Water Filter Problems at Bulow

We just spent week at Bulow RV Resort, the closest Thousand Trails resort to St. Augustine.  Aside from the multiple 90 degree angles in the road to get into the park, Bulow RV resort was lovely - well maintained, a lot of decent sized sites (including ours), friendly staff, and nice amenities if you want them.

Campsite at Bulow RV Resort - note the odd pull-in style!

Now, the first few days we were there we were singing a different tune, because the water pressure when we arrived was low and continually dropped throughout our stay until eventually we had no water at all.  Before calling the office to complain, I had Aaron run out and double check all our connections just to make sure it wasn't something on our end...good thing he checked!  Turns out our water filter was COMPLETELY clogged.  I suppose this is something you would expect to happen over time, but we'd only replaced this filter a month or so ago, so we weren't expecting it yet!  We used to use a CAMCO water filter that lasted indefinitely as far as we could tell, but we changed it every 6 months-ish for good measure.  Aaron had seen a Clear2O filter at WalMart and wanted to try it out, and this is the one that clogged in no time flat.  Now, the obvious reason for this is that the Clear2O filter has a 1 micron filter, whereas the CAMCO has a 20 micron filter...but we're thinking this is much more filtration than we need, as most of the time we're camping with nicely treated city water!!  So, back to CAMCO for us, and a warning to everyone else out there: if your water pressure steadily declines and stops, check the water filter before assuming something else has gone wrong!

An alligator on the opposite bank of 
the creek from our campground

We explored a few nearby sites while at Bulow.  First we went to Bulow Creek State Park to see the Fairchild Oak, a live oak somewhere between 300-500 years old.  It was very impressive, we think there were some branches that had been covered by the ground but then reemerged at other points...but it was kind of hard to trace those.  The sign suggested that happened.

The Fairchild Oak - I am standing in an orange shirt under the
tree, believe it or not!

Next we drove up to Fort Matanzas, a National Park Service National Monument near the site of the massacre of Frenchmen from Fort Caroline that we learned about earlier.  Getting to Fort Matanzas was fun because you had to board a ferry at the visitor center to cross a very narrow inlet to the fort's island.  We showed up at park opening (9am) and got the last two tickets on the first ferry at 9:30am!  This was in the middle of the week...so be warned, you have to show up early for those free ferry tickets!  We had a couple of park ranger guides who told us about the fort, which was established to guard the southern water passage to Castillo de San Marcos.  Apparently it was extremely successful and rebuffed all potential attackers.  It was a tiny fort manned with 6 soldiers and 1 officer - it didn't take much to fire cannons at the narrow inlet to deter offenders.

Atop Fort Matanzas

There was a very narrow space with a ladder to get to the top of the fort!

Looking at the inlet that the fort protected - 
back in the day it was a bit closer

On the way back from Fort Matanzas we stopped at a curious little place near our campground - the Flagler RAMS airfield.  This was a club and their airfield for radio controlled model aircraft enthusiasts.  They welcome spectators, though you have to be a member to fly your plane.  We sat for almost an hour watching about 5 different model aircraft - the aircraft were all very different and the pilots did lots of fun tricks.

At the airfield

A crazy powerful gas-powered aircraft (the only gas-powered
one we saw)

This one kept flying upside down!

Our final outing was to the Bulow Plantation Ruins Historic State Park, immediately next to our RV resort.  Here we learned that all these 'Bulow's in the area were named after the owner of this plantation, who grew sugar cane.  The park was VERY well done, especially considering it was unmanned!  They had blind-friendly descriptive displays all around the sugar mill ruins and a nice interpretive center kind of reversed from normal - all the items were inside a glass building and you walked around the outside to view the displays.  There weren't any ruins to speak of of the plantation house itself or the slave cabins, but the sugar mill, made from coquina, was still somewhat intact.  We learned a lot about sugar cane production and a little about sugar cane plantation operation.  It's a small park with really just the mill to see, so I wouldn't go way out of your way to see it, but if you're passing by on I-95 it's definitely worth a stop.

