Visiting Silver Springs! Also, first time at Southern Palms

Here begins the real struggle with booking RV parks...we visited Southern Palms RV Resort, a Thousand Trails resort, for the first time...however, I could only get 12 days here instead of our normal 14.  We've never tried Southern Palms because it is a considerable drive to get to Disney World compared to the other Thousand Trails parks, but since we no longer have our Disney passes, we figured we'd give it a try (it was also the only park in the general area available for any amount of time at all for this period!).  Turns out the staff are very friendly and the park is nicely maintained.  They even have a maintenance guy come with you to your spot to help you park...mostly because they cram you in like sardines (though not nearly as close as we were at Winter Garden...) and want to make sure you're parking at the right spot in the lot to maximize everyone's free space.

Parking at Southern Palms...we didn't yet have
a neighbor on the right side of the photo.

While at Southern Palms we started searching for land to buy.  I've mentioned that we're thinking all the campground crowding and the price of diesel are getting to us and we don't know that we'll continue this much longer...our desired solution is to find a plot of land to build a house and live in the RV on that land while we do so.  We spent a few days driving around central/northern Florida and southern Georgia looking for land.  We found a beautiful plot in Georgia with a pond...but the neighbor's house looked like a junkyard, so we decided we did not want to deal with that.  The search continues!

The highlight of our stay was a visit to Silver Springs State Park.  This was recommended to us by a neighbor back when we were staying at Rose Bay, and finally at Southern Palms we were close enough to make an easy day trip of it.  We took the extended glass bottom boat tour and loved it!  According to the website, the glass bottom boat was invented at Silver Springs in the 1870s.  We found out on our boat tour that Silver Springs used to be an amusement park, owned by ABC Studios in the 1950s-1970s.  They had exotic animals and other entertainment, and filmed portions of several movies and TV shows at that time.  The state took the park over in 2013, removed all of the entertainment except the glass bottom boats, and let everything basically go back to the nature you expect at a state park.  The current boats have been running since the 60s.  We saw four manatees, several alligators, and tons of fish, turtles, and birds.  All the seats in the boat were good seats to view the glass bottom.

The unusually ornate entrance to the park seems to date back
to its time as an amusement park

Sitting on the glass bottom boat

You may have to squint just right, but we floated right
over a sleeping manatee!  (Also 3 more I didn't snag a photo of)

A movie prop boat abandoned on the
river's bottom

Keeping an eye out for interesting stuff!

Can you see the alligator lying in the floating grass?  This seemed
to be a favorite pastime for them

These are three statues of gods originally placed for a movie
and later briefly featured in things like James Bond's 
Never Say Never Again

We highly recommend the glass bottom boat tour at Silver Springs!  We saw so many cool things through the glass bottom (including the numerous springs, which really didn't photograph well) and the surrounding nature was beautiful.

Nephew time at Kelly Park!

Our second Orange County Park of the season was Kelly Park...I think this one might really be my favorite.  It has the absolutely beautiful Rock Springs, and the campsites are all huge and private.  A huge highlight of this visit is that we hosted my oldest (10-year-old) nephew by himself for the first time (that is, without either parent and without his siblings).  We've babysat all 4 kids a couple times, but this is the first time we've had just one for a dedicated fun weekend focused on him.

Our campsite at Kelly Park - the 'fun' area is tucked away
way back there behind the trees - nice and private!

Before I get into the nephew weekend...a couple of maintenance updates.  We had thought replacing the fuel filter a few sites back was going to fix the weird engine lag issue we experienced, and it went away for a few drives, but came back on our way here, so the fuel filter didn't fix it after all...it's also possible we got some bad diesel fuel, so we're going to wait for another fill up before pursuing any more expensive fixes.  Then our first night at Kelly Park our refrigerator went out in the middle of the night (why is it always the middle of the night for the refrigerator??) with an overheating error.  The next day Aaron diagnosed and figured out that the fan that is supposed to cool the outside heating coils was not working...because the thermostat that turns it on had died.  He rewired the fan before our nephew arrived so that we could turn the fan on manually and ordered the new thermostat, which arrived at the end of our stay - he got it installed and now everything is working great!  

Aaron up on the roof diagnosing the issue

With his new wiring apparatus to allow us to switch the fans on

Ok, now on to my nephew's visit!  We met him with his father about halfway between our campsite and their house to pick him up, and by the time we got back to the campsite it was getting a little dark, but he was still eager to have a campfire and cook dinner outside!  We had 'hillbilly burritos' from a campfire cookbook I had, cooked in pie irons my aunt gave us at Thanksgiving.  Our nephew loved it!  He assembled and cooked his own.  

