Magnolia Park Peacocks

We spent our first week back in the Orlando area at an Orange County park we hadn't visited before - Magnolia Park.  This park had a small campground that, unlike the other parks we've visited in Orange County, was immediately connected to the main day use area.  This was pretty cool because the main park was a central pond and green area surrounded by a paved circular road that was excellent for biking.

Magnolia Park campsite

The coolest thing about this park though...was the peafowl!!  There were 5 peacocks and 3 peahens.  They were pretty tame and quite unafraid of humans.  We learned some cool things...first, peacocks can fly a little bit.  They routinely flutter up onto fence posts, rooftops, or (most surprisingly!) the tops of really tall trees!  We discovered the latter when walking around at dusk...we heard their loud calls and couldn't see them anywhere on the ground, and finally discovered a peacock in a tree!  We searched around and found all of them roosting for the night in different trees.  The other interesting observation was that the peacocks kept mostly to themselves, occasionally following the peahens, but the peahens ALWAYS stuck together, even roosting at night.  I hope you'll forgive a huge slew of pictures here...they were just so photogenic!!

Ok this isn't a peacock...this was the resident alligator in the 
park's pond.  I think he was about 3 feet long.

Peahens on top of our neighbors' RV!

I just thought this was pretty

This looked like a cape to me

Too windy to be standing up!  We saw a couple of peacocks in 
the wind a couple times and the wind would catch their tail 
feathers and drag them in a bit of a circle.

This was the first time we saw a 
peacock off the ground, I was so
surprised!

No fear!

This was the second time we saw him
off the ground...even higher!

All the ladies on the trucks and the gentleman on the picnic
table on the background.

This peacock was trying to show off

This peacock was very interested in our car.  

So tall!  This was the only peacock in
a tree we caught on camera (because it
was daytime and not dusk and on a
branch without leaves), and he was 
perched much lower than the ones we 
saw at dusk

Close-up of the same peacock

Not sure how well this will come out...this peacock attacked this
car!!  The car was approaching very slowly, stopping a lot, and
the peacock rushed it a couple times (what I was trying to catch)
and then ended up actually jumping up and attacking the car with
its beak and claws (what I actually caught)!!  No peacocks
were harmed in the capturing of this photo.  We read that
peacocks do this because they see their reflection in the car's surface.

We spent a LOT of time 'peacock hunting' at all times of day, walking and biking around the park.  The main thing I had hoped to do here was visit Lake Apopka and the Lake Apopka bike trail across the street...but the small park there and the bike trail were closed due to construction.  We'll have to try again next year I guess!  We spent the rest of our time exploring lots of different RV parks in the area as we think about places we might want to spend time next winter (see point #8 on my previous post).

Big Winter Texas Trip: Lessons Learned

I thought I'd diverge a bit from my normal journaling type post to reflect on lessons learned during our big trip to Texas.  Because of our initial desire to spend a winter in Florida to use the remnants of our Florida annual passes to Disney World and Universal Studios, followed by the pandemic (the two of which kept us in Orlando for months and then quarantined at my parents' houses for months), this was the first time we had really done an adventurous excursion in the RV to places completely unknown (and of course this is the travel we really INTENDED to do before COVID struck).

So here's my list!

1. We need to avoid 2-lane roads (that is, one lane going each direction).  Without a second lane (and frequently without a significant shoulder or median), there is NO wiggle room if we need to avoid an obstacle.  There's also usually not enough room for a truck or another RV to pass us in the oncoming lane without one of the parties going off the road.  Also, Aaron really hates trapping cars behind us - we're nearly always going less than the speed limit and almost reliably less than what some random car driver would LIKE to drive, and on a two lane road the cars just sit behind us getting frustrated with no escape.  Because of this, in our current RV we would greatly prefer to stick to destinations that he can get to on a minimum of 4-lane divided highways.
2. We shouldn't plan a leg of a trip that Google says is more than 2.5 hours.  2.5 hours in the car translates to more like 3 in the RV at the speeds we have to go, and 3 hours is about Aaron's upper limit stress/fatigue-wise.  Knowing his 3 hour limit while I was planning this trip, I'd planned several legs that were about 3.25 hours according to Google (approaching 4 in the RV), and that is really pushing it for him.
3. We don't need more than 2 nights at a location if there's nothing to do.  I had scheduled 4 nights for most stops because I wanted to give Aaron enough time to rest, but really he only needs about a day to rest after a particularly bad drive (read: lots of 2-lane roads, high winds, bad traffic, etc.).  We had a couple of stops where, despite our best attempts, we couldn't find more than a few hours' worth of things to explore, and the days really dragged on at those sites.  Aaron got particularly frustrated thinking that those COULD have been days added to a destination we particularly enjoyed.  Of course, this is a balance of sorts because I enjoy finding random things in an area (like giant squirrels and beautiful country churches) that we would NEVER go out of our way to see, and I think that's all part of the adventure.
4. We can easily go 4 nights without sewer.  This was something new we played with this trip.  While in Orlando, we'd stay 7 days at a time at Orange County Parks, where we didn't have sewer.  We would stay 7 days because that was the required time for us to be out of the Thousand Trails system.  We would use the bathhouse for all showers and all restroom visits that weren't in the middle of the night, and I would haul all of our dishwater to the outdoor bathhouse sink.  This trip we discovered that as long as I continue to haul dishwater, we can easily do all of our bathroom things inside the RV in 4 days' time, which is WAY more convenient.
5. Corollary: limit non-sewer stays to 4 days.  See point #4.
   
