Pensacola

Continuing our trek west, we made our last stop in the Florida panhandle at Pensacola RV Park.  Florida is such a long state!  Crazy how long it took us to get out of it.  The Pensacola RV Park was absolutely lovely.  The sites were well maintained and easy to get in and out of, the staff was friendly and quick to address all issues and questions, and the location was awesome for I-10 access.  We enjoyed having a sewer connection, cable, and free WiFi!

Our campsite at Pensacola RV Park

Unfortunately most of the things I had hoped to see in Pensacola were on the naval air station, which was closed to non-military due to COVID.  Normally you can go to the Naval Aviation Museum on the base and watch the Blue Angels practice...not only could we not get to the museum, but even if we could, the Blue Angels weren't practicing.  Very disappointing!  I can't help but wonder what other unique things we'll miss traveling during COVID times...meaning we'll probably need to come back along this route again in the future!

Fortunately Fort Pickens was still open!  This national park is the site of an old Civil War fort (used by the Union in the war), later equipped with significant artillery batteries during World War I.  The fort saw action during the Civil War but not World War I.  The visitor center was closed (so no national park passport stamp for us), but all of the batteries and the main fort were open.  The drive out to the fort was incredible - we drove through a long stretch of road with dunes and water on both sides - and most of the numerous structures were well preserved and open for you to climb on (which Aaron, of course, loved).

That's sand, not snow!

Standing atop one of the batteries looking
out on the Gulf

He HAD to see what was inside...

A cannon atop Fort Pickens itself

Atop Fort Pickens

Our stay in Pensacola was pretty chilly, so we opted not to go out on the couple of bike trails I'd found.  Instead, Aaron changed our transmission fluid (we just discovered it needed changing) and fixed a suddenly broken awning bracket.

Changing the transmission fluid

The transmission fluid dipstick is REALLY long and surprisingly
flexible

Fixing the awning bracket with 
some sort of not-riveter that attaches
to a drill

Our time in Pensacola closed on a sad note.  My Uncle John, who was an integral part of my childhood, who attended all of the major (and most non-major) events in my life, and who was generally just a wonderful, generous, fun, and fun-loving person, passed away on January 3.  I will miss him terribly.

Hiking with Aunt Jane & Uncle John in high school

College graduation

Wedding (my 'uncle' photo - Uncle Walker and my other
Uncle John on the left)

Thanksgiving 2019

The last time we were together in person - a socially 
distanced outdoor gathering in October before we got
back on the road 

Manatees & a Hunt Camp

We enjoyed a few days south of Tallahassee at Newport Campground.  This was a county park unlike any we've been to so far - usually county parks have large day use areas and a campground in the back somewhere.  This park seemed to be more of a hunt camp provided by the county.  They even had a place to hang and gut your kill!  There was no day use area to speak of, and the size, arrangement, and privacy of the campsites felt much more like some of the lower-end private RV parks we've been to than a public park.  The campground was full but I only saw one child the whole time we were there - another oddity for county parks, which are usually filled with weekending families.  This is the only park we've been to that appeared to have long term tent campers.  So odd in so many ways.  However, it was convenient to our route, had a nice little river observation area (from which the long term residents said you could occasionally view manatees...no such luck for us though), and the campground host was very friendly.

Our campsite.  Aaron was quite strategic in managing to not 
really capture the campers very close on both sides in the photo.  They 
placed an orange cone at the front of the RV because they 
worried it was too close to the road and might be hit.

River Observation Deck

This is the first time I've been in a tidal area long enough to really notice the change in tides.  I've been on the coast plenty of times, but always just for that one point in time, somewhere mid-tide, where the extreme changes really weren't obvious.  I knew we were close to the coast, but thought we were far enough inland that any tidal action would be unnoticeable.  Not so!  It was really neat to observe the change in tides every day - we looked the tide schedule up so we could regularly go out to the campground's river observation area at precise high and low tides.

