Sunday, August 23, 2026

Trip to the Florida Keys, 2018\2019

      This is our third trip to the Keys , our second by RV.  We had another trip to Key West by a fast ferry out of Fort Myers in the past . Again this is another trip using our Trails Collection with Thousands Trails . We are staying at Sunshine Key RV Resort , newly opened after hurricane Irma . What a difference from the last time we stayed at this park. All the sites have been redone . There is some work still needed to be completed. About 95% of the sites are pull thru full hookup with new utility's. There is also cable TV at all sites. This is a Encore Park and consider to be a premium park so there is a $20.00 a night change. This is a super bargain for this location especially this time of the year . A non member rate is $870.00 a week. We where at the Keys with friends Lance and Andrea.
     We drove down without an overnight stop. We originally planned on stopping somewhere around Homestead but with high winds and rain predicted for the next day we pushed on. We called the RV park to see if we could come in a day early and got a ok. So instead of 14 days we had 15 days .
     The first day we spent just chilling out. It was a long ride of 331 miles. We usually try to keep around 200 miles travel a day. But, this was all interstates. So we did make good time.

     Campground etiquette is falling to the wayside . RVER'S just walking thru your site  Not only kids, but families. Maybe just call me an old grump, but come on I don't walk thru your yard.  RVing isn't quite the same. Unfortunately we are at the point in our lives were we do require some hookups, mostly electric. That is because we are traveling with our beloved four legged family member our dog. We can not always take her with us on day trips so we do often need AC . This fact means staying at a RV park. Here in Florida the state parks were camping is allowed usually all have electric and water. The problem is trying to get a reservation on short notice . Most do have a few first come first served sites , but it is not how we like to travel . Popular parks require making a reservation eleven months in advance. When we were full timers we usually always traveled without reservation, at least in the beginning. Then as time went on it became necessary to make reservations. Times have changed . I know if you keep trying on a daily basis, you can sometimes snag a site at popular state parks. But what I don't understand is why we just don't seem to have the time. Older retired folks will understand what I'm talking about. NO we are not ready to give up RVing. Sorry I'm just ranting.


Bus.   Restaurants.   

2019 April, Woodbine GA,Walk a About Camp and RV park

      After 189.8 miles we arrive to Walk a About RV park. We had stayed here in the past. It is a older park, but  they are adding a number of new RV sites. Looks like all new sites are 50amp electric, FHU. The new sites are still close together, maybe a tad bigger then the old sites. The draw here is it is right off I 95, and Passport America. Also we wanted to revisit St Mary's, a quaint old town. To our dismay the main downtown was a mess with all the road work. We where disappointed. We did however put on about 50 miles on our car just driving around. Total costs for the RV park was $42. And  Change. Roads were very dusty. Sites were mostly packed dirt and grass with some gravel. Good size fenced dog park. Small clean pool. New pickle ball court. Nice rec hall. New laundry w/3w/d. Very helpful stuff. Free range chickens. Some permanent sites mostly well kept. I would like to give this park a higher rating because the staff and the improvement's, but it would be unfair to other parks with better facilities. But for the price it's a good/great deal.

Thousand Trails Orlando 2018

     We where at Thousand Trails called Orlando but is actually in Clermont, but is about 8 miles from town. It is a very large park with over 700 sites . We where there for 13 days.
     RV,er's are the best.  We could not receive any over the air TV. Problem was a connection to our antenna and the cable connection . Our neighbor happen to notice our delemium and said I have one of those connection. Well sure enough he did, and solved our problem . My problem was he wouldn't take anything for the connector and his help, seans he had the same problem. Pass it on would be his payment. RVer's helping RVer's.
.     Today we took a drive to the small town of Center Hill Florida . The reason for the trip was to order a sun screen for our awning . There is a manufacturer there that makes sunshades, grass mats and windshield covers. We had been to their own in the past and knew the general location . The town is very small so it wasn't to difficult to locate. It is very old Florida. The dealer will bring the finished screen to the Webster flea market for us to pick up on Monday . We would have gone this past Monday except we had a problem.
     The problem was a pair of bad batteries. So we rolled up our sleeves and went to work, first taking a photo of the wiring before removing the old batteries. Unfortunately we couldn't locate any near our location . Located two at Sam's Club about eighteen miles away. So we loaded up the two old batteries in our car. If you don't have a old core, as they refer to our old batteries, there is a eighteen dollar charge for each battery . You can always bring back the old batteries at a later date for a refund of eighteen dollars. After installing the new batteries we chilled for the rest of the day . For my safety I better make sure we get to the Webster flea market on Monday or Linda will have my head . She loves flea markets almost as much as murals. Also I do have to pick up our new sunscreen we ordered. This is a super large flea market that is only opened one day. For any of you who ever attended this market know you can not cover it in one day, unless you speed walk thru and don't really look at anything. I'm sure there is something there for everyone, if you look hard enough. Well the flea market done we return to our RV.
     We have a very roomy site, as far as most commercial RV parks especially the size of this one. With over 700 sites it is huge. Not all the sites are big, but we lucked out in choosing a nice site. There is no privacy between sites. We have a fairly new picnic table and "new" electric hookup. The only problem was goat head stickers in some places in the grass. Didn't bother Hannah at all, but I always seem to wind up with them in my soaks. Many, many amenities. See older post about this campground.
     Now that I found a way to include photos, I'll be working to include some in our blog. But, and this is a big but I can't find a way to adjust the quality of them. I like to crop, lighten, straighten and the like so I can include a nicer photo . Hopefully you'll see photos soon . With Linda's lost camera and using an older camera and our phones the picture quality is not as good as I would like.