6. It's good to be on sewer every other week or so.  Of course, with only a few exceptions, this means staying in a private RV park rather than staying in a public/more natural park.  However, the sewer is nice for two reasons: (1) Aaron likes to do a thorough cleanout of the black and gray tanks on a regular basis, and that takes long enough that it's better to do it when a bunch of people aren't waiting in line behind you at the dump station; (2) having sewer makes it less stressful to shower, do dishes, and clean the bathroom - and also lets me do laundry using our own washer/dryer instead of a laundromat.
   
   Hmm...that's a lot of sewer lessons...you can tell what's frequently on my mind!!
   
   
7. It's best to travel midday on weekdays.  We kind of already knew this, but we did drive a couple times on a Friday afternoon or Sunday when all the weekend vacationers are on the road, and that's just a lot more stressful for Aaron.
8. Only Florida is warm in the winter.  We thought we'd take this winter trip because Texas is so hot in the summer, we figured it would be warm in the winter...nope.  Now, I know most of my readers are in much more northern climates and think I'm ridiculous here...but I haven't spent a winter in a place that really gets snow for over 10 years.  I'm spoiled, I admit it.  So, the highs in the 50s that we got a long portion of our trip through northern Florida and southern Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas just weren't cool.  Or I guess they were cool technically speaking ;-).  After this trip, we're pretty confident we need to be wintering in Florida, southern Arizona, or southern California.  To be fair, extreme southern Texas *should* be ok too...we were just unlucky enough to get caught there during the crazy winter storm and didn't get to experience it.
9. Traveling during COVID times is...iffy.  This is a mixed bag.  On the one hand, traveling in an RV and staying at campgrounds and visiting mostly outdoor attractions is one of the few safe things I feel like we can do while the virus runs rampant.  On the other...a LOT of things are still closed.  It is a bit frustrating that we weren't able to do some very cool-looking things at several locations, making us think we probably need to go back some day...which kind of feels like it defeats the purpose of exploring new areas, if we aren't able to see what there is to see.  We're thinking maybe until COVID comes under control we should keep trips short and sweet so we're not expending tons of money on diesel to visit an area we'll have to come back to again later.  (Unsurprisingly, our gas mileage is TERRIBLE.)

I feel like we should have more lessons learned, but I've been sitting on this post waiting for inspiration for about a week now and this is all I have :-).  Overall we had an awesome trip and saw lots of great things, and I'm looking forward to more exploring in the months to come!  We're in Orlando now and then we're heading back to West Virginia for some maintenance for a bit, but we already have a nice trip around Tennessee planned for our anniversary and the month after.  Stay tuned!

Manatees!!!

Our last stop on our big winter Texas loop was at Crystal River, Florida.  This is well known for being the only place you can legally swim with manatees, and it also happens to be the home of the Crystal Isles RV Resort (Thousand Trails), so we decided to swing by on our way back to the Orlando area.  Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, this is the second largest spring group in Florida - the largest (also frequented by manatees) being Wakulla Springs, where we stopped on our way out of Florida in January.

Crystal Isles was a nice resort, perfect for boaters - a whole slew of the sites had their own personal docks, and there was a communal dock and boat launch for everyone else.  There was a nice pond with fountains in the middle of the park, and all of the sites were massively huge by RV park standards.  Several of the permanent residents had their RV, an outside patio/bar area the same width, and another width for a storage shed or boat.

