Dogsitting at Trimble Park

We just spent two weeks at Trimble Park, an Orange County Park we stayed at in previous years in the area and the last of the main 4 parks for us to visit this year.  We stayed at a corner site we'd used on our first visit, which benefits from a good view of the lake and a large relatively private campsite.  

Site 13 at Trimble Park

As we arrived, our neighbor mentioned this was the 'best' Orange County park.  I've reflected before about the various merits of the different parks, and although I think it's hard to pick an objective best, this one certainly is nice.  It's hard to beat the lakeside sites (about half are on the lake, a few more on an inlet, and I think just two have no water 'access' (not that you're going in the water at any of these points)).  The park maintenance here is really top notch, keeping everything in great shape mechanically and cleaning the bathrooms three times a day.  There are nice walking trails and a good park with playgrounds if you have need of it.  The campsites have good fire rings and separate charcoal grills, and the fire rings have wooden benches!  HOWEVER, in bad news for us...they've changed their policies here (I wasn't aware).  When we pulled in and talked to a ranger, he asked how big our RV was...when I answered (40 feet), he said newly this season they have restricted access to just 35 feet long and 12 feet tall, as they have had complaints from larger RVs hitting the trees and they would like to trim the trees LESS and not more.  Luckily for us, though he offered us a refund and to leave, he allowed us to 'take our chances' and stay...given that we've stayed here multiple times before, we took our chances and had no problem at all.  However, if they'll be trimming the trees less and enforcing the length restriction more in the coming years, there's a good likelihood we won't be camping here again, which is a little sad.

The highlight of this trip was taking care of my sister's dog Beamer (named after the former VT football coach Frank Beamer, not the car!) while she and her family went on a Disney cruise (yes, we were jealous!).  Fortunately, Beamer had stayed in the RV twice before with my sister, so it wasn't a totally unfamiliar spot for him, and of course he knows and loves us, so he settled in just fine.  I'd go out on a limb and say this was kind of a vacation for him, as he got to go on more and longer walks than he gets at home (due to the 4 children demanding most of the adult time at home), and the park had so many wonderful smells for him to explore.  He certainly seemed to love it!  I have to share some pictures here of his time with us :-).

His bed *just* fit in the living room

Emptying the tank - he seemed quite
happy to just trot back and forth between
the RV and the dump station - much
better than being left alone while we 
did the chore!

Aaron had to re-level the RV midway 
through the week - Beamer was alarmed
that the house was moving!

Sitting by the lake on our campsite.  He never looked at the lake -
he was always looking back toward the campground for any
hazards that we needed alerting to.

At the dock in the campground

He squeezed himself in the tiny spot on my side of the bed
to sleep at night (he split his night time between this spot, a spot 
on Aaron's side, and a spot at the foot of the bed - all pretty tiny)

Beamer's sleeping spot on Aaron's side of the bed

The other highlight of the week was a visit from our friend Mary and her daughter Lisa.  They live in St. Louis but had come to Florida for Spring Training.  They came up midday and we spent the afternoon hiking, playing games, and enjoying a campfire.  Good times!

Playing games under the RV awning in the rain!  It only rained 
for about 45 minutes but Aaron captured the moment.  We stayed
outside because the rain wasn't TOO bad and we didn't have a
big enough table to play inside.

At the campfire in the evening.  Beamer's sitting next to me
but you probably can't see the black dog in the dark.

One of the big perks of Trimble Park is, of course, the wildlife.  It's a fairly remote area and the wildlife are quite abundant.  We saw a large owl, a red shouldered hawk, a couple woodpeckers, raccoons, and tons of water birds...and of course a handful of alligators!  I disturbed a hawk that had just captured a snake and saw it fly away with the snake in its talons!  Unfortunately I didn't have my phone with me for most of these sightings, so you'll have to settle for this one photo of a woodpecker.  He was SUPER noisy chipping massive chunks of bark off the tree and having them crash to the ground.

Blurry zoomed-in woodpecker

Alligator!  This one was right next to our campsite.  I'd estimate
he was about 2 feet long.