Cooking dinner in the pie irons

Our nephew with the fruits of his labor!

We had a fun-filled Saturday, starting with cinnamon biscuits for breakfast - my nephew doesn't like raisins and always picks them out of the cinnamon raisin biscuits I make, so since it was just him, I left them out as a special treat!  We traipsed over all the trails in the park either walking or biking.  Aaron and I had been on the main trail in previous visits, but this time we went on ALL the trails.  It was fun and a little exhausting - we even temporarily wore out my nephew, which is hard to do!

Cinnamon biscuits for breakfast

Aaron was full of all sorts of good ideas...

Beginning our bike ride from the campsite

A much needed break after a long bike ride!

They invented a dogfight football game while I cooked - one
threw a football and the other kicked a soccer ball at the same
time (so they were both on offense and defense)

My nephew asked to go back to Blue Spring State Park, which happened to be on the way back to his house, so we stopped there on the way taking him home.  We'd had a bit of a cold snap and there were 444 manatees at the park that day!!  Wow!  We saw lots of babies, including one that seemed to be only about 2 feet long hovering next to his mother's back.  Amazing!

444 Manatees!

My nephew is attempting to point at the manatee

Manatees!  Including the baby one!

We went out on the boat with my sister's family to celebrate my niece's birthday later that day.

On the boat with my sister's kids

Our stay at Kelly Park was great, and we really enjoyed having our eldest nephew all alone for the weekend - we'll have to do it again!

Christmas and Dogsitting at Winter Garden

Here begins our can't-find-an-RV-park drama...when I looked for a Thousand Trails site over Christmas, the only one I could find out of our regular candidates was Winter Garden RV Resort.  This was disappointing as 2 months earlier we had hoped to just stay near Daytona (and nearer my sister), but Winter Garden is a decent park in a decent location (especially if we don't care about going to Disney), so this wasn't so bad.

Our campsite at Winter Garden - we were REALLY close to that 
trailer on the left - could see right into their dining room from ours

We spent a few days at my sister's place to celebrate Christmas together.  I bought the kids a 'ninjabread' cookie kit from Aldi that was a HUGE hit!  I always love it when I can come up with something they enjoy on my own (as opposed to having my sister tell me what to get!).  We had a fun few days cooking and playing games and having the kids open their presents from us before leaving Christmas Eve.

Ninjabread cookie making!

Aaron with a couple nephews

Christmas Eve breakfast!  Note the Christmas tree waffles!

We left the house with my sister's dog, Beamer, in tow.  They were headed to her in-laws' house after Christmas on a plane, so we kept Beamer while they were away.  He loved traveling in our car (he can see out the window, which he can't do in their car because he has to be in the footspace) and loved all the new smells at the RV park.  We took care of him once before, so this time he settled right in, ate right away, and knew right where he wanted to sleep.  Even though the RV is pretty tiny, he still stayed in whatever room we were in...even when we were both in the bathroom getting ready for bed at night (that's a tiny space for two adults and a dog!!).  The only downside is that we had him for New Year's Eve with the fireworks...which he did NOT enjoy.  As long as we would sit with him where he could snuggle under our legs he was fine, but he didn't appreciate it when we got up and moved around!  I took SO many pictures of the adorable puppy (ok he's 11, not a puppy...but he's so cute!), I restrained myself to just post these three.

We had Beamer for Christmas morning and brought his stocking
from my sister's place so Santa could find him!

Isn't he so cute????

New Year's Eve :-(

Even though we hadn't planned to be so close to Orlando, Winter Garden is actually super convenient (30 minute-ish drive) to 3 of the 4 Orange County parks that we'll be popping in and out of, so from a gas savings point of view it's actually really good we stopped here!  

Happy New Year!!

Back in Orlando: Magnolia Park

Although our original intent was to stay over on the West Coast near Daytona this winter, we quickly discovered that there were no other lovely short-booking-window public parks nearby like the ones in Orange County where we could spend our time between the Thousand Trails parks.  Rather than going through the immense difficulty of hoping for last minute reservations on the coast, we decided to just bounce over to the Orange County parks, and so in mid-December we headed over to Magnolia Park again for our inter-Thousand Trails time.   

Our campsite at Magnolia Park

Upon arrival we immediately noticed a distinct LACK of peacocks...they've always been a highlight of our visits here, but we didn't see any at all for the first day, and afterward only saw a few males around the park for several days.  We finally had a rainy day wherein all the peacocks hid from the rain under the shelters, and we found all 5 males...but still no females.  Sadly, we found out that both of the remaining females had been hit by cars since our last visit, just like their mother (peahens seem to have a strange desire to cross the busy road near the park...).  I asked if they had any plans to bring in more peahens to keep the flock going, but at the moment they don't :-(.

