Campground Crowding! And a look at Orange County Parks

We just finished up a short (5 day) stay at Moss Park, an Orange County park where we've stayed many times, so I figured rather than extoll the many virtues of the park again, I'd talk some more about what got us here and Orange County parks in general.

But first, the obligatory campsite pic!  We returned to site 54, the first site we ever had here, with its nice seclusion at the end of the park loop.

Moss Park campsite

While we were at Moss Park, we visited Animal Kingdom and Epcot, and had beautiful days at both.  We were at Epcot for the first day of the Festival of the Arts and witnessed (but did not participate in!) the unreal 7 hour lines for the Figment Popcorn Bucket!

The Lion King 50th anniversary statues

Up close and personal with a giraffe on
Kilimanjaro Safaris!

We caught the Jungle Book version of the new KiteTails show

Mickey and Minnie on the river!

Painting Epcot's version of Starry Night

Full view of the paint-by-number mural (background) with the 
expectation of the finished product on the bookmark (foreground)

So, back to the promised content.  You may or may not have noticed we're off our typical 2-week Thousand Trails 1-week County Park camping schedule for the Orlando winter.  This is because 2 months ago, when I attempted to make a Thousand Trails reservation for the second week of January, NONE of the Thousand Trails parks in the Orlando area were available.  NONE.  We've had weeks in previous years where we had to settle for our least favorite of the Thousand Trails in the area, but we've never before experienced a time when we couldn't book ANYTHING.  We *think* this was because the Disney marathon weekend occurred over the time frame we were trying to book.  So, due to this, we ended up booking two weeks at Kelly Park.  But then...we thought we'd be able to get into Thousand Trails for the third week of January but NO, again, EVERYTHING was booked.  This time it seemed to be due to the Martin Luther King Jr holiday.  So, maxed out at Kelly Park (we can only stay 2 weeks at a given county park), we had to move to another park.  I tried to move just down the street to Trimble Park, but NO again, there was nothing available!  This is particularly unreal - I've never had trouble booking a county park at the start of the booking window.  So we ended up at Moss Park, even though it's the farthest away from Kelly Park, because (I assume) it has a lot more campsites available.  Of course Moss Park is lovely and we enjoyed our stay, but this experience was a bit unnerving for both of us.

Campground crowding has been a hot topic in the RV podcasts, YouTube videos, etc. that we follow.  Aaron has been quite concerned about what this means for our future for some time, but I adopted a more optimistic attitude...  However this experience has got us both thinking.  Our little 2-week/1-week schedule has worked really well for us the past two years, and with it challenged so strongly these past few weeks, we're thinking the lifestyle we hoped for - with a bit of spontaneity! - might not be possible for a while.  Now, we're probably inappropriately extrapolating our 2 week experience in one location to year-round across the country, but as linked above we're not the only ones experiencing issues.  I saw a headline flash by a few weeks ago that said you needed to book things now 6 months in advance, which is just much more advance planning than we usually have!  So we will see how the rest of the season goes (we typically book 45/60 days in advance, so far so good on the next 45/60 days), but if we regularly find these kinds of issues, we may be dissuaded from this lifestyle.  Having a 40-ft behemoth of an RV without a place to park overnight is quite a worry for me!!

The other thing I thought I'd mention is much less dramatic - looking at an interesting trend in the Orange County Parks.  Now that we've stayed in Kelly Park, and with my memory refreshed on Moss Park, I noticed a couple things.  I feel that you can group the Orange County Parks into two categories - Moss Park and Kelly Park have an entrance gate with an entry fee for general park use and do not allow pets.  Trimble Park and Magnolia Park are free for day use and do allow pets.  Moss Park and Kelly Park have more, larger, more private sites with nicer bathhouses (with actual shower stalls with doors, for example).  Trimble Park and Magnolia Park have fewer campsites with less privacy and cheaper bathhouses (they're still nicer than many we've seen, but opt for shower curtains instead of doors and don't have as nice a changing area).  There's an obvious correlation here if the parks have more money because they collect day use entry fees, so they have more money to spend on nicer accommodations, but it is interesting that there's not a difference in the actual cost to camp.  I'm struggling to understand the difference in the pet policy.  One thought I had is that it's hard to enforce a pet policy if you don't actually talk to each car on the way in at the entry gate.  I suppose they might also want to avoid the pet waste issue in their 'nicer' parks.  Not sure on this one but it's an interesting correlation!