View from our campsite

Aaron made a lovely campfire for our last night at the park

It was a great two weeks!  We thoroughly enjoyed our dogsitting and experiencing camping with a dog - it always looked so fun watching other people do it!  The only bad thing about the dogsitting was taking Beamer out for his final walk after dark before we went to bed - as I said, this place was TEEMING with wildlife, most of whom are most active a dusk and right after.  Beamer found two raccoons, which spooked me terribly until I determined they were raccoons and not alligators (he detected them several feet away in the brush).  I was always a bit on edge walking him at night, but other than that it was fun!

Dinner Shows and Goodbye Central Orlando!

We wrapped up our last stay in 'central' Orlando for the season.  Central is in quotes because technically it's Kissimmee, but it's the area close to all the amusement parks, so 'central' for tourism purposes ;-).  Again we stayed at Sherwood Forest, this time right across from the laundry facilities, which was very convenient!

Final campsite at Sherwood Forest

The Epcot Flower and Garden Festival started shortly after we arrived, and we went a couple days and did the 'Garden Graze' - buy 5 items from the food vendors to receive a free treat.  The food was excellent and we received another fun cup with the completion!

Epcot has many fun topiaries for the festival

50th Anniversary cake!

50th anniversary flowers!

Winnie the Pooh was so cute!

Our reward for completing the Garden Graze

With our seasonal departure imminent, we evaluated what all we needed to do that we'd been talking about all season and ended up with three dining reservations.  First, we returned to Garden Grill at Epcot - one of our favorite restaurants on Disney property.  The food is homestyle and delicious, the restaurant rotates through part of the Living with the Land exhibit, and characters come visit during your meal.  It did not disappoint!

Pluto!

Next, we booked dinner and a show at Capone's, an establishment right down the road from the RV resort.  This had the theme of "1931 gangland Chicago" - set in a speakeasy.  The food was actually quite good and you were allowed to choose from a menu (unusual for a dinner show - normally you eat what they decide to give you or go up to a buffet).  The entertainment was a bit cheesy but very fun.  We thought it was an excellent value for the money and quite enjoyed our evening.

Some of the singers and dancers

This didn't come out great in the low light, 
but it was a very interactive show and
they had you practice stereotypical 
Italian family motions and sayings so 
you could fool the cops

Finally, we returned to Medieval Times - also right down the road from the RV resort.  We had been here several years earlier, but it is one of my favorite dinner shows and so we decided to return since it was so close.  We cheered for the red and yellow knight, who sadly did not win the tournament, but the entertainment was great as always.

In the lobby with a picture of the 'queen'
(a year or so ago they changed the 
script and now there is a queen instead
of a king)

The knights marching in with the queen at the start of the show

Finally, we also stopped by Shingle Creek Regional Park, also right down the road.  It was a nice little park, I wouldn't say it's worth a special trip, but if you're in the area it has some pretty walks.  There are a couple of historic buildings and informative signs - including the fact that Shingle Creek is so named because shingles were made from the cypress trees in the area.

The bridge over Shingle Creek

As we close out this phase of our seasonal travel, I have some reflections on our winter activities.  This year, as you may or may not have heard in the news and social media, Disney World was INSANELY busy.  You might have noticed we only went to Epcot in this post...that's because the other parks were way too crowded to be enjoyable for folks like us that want to wait in a couple of reasonable lines and stroll around unhindered.  I'm not sure if this is pent up COVID vacationing, an expected side effect of the 50th anniversary celebrations this year, or an unexpected side effect of the new Genie+ paid FastPass, but the lines this season were unbearable.  Usually in February the lines are short and crowds are low and the parks are quite fun to visit, but not this year.  And this isn't just our biased opinion - it was commented on by all the Disney YouTube channels we follow as well.  So we're thinking next year we'll drop the annual passes (gasp!) and find some other way to entertain ourselves in the winter.  This will likely still center on Florida (we determined everywhere else is too cold), but we're thinking we'll take more of a tour around the state and maybe get ourselves organized enough to pop into a few state parks along the way.  It's a sad thing to think about because we did really enjoy Disney, but it's a good thing for you as a reader because my posts will probably become more interesting next year ;-).  

In related news, we have trips planned for the spring in Georgia, Kentucky, and Indiana so things will get more interesting here soon!

