Crossing the Florida Georgia Line

Our first couple stops on the trip north were short, quiet, and uneventful, so I figured I'd combine them in one post.  We had one last stop in Florida at Cary State Forest - a favorite of ours!  This time we stayed at the one 'inside' site on the loop (there's a driving loop, all but one of the campsites are on the outside of the loop).  We had eyed this one critically in the past, thinking it had much less privacy, but it was the only one available by the time I went to book something.  While we were in the campsite we could still barely see the other campers, so our privacy concerns were kind of silly (and we should have known, when every site has an acre or so of space around it...).

Our 'less private' campsite - ha!

Looking at the photo above, do you notice anything odd?  I'll wait....  

Did you find it?  So, normally when I post these pictures, you see the front of the RV.  This is because almost every campsite is set up as a 'back-in' site (well, unless it's pull-through, but we don't get many of those because they're usually more expensive).  This one was set up as a drive-in site!  We didn't even notice until we had backed in, but after parking Aaron immediately noticed that the utilities were on the wrong side!  Also the front steps led off into the underbrush.  So we had to drive out and do a three point turn to get ourselves in the site the right way.  

Unfortunately while we were here the bugs were HORRIBLE.  There are always some bugs here, but for whatever reason (we're blaming excessive rain recently) the biting midges were swarming EVERYWHERE while we were here.  Normally we enjoy strolling along the long walking trails here, but this time the bugs made being outside miserable, and the aforementioned rain left most trails waterlogged anyway.  This was quite disappointing, but it was still nice to just sit inside the RV and look out the windows at the scenery.

The view from the window on 'my' side of the living room

This is our bug catcher (a strip of wide sticky tape) - the bugs 
here are what flew in the RV while we had the door open for a 
few minutes in the morning.  Ick! 

Our next stop was much more pleasant bug-wise - our first visit to Laura S. Walker State Park in Georgia.  This was a short just-over-an-hour drive from Cary State Forest along Aaron's favorite kind of road - two lanes each direction with a median through a flat remote area with little traffic.  This park was cute with two hiking trails and a lake.  The campground did NOT offer much privacy though - this time our site on the inside of the loop had NO privacy.  If we had booked early enough to get a waterfront site or an outside loop site we would have had a nicer experience, but again, this was what was available by the time we decided when we were camping here.  Still, the campground and park were well-maintained with free wifi, good restrooms, and one of the best-draining dump stations I've ever seen.  The comfort station even had a washer and dryer - $1 to wash and only $0.75 to dry!!  The cheapest I've ever seen!  I almost did laundry on principle, but since we'll be at my parents' house with unlimited free laundry by the end of the week I resisted the urge.  The lake was lovely with a nice gazebo nearby.   The park was very dog friendly, with dog poop stations (bags & trash cans) and small and large dog parks!  

Our campsite at Laura S. Walker State Park - what you can't 
quite see is that the white truck is parked in front of a trailer
whose campfire area stares directly at our campfire area

This dock was in the main park area

Crossing the bridge on the lake trail

One interesting tidbit of history here - on our hike we saw lots of trees with large strips of bark removed.  Apparently they did a lot of gum harvesting in this area to produce rosin, and this strange scar is what the tree looks like years later.

A gum harvesting scar - the sign
nearby claims these are called 'catfaces' 
because you can make out whiskers and
also ears at the top of the scar

Next up: more of Georgia!

Dogsitting at Trimble Park

We just spent two weeks at Trimble Park, an Orange County Park we stayed at in previous years in the area and the last of the main 4 parks for us to visit this year.  We stayed at a corner site we'd used on our first visit, which benefits from a good view of the lake and a large relatively private campsite.  

Site 13 at Trimble Park

As we arrived, our neighbor mentioned this was the 'best' Orange County park.  I've reflected before about the various merits of the different parks, and although I think it's hard to pick an objective best, this one certainly is nice.  It's hard to beat the lakeside sites (about half are on the lake, a few more on an inlet, and I think just two have no water 'access' (not that you're going in the water at any of these points)).  The park maintenance here is really top notch, keeping everything in great shape mechanically and cleaning the bathrooms three times a day.  There are nice walking trails and a good park with playgrounds if you have need of it.  The campsites have good fire rings and separate charcoal grills, and the fire rings have wooden benches!  HOWEVER, in bad news for us...they've changed their policies here (I wasn't aware).  When we pulled in and talked to a ranger, he asked how big our RV was...when I answered (40 feet), he said newly this season they have restricted access to just 35 feet long and 12 feet tall, as they have had complaints from larger RVs hitting the trees and they would like to trim the trees LESS and not more.  Luckily for us, though he offered us a refund and to leave, he allowed us to 'take our chances' and stay...given that we've stayed here multiple times before, we took our chances and had no problem at all.  However, if they'll be trimming the trees less and enforcing the length restriction more in the coming years, there's a good likelihood we won't be camping here again, which is a little sad.

