Home Again

We’re home.  Bleary-eyed and weary from all that driving, we arrived here around 7pm.  Then it was a mad dash to drain all the tanks and blow the water lines out and winterize the RV as it is below freezing here.  We took out any food items that could freeze and left the rest for tomorrow.

Today started out sunny and 28 degrees.  As we drove north, however, the clouds descended and we were driving in a gloomy gray day.  Welcome to the Midwest!

In her online travels, Deb found an Indiana-based donut shop chain that was started by the Amish.  It now had several locations throughout Indiana, including one in the greater-Indianapolis area.  Since this was right next to the Interstate, we stopped for a donut.

The donuts were delicious, although a bit on the expensive side.  Perhaps it’s the location.  We were in the swanky Fishers District. I’m sure that was part of the reason for the price premium.

Right next door is an IKEA store.  We stopped there and walked the maze and found a few things for the RV.  An extra set of sheets for the bed and another USB cable for the one I got my foot tangled in and broke a few days ago.

Next stop was three stores in Shipshewana, Indiana.  Two grocery stores and Yoder’s Meats.  It’s always dangerous to go to Yoder’s meats.  We always come away with way more than we planned for.  In addition to the out-of-this world cherry brats that we like, we came away with a whole smoked chicken and a few thick pork chops that will be part of a meal in the near future.  We got into a conversation with the guy at the meat counter who also does quite a bit of backyard BBQ who told us what all the good stuff was and how to prepare it.  Looking forward to some good eats!

After one more stop at Mancino’s in Portage, we arrived home to a cold and dark house.  I had turned the heat on at noon, but our under-powered furnace takes a long time to heat the place up so it was only 62 when we got home.  Always a bit of an adjustment.  Being able to use the bathroom without your knees touching the door and your elbow halfway into the shower is like luxury.  We won’t have to take Navy-style showers any more or prepare food in a tiny galley.

But it’s all worth it.  The experiences gained and the friends we’ve made on this trip have been amazing.  Well worth the cramped living arrangements.

Some trip statistics:
Total miles traveled:  4428
Trip length: five weeks

 

Wild Goose Chases

We got a long way to go
And a short time to get there...

Long way to go indeed.  One of our last stops on a trip like this is usually Shipshewana, Indiana.  We’ll load up on cheap groceries from E&S Sales and some fantastic meats from Yoder’s before taking the final leg of the trip home.  So we have to make sure we time our arrival when all these stores are open.  If we stop for the night in southern Indiana, we can arrive in Shipshewana in the early afternoon tomorrow and arrive home tomorrow early in the evening.

So with those parameters in mind we set out on I-65 North..

We left the freeway for a while to travel on US-31, which parallels I-65 through quite a bit of Tennessee and Kentucky.  Any chance to get off the interstate is welcome.  The two-lane roads and not having to drive so crazy fast just makes for a more pleasant experience.

Navigator Deb was doing some online reading about the Natchez Trace and some other things in Western Tennessee.  We decided to go check it out and ambled off the freeway just after crossing into Tennessee.  After traveling some minor roads, including another section of US-31, we ended up on the Natchez Trace Parkway, a 444-mile stretch of road that roughly follows the Old Natchez Trace, a historic travel corridor used by Indians, settlers, slave traders, soldiers, outlaws, and a number of other people, both good and bad.

We only drove about 15 miles of the road, but stopped at a few historic sites, such as Napier Mine, an old open-pit iron ore mine, and the place where Meriwether Lewis died and was buried.  He either died from foul play on the Old Natchez Trace or self-inflicted gunshot wounds and his body was buried here, with a monument being erected later.

Lots of other history along this corridor, worth coming back to see.  The campground here is free and is quite full in the summertime, according to a guy we talked to in the campground as we were driving through it.  Today there were only about four or five sites occupied.  We parked in an empty site and made lunch.

We ended up in the town of Linden.  We probably should have checked out the Commodore Hotel, looked like quite a place from the outside, but we moved on, ending up nearly 10 miles west of there at Mousetail Landing State Park.

Time constraints wouldn’t let us stay at the park for very long so we turned back east towards Nashville.  All in all, these wild goose chases added about three hours of drive time.  Wandering around does come at a cost.