High Tide

Low Tide

There were two highlights to our visit in this area.  First, we went up to the Wakulla Springs state park, where we saw manatees right away!  There was one super close to the swimming area and then a mother and babies far off that we could only see a vague shape of through binoculars.  Apparently the high-volume spring is popular for manatee births as it is a relatively safe area for their babies.  The water was unbelievably clear, the first place we've seen manatees where you could see them beneath the water and didn't have to wait for them to surface.

First time ever we've snagged a picture
WITH a manatee!

Close up of the manatee in case you didn't 
believe the gray blob in the other photo :-)

Second, we drove down to the St. Mark's Wildlife Refuge and Lighthouse - conveniently our campground was at the other end of "Lighthouse Road" so we were as close as you could be to it!  Unfortunately the lighthouse itself was closed due to COVID restrictions, but the area around it was quite picturesque and we enjoyed walking along the beach.

Picture perfect day!

Walking along the beach next to St. Mark's Lighthouse

And our trek west continues!  We have one more stop in Florida before we leave this VERY LONG state and get to put another state sticker on our map.

Christmas at Withlacoochee

We spent a few days around Christmas at Withlacoochee River Park, a Pasco County Park on the Withlacoochee River.  Our main motivation for choosing this park was that we were in our required 1-week break between Thousand Trails parks and all of the Orange County Parks were closed for Christmas.  

Withlacoochee Campsite

This park felt very much in the middle of nowhere, and we approached from the wrong direction (from the SOUTH on Auton Road for anyone ever trying to do this in the future), which had us driving for about 0.5 miles on a dirt road before reaching the park.  As soon as we reached the park entrance the road transitioned to paved and was paved to the north (which we discovered on our way out).  This was a nice little park, with a large first-come-first-serve open field and a 15-site wooded campground that allowed reservations (where we stayed).  Despite the sites being fairly close together by public park standards, the trees and underbrush made our fire ring seem pretty private.  The park had a lovely 1.75 mile paved bike trail that wound all through the woods around the park.  The Florida Trail ran for a bit along the Withlacoochee River itself.  There was an overlook tower and lots of little trails that sprang off the paved trail.

Biking on the paved trail

Aaron risking his life for a better view from the tower

Withlacoochee River

Aaron did his best job yet on the lights at this site I think.

He even got our flag outlined!

A red-shouldered hawk graced our campsite just about 10 feet outside our front door!

Red-shouldered hawk!

We enjoyed a quiet Christmas in the campground.  Our neighboring campers had some great Christmas decorations up!  Unfortunately Christmas day was quite chilly by Florida standards, so we stayed inside all day watching the latest movie releases on our various streaming services.

Some people have Christmas trees for
their presents...we had a Christmas Chair

Being slightly northwest of Orlando, this provided a great launching point for our great Texas adventure - over the next couple months we'll slowly work our way west to San Antonio and back again, mostly keeping close to the Gulf coast in hopes the weather won't get TOO cold on us!

Lake Magic & Christmas at Disney

We spent two weeks at Lake Magic - another Thousand Trails resort - in our last stay in Orlando until we come back in March.  That's right folks, we're finally leaving Florida!  But more on that in our upcoming posts from the road!

Sunset picture with our Christmas lights

Lake Magic was decent enough, but after our last impressive Thousand Trails stay at Tropical Palms, we weren't so impressed.  This park has no security at the front gate, definitely feels like a parking lot, and has a LOT of one way streets that add a good 5-10 minutes to your trip anywhere just to get out of the park.  The laundromat is one of those that you have to buy a $5 laundry card before you can pay to do laundry, which is particularly frustrating for those of us who only plan to be there 2 weeks!  It's also a bit farther from Disney.  Our site had a lot of fire ants as well, though they do treat for those in general.  Still, the stay was just fine, the folks around us were friendly and we had no real problems during our stay.