Hope you enjoy my random musings!  :-)

Kelly Park and Florida Springs

Over the last couple weeks we discovered a wealth of gorgeous locations in Florida created by the presence of large springs.  Kelly Park, a county park in Orange County, was the cause of this discovery.  This is the only Orange County campground we hadn't yet visited.  A neighbor at Trimble Park told us last year that Kelly Park was a nice park and we should try it out.  'Nice' was an understatement!  Kelly Park has the largest campsites of all the county parks, with corresponding privacy, and holds the absolutely incredible Rock Springs.  Our former neighbors had told us that it could be difficult to get into with a big rig, but we had no trouble at all.  To be fair, there is a tight curve to follow if you follow the park's signs to the campground, and perhaps that would have been difficult, but the park ranger advised us to drive out of the park and pull around to the after hours gate, and when we did that we had absolutely no trouble getting to our campsite in our 40' RV.

Look at that massive campsite!

We wandered down to the springs and were completely blown away by the view that awaited us.  I was used to springs in Virginia that trickled down the side of a mountain.  I was completely unprepared for the gorgeous high-flow creek created by Rock Springs.  The water was completely clear and with the sunshine and trees it had a turquoise color that reminded us of the Caribbean Sea.  This spring is a popular tubing destination, and mid-stream the park built a reinforced swimming area, careful to prevent runoff from the ground and parking lot from reaching the clear water.  At only $5/car, this is a great deal for a family outing!  Pictures won't do it justice but I'll attach a few anyway.

The springs start in the cave behind the floats

My sister came to visit a few days while we were here, and we decided to explore some of the other springs in the area - Wekiwa Springs State Park (wekiwa means 'spring' so the name is kind of funny) and Blue Spring State Park.  Wekiwa Springs' primary focus was a huge swimming hole, which was still remarkably clear but did not have the pristine quiet appeal of the spring head of Rock Springs.  I think if you were to rent a canoe or kayak you might be able to see some more beautiful areas there.  Blue Spring was a real treat though...the park ranger let us know as we drove in that SeaWorld was there to release a rescued manatee!!  We couldn't believe our luck.  Apparently manatee sightings are very common at the park (the springs were full of manatees - the rangers counted 38 the day we were there), but it was such a treat to watch the recovered manatee released to the wild.  They told us that the manatee had been rescued 500 pounds lighter in February 2021 when she was suffering from cold stress.  She required CPR from a University of Florida veterinarian at some point to recover!  After almost a year of rehabilitation, she had grown to 900 pounds and they decided she was ready to return to the wild.

   

We also enjoyed seeing the other manatees in the springs - we're pretty sure we even saw one or two babies!

Mother and baby?

Not a manatee but it was hilarious watching this alligator haul
himself out of the water to sunbathe on the log

This is the released manatee - she fit right in with the 
manatees already there, and we could keep track of her easily
by the breakaway satellite tracker they attached to her tail

With my sister

We drove my sister down into Disney World one day to go to one of our favorite restaurants - Sanaa - where we enjoyed the 'bread service' and were treated to ostriches hanging out right near our table!

With my sister back at Rock Springs

As if all that excitement wasn't enough, we did do a few other things while we stayed at Kelly Park.  We bopped into Magic Kingdom one day - still VERY busy due to a marathon week at Disney World, happened across a very randomly placed Challenger memorial at a local school, and enjoyed biking, hiking, and wildlife watching at Kelly Park.

