Christmas at Withlacoochee

We spent a few days around Christmas at Withlacoochee River Park, a Pasco County Park on the Withlacoochee River.  Our main motivation for choosing this park was that we were in our required 1-week break between Thousand Trails parks and all of the Orange County Parks were closed for Christmas.  

Withlacoochee Campsite

This park felt very much in the middle of nowhere, and we approached from the wrong direction (from the SOUTH on Auton Road for anyone ever trying to do this in the future), which had us driving for about 0.5 miles on a dirt road before reaching the park.  As soon as we reached the park entrance the road transitioned to paved and was paved to the north (which we discovered on our way out).  This was a nice little park, with a large first-come-first-serve open field and a 15-site wooded campground that allowed reservations (where we stayed).  Despite the sites being fairly close together by public park standards, the trees and underbrush made our fire ring seem pretty private.  The park had a lovely 1.75 mile paved bike trail that wound all through the woods around the park.  The Florida Trail ran for a bit along the Withlacoochee River itself.  There was an overlook tower and lots of little trails that sprang off the paved trail.

Biking on the paved trail

Aaron risking his life for a better view from the tower

Withlacoochee River

Aaron did his best job yet on the lights at this site I think.

He even got our flag outlined!

A red-shouldered hawk graced our campsite just about 10 feet outside our front door!

Red-shouldered hawk!

We enjoyed a quiet Christmas in the campground.  Our neighboring campers had some great Christmas decorations up!  Unfortunately Christmas day was quite chilly by Florida standards, so we stayed inside all day watching the latest movie releases on our various streaming services.

Some people have Christmas trees for
their presents...we had a Christmas Chair

Being slightly northwest of Orlando, this provided a great launching point for our great Texas adventure - over the next couple months we'll slowly work our way west to San Antonio and back again, mostly keeping close to the Gulf coast in hopes the weather won't get TOO cold on us!

Lake Magic & Christmas at Disney

We spent two weeks at Lake Magic - another Thousand Trails resort - in our last stay in Orlando until we come back in March.  That's right folks, we're finally leaving Florida!  But more on that in our upcoming posts from the road!

Sunset picture with our Christmas lights

Lake Magic was decent enough, but after our last impressive Thousand Trails stay at Tropical Palms, we weren't so impressed.  This park has no security at the front gate, definitely feels like a parking lot, and has a LOT of one way streets that add a good 5-10 minutes to your trip anywhere just to get out of the park.  The laundromat is one of those that you have to buy a $5 laundry card before you can pay to do laundry, which is particularly frustrating for those of us who only plan to be there 2 weeks!  It's also a bit farther from Disney.  Our site had a lot of fire ants as well, though they do treat for those in general.  Still, the stay was just fine, the folks around us were friendly and we had no real problems during our stay.

Some very noisy sandhill crane neighbors

This being our last time near Disney for a while, we spent most of our free time visiting the Christmas-themed parks, so please forgive an onslaught of Disney photos here!

Santa at Animal Kingdom

Riding the Christmas re-themed "Jingle" Cruise!

Belle's Christmas Tree at 
Gaston's Tavern in Magic Kingdom

Festival of the Holidays at Epcot

I thought this was one of the most impressive light displays
in all of Disney World - the dinosaur at Animal Kingdom

They started some semblance of evening performances in a 
couple parks - this is the nighttime light show on the Tree
of Life in Animal Kingdom

Our favorite tree on the Christmas 
Tree Stroll in Disney Springs - the 
Star Wars tree!

Merry Christmas everyone!

A Quiet Week at Moss Park

 We spent another quiet week at Moss Park, where we stayed a few times last year.  This park has a lot of campsites, all relatively private and half of which are along the lake.  We picked a pretty good campsite this time (#31) with an okay lake view and very private fire pit.

That's the lake just beyond the trees

Mostly we just took it easy during this stay.  The weather turned suddenly very cold (50s) while we were here, and there was a bit of rain, so we spent a lot of time inside.  One of the perks of camping in an RV and not a tent!

Despite the cold Aaron was able to put up some Christmas lights, we're feeling festive!

Outside Christmas lights!

During the few warm and dry days this week, we went hiking at some nearby preserves - the Crosby Island Marsh Preserve and the Split Oak Forest.  While we were hiking in Split Oak we saw a wild pig!  The pig was very fast and we were so shocked we didn't manage to get a picture, but it was a pretty incredible sight!

A pond in Crosby Island Marsh

Back at our campsite, we enjoyed some campfires and grilled food.  

When you REALLY need that grill clean!

Pretty campfire pre-fire

This raccoon was traipsing through our campsite

While we were here I had the time to really tidy up the RV and so I took some pictures for those of you who have been dying to see the inside!  We don't have much, but you can see some of the interior Christmas decorations as well.

Bedroom

Dining Area

Living Room

Kitchen & Dining Area

Close up of The Child/Baby Yoda/Grogu Ornaments

That's about it for now!  Like I said, a pretty quiet week, quite refreshing.

First time at Tropical Palms RV Resort

Tropical Palms RV Resort is the most convenient Thousand Trails park to Disney World, and unsurprisingly we could never find a spot here last time we were in Orlando.  This time around we got in!  I'm not sure whether it's because we're looking pre-Winter (not as busy?) or because the Canadians have been largely unable to come to the US (though that seems to be changing), but we made it!  This is my favorite Orlando-area Thousand Trails park so far!  It is clean and well-kept with concrete pads for the RVs and several trees scattered throughout, plus the laundromat is HUGE and clean with new machines.

