought was hilarious was one display that described a living quarters needed for deep space exploration. It explained that you have to plan and take all the supplies with you and you had to be self-contained. The display showed a few things such as tiny sleeping areas, water storage, food storage, etc. While the display did show an actual sleeping nook and a few other sort-of realistic looking items, most of the display appeared to be graphics printed on cardboard and it all looked rather cheap.
What was so funny about it is that I do all that right now. It’s called living in an RV. Nearly everything they described, except the adjustments that need to be made for zero-G, is exactly everything I need to do when traveling in a small RV.
I have a new name for my RV. I’m gonna call it DSRV, for Deep Space RV. We'll order matching logo jumpsuits. Just call us RVnauts...
Retirement, the final frontier.
These are the voyages of the Sprinter van DeepSpaceRV.
It's mission: To explore strange and beautiful places,
To seek out the advancement of God's kingdom,
And to obediently go where the Lord leads.
(With a nod to Star Trek)
It wasn’t all cardboard and tinfoil. There were a couple of bona fide artifacts there. We were ushered through the launch control room for all the Apollo missions and they had an entire building dedicated to the space shuttle Atlantis.
We spent some time in the Atlantis building, including going on the launch simulator, which tipped you on your back and shook you around a bit and made some loud noises.
And, after a rather lengthy and theatrical introduction on the way into the building, the projection wall in front of us went clear and the Atlantis could be seen beyond, a silent reminder of a chapter in the space exploration story. Artemis is the new thrust, although details are few.
We also took the bus tour to the Race to the Moon which presented details of the Apollo programs. More theatrical presentations although there was a little more real stuff here, including a Lunar Rover trainer, a Saturn V rocket, and an actual piece of moon rock. You could say I actually got to touch the moon.
This place has another hallmark of theme parks: Long queue lines and interminable wait times. It’s a good thing we were here on a weekday and the traffic was lighter than usual. Even with this, we spent a fair amount of time waiting in line.
We found the information presented here to be in a rather disjointed way. Several times we were left wondering where to go, particularly when waiting in line, as the signage was rather sparse. And queue lines often went around blind corners, leaving you to wonder just how long you would be waiting in line.
When it all shut down at 5pm, we went out for pizza and then got some groceries. So it was dark when we finally arrived at our campground. Tomorrow morning we’ll leave early for the Everglades.
Our second SOWER project is in the books. Today was the last day of work and was mainly clean-up and wrap-up of the projects that were going on. After finishing installing a light above the volleyball court, I actually wielded a paintbrush for a while and helped touch up the carpetball games in the gym. It took me a while to put away all the electrical stuff that had piled in the basket of the lift; three weeks accumulation of leftovers and pieces of wire can add up. I wore a couple different hats briefly, helping to assemble a tile saw for another SOWER who is on assignment here for three months and is renovating a couple bathrooms, and fixing the clothes dryer in Bo’s house that had somehow ingested a dryer sheet into its fan.
After finishing the last of the painting and cleaning up the brushes, Jim and I supervised Denny, who was tuning up the camp’s collection of chainsaws. The last day of a project is typically like this, with many ending early because the individual projects are completed.
A couple of the notable projects completed for this group: the mural, the pickle ball court, the storage room behind the kitchen, the lighting, and a few others.
Two of the couples left right after work and saying good-bye was a little hard because we have gotten to know them and have worked beside them for these three weeks. We stood for a few moments, saying the good-byes and even shedding a few tears before Rich and Margie’s big RV lumbered out of its position. Bob and Debi pulled out soon after. Now there is a big empty space in the neighborhood and it is a bit quieter around here.
We leave tomorrow morning. The bikes and kayaks are all secured on the back, all we have to do tomorrow morning is fill up with water and empty the waste tanks and we’re on the road again. Stay tuned for what happens next.
We had our last game night, playing Sweep the Table for a few hours. Somewhat smaller crowd now that four have left, but a great time nonetheless.