Back on I-65 North, we managed to cross the remainder of Tennessee and most of Kentucky before refueling.  $3.99 for diesel.  Cheapest yet.  After driving all day, we felt we needed a good stiff drink so we stopped at a Culver’s on the south side of Louisville, Kentucky for a Concrete Mixer.  While there, I saw that another headlamp bulb was burned out.  These things go with disturbing regularity.  We stopped at an AutoZone just down the street and picked up a new bulb to replace it.

We stopped for the night just north of Louisville, across the Indiana state line, at a Cracker Barrel in Sellersburg.  The GPS says we have 4 hours and 10 minutes to Shipshewana.  Perfect.

Beach Day

Last day of hanging out here in Florida before turning North again.  And it was a great day for hanging out.  Started out chilly, 41 degrees, but the sky was perfectly clear and the sun was out in full force, warming the day to the mid-60’s by the afternoon.

This state park has 15 miles of trails through the woods and around some small inland lakes.  We hiked a couple of the trails, totaling about three miles, enjoying the walk through the pine forest and the blue skies.

After returning to the camp site, we loaded up on fresh water, emptied the waste tanks, and readied the ship for take-off.  We drove to the day-use area and parked there as checkout time was 1pm and we didn’t want to return by 1pm.  We made sandwiches, packed them in the bike bags, and rode the trail down to the beach access.

Once on the beach, we parked ourselves just above the waterline and ate our lunch, listening to the water lapping on the shore and watching some kids build a sand castle on a sand bar.  The white sand and the sunshine made for a very bright scene, and I forgot my sunglasses, so I was doing a continual squint.

After lunch we laid out a couple of towels and took a nap on the beach.  Next couple of days are gonna be some hard driving and we’re driving away from the sunshine, so may as well store up as much sunshine as possible.

After taking a walk on the beach and wading in the gentle surf, it was time to start heading back.  Kinda hard leaving the sunshine and the water and the beach, but there are many miles to go before we sleep.

Back at the RV, I wrestled the covers on the bikes, hung them on the rack, and made sure everything was lashed securely on the outside.  We left Topsail at just before 3pm.

Google Maps can be a bit frustrating at times because it will route you down some strange roads because it’s several seconds faster than the more major roads that are actually listed on a printed map.  I’ve been down some narrow, steep, winding roads high in the mountains that were absolutely scary in a large vehicle, only to find out that there was a much easier route.

In this case Google Maps again found some of the minor roads, mapping what appeared to be a straighter route than US-331 North.  But this time, the minor roads ran through some of the most beautiful rural parts of Alabama.  Farms and small towns and little churches and some wooded areas, quite an enjoyable drive.  I was disappointed when the route hooked up with I-65 in Montgomery.  It will be interstates for most of the remainder of the trip.  Not my favorite mode of driving, but it is the most time-efficient.

We stopped for the night at a Cracker Barrel north of Birmingham.  258 miles covered today.

Topsail Hill Preserve State Park

Today dawned gloomy, dribbly, chilly, and very windy.  We heard rain drumming on the roof off an on last night and it was still raining a little bit when we were making breakfast.  The campground is right on the Grand Lagoon and there are several ... and I hesitate to call them boats, because one in particular appeared to be a thatched-roof hut on a floating platform ... moored just offshore from the campground.  The thatched-roof hut had two boats tied to it, a sail boat and a motorboat, as well as a dinghy and a paddle board and some other unidentifiable flotsam.  A small wind generator sticking up through the roof was furiously spinning in the stiff winds that were blowing.  There appeared to be no activity in this flotilla, however some loose thing banged in the wind with a metallic clang about once per second.  All. Night. Long.  Made it difficult to sleep.  I should have taken a picture of it.  I’m not sure how it was allowed amongst the upscale high-rises and vacation homes and resorts.

Another boat just a few dozen yards away was an older sailboat with no mast, also apparently unoccupied.