    


Christmas Florida 2018

                               Christmas Florida.
That's Christmas Florida , not Christmas in Florida. Although it is the Christmas season. Friends suggested a trip to Christmas Florida on the first weekend in December. There is a large craft and art festival held the first weekend. So we took the trip of about 25 miles. What a great day. There were tractor displays, about 100 vendors, a cracker village and Fort Christmas. The village was made up of houses brought to the area and restored . Then there is Fort Christmas. A small restored replica of the fort. It was a fun day even with  temp in the high 80's.
     I noticed a large group of Airstream trailers in the back of the craft area. I also saw a few folks with badges from a Airstream club. Turns out they are having a rally. The rally is as volunteers at the fort distributing different buildings and events from that era. I believe the club chapter is from the Jacksonville area, and I believe this was there 7 or 8 year of doing this  I ' sure I'LL be corrected if wrong.  RVer's are a great group of folks. Forgot to mention, the fort was built in 1837 for the second Seminole war.
      The meaning of the term "cracker " refers to the early cowboys of Florida. The term comes from the cracking of their cow whips, one of the primary tools they used for getting their cattle out of the thick brush. They also used dogs. Hence the term "cracker ". We did attend a festival where their where whip cracking demonstration and contest at the Osceola county fairgrounds several years ago.

Saturday, September 18, 2021

   Hi everyone, its been a long time since I last posted anything. Well first off Linda is doing ok. Other news is we hung up the RV keys.  What a wonderful time it has been. We RVed for over 50 years. Many years as weekenders, several  6 months at a time, and 10 plus years as full timers. We have left our "for ever home" in Florida and moved back to Pennsylvania to be near our boys and their wives. It was a hard and easy decision at the same tine. 

     We had met so many wonderful people RVing in person and on line. We are thankful for the wonderful years and times. So, so, so many memories. But there comes a time when we must make some hard decisions. We are looking forward to our next adventure. We have been back in PA for about  a month. We have started a new lifestyle, apartment living. We are enjoying being with the boys and looking forward to reconnecting with other relatives and friends.

     We may occasionally add a update about our new life style and about many passed adventures we didn't post about, especially the early years. We are doing this as a memoir for the kids, and for us to walk down memory lane.    

    Until then, travel safe to our friends that are still traveling and best wishes to those like us that started a new chapter in life.

Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Happy Thanksgiving from Bob and Linda

      Happy Thanksgiving to you.  Linda is doing well after her kidney transplant. Other news is we hung up the keys. We sold our RV. We have many wonderful  memories. I just can't get back to blogging. Our blog is our journal for ourselves primarily, and others who want to read it. We have 1000's of photos that we never wrote anything about. Many could be at least a paragraph in a blog. When we view them they do bring back memories of places we visited or passed through.. We are now looking forward to the next chapter in our lives. We do follow along many blogs. Thank you to all who followed along on our many adventures. 

  Stay safe and travel safe.  Bob, Linda and our dog Hannah


Wednesday, July 1, 2020

Linda recevie a kidney transplant

 It is with Fantastic news that I write this blog. On Saturday the 27th Linda had a KIDNEY TRANSPLANT. I along with Linda could not be happier. HAPPY HAPPY. I will follow up with another blog shortly with details.
I know its been a long time, but I will try. 

      Bob and Linda

Sunday, March 17, 2019

new test 3/17/19


trying to upload to blog

WOW picture did arrive in blog, what did I do right. Still having trouble to upload photo's. I feel a blog needs photo's, at least one.

