Heading North - South Carolina Edition

We spent the last of our RV days at The Oaks at Point South in South Carolina.  We stayed here once before on our way down to Florida.  We quite enjoy this Thousand Trails park with its wooded campground and nice lake-side walking trail.

Unfortunately Aaron's phone absolutely died and we lost a few pictures so all I have to share are the few that I took.  We took lots of walks around the adjacent lake and saw lots of turtles and a few alligators.  This was the first time I've seen alligators in South Carolina!

Alligator #1

One of MANY turtles

Alligator #2

With the Coronavirus, social distancing, stay at home directives, and massive closures, we didn't even try to explore the area.  We stayed put in our RV or hiked the trails we could walk to.

When we left this campsite we made the LONG haul the rest of the way (we were on the road 7.5 hours) to my family's farm to park the RV and follow the rest of the world in staying at home and not traveling.  This was the longest and farthest we had driven the RV in one day - longer than each leg of our 3-day mad rush from Greenville, SC to Clearwater, FL when we first bought the RV, the previous record holders.  We were smarter about it this time than that mad rush, stopping for a break at every rest stop (with thorough handwashing of course!) and napping as needed (this is why it took 7.5 hours).

Now that we're settled for the duration of the pandemic, this blog will shift from our traveling adventures to our repair adventures...we have a long list of things Aaron wants to work on while we're parked, and I'll post updates on what he's doing.

Heading North - Georgia Edition

We spent a couple nights at South Newport Campground in Georgia on our way north.  This was a small private campground with a very polite and friendly hostess.  It felt like the most narrow site we've been on due to a tree that forced us right up on our neighbor...it might have been about the same as our site at Orlando Thousand Trails.  We had full hookups and the price and location were right, definitely a good choice if you need an overnight stop on I-95.

Hello Georgia!

Our campsite between two trees

Coronavirus effects followed us here...out of an abundance of caution, our hostess did not come out to greet us, but did call after she saw us park to check in and make sure everything was okay.  She had watched us come in from her window and I had the distinct impression she would have walked on over to greet us in person had the situation been different.  We dropped our payment in a secured drop box so that we didn't have to physically interact with anyone.

We took a short drive to the nearby Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge.  It has a nice drive-through trail, which was excellent because the bugs were unreal in this area.  We attempted one hiking trail and quickly decided we wouldn't attempt any more because of the bugs...we did see a rookery, which was cool, but that was quickly followed by an alligator IN OUR PATH...even though we were about 3/4 complete with the overall trail, we just couldn't stomach walking past his nose (we would have had to pass within about 5 feet of him), and he didn't want to budge even with our presence, so we turned around and headed back the way we came.

Rookery

That grass is the hiking trail...I was too nervous to spend
any more time getting a clear photo!

Full Time RVing & Coronavirus

I imagine some of you are wondering how the Coronavirus is affecting our plans to be full-time RVers.  One of the YouTube channels Aaron follows, RV Miles, just released a great episode talking about how this is affecting full-time RVers, so I thought I would post it here in case you wanted to hear about some of the difficulties we're definitely seeing ourselves.

We're fortunate that my family has a farm where we can park the RV, so we're heading that way and plan to quarantine ourselves there until the government deems it safe to travel again.  I'll keep on posting as we keep traveling toward that end, but thought I'd go ahead and post this before things change rapidly and the information in the video is out of date!

Heading North - Florida Edition

Our first stop on our trip north was Bull Creek Campground, a county park in Flagler County.  This would be a great campground for anglers - every site (as far as I can see) backs up to an inlet to the neighboring lake, and many campers had their boats pulled up right behind their campsites (there is also an adjacent dock if you prefer).  There is an on-site 'fish camp' restaurant with decent food that is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  The sites are level and decently spaced and the water views are nice.