Family Camping at Magnolia Park

We spent a week and a half back at one of my favorite parks - Magnolia Park.  Though as I think back on all the Orange County Parks, I realize it's really hard to pick a favorite.  They each have unique traits that make each special and fun.  But I digress.  We enjoyed the peacocks yet again, and this time I talked to the ranger when we checked in about them and discovered that the three girls and one juvenile boy are actually all siblings - two girls from last year's brood and a girl and a boy from this year's - and the third peahen we saw last year was actually the mom for all of them and was killed by a car near Thanksgiving.  Thankfully she produced three new peahens before passing, or the park would have been in bad shape with just five peacocks and no peahens!

All siblings!

We actually switched sites midway through our visit this time.  I made the mistake of STARTING our reservation on a Saturday, which meant when the booking window opened, most of the sites were taken by people who were camping for the weekend starting on the Friday!  We ended up at a site (5) on the side of the campground we'd never stayed at before, which was farther from the restroom and lacked privacy.  After a few days we switched the other side of the campground, to a great site right around the corner from the restroom with a huge open area in the back for a tent...important for the family camping coming up!

First Campsite - #5 - it's a little short for us and there's another
campsite immediately at the left side of the photo, but it worked
just fine for a few days!

Second campsite - #17 - to be fair it's pretty close to the camp
host on the right side there but you can't see them through the
RV; you can just see the retaining wall that provides some recessed
privacy and the large spot in the back for the tent - also, much more 
room for the car in the front!  (this was taken before my sister arrived)

My sister and her family came to camp with us our second weekend there and we had a great time!  The kids loved 'peacock hunting', especially at night when we found the peacocks and peahens in the trees and even got out at the right time one evening to watch them flying up to roost for the night!  The peahens seem to have an easier time of roosting what with their lack of a huge tail.  We took the kids to the Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive - they had a blast!  They kept count and found 51 alligators!

In the back of my sister's truck with all
the kids (and my sister) - Aaron kept
out of the sun in the front with my
brother-in-law

Aaron got out of the truck and got way too close
to this alligator to get this picture!

We also took the kids to Kelly Park to float down the creek at Rock Springs...but we cheaped out and didn't get tubes.  Turns out that a strong flowing creek really freaks out the kids :-(.  I didn't think about it ahead of time, but I suppose that feeling of being pulled along the water could be really scary the first time you feel it.  As a result, we couldn't convince the younger three kids to just lean back and float - rather, the twins clung to me the whole way down and the youngest clung to her mother.  Unfortunately if you AREN'T floating there are a lot of shallow shin-killing rocks scattered along the whole route - I have the bruises to prove it!  The water was a little cold for the kids as well, so this excursion was a bit of a bust but I think they still had an overall positive experience seeing the crystal clear water (see my previous post) and experiencing something new.

The rest of the weekend we just hung out at the campground - the kids enjoyed the multiple playgrounds and large open fields for football and we all enjoyed some fireside time.

Burning marshmallows at the campfire

My sister's dog found the peacocks 
fascinating too!

 

I have to close with a few more peacock photos just because they're so awesome :-).

I'm not sure how well this comes out, but
what you're looking at is the juvenile
peacock trying to fan his tail feathers out -
it's a little funny to me because the poor
kid doesn't have much going on there yet!

Ok this isn't a peacock but this guy
cracked me up because he came and 
perched on this pole RIGHT outside
my car window while I was waiting
for Aaron to pull around to the dump station
- I guess he thought I might hand him nuts
out of the car window?

This post is quite a bit late because I came down with some nasty cold right after we left the park...hopefully there won't be such a delay before the next post!

Fun at Sherwood Forest and a Broken Dryer!

We just wrapped up another two weeks at Sherwood Forest RV Resort.  You'll find this one featuring prominently in the remainder of our time in Orlando, as it ended up having the availability we needed and it's super close to Disney.  This time around we were placed in a pull-through site we actually fit into, so that's an improvement over last time!  

Much more appropriate location for our RV!