The highlight of this trip was taking care of my sister's dog Beamer (named after the former VT football coach Frank Beamer, not the car!) while she and her family went on a Disney cruise (yes, we were jealous!).  Fortunately, Beamer had stayed in the RV twice before with my sister, so it wasn't a totally unfamiliar spot for him, and of course he knows and loves us, so he settled in just fine.  I'd go out on a limb and say this was kind of a vacation for him, as he got to go on more and longer walks than he gets at home (due to the 4 children demanding most of the adult time at home), and the park had so many wonderful smells for him to explore.  He certainly seemed to love it!  I have to share some pictures here of his time with us :-).

His bed *just* fit in the living room

Emptying the tank - he seemed quite
happy to just trot back and forth between
the RV and the dump station - much
better than being left alone while we 
did the chore!

Aaron had to re-level the RV midway 
through the week - Beamer was alarmed
that the house was moving!

Sitting by the lake on our campsite.  He never looked at the lake -
he was always looking back toward the campground for any
hazards that we needed alerting to.

At the dock in the campground

He squeezed himself in the tiny spot on my side of the bed
to sleep at night (he split his night time between this spot, a spot 
on Aaron's side, and a spot at the foot of the bed - all pretty tiny)

Beamer's sleeping spot on Aaron's side of the bed

The other highlight of the week was a visit from our friend Mary and her daughter Lisa.  They live in St. Louis but had come to Florida for Spring Training.  They came up midday and we spent the afternoon hiking, playing games, and enjoying a campfire.  Good times!

Playing games under the RV awning in the rain!  It only rained 
for about 45 minutes but Aaron captured the moment.  We stayed
outside because the rain wasn't TOO bad and we didn't have a
big enough table to play inside.

At the campfire in the evening.  Beamer's sitting next to me
but you probably can't see the black dog in the dark.

One of the big perks of Trimble Park is, of course, the wildlife.  It's a fairly remote area and the wildlife are quite abundant.  We saw a large owl, a red shouldered hawk, a couple woodpeckers, raccoons, and tons of water birds...and of course a handful of alligators!  I disturbed a hawk that had just captured a snake and saw it fly away with the snake in its talons!  Unfortunately I didn't have my phone with me for most of these sightings, so you'll have to settle for this one photo of a woodpecker.  He was SUPER noisy chipping massive chunks of bark off the tree and having them crash to the ground.

Blurry zoomed-in woodpecker

Alligator!  This one was right next to our campsite.  I'd estimate
he was about 2 feet long.

View from our campsite

Aaron made a lovely campfire for our last night at the park

It was a great two weeks!  We thoroughly enjoyed our dogsitting and experiencing camping with a dog - it always looked so fun watching other people do it!  The only bad thing about the dogsitting was taking Beamer out for his final walk after dark before we went to bed - as I said, this place was TEEMING with wildlife, most of whom are most active a dusk and right after.  Beamer found two raccoons, which spooked me terribly until I determined they were raccoons and not alligators (he detected them several feet away in the brush).  I was always a bit on edge walking him at night, but other than that it was fun!

Dinner Shows and Goodbye Central Orlando!

We wrapped up our last stay in 'central' Orlando for the season.  Central is in quotes because technically it's Kissimmee, but it's the area close to all the amusement parks, so 'central' for tourism purposes ;-).  Again we stayed at Sherwood Forest, this time right across from the laundry facilities, which was very convenient!

Final campsite at Sherwood Forest

The Epcot Flower and Garden Festival started shortly after we arrived, and we went a couple days and did the 'Garden Graze' - buy 5 items from the food vendors to receive a free treat.  The food was excellent and we received another fun cup with the completion!

Epcot has many fun topiaries for the festival

50th Anniversary cake!

50th anniversary flowers!

Winnie the Pooh was so cute!

Our reward for completing the Garden Graze

With our seasonal departure imminent, we evaluated what all we needed to do that we'd been talking about all season and ended up with three dining reservations.  First, we returned to Garden Grill at Epcot - one of our favorite restaurants on Disney property.  The food is homestyle and delicious, the restaurant rotates through part of the Living with the Land exhibit, and characters come visit during your meal.  It did not disappoint!

Pluto!

Next, we booked dinner and a show at Capone's, an establishment right down the road from the RV resort.  This had the theme of "1931 gangland Chicago" - set in a speakeasy.  The food was actually quite good and you were allowed to choose from a menu (unusual for a dinner show - normally you eat what they decide to give you or go up to a buffet).  The entertainment was a bit cheesy but very fun.  We thought it was an excellent value for the money and quite enjoyed our evening.