The only downside to this campground...no potable water anywhere.  There is a water hookup at each site but it is clearly labeled 'non potable water'; the signs for the restrooms say the same.  I didn't see any fresh water fill station so I'm not sure what you're supposed to do about fresh water if you don't know this ahead of time (and the booking site did NOT tell us this).  The website advertises "full RV facilities," which I find to be a bit deceiving given there is no potable water hookup and no potable water fill station.  Fortunately I noticed people commenting on this in the reviews right before we left and Aaron filled our fresh tank about 50% before we left our previous campsite, so we were fine for the two days we stayed.

There were turtles EVERYWHERE in the area.  We saw them poking their heads up in water all around the campground.

Turtle head

We also drove the short distance to Flagler Beach and found a plethora of turtles at Wadsworth Park.

Baby softshell turtle

Adult turtle

Flagler Beach

Our second stop was Cary State Forest.  We stayed here once before when we first came up from Tampa, and returned because we love the campground so much.  The campsites are HUGE, each with a nice level concrete pad, a grill, and a firepit with benches.  There are a few long hiking trails onsite.  Aaron thinks the bugs are a little oppressive...they're a bit obnoxious for sure but I think the pros well outweigh the one con.

Our spacious and private campsite

Panoramic view from our campsite - forest and more forest!

Boardwalk hiking - my favorite!

Maybe not Aaron's favorite...too many bugs?

Our fire ring & benches

This campground certainly allowed us to socially distance ourselves from the world!  It felt quite safe and snug in the midst of the pandemic.  As we continue our travel north, we continue to narrowly avoid coronavirus-related closures.  On our last day at the state forest, they closed the public restrooms (forcibly - with wood!) and marked all the campsites as unavailable both in person and online.

This sign was on all campsites except ours
and the one other camper in the park...I'm sure
it is on both by now.

Take a good look at that restroom door

Unavailable until April 17!

As we departed Cary State Forest we said goodbye to Florida for now. 

Goodbye Orlando!

Our magical winter has finally ended - this Sunday we finally left the Orlando area.  It was a great winter full of Disney, Universal Studios, and the occasional county park full of wildlife.  Our last site in Orlando was Winter Garden (Thousand Trails) - a fitting end as this was also our first campsite in the Orlando area.  We liked our site quite a lot better this time - it was more conveniently located than our first site and we were nestled between two other temporary campers (rather than the permanent residents who flanked us last time).  The site was also very level, always a bonus!

COVID-19 is certainly making big news everywhere and thus far we've managed to narrowly avoid related closures.  My sister's birthday cruise occurred just before all cruise departures were canceled.  Disney World's last day before closure was the day we left Orlando.  The RV park put in some stringent restrictions right as we left.

Activities board at the RV resort

So far we haven't heard of any closures in the parks we've chosen on our trek back north, so fingers crossed our 1.5 week trip is uneventful.  Some of you might have heard that we have been planning a trip to Europe in late spring...of course that is looking less and less likely with every passing day. 

Of course, as with the rest of the country the grocery stores in Orlando have been greatly affected.  Unfortunately I was legitimately out of toilet paper and toilet bowl cleaner when we went to Walmart...I found a secret stash of toilet paper in a corner of Walmart but had to settle for the off brands remaining for the toilet bowl cleaner.  We don't have enough space in the RV to hoard anything even if we wanted to, so it's an interesting conundrum living in an RV during this crisis.  Overall though, spending our time in an RV, hanging out at our fire ring in small campgrounds, seems like a good way to try to socially distance ourselves.

Toilet paper aisle at Walmart

Back to happier (sadder? non-virus related at any rate) thoughts...it was hard to leave Orlando - we've had a wonderful time in the area.  We made great use of our annual passes, and it is strange to think about NOT just deciding to hop over to a theme park for a few hours for some fun.  We FINALLY made it on Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure and it was AMAZING.  We also slipped in a ride on the brand new Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway at Hollywood Studios, caught the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival, and rode the rest of the rides at the various parks this week that we hadn't been on yet.  We're debating whether some sort of visit to Florida should become part of our annual plans...time will tell.  Bye for now though Orlando!

