Sunshine Holiday Daytona

After Thanksgiving we took a short hop to the Daytona Beach area and stayed at the Sunshine Holiday Daytona RV Resort, part of Thousand Trails.  As soon as we arrived, our new neighbors came over to welcome us and offer any assistance we might need during our stay - so friendly!  On the bad side, they put us way in the back of the park with the permanent residents, where the roads were narrow and people weren't so careful about keeping their cars out of the roadway.  From talking to our new neighbors, it seems common for the office to put longer-staying Thousand Trails members in the back of the park, reserving the front for short timers and/or full paying customers.  I guess this makes sense.  

Our campsite at Sunshine Holiday Daytona

My sister came down the first Saturday we were there with her family and we all went to the light show at Daytona International Speedway.  The lights were lovely and very well done but we were VERY disappointed that you can't drive on the track during this event.  Aaron and I had been to the light show at the Charlotte Motor Speedway and most of the show is on the track and you can drive on the scary sloped part...unfortunately we expected the same here and got the kids' hopes all up...they were sorely disappointed.  So I'd say the Daytona speedway lights are overpriced for what you get - you can get the same kind of show in city parks around the country, being at the speedway didn't add anything unique since you just drive under the bleachers.

Christmas-y sign for the speedway

Only in Florida!

We spent half the week at my sister's place helping take care of the kids while my brother-in-law was out of town.  While we were there we were able to see a SpaceX launch from their front yard!  It was very cool.

SpaceX Launch

We also saw my nephews' first flag football game before leaving the area.  I learned a lot more about what flag football actually is...apparently I really didn't know how it worked before!  We were so exhausted from Thanksgiving and busy with helping my sister that we didn't get out to see much else in the area, so this post is probably a little boring!  We'll try to do better next time :-).

Starships and a Winter Storm

We spent about a week in Boca Chica, the southernmost tip of Texas.  We were routinely within a mile or so of the Mexican border as we drove around exploring the area, and passed through a couple of border control stations.  Our first 'campsite' was at Magic Valley RV Park, conveniently located just off the main highway from the Corpus Christi area.  The park was fairly vacant, and when I talked to one of the residents he said it was largely because so many of the Canadians didn't winter here this year due to COVID and the resulting travel restrictions.  The park had a nice laundry room and overall was a decent stay, though this same resident had his complaints.  Our second spot was at Park Place Estates.  This was a nicer park with more and nicer facilities and more residents - but it was still pretty empty.  Fortunately both of these places accepted discounts from our membership with Passport America - the Boca Chica area is full of high priced RV parks (by our standards), many of which are restricted to 55+.  I think both of the parks were adults only, so we're lucky we didn't have kids or we may have had to find a place at a more expensive park.  We saw signs saying "Welcome Winter Texans" all over the area - must be a popular snowbirding destination!

Magic Valley Park Site

Park Place Estates Site

The highlight of our trip here was a visit to the SpaceX test launch facility.  This was super cool since Starship 10 was sitting on the launch pad and Starship 11 was visible inside the open hangar doors.  Unfortunately the weather was a bit cloudy - our first sightings of Starship 10 showed it above the clouds - but it was still just really awe-inspiring to see.  We budgeted six days in the Boca Chica area just in case a launch was forthcoming...but the incoming winter storm destroyed that opportunity.

In front of the launch facility

Starship 10

Starship 11

The SpaceX facility is really pretty much in the middle of nowhere.  Just past the launch pads, the road ends in Boca Chica Beach.  We stopped and took a quick picture, but again it was too overcast to do much.

Boca Chica Beach

Our other major outing here was to Palo Alto Battlefield Historic Park.  This was the site of the first major battle of the US-Mexican War.  Interestingly in terms of military history, it was also the first time mobile artillery (aka "flying artillery") was a large component in a battle - the Mexicans had expected a normal hand to hand (or hand to horse) battle, but the superior artillery of the US army and its agility made it a very different battle.  The battlefield is well preserved, with flags outlining the positioning of the two armies.  This made it easier to envision the activities of the day...although the full impact of the battle is just unimaginable.  The Mexican forces suffered heavy casualties.

Sample artillery on the US side of the battlefield

Flags delineated the two front lines.  It was hard to see the 
American flags while standing at the Mexican flags, and
you can see from this picture how very far away even the next
flag in line is (it appears as a dot on the horizon).

Unfortunately, the last days of our trip were hit by the coldest weather Texas has seen in over a decade.  The lady who lives next door to our campsite said she'd been coming to this park for 27 years and had never seen anything like this weather before.  Just our luck!  We looked longingly at the Orlando temperatures during this time...  Fortunately we started out the cold spot at this most southern tip of Texas...as good as it could be.  However, we were slated to move on before the weather improved.  We had our next site booked just north of Corpus Christi, at a state park where we'd be farther from the coast in in the midst of trees (aka, much less wind), but further north so 7-10 degrees colder at night...we were looking at 18 and 10 degrees F.  What to do??  At the last minute the forecast updated to include snow on our travel day, so we extended our stay in Park Place Estates by another two days and cut our next camping trip short.  It ended up costing a bit of money but way less than causing an accident due to high winds and snow while driving 3 hours north.  

Icicles hanging from our awning

Ice-covered car

Ice-covered RV

The morning of our revised departure I tried to call the state park to check conditions...and no answer.  Fearing the power was out at the state park (and seeing online that the headquarters and bathrooms were closed), we extended our stay at Park Place Estates AGAIN...later we found out the state park was out of power and even later we saw the whole park was closed (from the booking website it looked like it extended almost a week - they must have had damage), so we definitely made the right decision...again.  Even so, starting that evening our park started participating in the rolling blackouts the rest of Texas was already enjoying.  We'd lose power for 2-3 hours and then gain it back for 2-3 hours.  The next day we heard that our NEXT state park destination was closed as well...and then we scrambled to find a couple of overnight stays en route to our final destination in Texas...a state park that has managed to remain open through all of this (though just as I was going to post this I looked and they're suddenly out of water...hopefully that will improve over the couple of days it takes to get there...).

Aaron's solution to see if the power came back on while we were
running our generator...plugged into the power pole

The milk aisle at the local WalMart

At this point I'm feeling very grateful that we're in an RV right now...this has given us the flexibility to alter our travel plans to be where the ice isn't, and the RV is designed to be off the grid, so our propane heat and refrigerator kept going despite our loss of power.  We were also able to disconnect our external water hoses and operate off our fresh water tank the couple of nights that the temperature dropped into the 20s...many people around town had burst pipes, as evidenced by a ridiculously crowded pipe/plumbing aisle at Home Depot!  During the daytime blackouts we were able to enjoy solar power from our solar panels.  I'm grateful for my handy husband who fixed both the heater and the refrigerator in the past few months and installed our solar panels a year ago!

Here's hoping we'll get the famed warm winter Texas weather moving forward!

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.