Bill Frederick Park & Universal Studios

We spent a week at Bill Frederick Park, maintained by the City of Orlando.  We picked this park partially because it was available (it's crazy hard to find spots to park the RV in Florida unless you're planning a year in advance) and partially because it was very well rated on Campendium.  I have to say that this is the first park we've been to that didn't meet our expectations.  It was a nice park, nicer than many we've stayed at, but it wasn't as good as we expected based on the reviews.  Most of the sites were extremely unlevel (we would have had to put our rear tires on 6 inch blocks to actually level the RV), and the road through the campground itself was narrow and windy (our tires were off the road around every curve).  There was a nice walking trail but they had blocked access to it from the RV campground.

Example Leveling Problems from a Neighboring RV

On the plus side, most of the sites did have a view of Turkey Lake, and once you did escape from the campground to access the walking path, the path was very nice.  We also met a sweet cat near the children's zoo on site.  The major focus of this park was frisbee golf - every spare square foot of the park not involved in another use was dedicated to it, with 3 different courses.

How many frisbees have been lost in the lake on this hole??

Bill Frederick also had the benefit of being relatively close to Universal Studios.  We had grand plans to 'rope drop' the parks and make it into the Hagrid's Motorbike Adventure without waiting 2+ hours, but two days it was near freezing in the morning, and the day that we did make it at opening time the ride was closed until mid afternoon with mechanical problems.  Still, we made it to the park a couple days and enjoyed the rest of the two parts of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  We'll try for Hagrid's again soon.

Triwizard Spirit Rally

We also made a trip to our favorite restaurant on Universal's CityWalk - Toothsome Chocolate Emporium.  Toothsome has AMAZING milkshakes - each with a separate dessert on top (think cake slice, cupcake, piece of pie), but this time we opted for one of the other massive desserts - a banana cream sundae - which consisted of basically a banana split with a piece of banana cream pie.  Amazing!

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.

Orlando - First Two Weeks

We spent our first two weeks in Orlando at the Winter Garden RV Resort, part of Thousand Trails.  This is definitely the most parking-lot feeling RV park we've been to yet - the sites were very narrow, not a lot of trees, and ours was even missing a picnic table.  However, we had full hookups (in contrast to what the website told us when we booked), and it was centrally located in Winter Garden close to just about everything.  So it served its purpose for us.

The first couple days we were there we checked out some Christmas decorations at the amusement parks.  We caught the Macy's-style Christmas parade at Universal Studios, which was pretty awesome.

We also had dinner at the Hoop-Dee-Doo Revue (dinner show) at Disney's Fort Wilderness.

Aaron was able to get the molding repaired that we broke back at C.B. Smith park:

We were also here long enough to order the rest of the solar panels Aaron wanted to install, so we did that and he was able to get them installed.  Now we have three solar panels on our roof, which will give us a little extra juice if we're boondocking.

We're looking forward to the crowds reducing at Universal Studios and Disney World in the coming weeks!

Heading to Orlando

We made a leisurely trip north from the Everglades to Orlando with a couple stops along the way - much more relaxing than our mad rush down.

Our first stop was at C.B. Smith park in Broward County.  This was a pretty impressive park - especially for a county park in the middle of a city.  It had a sprawling lake in the middle of it with lots of little inlets, lots of picnic pavilions, and a water park!  Unfortunately the water park was closed until late March, so we didn't get to try it out, but we enjoyed strolling around the rest of the park.  We had a site right on the water.

In the morning a Muscovy Duck came right up to our dining room window as we were sitting inside eating breakfast.  I assume he actually knew that was the right place to come up and beg - I was impressed.

Unfortunately we had a bit of trouble exiting the park and ran over a curb that popped some molding off the bottom of the car...and we didn't realize it until we made it to the next stop.  We found the part online and Aaron will have to fix it once we're located somewhere long enough to order the part.

Our second stop was at Torry Island Park in the City of Belle Meade.  Again we had a site right on the water.

We liked this park even better - though it didn't have the pavilions and of course no water park, it was pretty remote and there was a decent spacing between the sites.  It had a really great 'nature' trail around the central pond and an observation tower that let us see the open agricultural land for miles and miles.