All this next to a state park campground that appeared to have more staff and volunteers than campers, where each camp site was “cleaned”, when the camper left.  Cleaning consisted of sweeping any gravel that was on the pavement back to the gravel camping pad, making sure there was no gravel around the fire ring, that there was no ash in the fire ring, and raking the gravel camping pad so that any evidence of wheel tracks was completely gone.  This place is spotless.

Quite an exercise in contrasts.

We walked the camping loops after breakfast and since it was not kayaking or biking weather, we did some inside stuff; catching up on emails, watching a Bible study teaching video, and quaffing hot chocolate.  A little later in the morning we drove to the Gulf side of the state park and walked the beach for a while.   Lots of wide-open white-sand beach as it was near low tide, and it was almost completely deserted.

We left the state park and drove down Front Beach Road in Panama City Beach past all the high rises which completely blocked the view of the Gulf.  We stopped and had lunch in the parking lot of a county park along the road which offered beach access and one of the few glimpses of the water along the whole stretch.

Heading west, stopped in Conservation Park, which has a series of bike trails.  We were here last year and rode our bikes on some of the trails.  We did the same today.  Unfortunately, last night’s rain left lots of puddles and muddy areas on the trails, so we only rode one loop before moving on.

Looking for bike trails last night, I spotted a donut shop on our route and this was our next stop: the Donut Hole in Inlet Beach.  A couple of donuts later we were on our way again.  Just can’t pass up a good donut.

We arrived at Topsail Hill Preserve State Park just before 4pm and discovered why the camping here is more expensive than other state parks.  The campground attached to the state park is actually an RV resort, complete with a pool and other amenities which we won’t use.  We found our campsite in the maze of sites, and then looked for a place to eat that was reachable by bicycle.  I really didn’t want to drive the RV over all those nasty speed bumps that we hit on the way in.  Speed bumps may be no problem for a car, but driving a house over them rattles the dishes in the cupboards and makes everything move about in undesirable ways.

We set our sights on Pizza by the Sea, about five miles away by bike trail.  Arriving there, we found that there was only outdoor seating and the kid minding the store appeared to be really bored.  Since there was a stiff wind still blowing and the temperatures were dropping, we looked for something a little more indoors and found the Perfect Pig Grill in the same complex.  We both had the smoked chicken sandwich which was delicious.

The ride back was getting quite chilly as the sun was setting.  Tonight is supposed to get down to 41 degrees and the temperature was speeding towards that goal as we rode back to the RV. Time to get in and warm up.

Zero Mile Day

We drove zero miles today.  After the last two days of many hours per day, this was a good thing.  Actual driving consisted of moving the RV about 50 feet from one campsite to the one next to us.  When we reserved two nights a while back, we couldn’t get the same campsite for two nights in a row, so we reserved one and then the other.  We found out that this is a very common occurrence in this state park.

When the time came to check out, we were waiting for the person occupying our next campsite to leave.  We were talking to a couple of the volunteer rangers and found out that another person one campsite over was waiting for our site to clear so he could move onto ours.  We later saw the truck camper that we were waiting for on a different site. So it looks like there’s a game of musical campers that goes on around the 1pm checkout time.

We took a long walk around Sandy Point this morning.  It was quite foggy for most of the walk, but still a good day for a beach walk.  We ran into a guy who was fishing who said he spends his winters here but lives in Ohio in the summer.  There seems to be a lot of that going on.  He had a great big starfish in a bucket that he just picked up out of the surf.  He was going to show it to his wife, who was hunting shells, and then release it.

Around the other side of the Point there were many fallen trees and debris that blocked further progress, so we went inland and ended up at the group camp.  The road into this camp led back to the administration buildings and we walked past more pickup trucks and 4-wheelers than I would think this state park would need.  They also seem to have a large staff and many volunteers working here.  On our way out of this area, we were stopped by a ranger in a pickup who inquired why we were walking here.  I think she was ready to read us the riot act, but we explained that we had been walking the beach and gotten somewhat lost because of the beach blockage.  I think she could tell that we were not terrorists or something else, just some old geezers walking the beach, so we parted ways amicably.  We learned later from a volunteer ranger that she was the second to the top dog at the park.