Some very noisy sandhill crane neighbors

This being our last time near Disney for a while, we spent most of our free time visiting the Christmas-themed parks, so please forgive an onslaught of Disney photos here!

Santa at Animal Kingdom

Riding the Christmas re-themed "Jingle" Cruise!

Belle's Christmas Tree at 
Gaston's Tavern in Magic Kingdom

Festival of the Holidays at Epcot

I thought this was one of the most impressive light displays
in all of Disney World - the dinosaur at Animal Kingdom

They started some semblance of evening performances in a 
couple parks - this is the nighttime light show on the Tree
of Life in Animal Kingdom

Our favorite tree on the Christmas 
Tree Stroll in Disney Springs - the 
Star Wars tree!

Merry Christmas everyone!

A Quiet Week at Moss Park

 We spent another quiet week at Moss Park, where we stayed a few times last year.  This park has a lot of campsites, all relatively private and half of which are along the lake.  We picked a pretty good campsite this time (#31) with an okay lake view and very private fire pit.

That's the lake just beyond the trees

Mostly we just took it easy during this stay.  The weather turned suddenly very cold (50s) while we were here, and there was a bit of rain, so we spent a lot of time inside.  One of the perks of camping in an RV and not a tent!

Despite the cold Aaron was able to put up some Christmas lights, we're feeling festive!

Outside Christmas lights!

During the few warm and dry days this week, we went hiking at some nearby preserves - the Crosby Island Marsh Preserve and the Split Oak Forest.  While we were hiking in Split Oak we saw a wild pig!  The pig was very fast and we were so shocked we didn't manage to get a picture, but it was a pretty incredible sight!

A pond in Crosby Island Marsh

Back at our campsite, we enjoyed some campfires and grilled food.  

When you REALLY need that grill clean!

Pretty campfire pre-fire

This raccoon was traipsing through our campsite

While we were here I had the time to really tidy up the RV and so I took some pictures for those of you who have been dying to see the inside!  We don't have much, but you can see some of the interior Christmas decorations as well.

Bedroom

Dining Area

Living Room

Kitchen & Dining Area

Close up of The Child/Baby Yoda/Grogu Ornaments

That's about it for now!  Like I said, a pretty quiet week, quite refreshing.

First time at Tropical Palms RV Resort

Tropical Palms RV Resort is the most convenient Thousand Trails park to Disney World, and unsurprisingly we could never find a spot here last time we were in Orlando.  This time around we got in!  I'm not sure whether it's because we're looking pre-Winter (not as busy?) or because the Canadians have been largely unable to come to the US (though that seems to be changing), but we made it!  This is my favorite Orlando-area Thousand Trails park so far!  It is clean and well-kept with concrete pads for the RVs and several trees scattered throughout, plus the laundromat is HUGE and clean with new machines.

Our campsite at Tropical Palms

A rainbow over the campground

On our way to the campground we stopped by Tire Pro Mobile RV & Commercial Truck Tire Repair to get our front tires replaced.  We really liked the mechanic who owns this business - he was knowledgeable and friendly with reasonable prices, and he seemed quite honest.  He told us we were probably ok for many more months, but together we decided that since Aaron and I are planning a big trip to Texas later in the winter, we should go ahead and get the tires replaced.  Aaron really enjoyed watching him work and asking lots of questions.

Tire's off!

The mechanic had a seriously 
impressive set of tools in his truck!

We only had a 12 minute drive to Hollywood Studios, where we enjoyed some holiday fun.

A 'chestnut pinecone' dessert

Santa!

We also took a quick trip to Epcot and Magic Kingdom.

Christmas lights are starting to go up at Epcot

Christmas cavalcade at Magic Kingdom

We rode Splash Mountain once more to make sure we saw it
at least one last time before they change the theming to 
the Princess and the Frog

Back at Animal Kingdom, we caught a Christmas cavalcade on the water with a festive Chip & Dale!

Christmas float!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas in Orlando!