While we were here, we met a couple who had the same basic model RV as ours, just 2 years older.  We spent a whole evening talking to them about our experiences in our RVs.  Their coach was in much better shape than ours as it had been garage-kept for its entire life.  They had done some nice upgrades inside and I felt quite inspired.  Aaron was able to help them out with some suggestions to address some of the issues they still wanted to fix.  This is the first time a fellow camper has invited us in (and we invited them in to our coach the next day), and we had a great time with them!

Christmas in the Everglades

We spent an absolutely wonderful Christmas week in the Everglades National Park, Flamingo Loop Campground.

You can't get much farther south than this in Florida without going to the keys.

The campground was surprisingly large and spacious with all pull-through sites for the RVs.  There were a bunch of black vultures hanging around, and we enjoyed watching them pick at campfire cooking remains and (once) investigate a plastic bag on a neighbor's picnic table.

The absolute highlight of this trip were the wild manatees at the nearby Flamingo Marina.  When we first walked by, there were 3-4 of them right next to the path just rolling around and playing together (or so it seemed).  This is the closest I've ever been to wild manatees and I couldn't get enough of them.  We went back to try to see them again but never again got quite this view.

We walked on most of the non-submerged trails in the park.  Unfortunately, even though it was the 'dry' season, many of the trails were still under water.  Additionally, all the trails in the southern part of the park are no longer maintained to preserve an endangered ground plant.  However, the northern part of the park had many boardwalk-ed or paved interpretive trails that were very pleasant to walk on, and we saw all sorts of birds and a couple of alligators.

In some ways I'm sure most of you would think every day must be a holiday for us now.  I have to say though, being so remote at this park, deep in the national park surrounded by nature, I really *felt* like I was on vacation.  The closest grocery store was an hour away - we stocked up when we first got there and then didn't leave the park until time to move on - and there was no Verizon coverage.  Most of our day to day lives don't feel so much like vacation - we still have chores and maintenance etc., and we're usually parked close to civilization in a relatively urban location - but this really did feel like vacation.  So it was a wonderfully relaxing week!

This was the first time we went to a park without *water* hookups.  Fortunately they had a clean water filling station, so we filled up the fresh water tank and managed to last the 5 days we were there.  AND through some lugging of dishwater to the dish-doing-station we also managed NOT to fill up our gray tank.  Win-win!  I'm feeling more confident about our ability to conserve water.

Heading South & Thoughts on Thousand Trails

We had a couple of short stops this week as we continued our trek to Florida.  First was The Oaks at Point South (Thousand Trails), and second was Kathryn Abbey Hanna City Park.

The Oaks was a nice RV park in South Carolina.  Overall clean, all pull-through sites, and relatively spacious sites (for an RV 'parking lot').  Like the last Thousand Trails park we visited in Williamsburg, the campground was quite wooded, giving more of an illusion of privacy than you actually had.  We had some neat neighbors from Canada also trekking to Florida.  This RV park also had the relatively unique feature of a walking trail around a neighboring lake.

It was interesting to contrast this to our previous private and beautiful spot at Cheraw State Park.  We've watched a lot of RV YouTube videos and it's fairly common for people to share their thoughts on staying in RV parks like the Thousand Trails collection vs. boondocking or staying in state/national parks.  I feel like most people express a strong preference for the state/national parks, though we've personally met a lot of happy Thousand Trails campers.  I'm thinking there are some pretty strong pluses to both...pros for Thousand Trails: (1) it's 'free' on a per night basis (you pay an annual membership); (2) they are almost always very close to an interstate, so there is minimal motor home driving on narrow winding country roads or crowded city streets; (3) you almost always get full hookups (50A power, water, sewer); (4) you almost always have a reasonably priced on-site laundromat; (5) the sites are typically level.  Pros for national/state parks: (1) they tend to be BEAUTIFUL; (2) the sites tend to be private; (3) they usually have a lot of hiking trails and/or other natural outdoor activities; (4) they usually have fire rings and frequently grills on each site.  The pros for each, negated, become the cons for the other category.  So I think I like both.  The state parks are refreshing for the soul, but the RV parks involve less stressful travel days and make it a lot easier to get chores done.

