Christmas in the Everglades

We spent an absolutely wonderful Christmas week in the Everglades National Park, Flamingo Loop Campground.

You can't get much farther south than this in Florida without going to the keys.

The campground was surprisingly large and spacious with all pull-through sites for the RVs.  There were a bunch of black vultures hanging around, and we enjoyed watching them pick at campfire cooking remains and (once) investigate a plastic bag on a neighbor's picnic table.

The absolute highlight of this trip were the wild manatees at the nearby Flamingo Marina.  When we first walked by, there were 3-4 of them right next to the path just rolling around and playing together (or so it seemed).  This is the closest I've ever been to wild manatees and I couldn't get enough of them.  We went back to try to see them again but never again got quite this view.

We walked on most of the non-submerged trails in the park.  Unfortunately, even though it was the 'dry' season, many of the trails were still under water.  Additionally, all the trails in the southern part of the park are no longer maintained to preserve an endangered ground plant.  However, the northern part of the park had many boardwalk-ed or paved interpretive trails that were very pleasant to walk on, and we saw all sorts of birds and a couple of alligators.

In some ways I'm sure most of you would think every day must be a holiday for us now.  I have to say though, being so remote at this park, deep in the national park surrounded by nature, I really *felt* like I was on vacation.  The closest grocery store was an hour away - we stocked up when we first got there and then didn't leave the park until time to move on - and there was no Verizon coverage.  Most of our day to day lives don't feel so much like vacation - we still have chores and maintenance etc., and we're usually parked close to civilization in a relatively urban location - but this really did feel like vacation.  So it was a wonderfully relaxing week!

This was the first time we went to a park without *water* hookups.  Fortunately they had a clean water filling station, so we filled up the fresh water tank and managed to last the 5 days we were there.  AND through some lugging of dishwater to the dish-doing-station we also managed NOT to fill up our gray tank.  Win-win!  I'm feeling more confident about our ability to conserve water.

Heading South & Thoughts on Thousand Trails

We had a couple of short stops this week as we continued our trek to Florida.  First was The Oaks at Point South (Thousand Trails), and second was Kathryn Abbey Hanna City Park.

The Oaks was a nice RV park in South Carolina.  Overall clean, all pull-through sites, and relatively spacious sites (for an RV 'parking lot').  Like the last Thousand Trails park we visited in Williamsburg, the campground was quite wooded, giving more of an illusion of privacy than you actually had.  We had some neat neighbors from Canada also trekking to Florida.  This RV park also had the relatively unique feature of a walking trail around a neighboring lake.

It was interesting to contrast this to our previous private and beautiful spot at Cheraw State Park.  We've watched a lot of RV YouTube videos and it's fairly common for people to share their thoughts on staying in RV parks like the Thousand Trails collection vs. boondocking or staying in state/national parks.  I feel like most people express a strong preference for the state/national parks, though we've personally met a lot of happy Thousand Trails campers.  I'm thinking there are some pretty strong pluses to both...pros for Thousand Trails: (1) it's 'free' on a per night basis (you pay an annual membership); (2) they are almost always very close to an interstate, so there is minimal motor home driving on narrow winding country roads or crowded city streets; (3) you almost always get full hookups (50A power, water, sewer); (4) you almost always have a reasonably priced on-site laundromat; (5) the sites are typically level.  Pros for national/state parks: (1) they tend to be BEAUTIFUL; (2) the sites tend to be private; (3) they usually have a lot of hiking trails and/or other natural outdoor activities; (4) they usually have fire rings and frequently grills on each site.  The pros for each, negated, become the cons for the other category.  So I think I like both.  The state parks are refreshing for the soul, but the RV parks involve less stressful travel days and make it a lot easier to get chores done.

The Oaks at South Point was kind of in the middle of nowhere, but the weather was pretty decent so we went walking a lot and set out to explore.  We stopped by the visitor center, where they directed us to some impressive ruins of Old Sheldon Church, and where we learned about a nearby Spanish settlement (Santa Elena) that pre-dated Jamestown.  We attempted to learn more about the settlement first hand, but the site itself was on a marine base and thus inaccessible to us, and a museum in downtown Beaufort was inexplicably closed in the middle of the day.  Still, it was neat to learn that the site even existed.