The sugar mill ruins

Looking out over Bulow Creek near the original plantation house site

We had a delightful and relaxing stay...after we figured out our water problem ;-).  At the end of the week we went to my sister's place to trick or treat with our nephews and niece!

With my sister's family at their house in St. Augustine

First Time Storing the RV

So we just stored the RV for the first time EVER and I thought that might be blog-worthy.  When we first bought the RV, it smelled a bit musty and we have worked very hard ever since to kill all the mildew and eliminate the odor.  Through lots of dehumidifying and an ozone machine, we figured we'd done it, but I was still extremely nervous about ever leaving the RV unpowered (i.e., without air conditioning to keep the humidity down).  And of course any time without power or propane means I have to empty the refrigerator...a real challenge, but fortunately I was able to use a small fridge my mom sent down to my sister to store a few items I couldn't use up.

We picked a CubeSmart RV storage location because it was cheaper than any other alternative we found, allowed you to make all the arrangements online, and allowed 24 hour access through an automated gate.  Turns out you still had to check in personally to activate your gate code (by happenstance we did stop by the office so we were ok...if we'd tried to go straight to the RV storage location we would have been out of luck!).

The pros: the storage facility was fenced all around with vegetation or cloth preventing any passersby from seeing what was inside; the access road through the center of the facility was very wide; and the 24 hour access did work for us.  The cons (and I think this could be true of any facility): our neighbor had not parked within their designated space, overflowing into ours, which made it pretty difficult to park our gigantic RV, and making us nervous they might hit us if they pulled out with the same carelessness with which they parked.  Since people park these RVs and leave them for months, we really weren't sure what to do with this problem - it's possible the owners were nowhere remotely close to the storage facility to come and move the RV.  I suppose if we actually hadn't been able to park we could have gone back to the office and requested another spot (though there weren't many left), but I don't think having the owners come and move the RV would have been a plausible option, so I hope we don't encounter a slightly worse similar situation in the future...

Aaron managed to roughly center the RV between our two
neighbors while still staying in our spot, but you can see it's 
very tight!  The Jayco is the offending RV.

So I was nervous to see how things would be when we got back a week later.  Turns out the Jayco hadn't moved (I hadn't really expected it to in the space of one week), and apparently our mildew killing really worked because the RV didn't smell at all!  We were fortunate that there was no rain while we were gone and the temperature didn't go above the mid-80s, so things weren't too extreme for the poor abandoned RV.  We moved the RV to our next campground and plugged it in the day before we intended to stay in again, which let the refrigerator cool down (it takes about 24 hours) and allowed us to run the ozone machine once more just for good measure.

So what were we doing all week you might ask?  We stayed at my sister's place to help take care of the kids while her husband was out of town on a business trip.  She likes us to actually stay with her so we can help with the early morning child wrangling.  Before my brother-in-law left, we went to Castillo de San Marcos (another stamp for my passport!) and the Pirate Museum and Colonial Quarter in old town St. Augustine.  The fort was very well maintained/restored and I had fun helping one of my nephews participate in the Junior Ranger program there.  The pirate museum was one of the best we've seen (compared to several we've visited in the Caribbean), and we had an excellent and informative tour guide at Colonial Quarter that really made the visit worth it.

Looking out from atop Castillo de San Marcos

The pillory outside the Pirate Museum

The city park that has it all!

We spent a week and a half at Kathryn Abbey Hanna Park, a city park in Jacksonville, FL.  It's a beachside park that surrounds a lake as well, so there's water for whatever you're looking for!  We stayed here briefly back when we first got on the road, but only for one night during a cold snap.  At that time we determined that it would be a lovely place to stay in warmer weather, and also that next time we visited we needed to stay longer to make the windy roads worth it!  Jacksonville is close to my sister's new home in St. Augustine, and once we decided to do a joint camping trip for my nephew's birthday, Kathryn Abbey Hanna Park quickly came back to mind.  