Epcot Flower and Garden Festival

Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure

Goodbye Magic Kingdom!

Goodbye Universal Studios!

Goodbye Epcot!

Trimble Park & A Birthday

We just visited Trimble Park, another Orange County park (like Moss Park, where we've stayed twice).  Our campsite was absolutely beautiful and right on the lake.

That's the lake in the background!

Our fire ring

We had a fire ring with nice bench seats as well as a covered grill.  The campground was relatively small and everything (hiking, picnicking, bathhouse) was within easy reach.  We had 4 fun visitors to our site - I took all of these pictures from within our campsite using my telephoto lens for my phone's camera.  There were lots of aquatic birds as well that I didn't snag a photo of.

Same owl - in flight!

Yes this was a different alligator

Overall this was a wonderful, peaceful, beautiful, wildlife-full site.  Now, the bad...the other animals we had in massive quantities were aquatic midges.  These disgusting insects were swarming absolutely everywhere the first two days at the campground.  We couldn't open the door to the RV without letting a few in.  You almost had to breathe them in.  On the bright side, they were annoying but not harmful...but man were they annoying.  Fortunately the last couple days at the campsite the wind died down and the midges went away (related? I'm not sure).  With the midges gone the campsite was absolutely blissful.  The other downside to the campground was that the road was a *little* narrow, but we were able to navigate it without too much trouble.

The main event this past week was my sister's 40th birthday!  We joined her and her husband on a Royal Caribbean cruise to the Bahamas on the Navigator of the Seas.  Unfortunately the weather was a little on the cool side and it was very windy, but we had a lot of fun all the same.  And now that my 'baby' sister has turned 40 *I* feel old!  (For those of you that don't know that's a little bit of a joke...she's only 17 months younger...but still!)

We beat the escape room!

Chef's table - courtesy of my mother

We won Disney cartoon trivia!

More Orlando and a Visitor!

We've just wrapped up another couple weeks in Orlando, this time at the Orlando Thousand Trails RV Resort.  I think this is the first Thousand Trails resort we've stayed at *not* in the Encore Trails Collection.  So, some observations here that may or may not be reflective of the type of resort since I have a completely insufficient sample size...

First observation...Orlando RV Resort was HUGE.  We took a walk around the resort, walked for 45 minutes, and still didn't get into all the nooks and crannies.  This wasn't necessarily a bad thing - I don't think I experienced any ill effects due to the hugeness.  In fact, this resort had more scheduled activities (craft fairs, dance classes, bingo, etc.) than any we've stayed at this far, doubtless due to the number of people, and it featured TWO pools instead of the normal one.  Additionally, this had possibly the best run mail room I've seen at a resort - they keep track of all packages as they arrive in a large alphabetized binder, with notes as to where they've stashed the package.  This makes package pickup SO much faster than the places that just toss everything in a pile in a closet.

The second observation...there were a few sections of the resort, including our spot, where they packed you in like sardines.  Most of the resort was actually normally spaced for an RV park, but there were a couple of rows that were crazy cramped.  Although this was slightly off putting, it really wasn't so bad.  Our neighbors were quiet and aside from having no desire to just hangout outside the RV, we really didn't suffer any because of this.

Our spot!  Easy to touch neighboring RVs!

The other major event that happened while we were there was that my sister came to stay with us for a few days (yes, we can entertain visitors in the RV!).  In retrospect I should have taken a picture of our guest setup while she was with us as you'd doubtless find that interesting...but I didn't think of it until just now, so I'll entertain you with highlights of our trip instead.  The main feature was an absolutely perfect day at Hollywood Studios, where we got to ride all the best rides and enjoy lots of great food.

Jock Lindsey's Hangar Bar at Disney Springs

Waiting in line for Smuggler's Run at Hollywood Studios

Blue and Green Milk!

Fuzzy Tauntauns and a cloudy Bespin Fizz at Oga's Cantina