Peacocks hiding from the rain!

As a partial consolation for the missing peahens, there is an extremely friendly cat who has adopted the campground (I asked, and the workers were not sure where she came from).  She made the rounds to each campsite begging for food and affection.  I was happy to supply the latter!

Campground kitty!

She wasn't pleased when I stopped petting 
her and headed inside the RV

Aaron did an even better job with the Christmas lights at this campground, taking advantage of the palm tree on our site.

New Christmas lights

We took advantage of our proximity to Orlando to go view the Christmas trees at Disney Springs.  While there, we went by the Lego store to pick up a Lego set for a nephew for Christmas and enjoyed their life-size creations!

"Once Upon a Toy" tree

Moana tree - complete with Hei Hei!

Grogu (Baby Yoda) at the Lego Store

Aaron and the Hulk at the Lego Store

We also went to see Avatar: The Way of Water at a local (non-chain) theater, which offered movies at an amazingly reasonable price for this day and age!  The movie's visuals were AMAZING - if you haven't seen it yet, go see it in the theater where you can properly appreciate the 3D.  At one point I felt like I was sitting in the middle of a huge aquarium.  So amazing.

Avatar: The Way of Water

I had mentioned the hydraulic jack sinking at our previous campsite...to our dismay it sunk again at Magnolia Park (even though the campsites are paved, we backed in enough to allow our car in front of the RV, which left our back jacks on dirt).  It seems that the destroyed jack pad just doesn't distribute the weight of the RV very well.  Going forward we need to put boards underneath the jack or something along those lines...we hate to pay the big bucks to replace the jack pad that isn't as resilient as advertised, but we have to do SOMETHING!

I tried to get a picture of the hole the jack created -
that's most of Aaron's hand able to fit into the hole

First Time Cruising with Celebrity: the Silhouette

While we were parked at Rose Bay, Aaron found an EXTREMELY last-minute (and cheap) cruise with Celebrity - just 2 days' notice!  It happened to fit well within the time we were parked at Rose Bay, so we decided to go!  This was our first time cruising with Celebrity, but we'd heard great things, and we were excited to try it out aboard the Silhouette.

We loved this cruise!  To start, we had booked an inside guarantee room and with the half-full ship we were upgraded to a balcony room - and not just a balcony room, but one with a HUGE balcony!  We had heard the food on Celebrity was remarkable, and it really was - starting with our first trip to the buffet restaurant, which had so many different and delicious options, and free hand scooped ice cream!  The ship had a lot of great spaces - from a quiet lounge in the middle of the ship with little nooks to sit and read, to a beautiful adult indoor pool area, to an actual lawn with real grass on the top deck!  We spent a lot of our spare time watching the World Cup on the big screen over the lawn.

One of the reading nooks

Walking barefoot on the real grass

Watching the World Cup on the real grass

The ship was decorated throughout for Christmas

Nighttime on the top deck!

The ship stopped at Key West and Nassau, though we didn't bother getting off at Nassau this time.  We love Key West though, and rented some bikes to explore the island again, making it to the Southernmost Point ahead of the crowds, checking out the Christmas decorations on the Harbor Walk, exploring an old fort we hadn't seen before (West Martello Fort, now a botanical garden), and finding a nice waterside bar for some cold drinks.

At the Southernmost Point - note the 
festive reindeer!

One of several nautical-themed trees on the Harbor Walk - this one had plastic
 lobsters inside the lobster crates!

Dining and entertainment were excellent aboard the ship.  The first production show was a bit of a disappointment, perhaps because it featured music from the 00's (who wants that?? ;-)), which most of the audience didn't recognize and the performers just didn't seem to be able to get into.  However, the next show was an amazing "Reigning Rocks" featuring rock music from Britain, and the final show was an incredible Cirque du Soleil-style production - we absolutely loved both of these, and the performers seemed to as well!  Our last evening we splurged a bit and dined at Le Petit Chef, and amazing restaurant featuring a bit of an animated show playing out on your tabletop!

The tabletop at Le Petit Chef - here they 
are telling the history of the tomato - the 
colors on the table are projections from 
a camera above the table

Amazing acrobatics at the Cirque du Soleil-style show

As we debarked in Miami, we noticed one final nice touch - as they called each luggage group, the announcers rotated to feature members of the various departments aboard the ship, thanking you for sailing with Celebrity.  We LOVED this cruise and can't wait to sail with Celebrity again...unfortunately they are normally quite expensive, so we'll have to wait for Aaron to come across another amazing last-minute deal!