Some of the singers and dancers

This didn't come out great in the low light, 
but it was a very interactive show and
they had you practice stereotypical 
Italian family motions and sayings so 
you could fool the cops

Finally, we returned to Medieval Times - also right down the road from the RV resort.  We had been here several years earlier, but it is one of my favorite dinner shows and so we decided to return since it was so close.  We cheered for the red and yellow knight, who sadly did not win the tournament, but the entertainment was great as always.

In the lobby with a picture of the 'queen'
(a year or so ago they changed the 
script and now there is a queen instead
of a king)

The knights marching in with the queen at the start of the show

Finally, we also stopped by Shingle Creek Regional Park, also right down the road.  It was a nice little park, I wouldn't say it's worth a special trip, but if you're in the area it has some pretty walks.  There are a couple of historic buildings and informative signs - including the fact that Shingle Creek is so named because shingles were made from the cypress trees in the area.

The bridge over Shingle Creek

As we close out this phase of our seasonal travel, I have some reflections on our winter activities.  This year, as you may or may not have heard in the news and social media, Disney World was INSANELY busy.  You might have noticed we only went to Epcot in this post...that's because the other parks were way too crowded to be enjoyable for folks like us that want to wait in a couple of reasonable lines and stroll around unhindered.  I'm not sure if this is pent up COVID vacationing, an expected side effect of the 50th anniversary celebrations this year, or an unexpected side effect of the new Genie+ paid FastPass, but the lines this season were unbearable.  Usually in February the lines are short and crowds are low and the parks are quite fun to visit, but not this year.  And this isn't just our biased opinion - it was commented on by all the Disney YouTube channels we follow as well.  So we're thinking next year we'll drop the annual passes (gasp!) and find some other way to entertain ourselves in the winter.  This will likely still center on Florida (we determined everywhere else is too cold), but we're thinking we'll take more of a tour around the state and maybe get ourselves organized enough to pop into a few state parks along the way.  It's a sad thing to think about because we did really enjoy Disney, but it's a good thing for you as a reader because my posts will probably become more interesting next year ;-).  

In related news, we have trips planned for the spring in Georgia, Kentucky, and Indiana so things will get more interesting here soon!

Family Camping at Magnolia Park

We spent a week and a half back at one of my favorite parks - Magnolia Park.  Though as I think back on all the Orange County Parks, I realize it's really hard to pick a favorite.  They each have unique traits that make each special and fun.  But I digress.  We enjoyed the peacocks yet again, and this time I talked to the ranger when we checked in about them and discovered that the three girls and one juvenile boy are actually all siblings - two girls from last year's brood and a girl and a boy from this year's - and the third peahen we saw last year was actually the mom for all of them and was killed by a car near Thanksgiving.  Thankfully she produced three new peahens before passing, or the park would have been in bad shape with just five peacocks and no peahens!

All siblings!

We actually switched sites midway through our visit this time.  I made the mistake of STARTING our reservation on a Saturday, which meant when the booking window opened, most of the sites were taken by people who were camping for the weekend starting on the Friday!  We ended up at a site (5) on the side of the campground we'd never stayed at before, which was farther from the restroom and lacked privacy.  After a few days we switched the other side of the campground, to a great site right around the corner from the restroom with a huge open area in the back for a tent...important for the family camping coming up!

First Campsite - #5 - it's a little short for us and there's another
campsite immediately at the left side of the photo, but it worked
just fine for a few days!

Second campsite - #17 - to be fair it's pretty close to the camp
host on the right side there but you can't see them through the
RV; you can just see the retaining wall that provides some recessed
privacy and the large spot in the back for the tent - also, much more 
room for the car in the front!  (this was taken before my sister arrived)

My sister and her family came to camp with us our second weekend there and we had a great time!  The kids loved 'peacock hunting', especially at night when we found the peacocks and peahens in the trees and even got out at the right time one evening to watch them flying up to roost for the night!  The peahens seem to have an easier time of roosting what with their lack of a huge tail.  We took the kids to the Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive - they had a blast!  They kept count and found 51 alligators!

In the back of my sister's truck with all
the kids (and my sister) - Aaron kept
out of the sun in the front with my
brother-in-law

Aaron got out of the truck and got way too close
to this alligator to get this picture!