A memorial to the Challenger

These wild turkeys made a pass through the campground 
every day

We also spent a lot of time emptying our new waste tote over the two weeks!  Thank goodness we have it!  With regular water usage we can go about 2 days between hauling a load to the dump station.  (I know, you're asking: what about the 4 days you used to be able to stay off sewer? Well, with the waste tote, I don't haul the dishwater to the bathhouse dishwashing station anymore, and that makes all the difference.  Also, the tote only hauls 21 gallons from our 60 gallon tank, and we don't usually make more than 2 runs at a time.)  Aaron figured out a good way to hook the tote up to the car so he doesn't have to break his back hauling the tote to the dump station, which was particularly good this time because we were quite far from the dump station at this campsite.  We did have to do this once while my sister was with us, so she got some good pictures of waste toting in action!

Filling the waste tote from our gray tank

Aaron's rig to attach the tote to the car - the blue straps are 
ratcheting straps attached to the metal loops on each side of
the car (where the back door latches) - we added work towels
to protect the bumper

Emptying the tote at the dump station - I keep my foot on the
cover to prevent the elbow from popping out of the sewer hole

Overall it was an AWESOME two weeks at Kelly Park, and my only regret is that we missed out staying here the last two years!  Also, I think I've already booked the rest of our stays in the Orlando area (though we're still working out the details of when we want to leave), so we probably won't be back this year.  If you're in the area, check this out!  It's really an awesome place to be.

Christmas and Tropical Palms

We just wrapped up two weeks at our favorite Orlando-area Thousand Trails park - Tropical Palms Resort.  This resort is quite hard to get into and, having now booked out the rest of our stays through the winter, I can tell you this is the only time we'll make it in here this season.  In addition to being the closest Thousand Trails park to Disney World, it is also the best maintained park with the most amenities of any Thousand Trails park in the Orlando area.  The laundry room alone is worth the stay!  For the first time we weren't even able to book the 'elite' site here, so we were 'stuck' in a premium site nearer to the back of the park.  Still a great experience, but because of ongoing construction (they're expanding the park - good news for next year!) it was a pain to get to our site.

This is a terrible picture of our campsite but the only 
one we managed to take...

We only had a couple of days to take advantage of the proximity to Disney World before our annual passes were blocked out for the holiday season, but we made the most of them!  We saw the Candlelight Processional at Epcot for the first time and it was just beautiful.  Andy Garcia hosted the evening we visited and he had some entertaining commentary, but overall it was just a reverent telling (and singing) of the Christmas story.  It was absolutely beautiful and definitely put us in the Christmas spirit!  We also saw the new Harmonious nighttime show at Epcot (impressive!) and finished our cookie stroll.

The Candelight Processional

Close up of Andy Garcia reading the Christmas story

Our reward for finishing the cookie stroll!

We also spent a few hours at Animal Kingdom, catching the new Kite-Tails show (Lion King version).  It was neat!  Lots of handheld and jetski-held kites.

Animal Kingdom Christmas tree

Simba in the Kite-Tails show

We enjoyed several quiet days at Tropical Palms after we couldn't go to Disney World, and for Christmas itself we drove (just the car) back 'home' (to the adjacent towns where we grew up) to Virginia to spend a couple days with both sets of parents and most of our siblings (Aaron's brother and my sister).  It was great to see everyone but the drive home the Sunday after Christmas was awful, so if we end up doing this again we definitely need to figure out an alternative RV storage in Florida so we can travel some different dates.  This trip kind of came up last minute when my sister decided to spend Christmas with my parents, and we'd already booked all of our stays through the holiday season so we were a bit inflexible in our travel plans.

All ready for Christmas morning at my mom's house (pre-kid
destruction)

Merry Christmas everyone!  And a happy new year!

Peacock Baby!!

Ok, so less of a baby and more of a teenager...but we'll get to that.  We're finally back in Orlando, land of sun and warmth and Disney!  Our first stop (since we had to be out of the Thousand Trails system for a week after our last stay) was at Magnolia Park, an Orange County park sadly a bit of a hike to Disney World...that said, I think it might be my favorite county park, so I was still happy to stay here!  Now, you may recall from our stay last year that this park sports a decent population of peacocks - much to our surprise, this year we saw a juvenile peacock in the crowd!  We noticed fairly quickly that there was one more peacock than last year, and as we watched the peacocks we realized there was a not-quite-right colored male hanging out with the females all the time.  Must be the new baby!!  Very cool.