Well, for some of us, at least. For the rest of us, it’s business as usual, although we’re starting to wind down projects and wrap them up as we only have one day to go.
One day! It all went by so quickly. We’re entering that bittersweet time when everyone realizes that things are coming to an end and this group of friends who were strangers just three weeks ago will now go our separate ways. So we did what any group of friends would do before going every which way: we took a group picture. Not one but several. Just a couple of them here but I think they turned out quite nicely.
You’re looking at a group of people that I feel super-privileged to be a part of. Most of them have shared in some way of their lives, either through leading one of the devotional times before work starts in the morning, or in casual conversations. Each one has a story, and what binds us together is the common thread through all those stories. And that thread is God’s amazing grace in our lives and His enabling power. Whether it’s his working in powerful ways during mission trips, or his healing for a serious medical condition, or something else, these stories are an encouragement to us all and a testimony to the greatness of our God. To God be the glory!
The women took the day off today, all hopping in the one vehicle that would fit six women, a crew-cab pickup truck. If you want to know what they did, you’ll have to ask them as they did what women do when they go to town together: go shopping. I’m sure there are many more details that are probably beyond this guy’s comprehension. So we’ll leave it at that.
Back here at camp, we continued our projects. As projects start to wrap up, the last item on many of those projects is the painting. So there was a lot of painting going on today. Bob and Jim continued with the pickle ball court, Denny wandered off to paint the Bridge to Nowhere, and Rich and the other Jim put the finishing touches on the storage room door behind the kitchen. This afternoon, I came by and found Rich and Jim tearing out an old cabinet in the back of the kitchen, so new projects are still going on.
Me, I just string wire and hang lights. The wire for today had to be buried as Bo wanted a light over the volleyball court. The nearest electrical panel was 125 feet away so it was time to dig a trench. Fortunately, this whole area is sand. Unfortunately, there are lots of roots in the sand. It took all morning, but I managed to bury the entire wire, using a shovel, a pickaxe, an axe, and a Kubota tractor. So now the one volleyball pole has a box on it, but I couldn’t put the mast up for the light because the lift wasn’t working. I figured out that it depends on temperature. Above about 75 degrees, it just quits. So tomorrow morning, when it is cooler, I’ll put the mast up and put the light on top.
At lunch time, I had to lay on the bed for a while. I’m not used to this kind of heavy work.
I went out after dark and took another picture using the drone of the camp. With all the added lights, I’m quite sure you can see this place easily from outer space.
Two nights ago we had to run the air conditioning to be able to sleep. It was quite a warm and muggy night. Last night we had the heat on. Kind of like back home in late April or early May. Only here it’s January.
Despite a cool start, today was a lovely day. Mid-70’s, sunny, light breeze, perfect for working outside. I was on light duty again, and spent most of the day hanging a large parking lot light on the side of the gymnasium building to light up the mini-golf area. This is an open gymnasium, with a roof but no walls on three sides, so I was able to access both the inside and the outside with the lift. However, I had to be careful to lay down something under the path of the boom to catch all the dribbles of oil so it wouldn’t get all over the concrete. I was only partly successful. Oil falling from 15 or so feet tends to splatter widely.
Several of the women are working on a large mural on a block wall, with Debi designing and spearheading it and others taking turns and joining in at times to help with the painting. Those that weren’t painting were moving from building to building, cleaning the rooms. This place is going to be spotless by the time we leave.
Bob has spent the last couple of days so far laying out and painting the lines for a pickle ball court in the middle of the outdoor basketball court. Jim joined him today as this is a rather large task, simply because it is taking so much paint. Blacktop soaks up paint like crazy, so it takes a while. This will really be a nice court when it is all done. I don’t think it will be done in time for any of us to actually play pickle ball. I’ve never played pickle ball, sometime I should probably try it.