Sunday, January 6, 2019

Test

Bob s phone 149

test this is a test using a different way to upload photo’s

Bulow RV Park, Flagler Beach Florida, Oct 2018

                                         October 2018, catching up
       Bulow RV park is part of our Thousand Trails, Trails Collection. So our cost to stay here is $0.00. Our neighbors paid $60.00 a night. We stayed for eleven nights. We were in what was a premium site  It was full hook up. We were in the section that had updated electric. 20/30/50 amp. We had a very long pull thru site. The site was on grass with the small cement patio. I know when you say premium we usually expect a cement pad, but I guess everyone's description and expectations are different. Some roads are paved.  We had a fairly new picnic table .  We had cable TV. You have to get a cable box from the office. Had about 60 channels . Our site was very large. It was a side by site, but with good separation between sites. There is no privacy between most sites. There are many large trees
     There are many amenities; a pool, Large activities center with a restaurant and bar, a dog park, laundry and a lot of room to walk a dog. I sure I missed some things.
      The whole park is divided into three large sections. A transient area, a section for permanent sites and a gated area of different manufacturer home's. This is a very large park. Forgot to mention it is very dark at night. Only lights are around the showers/restrooms.
       This park is a good location to visit the area. From here we visited St Augustine.  On another day we went to St Augustine. It was a ride of about 35-40 miles. We had spent a lot of time in St Augustine in the past and just wanted to revisit the area. On our agenda was lunch at the A1A Ale Works. We really enjoy their Cuban sandwich. We of made a good decision to split the sandwich. It was just enough, and was as good as we remembered. The pressed Cuban bread pork, mustered and pickles, cheese etc. was just wonderful. One of the best Cubans we ever enjoyed. This alone made the trip worthwhile. We then walked around a bit longer till a sudden rain shower chased us. The only thing I didn't enjoy was the $15. Parking fee. All the spots we remembered with free parking were gone, or taken. All in all it was another good day. On the way back to the RV we found a Rita's ice cream. Well I think it's against the law to not stop. So we each had a gelato. But we only had half a sandwich for lunch.
     Sunday we went to the Daytona flea market. It was a lot larger than we expected.  We walked and
walked, for several hours picking up a few odds and ends.. Nothing important, just stuff. But it was a fun time. It was very easy getting turned around. Most of the Market was indoor. The flea market is  maybe about 20 miles from the RV park. We are in a good location. We did not go to the beach which is only about 5 miles from the RV park, other than taking a few pictures when touring the town of Flagler Beach.

      Thanks for following along. Sorry, still having problems uploading photo's to blog

Saturday, December 15, 2018

The wheels are turning, Bulow RV Resort, Flagler Beach FL October 2018

     Well it has been a little over five months since I last updated our blog. We have both been on the mend. Still a little work to be completed on our seawall after the damage from hurricane Irma a little over a year ago. We finally put together two weeks to get away. It has been 13 months since we used our RV.  So we traveled 88 miles to Flagler Beach, just wanted to get away. We stayed at Bulow RV resort. It is part of our Thousand Trails membership. It is part of the new Trails Collection. More on the RV park in another post. What we didn't know was this was Biketoberfest week in Daytona Beach, about fifteen miles south of Flagler Beach. I was surprised we were able to procure  a site. But no less we got a full hookup premium site. The park was full. Almost every site had at least one motorcycle parked at it. We decided to just stay put till the weekend was over. Could not believe how many cycles were here. Sorry for the lack of pictures, as my photographer forgot her camera. Can you believe. Brought all the accessories, but no camera. So we will only be taking pictures with our phones.  Well the truth be known, the camera is lost.           
     On Tuesday we took a trip to Palatka . It was a nice ride of about 35 miles. Linda heard about the mural trail. She was all in. So we loaded up Hannah along with some extra water. We looked up the location of the visitor center. Guess what, It was closed.  We spot a few murals down the street. So we checked them out. We found the Chamber Of Commerce and Linda procured a brochure of all the murals. Off we go in search of all the murals. A note here, all the murals are in great condition. We did find all the murals on the map, plus one that wasn't. We didn't go into any of the indoor location where there were a few more. Linda had a smile from ear to ear.
     She didn't realize it was passed lunch time for me. I read about the oldest dinner in Florida. We found the dinner and they had outdoor seating, where we could park next to a table to keep an eye on Hannah. Some unusual items on the menu, like a black bottom. A mix of hamburger meat, bacon and egg ( a dinner favorite). Also gizzards, made several ways. We passed on both even though I like gizzards. It was just the overall atmosphere of the place that subjected just a burger. Pictures of the murals will follow, as they were all taken with our phones and some will need editing. We did drive around town and checked out some of the old historic homes. Then it was back to the RV. It was a fun day.
     Well, no pictures as promised. Seems Google claims we don't have an account. Yet here I am writing on a Google Blog, also coming to you on a Google address. Hopefully I can get it straighten out.
      Help, is there any other way I can upload photo's to my blog? This may be the end of my blog with Google. I was told they no longer support Picasso. I am no computer genius (geek). So keep it simple if you can supply information.
       Go to www.conleemurals.org and look for the tour guide for pictures of all the murals and information on each.