Campsite at Crystal Isles

Our first order of business was to swim with manatees!!  I'd been looking forward to this for WEEKS, ever since I booked it.  Luckily for us the day I picked turned out to be a gorgeous day.  We were on a small tour - only one other couple - with a friendly and talkative captain who told us a lot about the area and manatees in general.  The reason the manatees are so attracted to this area is that the springs output a massive volume of constant 72 degrees F water year-round.  We arrived on the tail end of the real manatee season, but found a group of about 10 of them hanging out near the springs.  Unfortunately they were all behind the rope humans weren't allowed to cross, so we didn't get any up close and personal touching like you see in videos, but we did get a good look at them up close and underwater, and one tail got about 3 feet away from where I was swimming, so that was pretty exciting!  Truly massive creatures when you get so close!

Ready to swim!

Also ready to swim!  Our tour boat and captain are in the background

Manatees!!  Unfortunately all the underwater photos came out 
cloudy through the waterproof phone pouch

Floating outside the boundary, manatees in background

There were lots of hiking and biking trails all around the area, so after peaking the first day with the manatee swim we did a lot of hiking and biking nearby.  Our most major excursion was to the 7-mile trail at Crystal Springs Preserve State Park.  This was one of the longest natural (aka not paved) trails we've attempted on the bikes, but fortunately the roots and potholes of our western travels were absent here and we only had to deal with mud ruts and grass.  We saw several alligators - definitely back in Florida!

Redfish Hole

Biking the 7 mile trail

Alligator on the 7 mile trail

We saw TONS and TONS of fiddler
crabs in the salt marsh

Our last day we drove to Fort Island Gulf beach, where we enjoyed the tide pools and found yet more manatees in the wild!  Sadly we weren't fast enough to get their adorable noses surfacing on camera.

Tide pools at Fort Island Gulf Beach

Lots of birds were just hanging out on the rocks near the shore

Aaron thought I was going to slip off
the wet rock for sure...nope!

The whole area had a relaxed and beachy/vacation-y feel to it.  I loved it, but Aaron thought the smaller non-highway roads to get here were a little too stressful in the 40' RV, so if we ever come back it will probably just be in the car.

Happy pi day!  (This is my first ever
coconut cream pie - turned out great!)

Florida Sweet Florida

We're back in Florida!  Our big winter trip isn't quite over (I don't count it as over until we reach Orlando again), but we are finally back in the sun and warmth of the Sunshine State.  Our first stop in Florida was the absolutely beautiful Three Rivers State Park.  This may well be my favorite campsite of our trip.  'Three Rivers' is a more historic name, as they dammed two of the rivers and the park is actually on the resulting Lake Seminole.  Before the dam, the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers converged here to form the Apalachicola River (now they flow into the lake and the Apalachicola River flows out).  The campground for the park is right on the lake and I'd say a third to a half of the sites - including ours - have a clear view of the lake.

Campsite - note the angled parking job and the lake in the background!

We did a bit of parking jigging when we arrived, as the folks next to us had completely turned their RV perpendicular to the intended parking orientation to get a better view of the lake, and we thought that was a great idea.  So we rocked back and forth a bit until we were as angled as our 40' RV could be in the spot.  The maintenance guy was just sitting there staring at us so I stopped over to see if something was wrong...he was amazed as he'd never seen anyone with our size RV attempt to do that!  He told me about the history of the campground, how before Hurricane Michael in 2018, only one site had a lake view and the entire campground was covered in forest.  After the hurricane it took them 4 days to clear the road, and it took the maintenance supervisor two days to clear a path from his onsite house to the maintenance buildings essentially next door.  Indeed, as we biked and hiked around the park we saw piles and piles of fallen trees.  He said the maintenance supervisor's house was the only structure to survive the hurricane, and that was clear as all the structures in the park still looked pretty new.

One of MANY large piles of trees in the park

So our site was just beautiful and nicely equipped with newish fence, picnic table, and (first time I've ever seen this) even a clothesline!  Spring was springing in the area, with buds and flowers on the trees and some beautiful flowers outside our front door that steadily bloomed larger every day we were there.

Pretty flower

Just two days later!

We both had the same picture thought :-)

This little guy perched on our power 
pole was just adorable

From our site we had a good view of several neighborhood osprey and a not-so-good view of the sunset.

This osprey is subduing his freshly caught fish

Sunset at the campground

There were several multiuse trails - we biked two of them and hiked one.  Sadly we picked the smoothest one to hike instead of bike!  Still, the trails were much more bikeable than the ones we'd seen and inadvertently experienced to the west.