We had Shipshewana brats on the grill for dinner. Another fantastic meal and a little bit more room in the freezer. We usually leave home with the fridge and freezer completely stuffed and then work through it slowly during the trip. A week’s worth of travel usually opens enough room for a container of ice cream. Three weeks in, we now have two containers of ice cream in the freezer.
After dinner we walked around the camp to survey the progress. It was one of those evenings that you just don’t want to go inside because it is so nice outside. It was nearly dark when we arrived at the mini-golf area. It was like daylight here because of the light I put up today. I love it when a plan comes together.
We played a round of mini-golf, not really keeping track of the score. If we did, Deb probably won by a country mile.
We have received a fair amount of ribbing for our quest for the perfect donut. We have lamented the dearth of bakeries selling good donuts around here and others have picked up on this and teased us, and particularly Deb, because of this. When we have played Scatter, those who lose the game due to missing the pegs three times in a row were said to go into the donut hole. One of the women bought Deb a toy plush donut, complete with sprinkles. Today, Rich came by in his pickup truck and stopped in front of our RV where I was emptying a few things from my bike bags. He had a large box from the Donut King in Leesburg.
“Here,” he said, “take half of this donut and give it to Deb and tell her the donut monster stopped by to deliver a donut. And he had a little forked tail and ate half of it.”
In the box was an enormous donut, complete with sprinkles. I took the half, put it on a plate, and gave it to Deb when she returned from a walk. We texted a picture of her and the donut back to Rich. We also had the donut for dessert, something we don’t usually do for a meal. It was delicious.
It doesn’t take long to figure out where each person’s talent lies. Especially by week 3, if there’s a task to do that fits with someone’s interest or talent, that person will probably doing that job.
Take Denny. He was a mechanic for many years. He was working with me for the first few days, sometimes being the ground crew for the lift that wants to leave its operator stranded high in the air at inopportune times, and sometimes being the one in the lift while I served as the ground crew. He is just as comfortable handling a chainsaw as he is wielding a wire cutter or a paintbrush, so he has worked on a number of things, the most recent being the fence surrounding the dumpster that needed painting. However, halfway through the paint job, Bo decided that some small engines in the shop that needed repair were of higher priority, so Denny spent most of the day working on a couple of pressure washers that weren’t running.
Or Debi. She is very comfortable with a paintbrush. She started out right away painting a mural on a block wall by one of the buildings and has been doing that for nearly all of the time here, sometimes enlisting the help of other women to help paint the larger areas of the mural.
Sometimes the talent isn’t actually doing something, it’s dealing with people. Margie was a nurse who has had to deal with a lot of patients and a lot of situations in her time. She was working with Marsha on the lettering for Debi’s mural. Marsha spent nearly the entire weekend designing the lettering for the Bible verse that will go on the wall, even taking a couple trips to town for supplies. The problem came in transferring all this lettering onto the wall so that it could be painted. Not a straightforward task by any means. So, in the frustrations of figuring that all out, Margie patiently worked with Marsha, who is more of a type-A personality. The lettering is now stenciled on the wall, ready to paint.
I would imagine that some of this talent comes from experience. Several people here have been on quite a few projects, so they have worked up a bunch of experience that comes in handy. Jim and Rich replaced a door on the chapel that had been damaged by a hurricane. It took a while, as the replacement door was a donation from a church that was upgrading its doors and had to be fit into place. The frame had to be rebuilt to fix the damage from the hurricane. Today they finished that project by putting a final coat of paint on the door and by painting the concrete apron in front of the door. Looks like brand new.
The other Jim, a former air traffic controller, poured a concrete apron for the storage room behind the kitchen. I think all of us have worked on that storage room to some extent. I re-did the wiring and put new lights in the room. Denny and I replaced the outside door. Jim and Bob insulated the walls. Rich and Jim built shelves in the room and painted inside. Jim poured the concrete apron. It was a community effort.