     Thanks for following along.









  



Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Again changes in the wind

     It's been a long time since I posted a blog.  We just had so much happening, since we arrived home after hurricane Irma. We see a big change in our RV part time lifestyle happening. No we are not hanging up the keys just yet. We will be traveling on shorter trips and for a shorter amount of time. We had planned on six months of travel a year.  For the present we will probably not be traveling for more than a month at a time.  We hope this will change in the future, back to four to six months. But for now we'll be doing shorter trips.
     I started to write the above several week ago. Then I had a heart attack. S__t happens, as the saying goes. For the near future are plan's are on hold. Linda also has some medical issues going on. I have a bunch of doctor appointments scheduled and so does Linda. Just have to jump over this hurdle. We'll keep you posted.

Monday, February 5, 2018

Thousand Trails Oceana Ocean City WA July 2017



Name; Thousand Trails Oceana RV Park

Date; July 2017

Staff; Very friendly

Price; $0.00 for members

Site; On gravel, back in W/30 amp E

Big rig friendly; Yes, roads are narrow

Amenities; Showers, restroom, laundry

Laundry; Yes didn't check it out, in a old trailer in front of park

Dog Friendly; Yes, large grass are in middle of oval loop, in back section of park

Phone/TV/Wi-Fi; Verizon good, over the air TV limited 

Night; Dark, great for viewing the stars especially on the beach

Security; Yes, gate with a keypad

Bonus; On the beach, but a long walk to the beach and ocean through the dune with high dune grass.
            A very wide beach, 100+ yards

Opinion; The back section is much nicer if on the perimeter of the oval, you back up to woods. The
                center is back to back parking. No piracy between sites. Front of park has few pull-thrus,
                FHU. dump up front near exit. We were still hooking up our car on the road and someone already backed into the space we just left, Very, very busy

Comments; We would stay here again. Close to small town that has everything you should need .   A bit touristy. Many restaurants



See our little white car

close



Hannah watching



The path to the beach


Still a long way


Here it is the beach

 







Looking back toward the RV Park



Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Road trip from Forks WA to Cape Flattery, July 2017

Road trip to Cape Flattery from Forks WA

We drove over 150 miles today from Forks WA to Cape Flattery and touring some of the area around the Cape area. It is a beautiful drive to Cape Flattery from our spot in Forks WA. Again so many photos.

Where have all the trees gone

The trip north to Neah Bay and Cape Flattery, low tide




Flowers blooming all along the road






Standing guard





Not much happing at the hatchery wrong time of the year to visit


A nice looking RV park with some great views

      More sea stacks


Yet another old truck

In town



A different type camper




The road back to Forks WA



Thanks for following along


Cape Flatery, Olympic National Park, late July 2017

      We took a trip to Cape Flattery from the Riverview RV Park in Forks, a trip of about 50 miles. Cape Flattery is the most northwesterly point in the contiguous US. It is on the Olympic Peninsula where the Strait of Juan  de Fuca meets the Pacific Ocean.    
     The Neah Bay area is home to about 1600 Makah Indians. This is where the Cape Flattery trail lies. Cape Flattery Trail is about a half mile long with about a 200 foot drop. It is made up of dirt, boardwalks and stairs. Some in much needed repairs. The trail end sits on a overlook with a huge drop to the water below. Cape Flattery Light is on  Tahoosh Island. It is decommissioned. There are sea caves on both sides of the lookout.



Trail is a little rough





The Cape Flattery light



Sea otter's below

The Makah Indian guide said this is a Puffin, I not sure



Rocky shore



Before some of the rough trail there are walking sticks for your use, Lighthouse on island

Makah Indian guide











At least 100 feet below the viewing platform

Sea caves



Coming soon the road trip to Cape Flattery. Thanks for following along.