We got out the kayaks and paddled quite a bit of the same route as we walked, ending up almost to Sandy Point. We went this direction because the wind was against us.  Better to go out against the wind and come back with the wind at your back. Sure enough, coming back, no paddling required; the wind just pushed us along.

We looked for starfish in the surf, and only saw some small ones, not nearly as large as the one in the bucket.  I took a picture of one by just sticking my phone in the water.  I had to adjust the contrast with Photoshop, but it turned out pretty decent. The water was only about a foot deep here, and was pretty clear.

After lunch we biked into town for a ways, past all the high rises and surf shops and restaurants.  I would imagine this gets pretty crazy around Spring Break, but, right now, it’s rather quiet.

Fairly low-key day. We even took nap this afternoon.  The sun was out and it was rather hot in the sun so we turned the air conditioning on and took a nap to let the heat of the day pass.  It’s supposed to rain later on this evening into tomorrow

We enjoyed our dinner on the picnic table at our campsite, watching other campers set up their sites.  One couple a few sites over made sure their RV was perfectly level by putting one wheel on a small block.  Then it was getting out the portable fire pit and the grill, the cord and the hoses for the hookups, making sure the waste hose was perfectly sloped.  It took the entire dinner for them to set up.

Yeah, we’re easily entertained.

We just backed into our site and plugged the cord in. Total time, about one minute.  We’ll deal with the water and waste when we leave.

Road Kill

I guess it had to happen somewhere.  The story wouldn’t be complete without a tale of an RV breakdown in the middle of nowhere.  When you drive an earthquake down the road, something is bound to break.  Although this particular breakdown is not a uniquely RV-type thing.  I’ve had one of these break on nearly every vehicle I have owned.

We got up on time this morning, hoping to make it to Panama City by early afternoon.  After breakfast, we got everything flight-ready and I started the engine.  Everything sounded normal but the battery light was on.  I checked the battery voltage: 11.9.  Too low.  Should be close to 14.  So the battery wasn’t charging.  Probably a bad alternator.

Here is where God’s providence was very evident.  We were parked in a campground with full hookups, not along some freeway somewhere.  The weather was a balmy 70 degrees and sunny.  Most of our friends that we had camped here with over the last few weeks were still here.  So we got to hang out with our friends for a while. And those friends for the most part had every imaginable tool along with them.

Denny was the first to notice the hood up.  He came over and after talking with him a bit, he agreed that it probably was the alternator.  It’s good to have confirmation from a former mechanic.  I called around to a couple auto parts stores.  I found one that could have the part in by 11am.  Jim offered to give me a ride there.  Bob brought over a mat so I could crawl under the RV and remove the old alternator.  Since I’ve worked on this engine before, taking the alternator out didn’t take long.  I had Deb take a picture of me holding the bad part with a nod to a similar picture, taken nearly 24 years ago, of me holding a starter that I had just removed from a 1978 Winnebago.

January, 2023, Mascotte, Florida, alternator failure, 2008 Itasca

July, 1999, Dubois, Wyoming, starter failure, 1978 Winnebago

Jim drove me to Advance Auto Parts in Clermont, just over a half-hour drive away.  It took all of two minutes to pay for the part and we were out the door, driving back.  It took probably 15 minutes to install the new part.

This time, when I started the engine, the idiot light was off.  I love it when a plan comes together.

So now we’re about four hours behind schedule, but there was still time to make it to Panama City.  We had lunch in the campground, said goodbye to our friends again, and took off.

We were planning on taking a couple of the more minor roads, as I really would rather not take the Interstates, but because of our unplanned service job, we took the Interstate.  It does save some time.

We only made one stop, and that was in Tallahassee for fuel and to make dinner in a supermarket parking lot.  Otherwise it was pedal-to-the-metal for the entire six-hour trip.  We arrived here at St Andrews State Park at just after 8pm, happy to shut it down and walk out side for a while.

This campground is right along one of the waterways adjoining St Andrews Bay and many sites back right up to the water.  Ours is not one of them, but it is close.  We walked the campground, enjoying the lights across the bay and coolness of the evening after the heat of the day. 

On our walk, we ran across one of the campground hosts and we chatted with them for a while.  They had lots of suggestions on what to do right in this area so we have a rather big list for tomorrow.