We also took the kids to Kelly Park to float down the creek at Rock Springs...but we cheaped out and didn't get tubes.  Turns out that a strong flowing creek really freaks out the kids :-(.  I didn't think about it ahead of time, but I suppose that feeling of being pulled along the water could be really scary the first time you feel it.  As a result, we couldn't convince the younger three kids to just lean back and float - rather, the twins clung to me the whole way down and the youngest clung to her mother.  Unfortunately if you AREN'T floating there are a lot of shallow shin-killing rocks scattered along the whole route - I have the bruises to prove it!  The water was a little cold for the kids as well, so this excursion was a bit of a bust but I think they still had an overall positive experience seeing the crystal clear water (see my previous post) and experiencing something new.

The rest of the weekend we just hung out at the campground - the kids enjoyed the multiple playgrounds and large open fields for football and we all enjoyed some fireside time.

Burning marshmallows at the campfire

My sister's dog found the peacocks 
fascinating too!

 

I have to close with a few more peacock photos just because they're so awesome :-).

I'm not sure how well this comes out, but
what you're looking at is the juvenile
peacock trying to fan his tail feathers out -
it's a little funny to me because the poor
kid doesn't have much going on there yet!

Ok this isn't a peacock but this guy
cracked me up because he came and 
perched on this pole RIGHT outside
my car window while I was waiting
for Aaron to pull around to the dump station
- I guess he thought I might hand him nuts
out of the car window?

This post is quite a bit late because I came down with some nasty cold right after we left the park...hopefully there won't be such a delay before the next post!

Fun at Sherwood Forest and a Broken Dryer!

We just wrapped up another two weeks at Sherwood Forest RV Resort.  You'll find this one featuring prominently in the remainder of our time in Orlando, as it ended up having the availability we needed and it's super close to Disney.  This time around we were placed in a pull-through site we actually fit into, so that's an improvement over last time!  

Much more appropriate location for our RV!

We took advantage of our proximity to Disney to continue to enjoy Epcot's Festival of the Arts.  We completed their cuisine stroll to earn our 'free' cookie and slushie!  We enjoyed a couple of the best part of the festival - 3D Chalk Art!  Unfortunately the time of day and sunny days worked against us so we didn't get the best pictures with the shadows on the art.  We went to see the Disney on Broadway concert for the first time - I thought it was very fun, though Aaron isn't all that crazy about concerts.  They had the original singers for Mary Poppins and Tarzan on Broadway and they sang songs from those shows and a few others.  We also made it to Hollywood Studios but didn't end up going to the other parks as every time we checked the Disney app the lines were crazy long.  The bloggers we follow have commented several times that there is no longer an 'off' season at Disney, and we tend to agree.  This has us rethinking our plans for next winter, but we haven't decided anything just yet...

Rewards of our (eating) labor.

I'm supposed to be taking a flower 
from Groot

And here Aaron is rescuing Hei Hei 
(his favorite character from Moana) - 
unfortunately on this one in addition to the
shadows a storm had washed away 
the intensity of the colors

For a change of pace we decided to go to Gatorland one day - we had purchased annual passes last year while babysitting my sister's kids, and figured we should make better use of them (we hadn't been since then)!  They were doing their gator feeding show again (it was not running last year due to COVID), so we enjoyed seeing that and visiting the more remote areas of the park we hadn't seen with the kids.

The birds were very bold around the 
well-fed alligators!  

Obviously not a real gator...

As I hinted in my last post, the itinerary for our rescheduled cruise (which we were supposed to go on during our second week at Sherwood Forest this time) was changed again.  At least this time they told us on Monday instead of Thursday, so we had a little more time to NOT prepare to be on a cruise.  Aaron was sorely disappointed (I mean, I was too, but he was more so), but we decided to cancel the cruise.  It just wasn't worth paying the extra money for an itinerary they weren't doing, and we figured it was just going to keep getting changed until this phase of COVID passes, so we'll try again next year.  I've set Aaron to looking for a cruise for our anniversary in May, but in the meantime the good news on this was that we'd be in Florida for our twin nephews' birthday.  We joined them for a fun day of games - arcade and board games - good times!

Playing 7 Wonders with my sister and the twins

The bad news this trip is that the dryer part of my washer/dryer combo seems to have died.  Every time I try to run the dryer it spouts an error that apparently indicates it thinks it's overheating.  Unfortunately the unit is so deeply wedged in the RV we don't really think we can do much troubleshooting until we get back to the farm in Princeton where we have a place to do work and lots more tools.  From googling the error, it may be that something hidden just needs lint/dust cleaned, or that some part of a circuit board needs replacing, but we don't have access to any of that without disassembling the cabinet that holds the unit.  So, bummer that I won't be able to dry laundry in the RV anymore, but at least the washing feature still works!  We had some nice sunny windy days that allowed the clothes to dry quite quickly when I hung them outside.  We'll take a closer look when we get back to the farm in West Virginia in the spring.