Our campsite at Kathryn Abbey Hanna Park

We didn't remember anything about the campsite layout in the campground, and we really lucked out that we picked an amazing site that was plenty big for our RV and my brother-in-law's tent (where he slept with the kids...my sister stayed in the cool and dry with us in the RV), while also offering a ton of privacy as we parked the RV parallel to the road.  We had a great time exploring the lake, beach, campground, playground, and splash pad with my sister's kids.  We stayed a week after they left and went mountain biking and actually swimming in the ocean (when the kids were there we were on keep-the-kids-from-drowning duty).

Breakfast outside

Playing games on the picnic table

A modern day see-saw?  I think the
weight was a little unbalanced...

Aaron playing football with the kids

Our oldest nephew went mountain biking with his dad and got 
quite muddy...Aaron helped hose him down

After the kids left we saw a lot more
wildlife!  This guy is drying out after
catching and eating a fish.

At the beach

During the week we went to see nearby Fort Caroline and Kingsley Plantation, both National Park Service sites (more stamps for my passport!).  I'm ashamed to say that until we visited the fort, I didn't know that the French ever had a presence in Florida!  While we were at the fort, we witnessed the Coast Guard practicing chasing boats down in St. John's River, which was pretty cool!  Kingsley Plantation was pretty well preserved and I learned about the 'task' system of slavery, which I don't think I'd heard of before, wherein the slaves had tasks for the day and, once they were completed, the slaves were able to do whatever they wanted with the rest of the day (as opposed to the 'gang' system, which required an excessive number of hours of work each day).  

A reconstructed Fort Caroline.  Nothing remains of the original fort,
which would be in a location now underwater, and they didn't have
any architectural diagrams, but this is their best guess based on
some artists' renderings of the fort.

Kingsley Plantation

Remains of the slave cabins at Kingsley Plantation

So we had a great week and a half, and we're making plans with my sister to do another combined camping trip when we head north again at the end of winter.

Migrating South for the Winter!

We just stayed at a couple parks on our way south for the winter.  Last year our experiences in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas convinced us that Florida is the ONLY place to be during December/January/February...everywhere else is just too cold!  At least when you have flexibility to be just about wherever you want to be :-).  We've been in Arizona over the winter before and it's quite nice as well but farther away than Aaron wants to drive right now...so Florida it is!

Now I'm sure you're thinking...it's not December yet!  Well, the other half of this is that my sister is all set up in St. Augustine now, so we figured we'd spend some time in northern Florida (which is also not quite warm enough ;-)) before heading back to the Orlando area.  So, time to head south!

Our first stop was Lake Myers RV Resort in Mocksville, North Carolina.  This is a Thousand Trails resort, just a little out of our way south, but since it's 'free' (with our paid membership), we thought it was worth checking out.  I have to say, this is the most atypical Thousand Trails resort we've visited.  Most Thousand Trails resorts are roughly RV parking lots, with varying degrees of vegetation between relatively close, uniform, level, and parallel sites set out in a grid.  This 'campground' was spread out over a series of winding one-way roads, with sites of varying size spread throughout.  Most sites were unlevel and it took us 30 minutes to figure out how to park the RV to get it level - and even then we had to use wooden blocks under the wheels.  Most (90%?) of the sites were occupied by permanent residents.  We were lucky to get one of the very few 50amp sites.  Most of the pictures you can find online of this resort are out of date...it looks like it was quite the vacation spot 10 years ago, with fancy water slides through the woods, extensive boat rentals, a grill, and multiple pools open to the public (with paid admission).  Now the amenities are only available to campers, and the water slides are cracked and full of leaves, and they've ripped away the boat docks (only one lonely paddleboat remains).  The pools and grill still look great, but again are only available to campers/residents.  Overall a very odd place, and due to the distance from I-77, winding roads, and unlevel campsites, we probably won't be back.

Our campsite at Lake Myers - very close to the neighbors and
not level at all!

Walking in the leaf-filled former water slides in the woods

While we were there, we took the opportunity to visit nearby Fort Dobbs, which was pretty cool!  The fort dates back to the days when western North Carolina was on the frontier of the country, and it played a small part in the French and Indian War.  They recently (last few years) finished the reconstruction of the fort itself, and with the 45 minute guided tour you can really learn a lot of history about this site and the area.  I learned what a 'mess' was (a group of soldiers that bunked and cooked together) and finally understood how a flintlock worked in addition to all the unique stuff specific to the fort.  We thoroughly enjoyed it!  