Our campsite at Tropical Palms

A rainbow over the campground

On our way to the campground we stopped by Tire Pro Mobile RV & Commercial Truck Tire Repair to get our front tires replaced.  We really liked the mechanic who owns this business - he was knowledgeable and friendly with reasonable prices, and he seemed quite honest.  He told us we were probably ok for many more months, but together we decided that since Aaron and I are planning a big trip to Texas later in the winter, we should go ahead and get the tires replaced.  Aaron really enjoyed watching him work and asking lots of questions.

Tire's off!

The mechanic had a seriously 
impressive set of tools in his truck!

We only had a 12 minute drive to Hollywood Studios, where we enjoyed some holiday fun.

A 'chestnut pinecone' dessert

Santa!

We also took a quick trip to Epcot and Magic Kingdom.

Christmas lights are starting to go up at Epcot

Christmas cavalcade at Magic Kingdom

We rode Splash Mountain once more to make sure we saw it
at least one last time before they change the theming to 
the Princess and the Frog

Back at Animal Kingdom, we caught a Christmas cavalcade on the water with a festive Chip & Dale!

Christmas float!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas in Orlando!

Busy Times at Trimble Park - Data Plans, a Tropical Storm, and a Rocket Launch!

We just spent 11 days at Trimble Park in northern Orange County, FL - about 45 minutes from Disney.  We stayed here just a few days last year, mostly while we were actually on a cruise ship for my sister's 40th birthday, so we didn't get to properly appreciate it.

Our beautiful wooded campsite!

Unfortunately I managed to pick one of the few campsites with an obscured view of the lake, but we could still see it, and being close to the bathhouse was a definite plus since we had no sewer - I *think* this is the longest we've ever gone without a sewer connection.  We stayed here longer than we normally would to reset our travel schedule to Tuesdays (a much easier travel day than anywhere close to the weekends in the Orlando area).

Obscured lake view

While we were here we enjoyed hiking around Trimble Park and some neighboring parks.  

A small alligator seen from the dock near our campsite

The lake as seen from another dock on the hiking trail

Cycling along the Lake Apopka North 
Shore trail, with one of a TON of 
anhingas visible in the background

At the Mt Dora Lighthouse

The boardwalk at Palm Island Park

Tropical storm Eta hit while we were staying at Trimble Park.  I have to admit I was pretty worried, what with all the warnings about mobile homes and whatnot.  We took in all of our patio furniture, lashed down the bikes, closed all the awnings, and even brought in our slides to protect the fabric-like slide covers.  I was pretty nervous all night long, but the crazy strong winds didn't rock the RV at all.  I guess we're just too heavy!  The next morning we woke up to branches and palm fronds down all around, but no damage to our property.  We survived our first large weather event in the RV!

The storm position the next
morning

Palm fronds down everywhere!

While we were here we learned a LOT about our new limited data plan.  I think I mentioned before that we had to give up the amazing unlimited AT&T plan for the Togo Roadlink....they figured out it was TOO good a deal.  We're now on a data-only plan from Cricket Wireless.  The connection speeds have been great and we have no complaints there...but it's amazing how many little things you don't think about eat up data!  We've gone into our computers to reduce allowed data usage (for those of you with Windows 10...that's under "Data Usage" in the Settings), disabled app updates on our phones (we update them when on free wireless while out and about), and set low resolution on all of our streaming accounts where we can (Netflix, YouTube, etc).  We go into a local library to download anything large for our computers or tablets...speaking of which, quick segue...

The Mt. Dora Library (close to Trimble Park) is one of the neatest libraries I've been in.  It's a nice facility, and they have a butterfly garden, a velociraptor display, and...most incredibly...cake pans that you can check out!!  I've never seen the like.  Super cool.

Velociraptor

Cake pans! In a library!!

Back to data usage...despite our best efforts, we were just blowing through our data plan.  Granted, initially we used a bunch of data before we figured out how to limit everything, but even after flipping all the switches I just mentioned, we blew through an additional purchased 15GB in just one day (!!!!!).  We finally figured it out though...the XBOX!  We hadn't had the XBOX on in quite a while because we mostly only use it to play DVDs, and we didn't use it at all while in quarantine and didn't turn it on much at Fort Wilderness or Sherwood Forest because we had free cable if we wanted entertainment.  However, once we reached Trimble Park we decided to watch some DVDs to conserve our data...and the impudent little device went and downloaded the long-amassed updates for all its games and apps in the background while we watched our no-data DVDs!!  I'm not sure the size of all the updates, but the one that killed our extra 15GB was a 60GB update for the Halo Master Chief Collection.  60GB!!  It really drove home that the majority use case for the XBOX, computers, and the like is to have an unlimited data connection, so the devices and the software suppliers don't think too much about data.  Well, thank goodness we FINALLY figured that out, and went in to the XBOX settings and told it to start operating offline.  We'll get the XBOX updated sometime later.  For anyone out there contemplating a limited data plan...make sure you go into the settings for EVERYTHING you have that connects to the internet ever and limit or turn off data usage!  Leave no device unexplored!

Our last big event at Trimble Park was a SpaceX rocket launch at Kennedy Space Center!  We went to see the Crew-1 launch - the official beginning of regular manned space missions to depart from the US.  This was a very different experience from the launches we saw earlier in the year due to COVID-19.  Earlier in the year we bought a package that took us on a crowded bus to a crowded viewing platform.  This time we bought a package that guaranteed us a spot of ground in a large staff parking lot in the main visitor complex (i.e., that we could walk to from the main parking lot).  This was also our first nighttime launch - SUPER cool.  The rocket was incredibly bright, and we could even see the firing of the thrusters (?) on the stage 1 part that came back to land on a platform in the ocean.

Countdown clock at the space center entrance

Livestream projected on a building next to the parking lot

Crew-1 climbing into the sky

This was an exciting 11 days!  And we left with the gray tank only 67% full!