After The Oaks, we FINALLY made it to Florida and stayed at Jacksonville's Kathryn Abbey Hanna Park.  This park was beautiful; the campground was sandwiched between a lake and the beach, both on park property and within walking distance.  Unfortunately a cold front had just moved in and it was too cold to do much more than take a quick picture at the ocean.  We learned here that although the peak season for southern Florida is in the winter, the peak season for northern Florida is in the summer just like the rest of the country.  The campground was not even half full, which made it wonderfully quiet and peaceful.  The roads to get to the campsites though were narrow, windy, and a bit scary in a 40ft long, 9ft wide motor home!

At our next stop we should finally be far enough south in Florida to escape the cold!

Cheraw & Cotton Bales

We spent a lovely long weekend at Cheraw State Park.  As we were driving around the Cheraw area, I was struck with some deep philosophical thoughts.  Or maybe not too deep.  See what you think.

I'm sure many of you have wondered WHY we've decided to head out on the road full-time (many of you have asked).  It is a growing trend for sure, but why did we decide to do it?  I've mentioned to several people our desire to fill our National Park Passport by visiting all of the National Parks in the USA, and of course we have the standard goal of hitting all 50 states (or well...49 anyway...Hawaii's hard to get to in an RV ;-)).  Those are certainly goals but don't explain WHY in a deep philosophical sense.

As I pondered this over the weekend, Captain Kirk's reason to climb El Capitan in Star Trek V suddenly struck me... "Because it's there."  (Granted this was stolen from famous climber George Mallory, but the image of Captain Kirk explaining this to Spock sticks with me).  That does more or less sum it up for us I think...there's a huge country out there with different geology, geography, history, culture, etc., just waiting to be seen.

So now to tie back to the title...  As we were driving around, we passed many cotton fields, some harvested, some not.  I noticed something that looked like a white bale of hay in the middle of some empty fields and no joke just sat there a long time scratching my head.  I grew up and worked in rural enough areas to recognize cotton in the fields and to know what a hay bale looked like, but this 'white hay bale' had me stumped.  Then it hit me...it was a cotton bale!  Unfortunately this realization hit me after we passed the last one so I don't have a personal photo, but they looked just like these I stole from the Agriculture Corner:

So this is what got me thinking.  This is really what I'm hoping to accomplish with our travels - to see and experience things that are commonplace for many people but that I've never seen or experienced before.  I mean, it's really embarrassing how long it took me to realize those were cotton bales.  I want to understand where people I've never met live and what they see and experience in their daily lives.  I want to see the towns where they live, the industries that employ them, the local restaurants they frequent, and the natural beauty that surrounds them.  By extension, I also want to understand the history that formed these areas, and who those long-gone people were that formed these communities and our nation.  So there's your dose of deep philosophy.

As for Cheraw State Park...it was absolutely gorgeous, I think perhaps the nicest spot we've camped so far.  We had a site right on the lake, and enjoyed amazing sunsets every night.

The park had a boardwalk and a nice hiking trail through the woods.  And it was FINALLY 'warm' enough (and Aaron was well enough) to get out and enjoy it!  It was a nice relaxing weekend and certainly a great setting for deep thought.

The only complaint I have...or more accurately, a warning for anyone to follow... it was REALLY hard to find a level spot to park the RV.  Most of the campsites looked like they'd have a similar problem.  You can read someone else's explanation about why RV leveling is important.  It took some very creative parking and a few 2x10s to get the RV level, but we did manage it!

Greensboro & Mickey Mouse

After our stay in Raleigh we headed to the Greensboro area to stay at Hagan-Stone Park.  This was a surprisingly well-appointed county park.  They had a couple of lakes/ponds, lots of hiking trails, a couple of historic buildings, a swimming pool, and a couple playgrounds.  Unfortunately Aaron is STILL getting over his cold from Thanksgiving (time for a doctor visit soon I think) so we spent most of the time just looking out the window and letting him rest.  As we left the skies opened and we had a very rainy time packing up and moving the RV.

This was the first time we cut things close on our tank storage...I desperately needed to do laundry AND it was so cold at showertime that we took showers in the RV instead of at the bathhouse, so we ended up filling up the gray tank the morning we left.  I had to do some creative dishwashing (collecting & dumping the wash water down the black tank, which still had plenty of capacity), but we managed to survive until noon when Aaron dumped the tanks on our way out of the park.  It seems we still have a lot to learn about water conservation before we're ready for extended boondocking!