Outside the reconstructed fort

Our tour guide demonstrating the use
of a flintlock.

Our next stop on the way south was at the Oaks at Point South, another Thousand Trails park that we've visited a few times in the past, in Yemassee, South Carolina.  This is a standard Thousand Trails park of typical layout, right off the interstate, and we enjoyed our convenient stay as always.  The only downside is that they only had ONE working dryer in the laundry room, so when I tried to do some laundry (in one of four working washing machines) I had to bring it back to the RV to dry...

Nice level site at the Oaks at Point South

Next stop, Florida!

Hungry Mother State Park

After leaving Tennessee we stopped by Hungry Mother State Park in Virginia for a few days.  Both of us had apparently been here in our youth but neither of us really remembered it, so it was fun to explore a bit.  We stayed at Camp Burson, which is a state park campground but accessed before the main entrance to the park.  Online it appeared to be the only campground that could accommodate our size RV, but looking at the other RV campground inside the park I think we could have fit.  Our campsite was decently spacious with a large gravel 'living area' and fire pit, and had easy access to the Lake Trail.

Our campsite at Camp Burson

We were only at the park for a couple days.  The first day we explored the southeast side of the lake trail, and the second Aaron's family came to hang out, hike a little more, and see the RV all set up for camping.

Hiking on the Lake Trail

A VERY unconcerned deer grazing near us

Hiking with Aaron's parents on the other side of the lake trail

This was a nice little stop with a pretty lake and interesting history with the Civilian Conservation Corps - it was one of the initial state parks developed in Virginia.  We enjoyed our short stay and now it's time to start heading south in earnest!

Two More Weeks at Pigeon Forge

As our first trip back on the road, we just wrapped up two more weeks in the Pigeon Forge area...we really do love everything there!  Unfortunately Aaron spent our first week getting over a cold, and then it rained for several days in a row, so we didn't get to do as many things as we had hoped (since all the things we want to do in Pigeon Forge are outside!).  So this just means we'll have to swing back through again in the spring :-).

We changed things up this trip and stayed in Sevierville instead of down in Pigeon Forge.  After all the nickel and diming of the place we stayed last time, this new campground was only slightly more expensive than the Passport America location we found before, and the thought of not having to drive the RV through the chaos of the Parkway area appealed to us.  We stayed at Ripplin Waters RV Park and got a site right on the river.  So, the pros: the sites here were slightly more spacious, the campground had nice facilities (bathhouse, laundry, playground, pool, and predictably staffed office/camp store), we had a river view, the management was great (no nickel and diming! also a thank you note after we left), and we did achieve the goal of not driving into the madness of Pigeon Forge with the RV.  The cons: it was far away from everything, and it just changed management and the rates are going WAY up compared to what we paid.  Now, obviously being far away from everything goes hand in hand with not driving through everything...but it bothered us more than we expected.  When we were 10 minutes from most things we wanted to do, we thought nothing of just hopping over somewhere for 30-60 minutes.  But at 30 minutes to Dollywood and an hour or so to the closest point on the Great Smoky Mountains...unless we were looking at a minimum of a half day somewhere we just couldn't get motivated to go.  So, I give a big thumbs up to the campground in terms of pleasantness of stay, but we probably won't be back because we really missed being in the middle of everything.

Our campsite at the back of the campground

A view of Pigeon River and the Smoky Mountains from the
back of the campground

The one unique thing we did this time was go see the Dolly Parton statue in downtown Sevierville - not much to it, but it was something I'd been wanting to see.

Dolly Parton statue in front of the courthouse in Sevierville

So the rest of the photos will be of Dollywood!  They were setting up for the Great Pumpkin Luminights festival when we arrived, and it started the last weekend we were there.  My parents came to explore the area with us on that Friday.  I was most impressed that they both did the Dropline and my mom rode a real roller coaster with us!  

