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!

Moss Park & Another Rocket Launch!

We spent another wonderful week and a half at Moss Park.  I'm getting used to this no sewer thing and we lasted the whole 10 days without having to dump our tanks!  I've posted on Moss Park before so I won't reiterate the wonderfulness of the park now...however the sandy road was a little worse for the wear after some intense rains the day we arrived.  We did get some great 'critter' pics while we were here this time.

This little guy surprised us on the way to the bathhouse!

These two made the rounds every day looking for food.  They had no fear and would come right up to humans!

No fear!

So cute!

This little lady and her mate occupied a bush across from our picnic table

We've definitely caught the Disney bug and continued to spend a lot of time there despite the 35-40 minute drive to get there.

With Ariel at the Princess dinner at Akershus in Epcot

With the 'Master' (Beast) in the Beast's castle for dinner at Be Our Guest in Magic Kingdom

We attempted to 'rope drop' Universal Studios Islands of Adventure again to see Hagrid's Motorbike Adventure but AGAIN our plans were thwarted when the ride didn't open until late afternoon.  We're starting to think we're cursed!  Of course, not being able to ride one ride is a minor thing in the grand scheme of things...  We spent the afternoon at Epcot instead.

With King Julian (Madagascar) at Universal Islands of Adventure

Working on the community mural at Epcot's Festival of the Arts

After our misadventure with Universal Studios, we came home to discover our refrigerator had bit the dust.  You may remember from an earlier post that we had some trouble with our refrigerator tripping a GFCI, but that went away mysteriously after Aaron banged on it, without any obvious cause.  Well, we came home to discover our 'watchdog' had turned off power to our whole RV due to a 'hot neutral', which we traced back to our refrigerator.  Unfortunately our first thought was that one of the new campers had contaminated the electric system at the park, and we contacted our campsite hosts before our full diagnosis revealed the cause, but they were absolutely delightful and friendly even with the false alarm at 9pm.  

Fortunately Aaron was able to repair the propane functionality of the refrigerator (which had been broken since just after we purchased the RV), so we were able to keep the refrigerator running while we waited for the replacement heating elements to arrive.  Aaron got the new elements installed after a couple days and everything is working properly again.  Thank goodness he's so handy! 

Working on the refrigerator

I'm sure Aaron's little helper helped!

The last bit of excitement at Moss Park was another rocket launch at Kennedy Space Center!  This SpaceX launch of 60 Starlink satellites was originally scheduled for Saturday but got postponed twice to Monday morning.  We had to move the RV Monday, so it was a complicated day getting up early, moving the RV to the boat parking area, and then running to Kennedy Space Center by 8:30 to catch the launch to the LC-39 viewing gantry.  We purchased the package that gave us breakfast, a souvenir cap, and guaranteed seats.  The day was much clearer than the last launch day, so we had a great view of the rocket.  I also remembered my telephoto lens for my phone camera so I have a somewhat decent video to post this time!

Free caps!

Rocket Launch

Moss Park & SpaceX Launch

We just spent a week at Moss Park near Orlando - an Orange County-maintained park.  It was GREAT!  The park felt very much like a state park - the sites were wooded and spacious, each site had a grill and a fire ring, everything was well maintained, and we had access to two lakes and some nice hiking trails.  The roads and sites were fairly well-maintained packed sand, and at least our site seemed pretty level.  Most of the sites on the east side of the campground had some sort of lake view (including ours) - and our site had immediate access to the fishing pier (not that we fish, but it's always fun to walk out over the water).  Overall the campground was fairly quiet, though the family sites (with multiple RVs per site) got a little loud during the afternoons on the holiday weekend.  Only downside - no sewer!  We managed to last the whole week without having to empty our gray tank though!  We're getting better at this water conservation stuff :-).

Moss Park was a little far from the amusement parks, but we still spent a bit of time at Disney.  We particularly enjoyed dining at Garden Grill and the Spirit of Aloha dinner show.

I have to give a particular shout out for Spirit of Aloha.  We had our doubts about going due to some questionable reviews online, but we thought it was amazing.  The first half of the program is kind of a goofy story and some hula dancing for the kids to participate in, but the second half of the program is a demonstration of native dances from various Pacific islands, and the dancers were incredible.  The strength and control you have to have to do the dances is remarkable.  Not to mention they finish off with the most impressive fire dancing show I've ever seen.  The food was quite tasty as well.  Now, the down side is that the seating is open air (there's a roof but no sides) and the stage is out in the open, so apparently they do have to cancel the show for inclement weather, but if you are able to book it once you're already in Orlando and know the forecast (we booked our seats a couple days ahead, no problem), I don't see a downside.

The last thing we did while staying at Moss Park was drive out to the Kennedy Space Center to see the SpaceX Crew Dragon Launch Escape Demonstration.  This unmanned test was designed to show that if the launch had to be aborted for some reason, the crew capsule ("Crew Dragon") could disconnect from the rockets and return safely to earth.  Neither one of us had ever seen a rocket launch live before, so this was very cool.  Unfortunately the clouds were so thick that we could not see the fireball when the rockets were disconnected, but we could see the gigantic plume of steam from when the second stage rocket fell to the ocean and exploded.  The platform was 3.5 miles away, so although we could see the launch pretty well, it was hard to capture on camera.