Our campsite at Magnolia Park

The juvenile - he was skittish so I had to zoom in from 
far away - note the speckles on his breast (the adults don't
have those).

The juvenile peacock with the peahens - note how he has a much
bluer head than the females, which is why I'm assuming he's a male

For completeness, an adult male

We're just making an assumption on the juvenile male based on the fact he didn't exist last year and looking at his emerging colors, but honestly I had trouble finding information online so I *could* be wrong, don't quote me!  I did see something that said male peacocks don't begin developing their tails until 2 years old, which would be consistent with his presumed age and current tail growth (nonexistent).

We tried out our new waste tote for the first time!  This allows us to haul wastewater from our holding tanks to the dump station at parks like this where we're not on sewer, without having to drive the RV to the dump station.  Before we bought this, I used to collect each dishwashing's water and carry it in a bucket to the restroom's outdoor sink to pour down the drain, so this was a huge improvement!  It was great to use the RV sink like normal and only have to have Aaron haul wastewater once during our stay.

Hauling the tote to the dump station

With just about a week left before our Disney annual passes blocked out for the holidays, we spent several days in Disney World even though it was a long-ish toll-filled drive.  We were able to experience Epcot's long-awaited new Space 220 restaurant, ride Remy's Ratatouille Adventure, and see the holiday decorations at all the parks.  

Inside Space 220 at Epcot - the idea behind this restaurant is that 
you take an 'elevator' to a space station, and once there the 'windows'
show you a view of Earth far below, with astronauts and spacecraft
floating by.

Also at Epcot - one of the many bronze statues Epcot put out 
for the 50th anniversary celebration.  This is Rocket from 
Guardians of the Galaxy.

Decorations at the main pond in Hollywood Studios

Christmas decorations on Main Street, USA (Magic Kingdom)

We'll see Animal Kingdom at our next stop.  Overall this was a great stay and we're glad to be back in Orlando!  

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 :-).

Thanksgiving in Florida

It finally came...Thanksgiving in Florida!  Ever since I moved farther south than the rest of my family (when we moved to Charlotte in 2012), I've been begging the rest of my family to come south for Thanksgiving, rather than have us go to the frigid north.  Of course, what with us living in small spaces and not having kids, my pleas fell on deaf ears.  Finally, this year, with my sister now living in Florida, my wish was granted!  My sister hosted Thanksgiving at her townhouse in St. Augustine this year, and for once I didn't have to leave the warmth to celebrate with my family!

Since my sister does still live in a townhouse while they wait for their GIANT house to be built nearby, we stayed nights in our RV for the week.  We stayed at the Clay County Fairgrounds RV park, which actually exceeded my expectations.  Although the reservation system was a little worrisome (I didn't get a proper confirmation, just an email saying they received my request and would be in touch if they had questions/concerns), as the day approached things actually went great.  The camp host emailed the night before with our site number and a map of the campground (this is an unusual perk!); when we got there, the camp host came over to welcome us; the small park had secure access, level and wide sites, and good water pressure.  The night before we left the camp host sent another email reminding us of our departure the next day.  Overall I was quite pleased with the campground for what it was (somewhere to sleep - we're not talking a resort here), and it had pretty easy access to my sister's place.  The biggest downside to this park is that they close for months on end for actual events that happen at the fairgrounds...but it worked great for Thanksgiving week!

Our campsite at Clay County Fairgrounds

Though the weather was a little chilly for the area, it was still much better than anywhere to the north!  The Florida Thanksgiving did not disappoint :-).  We spent 3 days with the larger family cooking, eating, and having fun.  Friday after Thanksgiving my aunt, my sister, and I continued the family tradition of fall apple butter making - something I've been doing with my aunt since I was a teenager.

The 'formal' photo of my family across the street from the townhouse

Ready to eat!

With my aunt and my sister and the fruits of our labor

Disney, Disney, and More Disney!

But not the Disney you think!  Ok so I'll admit aside from one small comment on storage, this has NOTHING to do with RVing, but we spent 3 weeks traveling doing this so I figured I'd update the blog so you don't get too bored ;-).