We took advantage of our proximity to Disney to continue to enjoy Epcot's Festival of the Arts.  We completed their cuisine stroll to earn our 'free' cookie and slushie!  We enjoyed a couple of the best part of the festival - 3D Chalk Art!  Unfortunately the time of day and sunny days worked against us so we didn't get the best pictures with the shadows on the art.  We went to see the Disney on Broadway concert for the first time - I thought it was very fun, though Aaron isn't all that crazy about concerts.  They had the original singers for Mary Poppins and Tarzan on Broadway and they sang songs from those shows and a few others.  We also made it to Hollywood Studios but didn't end up going to the other parks as every time we checked the Disney app the lines were crazy long.  The bloggers we follow have commented several times that there is no longer an 'off' season at Disney, and we tend to agree.  This has us rethinking our plans for next winter, but we haven't decided anything just yet...

Rewards of our (eating) labor.

I'm supposed to be taking a flower 
from Groot

And here Aaron is rescuing Hei Hei 
(his favorite character from Moana) - 
unfortunately on this one in addition to the
shadows a storm had washed away 
the intensity of the colors

For a change of pace we decided to go to Gatorland one day - we had purchased annual passes last year while babysitting my sister's kids, and figured we should make better use of them (we hadn't been since then)!  They were doing their gator feeding show again (it was not running last year due to COVID), so we enjoyed seeing that and visiting the more remote areas of the park we hadn't seen with the kids.

The birds were very bold around the 
well-fed alligators!  

Obviously not a real gator...

As I hinted in my last post, the itinerary for our rescheduled cruise (which we were supposed to go on during our second week at Sherwood Forest this time) was changed again.  At least this time they told us on Monday instead of Thursday, so we had a little more time to NOT prepare to be on a cruise.  Aaron was sorely disappointed (I mean, I was too, but he was more so), but we decided to cancel the cruise.  It just wasn't worth paying the extra money for an itinerary they weren't doing, and we figured it was just going to keep getting changed until this phase of COVID passes, so we'll try again next year.  I've set Aaron to looking for a cruise for our anniversary in May, but in the meantime the good news on this was that we'd be in Florida for our twin nephews' birthday.  We joined them for a fun day of games - arcade and board games - good times!

Playing 7 Wonders with my sister and the twins

The bad news this trip is that the dryer part of my washer/dryer combo seems to have died.  Every time I try to run the dryer it spouts an error that apparently indicates it thinks it's overheating.  Unfortunately the unit is so deeply wedged in the RV we don't really think we can do much troubleshooting until we get back to the farm in Princeton where we have a place to do work and lots more tools.  From googling the error, it may be that something hidden just needs lint/dust cleaned, or that some part of a circuit board needs replacing, but we don't have access to any of that without disassembling the cabinet that holds the unit.  So, bummer that I won't be able to dry laundry in the RV anymore, but at least the washing feature still works!  We had some nice sunny windy days that allowed the clothes to dry quite quickly when I hung them outside.  We'll take a closer look when we get back to the farm in West Virginia in the spring.

Carnival Mardi Gras - Inaugural Season!

Our last couple weeks turned out a bit differently than we expected.  After Moss Park we spent just under a week at Sherwood Forest, a Thousand Trails regular for us as we can *usually* get a reservation here (except the week before, as mentioned in my last post!) and it's about 10 minutes from Disney's entrance.  I spent the week getting all the laundry clean and trying to use every last thing in the refrigerator in preparation to leave the RV in storage for our anticipated cruise.

So, first, about the RV park: they put us in a site that surely was NOT intended for an RV our size.  Every other RV in the lane was parked at a certain angle, but due to the presence of a tree at the back of our site we had to pull in at the complete opposite angle, placing our utilities on opposite sides of the RV.  Normally your power, water, and sewer are all close to each other on the driver's side of the RV, but we had to park between the hookups so that power was on one side and the water/sewer were on the other.  Our wires and hoses are plenty long to accommodate this, but it made it pretty obvious we were too big for the spot.  I felt badly for kind of infringing on our neighbor's spot, but there weren't many other options to switch campsites, so we stayed where the office put us.  Not a really big deal, but the first time we've been so badly misplaced in an RV park, so I'm mentioning it as a curiosity rather than anything else.

You can see the offending tree and the bad angle here

We had not yet booked a storage spot for the cruise, as we were really hoping to keep it at Sherwood Forest, but they would only rent a spot to guests in person in their office.  We were taking a bit of a gamble there, but when we showed up they did indeed have several storage spaces available and we were able to get one for the time we needed.  It was awesome to have a spot just 5 minutes down the road (and it was only that far away because the road to the back of the community is a little curvy and max speed of 10mph).