And then there’s me. I string wires and hang light fixtures. And there’s probably enough of that to do for the remainder of our time here. Today it was a large area light on the shop to illuminate one of the hammocks. I was supposed to put another light above the volleyball court, but Ace Hardware delivered the wrong wire, so we have to wait for the correct wire. In the mean time, Bo wanted the light next to the fire pit raised. At only 7 feet off the ground, a tall person can simply reach up into it and remove the light bulb. Bo wanted it higher to help spread the light. So I attached a piece of pipe to the pole and placed the light on top of the pipe. Not to hard of a job, but the lift stopped working just before I put the last bolt in. Fortunately I wasn’t up in the air this time, but the last bolt will have to wait for when the lift is working. We no longer have a ground crew for the lift, we just make sure that the person in the basket has a cell phone to call for help if they get stuck like I did last Thursday.
When work was done, we chatted with another couple for a while in their RV. When we came out, we could hear a beeping noise and soon figured out that it was the smoke alarm in our RV. No fire, but the potatoes that were boiling on the stove had boiled dry, setting off the alarm. We managed to rescue the potatoes but cutting off the burned side and had grilled salmon, potatoes, and grilled zucchini for dinner. It was delicious.
Our third Sunday here in Florida. We went back to the church we had been to the first week: First Baptist Church of Groveland. Continuing in their series in Acts, we read through Acts 27 and part of Acts 28, which is the account of Paul’s shipwreck on the island of Malta. A great illustration of God’s providence. God provided for Paul and everyone on that ship, even though the ship’s crew knew the dangers and sailed far too late in the season. God carried out His plan to place Paul in front of Ceasar.
We made lunch in a nearby park, and then drove to the Bay Lake Trailhead on the Van Fleet bike trail. This is a 29-mile rail-to-trail that runs through some of the most rural and undeveloped land in all of Florida. If you like flat, paved, and straight, this is your trail. I think there’s one curve in the whole 29 miles.
We rode the center section of the trail, starting at Bay Lake and going a few miles past the Green Pond Trailhead, 30 miles in all, round-trip. This section of the trail is reportedly the most rural, and indeed the only thing you see is swamp land. The 10-mile section between these two trailheads crosses one dirt road.
We did get rained on for a short time, enough to get us a little wet, but the rest of the trip was dry and rather hot when the sun came out. But it was an enjoyable ride, a great activity on a Sunday afternoon.
When I checked the weather forecast last night, the prediction was for showers in the morning and a steady rain after noon. This morning, that had been downgraded to occasional showers after 1pm. We decided to go on a shorter trek today to beat any rain that may happen to fall. Today’s target was the Dora Canal. This is a one-mile waterway that connects Lake Eustis and Lake Dora and is described by some as “the most beautiful mile you will ever experience”.
In the late 1800’s, this waterway was dredged to accommodate steamships, today it accommodates lots of powerboats headed to the lakes, so traffic can be rather high. One guide advised avoiding this during weekends and holidays as it can be very busy.
Today, however, I think the weather worked to our advantage. It was overcast and cooler, in the lower 60’s, so we only saw a couple of tour boats. Most of the boats plying this waterway were fishermen, almost all of them in rather small boats with very large engines, and there were quite a few of them. When we got to Lake Eustis, several of these boats could be seen quietly sitting near the shore, looking very much like fishing was going on, but there were others that were rocketing across the water at very high speeds.
We put in at a tiny boat launch at Summerall Park in Tavares. The town of Tavares sits between the two lakes and the canal cuts through a portion of the town before going into swampland. So for the first quarter mile or so we were paddling past trailer parks and rental cottages, each having a dock or small boat slip on the canal.
Then the town abruptly ended and we were paddling in tall Cypress trees with Spanish moss draped all over them. The wildlife here, especially the birds, is abundant. Over the noise of the nearby city could be heard a constant chittering and chirping of many different birds and we saw numerous herons, egrets, ibis, and other birds, almost running into them at times. We even caught a glimpse of a river otter. But no alligators. Maybe they don’t come out on overcast days. One bird that I couldn’t identify was a beautiful tall white bird that looked a little like a heron, but when opened it’s beak, the noise we heard sounded more like a burp than anything else.