We just took the Panama Canal/repositioning cruise for the Disney Wonder.  This ship has its summer season in Alaska and then spends the winter in the Gulf of Mexico/Caribbean (not that it had a summer season this year due to COVID...but it was still on the west coast).  It traveled from San Diego, California to Galveston, Texas.  Since we were flying across the country anyway, we decided to tack on a stay in Anaheim, California to visit Disneyland for the first time before the cruise.

So, first things first...the flights.  Aaron and I both flew regularly for work and pleasure before leaving our day jobs, and for the most part we had no significant problems.  I don't know whether it's COVID and related staffing and supply shortages or just bad luck, but both of our flights were canceled!  We knew a few weeks ahead of time that our midday Southwest flight from Galveston to Jacksonville was canceled and we were rescheduled on a flight that got back at 11pm (not so great for my brother-in-law, who was due to pick us up).  But then our American Airlines flight from Jacksonville to Anaheim was canceled less than 24 hours before scheduled takeoff!  They rescheduled us for the following day, but given that we already had park reservations in Anaheim that would be wasted if we arrived a day late, Aaron scrambled to get us on a flight from Jacksonville to Los Angeles that got in late at night.  This lost us a half day in Anaheim and added an expensive Lyft drive from Los Angeles to Anaheim.  Overall we decided that it's just not the right time right now to fly anywhere, and we plan to avoid it if at all possible until all these COVID repercussions have passed.

Aside from the flights, our trip was awesome.  We stayed at the DoubleTree Suites within walking distance of Disneyland...well, *I* think it was walking distance, Aaron was a little grumbly about it.  To be fair, after a day walking around the park, walking another mile back to the hotel was a little rough.  We bought a 3-day park pass to Disneyland, with two days at Disneyland itself and one day at Disney California Adventure.  We think this schedule worked great!  Neither park is huge, and we ended up arriving at park opening and leaving by 2-3pm each day (the nighttime fireworks weren't going while we were there), and this let us see everything we wanted to see without burning out.  Lines overall were pretty short, particularly before noon, and significantly shorter than Disney World.  A huge difference we noticed between Disneyland and Disney World was that most of the Disneyland queues are outside - an indication of milder/less rainy weather in Anaheim?

I felt that Disneyland was a slightly altered version of Magic Kingdom at Disney World (or more accurately, vice versa, since Disneyland came first).  Unsurprisingly there were a lot of duplicate rides, though most (aside from Rise of the Resistance) were noticeably different between the two parks.  By and large we thought the Disneyland rides were better than their Disney World counterparts, which was cool.  My favorite different thing at Disneyland was Davy Crockett's Explorer Canoes, in which you and 20 of your closest friends actually paddle yourself around the lagoon!!  It reminded me of a similar canoe ride we did in Montreal along the fur trade route (not in an amusement park).  Another different ride I particularly enjoyed was the Storybook Land Canal Boat - though this is definitely presented as a little kids' ride, I really enjoyed seeing all the miniature versions of buildings from various Disney stories - this one reminded me some of Madurodam in the Netherlands.  

Outside the entrance to Disneyland

Sleeping Beauty's Castle

Getting ready for our canoe ride

Agrabah from Aladdin on the Storybook Land Canal

My favorite of the two parks was definitely Disney's California Adventure.  Certain aspects were reminiscent of areas of Epcot and Hollywood Studios in Disney World, but overall it really just felt different and definitely had a lot of different rides, including my favorite of the whole trip - Guardians of the Galaxy- Mission: Breakout.  This was their replacement for Tower of Terror, but it wasn't just a new face on the same ride - they seriously changed the sequence of the drops such that we were completely surprised from the first.  The decorations for the ride were incredible.  While there we also enjoyed the other ride and many shows in Avengers Campus and I particularly enjoyed some of the rides on the Coney Island-feeling Pixar Pier.  We lunched at Pym Test Kitchen in Avengers Campus, and everything there was comically over-or-undersized (in keeping with the theme of Pym particles from Ant-Man).