Axe in the stump? (vs. sword in the stone)

Cool pumpkin/squash tree

They had a display of large pumpkins - this was the largest

Moonshine tasting with my dad at 
Ole Smoky Moonshine at the Island

With my parents outside the Pirates Voyage dinner show

With my parents at the main pumpkin tree at Dollywood

One of my favorite light displays at the festival - the strings 
change color as the display plays music

It was a fun and relaxing two weeks, and now we're going to head down south for the winter.  We'll be stopping at a couple new spots on the way down, stay tuned!

Back on the Road Again!

Well, it's been quite a while, and I thought I'd post a little something as we head back out on the road.  The remainder of the summer was a bit hectic as we stayed with my parents as my sister came and went with her family.  She moved to St. Augustine, FL over the summer, and this involved lots of stays with my parents as they were between houses for the summer.

After our last trip we came back to my parents' house where my parents were taking care of their grandchildren while my sister and her husband wrapped up their house sale in DC.  They joined their kids in Blacksburg shortly after we arrived and stayed for a while.  We taught the kids about emptying the RV's tanks!

Aaron helped his sister move to Richmond, VA for a few days while I visited extended family in Ohio.  I hadn't been to Ohio in a while and it was especially great to spend some time with my great uncle.  Unfortunately I didn't manage to take any photos!!

We spent the 4th of July with my sister at her in-laws' lake house on Lake Canandaigua, one of the finger lakes in New York.  We drove the car and left the RV at the farm since we had somewhere to stay.

Aaron watching fireworks with our nephews and niece

We took a long way back via Ohio to see several sights we'd been interested in - still in the car.  We checked another national park off our list - Cuyahoga Valley - the most interesting feature of which was the 'Ledges' hike, where sheer cliff walls put out cool air like air conditioning.  We stopped by Cedar Point so Aaron could experience several record breaking roller coasters, and then drove down to visit the Neil Armstrong Museum and the National Museum of the US Air Force - the latter houses the only remaining Valkyrie, which Aaron desperately wanted to see.

Part of the Ledges hike

Cedar Point!

This is the Gemini capsule that Neil Armstrong barely 
survived after one of the thrusters misfired

The Valkyrie - look closely, Aaron is standing underneath with
arms extended

Right after we got back from Ohio we drove the car for an overnight trip to Dollywood to see their summer festival drone show before it ended.  The show was absolutely incredible.

One of the many formations the drones made

Right after we got back from Dollywood, my sister & her family returned to Blacksburg so we stayed put to visit and help with the kids.  We were crazy enough to volunteer to babysit the four kids at the end of their stay for several days so my sister & her husband could get the new house set up in St. Augustine.  We had a good (and exhausting!) time.  

With my sister, her kids, and my aunt at Dixie Caverns

After returning the kids to their parents, I was thrilled to spend some time with my aunt's brand new golden retriever puppy before we took a quick trip to St. Louis to visit some friends there.  

With my aunt and her 8 week old puppy!

With our friends at Grant's Farm in St. Louis

To wrap up our summer, we took our first cruise since the pandemic started on the Carnival Magic.  Due to CDC regulations and last minute regulation changes in The Bahamas, the passenger count was only 1800 out of a possible 4500, and we thoroughly enjoyed our space.  Unfortunately a handful of COVID-positive crew members caused our shore excursion to be canceled in the Dominican Republic, but aside from that (which, honestly, we figured was a distinct possibility in the middle of the pandemic, so it wasn't too surprising nor upsetting), everything was awesome.

On the top deck of the ship, overlooking the water slides
and ropes course

All dressed up for formal night!  We made the masks in the 
craft activity that day and didn't actually wear them outside the cabin

Drinks and shade on a beach in Bimini!

We spent the week after the cruise helping my sister with the kids while my brother-in-law was away on a business trip, then dashed back to get the RV ready to get back on the road.  Time to travel in the RV again!  I'll start regularly posting our adventures again now that we're back in the RV, but figured one non-RV post was warranted given that I've been silent for a few months!