The Oaks at South Point was kind of in the middle of nowhere, but the weather was pretty decent so we went walking a lot and set out to explore.  We stopped by the visitor center, where they directed us to some impressive ruins of Old Sheldon Church, and where we learned about a nearby Spanish settlement (Santa Elena) that pre-dated Jamestown.  We attempted to learn more about the settlement first hand, but the site itself was on a marine base and thus inaccessible to us, and a museum in downtown Beaufort was inexplicably closed in the middle of the day.  Still, it was neat to learn that the site even existed.

After The Oaks, we FINALLY made it to Florida and stayed at Jacksonville's Kathryn Abbey Hanna Park.  This park was beautiful; the campground was sandwiched between a lake and the beach, both on park property and within walking distance.  Unfortunately a cold front had just moved in and it was too cold to do much more than take a quick picture at the ocean.  We learned here that although the peak season for southern Florida is in the winter, the peak season for northern Florida is in the summer just like the rest of the country.  The campground was not even half full, which made it wonderfully quiet and peaceful.  The roads to get to the campsites though were narrow, windy, and a bit scary in a 40ft long, 9ft wide motor home!

At our next stop we should finally be far enough south in Florida to escape the cold!

Cheraw & Cotton Bales

We spent a lovely long weekend at Cheraw State Park.  As we were driving around the Cheraw area, I was struck with some deep philosophical thoughts.  Or maybe not too deep.  See what you think.

I'm sure many of you have wondered WHY we've decided to head out on the road full-time (many of you have asked).  It is a growing trend for sure, but why did we decide to do it?  I've mentioned to several people our desire to fill our National Park Passport by visiting all of the National Parks in the USA, and of course we have the standard goal of hitting all 50 states (or well...49 anyway...Hawaii's hard to get to in an RV ;-)).  Those are certainly goals but don't explain WHY in a deep philosophical sense.

As I pondered this over the weekend, Captain Kirk's reason to climb El Capitan in Star Trek V suddenly struck me... "Because it's there."  (Granted this was stolen from famous climber George Mallory, but the image of Captain Kirk explaining this to Spock sticks with me).  That does more or less sum it up for us I think...there's a huge country out there with different geology, geography, history, culture, etc., just waiting to be seen.

So now to tie back to the title...  As we were driving around, we passed many cotton fields, some harvested, some not.  I noticed something that looked like a white bale of hay in the middle of some empty fields and no joke just sat there a long time scratching my head.  I grew up and worked in rural enough areas to recognize cotton in the fields and to know what a hay bale looked like, but this 'white hay bale' had me stumped.  Then it hit me...it was a cotton bale!  Unfortunately this realization hit me after we passed the last one so I don't have a personal photo, but they looked just like these I stole from the Agriculture Corner:

So this is what got me thinking.  This is really what I'm hoping to accomplish with our travels - to see and experience things that are commonplace for many people but that I've never seen or experienced before.  I mean, it's really embarrassing how long it took me to realize those were cotton bales.  I want to understand where people I've never met live and what they see and experience in their daily lives.  I want to see the towns where they live, the industries that employ them, the local restaurants they frequent, and the natural beauty that surrounds them.  By extension, I also want to understand the history that formed these areas, and who those long-gone people were that formed these communities and our nation.  So there's your dose of deep philosophy.

As for Cheraw State Park...it was absolutely gorgeous, I think perhaps the nicest spot we've camped so far.  We had a site right on the lake, and enjoyed amazing sunsets every night.

The park had a boardwalk and a nice hiking trail through the woods.  And it was FINALLY 'warm' enough (and Aaron was well enough) to get out and enjoy it!  It was a nice relaxing weekend and certainly a great setting for deep thought.

The only complaint I have...or more accurately, a warning for anyone to follow... it was REALLY hard to find a level spot to park the RV.  Most of the campsites looked like they'd have a similar problem.  You can read someone else's explanation about why RV leveling is important.  It took some very creative parking and a few 2x10s to get the RV level, but we did manage it!