Disney California Adventure (the entrance is very similar to Hollywood Studios)

Guardians of the Galaxy - Mission: BREAKOUT!

3D Tile Image at the Ancient Sanctum at 
Avengers Campus

Lunch at Pym Test Kitchen - note the
oversized chicken/undersized bun

At the end of the week, we took a train down to San Diego and walked two blocks to the cruise terminal.  Unfortunately either Disney or the port or both just really weren't ready for the added complexities of COVID testing before a cruise.  We had to wait a half hour (or more?) after our designated boarding window in harsh sun before we were able to go inside and take our COVID test, then another 45 minutes to get the results of the test before we could board.  However, that was the end of our troubles!  The cruise was AMAZING, the best we've ever taken.  We stopped at 4 ports and had a massive 10 days at sea - just what you want on the entertainment-centric Disney Cruise Line.  

We had a lot of firsts - the first passenger ship through the Panama Canal since COVID, the longest cruise by a large cruise ship since COVID, the first fireworks at sea since COVID (not clear if this was for the ship or for the industry).  The crew had been on the ship just two months before our cruise started - one month of training and a month of sailing - and I think as a result we all formed closer relationships than we would have otherwise.  Our waiter and assistant waiter were AMAZING and made all of our food experiences better.  

Because it was such a long cruise, there were long series of things like "Anyone Can Cook" - where the onboard chefs show you how to prepare dishes you've had in the dining rooms - and the dining team's series of noon presentations on things like cheese, oil and vinegar, origami, napkin folding, and table setting.  Each sea day held these things and a ton of origami, 3D crafts, drawing classes, scavenger hunts, and random things like knot tying and a virtual bridge tour with two bridge officers.  Of course the transit through the Panama Canal was a great bucket list experience!  It was particularly neat to observe after my research for my PhD on the much much smaller canals in Britain - the operational details were very different of course!!  The thing that surprised me most about the canal was just how close you get to cargo ships traveling the opposite direction in the lake in the middle of the canal.  This was also our first trip on the Mexican Riviera, and thus our first time at Cabo San Lucas and Puerta Vallarta.  We visited Cartagena for the first time on the Atlantic side of the canal, and headed back to Cozumel, which we have visited several times.

Technically this was a Very Merrytime 
cruise, and the ship was all decked out
for Christmas!

Formal night with Daisy and Donald!

Los Arcos at Cabo San Lucas

We toured a glassblowing factory - apparently this is a 
Mexican turtle because it has a sombrero and is drinking a 
bottle of tequila

Tasting at a tequila factory in Puerto Vallarta

Pirate night!

A winning day!  I won 'chip it golf' (golf with a velcro-wrapped
ping pong ball against a felt 'green') and we won 
brainteasers trivia together

Entrance to the Panama Canal - the Cocoli Locks

On deck with Captain Mickey and Captain Minnie

We ate brunch at Palo during the Panama crossing - they finished
the meal with a 'Welcome Back' message in chocolate - here
as we saw earlier on Carnival, all the staff were SO happy to have
passengers and a job again!

Exiting the canal at the Agua Clara locks

At the largest fort in the Americas in Cartagena

Our boat for the boat building competition - 
it had to hold a can of soda and still float

On the beach in Cozumel

This is a pretty decent photo of the whole ship

All of our crafts and prizes from the cruise!  We were busy!

Our awesome dining team!!  Wika on 
the left and Blake on the right.

We have so many more awesome photos and stories from the cruise but I'm trying to exercise restraint on an already very long post!  It really was absolutely amazing to spend so many days on the ship and have the opportunity to get to know the crew a little better than we normally can.

And finally...back to the RV...overall it survived quite well for three weeks in storage, with one exception....we had an unwelcome guest!

A comfy mouse nest!

A mouse had run all over the RV leaving trails of feces, and built its nest underneath our bed.  All of the remaining food in the RV was in secure cabinets, so it didn't get into any food, but it chewed a silicone pastry brush that doubtless smelled of food and pulled batting from Aaron's comforter to make its nest.  We set traps but still haven't caught it, so I think it was away from the RV (perhaps scared by the engine under its bed) when we left.