Biking the park trails

A beautiful cloudy pre-sunset on our hike

One downside: the 2 mile road from the ranger station to the campground was FULL of potholes.  I mean, you really just can't envision how bad they were (and we didn't manage to take any pictures to help you)...this stressed Aaron a lot, so we kept trips outside the park to a minimum.

This park is kind of in the middle of nowhere; the only major attraction nearby was Florida Caverns State Park.  Sadly this park was also hard hit by the hurricane, and unlike Three Rivers, I'd say about 75% of Florida Caverns park was still closed to the public.  Fortunately for us though, they had prioritized reopening the caverns, so we could still get a tour.  Unfortunately the caverns were half flooded (this apparently happens about twice a year when the area gets a lot of rain), so we didn't get a complete tour.  These caverns are the only ones open to the public in all of Florida, so that was kind of neat.  The caverns were an interesting mix compared to several we've been in - on the one hand, the CCC had done extensive excavation work to make the caves tour-able, so they were quite disturbed.  On the other, there were still areas with the very fine 'straws' that you usually only see in undisturbed caves.  This cave had quite a lot of rimstone pools compared to others we've seen.  It was a fun outing and we had a great tour guide.

Here our tour guide is placing a rock at 
the edge of the flooded pool; each tour guide
does this, if you look in the background you
can see how the pool has been getting steadily 
deeper

Rimstone pools

'Straw' formations

The next day we drove over to the Jim Woodruff Dam overlook, where a very hopeful Muscovy Duck followed us closely as we walked around.  We drove around to the other side of the dam, where we found a small road at the state line; I had to take a picture, well, because Florida Georgia Line.

Hopeful duck

Attempting to straddle the Florida-Georgia line - there was a 
seam in the asphalt between my legs, and the sign announced
entry into the Georgia county

It was a sad morning when we packed up to leave this park.  The beautiful setting and abundant birdsong made it such a peaceful place to be.

Back in Mobile!

We spent 4 days at Chickasabogue Park, a Mobile County park in Alabama.  This was another wonderful county park - full hookups, a completely private wooded pull-thru site, and a huge park with lots of trails.  As a bonus it was pretty convenient to the interstate!  The only downside is that we barely saw any wildlife - the songbirds normally so prevalent were nowhere to be seen, no squirrels...I did see one raccoon late at night, but that was just about it - very odd.

Chickasabogue Park Campsite

First time camping in Alabama means a new 
sticker on the map!

I worked in Mobile for 3 months in 2010, right after we returned from England, on the MC252 Deepwater Horizon oil spill response.  I really enjoyed my time there, and our first day in the area we drove down into Mobile to check out all of our old haunts from that time.  As when we were here before, we felt that the capacity of the area (number of buildings, size of roads) was much larger than the actual number of people living and working there.  Last time we were here, a lot of people talked about depressed industry due to the oil spill...this time, maybe COVID was keeping everyone home?  I'm inclined to think though that it's just a much smaller population than it used to be.  We still had fun tooling around town.  We stopped in at the Charles Wood Japanese Garden, which we think has seen better days but had several turtles and beautiful koi fish.  Then we crossed the street to the absolutely massive Langan Park, where we saw the most curious dinosaur artwork and a random unlabeled fighter jet.  We stopped at the highly rated Cammie's Old Dutch Ice Cream Shoppe for a banana split.  Perhaps the most unique thing we did was stop by the Visitation Monastery gift shop to buy some Heavenly Hash made by the nuns there - delicious!

Koi and turtles at the Japanese Garden...sadly the water was
very green

This and the next were 2-D painted wooden cutouts on an island
in Langan Park

I'm not sure how well it comes across, but they looked very
realistic in person

There was no sign on this plane and I couldn't find anything
online to explain its presence in Langan Park

Banana Split at Cammie's Old Dutch Ice Cream Shoppe!

With our box of Heavenly Hash outside the Visitation Gift Shop

We tooled around the park and did some more accidental mountain biking on trails the park ranger promised me were wide and flat...not so much!

The only picture we got was on a 
deceptively flat part of the trail - most 
of it didn't look this nice!

Our final day in the area we drove down to Dauphin Island and toured Fort Gaines, the site of the Battle of Mobile Bay in the Civil War.  The fort was well preserved and the island was beautiful.

The entrance to the fort

Latrines inside the fort

Sitting atop a magazine with a view of the fort interior

With a cannon overlooking the bay

Now, onward to Florida!