Imagine what this place looks like when the trees are green in the summer.
A one-mile trip doesn’t take very long, even when done in both directions, so we were back to the RV by a little after noon. After lunch we visited a couple of thrift stores and also stopped at the Tavares Seaplane Base, a park on Lake Dora that has a launch site for sea planes. Probably due to the season, there was only four planes there, but there was room for a lot more.
We drove into the town of Mount Dora, but couldn’t find a place to park. This appeared to be a touristy town, with narrow streets and even narrow parking spaces; no room for an RV. And there was something going on which packed the town with cars, even on the side streets. The drive there and back was pleasant, however. It was raining on and off by this time, so any further outdoor activity was done.
On the way back, we stopped at the Butcher Block, a small restaurant in Groveland. It was recommended by one of the other SOWERs, who had breakfast there. The breakfast may have been amazing, but the dinner was ... well ... average. Nothing to write home about.
When we parked the RV in Groveland, we saw a Chinese New Year event being held at the park near us. We watched for a bit. They were having tug-of-war and releasing Chinese lanterns. Today is the eve of Chinese New Year.
Meanwhile, back home, our kids planned and cooked up a Chinese New Year party of their own, at our house. We video-chatted with them for a bit. Good to see them enjoying themselves and interacting together.
Last night was warm and humid, and neither of us slept really well. We probably should have used the air conditioner. We’re just not used to the need for an air conditioner in January.
The largest RV show in the United States is going on right now in Tampa, Florida. Since it is only about an hour and a half away from here, we reserved this day for the show. We left camp early and arrived at the show at just after 9am. I took a few pictures of the parking lot at noon using a drone. The number of cars and RVs here was incredible. There were almost an equal number of cars when I faced the drone in the other direction.The first building you walk into is air-conditioned, which felt great on this hot and muggy day. It housed several of the high-end manufacturers: Airstream, Prevost, and the like, with rigs running upwards of a cool million dollars or more. So we got to see how the other half lives. But their booth was not all just a conspicuous display of one’s wealth. Prevost had one large RV there that was in the process of being built out, so the inside was was completely empty, with plywood floors. And this one didn’t require removal of your shoes to enter.
Another high-end manufacturer did them one better. The had just the frame and the engine sitting in their booth next to their million-dollar monsters.
The remainder of the show was outside on the fairgrounds. We strolled around a few of the vendors, ones that had RVs similar to ours, just seeing what was available and gleaning ideas--not for a new RV, but mainly storage ideas. Storage is at a premium in a small RV and we need all the ideas we can get.
Even visiting just a few of the vendors required quite a bit of walking and most of the show we did not see. It’s just too big to see in a day.
Two buildings housed the smaller displays: the accessories, resorts and campgrounds, and the RV suppliers. One of these is used as the animal barn during other events and the animal smell hung in the air. Not real bad, but it was there. We stopped at Kitchen Craft, a maker of high-end pots and pans, for a cooking demonstration. According to them, anything but their own pots and pans are killing us or giving us Alzheimer’s disease. The price of their product was a bit to rich for us. But he was entertaining. And he made a great salad.
We saw several people signing their papers for a new RV. I’m a big spender also. I bought a package of two light bulbs to replace one that’s going on the fritz in our RV.
One of the vendors in the building was Omnia, whose stovetop oven we just got a couple months ago. They had some samples of brownies made in their oven that we had. We also talked with them for a bit and ended up buying a thermometer and a silicone muffin insert for our oven. We’re still learning how to use ours but some of the food we have made has worked out really well. We’re still refining our cooking on the road.
The heat and all the walking finally did us in. We went back to the RV, turned on the air conditioner, and made some dinner. We then drove to a couple nearby grocery stores to pick up some supplies.
On the way home, we stopped at a Culver’s for a concrete mixer. After that kind of a day, we felt we deserved it.