We did stop by Epcot again while we were at Sherwood Forest - we painted some more spots on the paint-by-number-mural we had worked on before, it's coming along quite well!

The weather started turning a bit chilly - good time to get out of town on a cruise!  And here our excitement began.  On Wednesday - just three days before we were due to sail on the Disney Fantasy - Disney sent us a note that our cruise itinerary changed from an Eastern Caribbean cruise (with stops at Tortola and St. Thomas) to a Western Caribbean cruise (with stops at Cozumel and Costa Maya).  Thanks COVID!  (The implication from the email was that the Eastern Caribbean islands were not welcoming cruise passengers due to Omicron.)  Now, there's nothing particularly wrong with the Western Caribbean, but we've done it a lot, and when we booked this cruise nearly a year ago we specifically paid significantly more money for the Eastern Caribbean route, and Disney wasn't offering any kind of refund, so this wasn't too palatable.  They offered the opportunity to reschedule or cancel without penalty, so we rescheduled for the next eastern sailing two weeks later (turns out that one suffered the same fate, but we wouldn't learn that until later...).  This ended up being cheaper because we could book it at the last minute rate, and the refund we received was just about enough to pay for a Carnival cruise!  We were presented with a quandary at this point - we had storage booked for the period we were supposed to be on the cruise, but if we didn't go on the cruise, we would have to find somewhere to stay in the RV at the last minute - a distinct problem in today's RVing environment.  So, with the refund we got from Disney and the problem of finding somewhere to live for a week, Aaron decided to go ahead and book us a cruise on the Carnival Mardi Gras!  It left out of the same port as our rescheduled cruise for the exact same time period, so solved all of our RV parking problems.

The Mardi Gras is Carnival's flagship, the newest ship in the fleet (they've been sailing for about 6 months).  And it is HUGE!  It has 18 restaurants, two major evening entertainment venues, two comedy lounges, a ropes course with a zip line over the ocean, and even a roller coaster!  Ironically the sailing we went on went to Cozumel and Costa Maya, just as we would have done on the Fantasy, but it went there for a lot less money, and with such an amazing ship, we booked the cruise just for the experience on the flagship rather than any concern about the ports.  We had a blast!  The evening entertainment kept us crazy busy every night and we were SO impressed by the shows on their 'Center Stage' in the ship's atrium.  I could write a whole review here on the ship, but I imagine no one wants to read that (let me know privately if you do!), so I'll just post some pictures of the trip.  The RV lasted the week in storage without incident - and as far as we can tell, no new rodent residents ;-).

The Mardi Gras shares the name of the first ever Carnival cruise
ship in 1972 - this plaque commemorates the two

The ship was too huge to get a full picture from the dock, but 
you can see most of it here.  (And in case you're wondering,
Mexico requires masks indoors AND outdoors.)

This was taken from the shopping area in the port at Cozumel

For the first time I think ever we went on an 'excursion' in a port
that wasn't booked through the cruise line - we just walked 
across the street from the port to rent a Jeep and drive around
the island on our own!  

Crocodile!  We drove down to Punta Sur, an ecological preserve
at the south end of the island.  The water was SO clear, you could
see every bit of the crocodile even though he was mostly submerged.

Atop the lighthouse at Punta Sur

There were several iguanas in Punta Sur

Iguana tracks!

After exploring the natural and historic
landmarks we grabbed a drink on the beach

At Costa Maya we just got out to wander around the port

On the chairlift to Carnival's private beach
on Isla Roatan

Our ship had to stop for a rescue at sea!  The people in this tiny
wooden boat had run out of gasoline in the sea about halfway
between Cuba and Mexico (we don't know where they were headed);
our ship filled them up with gasoline and water.

And some pictures of the ship itself since it was so amazing!

Dinner at the Teppanyaki restaurant

"Art of the Table" dessert at the steakhouse -
the chef came out to decorate a large tray 
with syrups and delicacies

Can't be a Carnival ship without ice carving!

Appetizers stacked up in a box at the Chef's Table!

One of the many shows on Center Stage - the cool thing here is
that the backdrop is all just a bunch of screens stacked together!
The screens were high resolution and nearly seamless; during the 
day, the screens dropped below the stage to reveal massive
windows behind them.