While we were close to the Greensboro airport we took a quick flight down to Miami for a Disney Very Merrytime cruise.  It was great!  I particularly enjoyed the Broadway-style productions of Twice Charmed, Tangled, and Dreams in the evening.  The clogging group All That! was on board and we were able to take a dance class from them!  I dragged Aaron up to dance with me, so sadly for all of you I don't have a photo or video to share of that awkwardness ;-).

And for everyone keeping up...Aaron never did feel well enough to work on the furnace, so no progress there.  Next stop South Carolina on our continued trek down to sunny Florida!

Falls Lake

We just spent the better part of the week at Falls Lake Recreation Area just north of Raleigh, Rolling View Campground.  Not far enough south to make a significant difference in temperatures just yet!  However, the park was lovely and our campsite had a wonderful unimpeded view of only woods.

Unfortunately Aaron is still recovering from a cold he caught over Thanksgiving, so we didn't get to explore the park as much as we would have liked.  We did take a short walk around the lake.  This looks like a great place for a day trip in warmer weather, with all sorts of isolated picnic tables with grills (second photo).

All the campsites included a fire ring, so we built our first fire since getting on the road!

Our furnace has completely died at this point, but we're doing just fine with the other furnace and our space heaters until Aaron gets better OR we get far enough south to no longer need it, whichever comes first!

Williamsburg & Thanksgiving

We just finished up 2 weeks at the Williamsburg Thousand Trails resort.  Although like any RV 'resort' all the RVs were piled on top of each other, the park was heavily wooded and implied a sense of privacy despite the closeness.  It was a great place to stay while we explored the area.

The staff at the park were friendly and we met some nice neighbors - including another Fleetwood owner who told us where we could find replacement switch plates for our lights on eBay.  

While we were in Williamsburg we visited the Yorktown Battlefield and Historic Jamestowne - free and almost free with our America the Beautiful pass.

We caught a ranger tour at the battlefield and learned a lot of neat stuff from the ranger.  It is absolutely amazing how many small things had to go right for Washington to defeat Cornwallis there...including a last minute retreat Cornwallis attempted that was foiled by a sudden tropical storm that sank many of his rowboats.  After the ranger tour we took the driving tour of the battlefield and were impressed at how expansive the camps were - without a car to go between them, it would have taken some serious effort to communicate between the American and French camps.

Sample cannons from the mostly cannon-driven fight.

Earthworks

Ranger tour

Redoubt

We self-guided at Jamestowne and didn't learn nearly as much there.  Still we enjoyed learning the history and viewing the recreated remains of the settlement.  It is interesting that most of the remains are subterranean now, and what you actually see is a recreation, so that the original structures remain protected underground.  The site is still an active archeological dig - they were working on the area around the church while we were there.

John Smith monument

Our final - and rainy day - activity was a tour and tasting at a meadery.  The reserve tasting at the Silver Hand Meadery included an overview of honey and mead making, a honey tasting, and a mead tasting.  Turns out I don't really like mead!  The different honeys they had were VERY tasty though.  The meads were quite creative and ranged from slightly sweet to slightly savory (we tried one that tasted a bit like rosemary!) - but none were sweet enough for my taste.  Still, overall lots of fun, our host was quite friendly & informative.

They showed us a sample wheel of potential honey flavors...zoom in close on that one and you'll be disgusted!  Fortunately we didn't try anything in the 'Animal' category.

We had a chance to have dinner with our college friend Heather and her son while we were in the area - it was great to catch up!

Once we were done in Williamsburg we headed to Springfield, VA to spend Thanksgiving week with my sister and her family.  My parents and aunt and uncle came to town as well.  It was a busy and fun week!

We didn't have a single problem with our refrigerator during this stop - hooray!  High hopes that that was indeed just some sort of freezing weather fluke.

We had a few more issues with the one furnace though.  It would try to start, blow the fan for a second, then quit.  Aaron took it apart and cleaned all the components and that kept it happy for a while, but it seemed a little flakey the last night, so we'll continue to keep an eye on that.  Pretty soon though we won't need it - we're finally heading south!  Next stop: Raleigh!