Tomka SP - Day 4 & 5

 As the lady told us the day before at the outpost that the early bird gets the worm with rental boats, I was up around 7:30, but my little princess likes her beauty rest and we let her sleep a bit as it was fairly chilly first thing. We rousted her by 10:30ish and made her get up.  We had breakfast and pumped up the crappy bike tire.  It would hold air for about 3 hours max.   Good thing Lucy had a hand pump that was easily carried.  Only issue with it is that it can only handle about 20-25 psi, so the tire is pretty spongy.

Of course me being the heaviest person, got stuck with it as it's my bike.  Usually, my daughter takes it because it's the better bike, lol.  Then we are lunch before we went, so we wouldn't have to bring food.  

Anyway, totally not listening to advice, we finally got over there close to 1PM.   We got the last tandem kayak they had so we were lucky.   

Hanging out on the dock, waiting for Dad.  Sit inside tandem.

To make life on the return trip better, we paddled against the tide, and the wind.   It was work, but we made it up to Strickland Creek in about an hour.

Looking at the map above it looks like we paddled half to three quarter of a mile up to the creek entrance.   We wrongly assumed when we got in the creek the wind would die down.   It didn't as it was running right down the creek in our face.   We passed a number of others paddling back.  Had we gone earlier the tide would have helped carry us toward the creek, but it was already running against us when we started.

We went up the creek for about 5 minutes and decided to turn around.  We found a little hole and scooted through that to see what we could find and it was a dead end.  Lucy got tangled up a bit and got it on camera.

Not wanting to lose my camera I left it back at the coach.  Lucy had her waterproof one and her phone in a bag.

Heading back from the creek toward the bridge on the map above (Old Dixie Highway).

We explored some of the grassy areas off to the left of the picture and followed one to a dead end that Naya remarked looked alot like a gator nest (it did), so we didn't stick around there too long.

The way back I only paddled to steer the boat and work from getting blown to the left of the picture.  Holding the paddle I could feel the breeze pushing on it and used it like a little sail, which was minorly effective due to the small size of the 'sail'.  

We were out for all of 2 hours which was fine as it was an hourly rental.  Worked out to about $70-75 for the two kayaks.  We bought a couple other little things so don't have the exact number.

After that we took Naya over to see the statue and walk around.  Again the sun was dropping so we headed back to the site and started getting dinner ready.  

Last meal of the trip was big shrimp on skewers with mushrooms and orange bell pepper over the fire, with couscous.  It was delicious.   More campfire action and loaded up the bikes and started to prep for an early departure the next morning.....

DAY 5

I got up near my normal work time (5:50) around 6.   Got up and made some coffee and started getting things ready to roll out.   We got all the gear stored and the beds put away and AMAZINGLY was rolling out of the campsite at 7:59AM Thanksgiving morning.   A quick stop at the dump station and we passed the ranger station at 8:08AM.     

I had looked at google the night before and it routed my back toward the NW to I-95, vs. down through Ormand Beach downtown and out SR40.   I'm thinking on the holiday morning it would have been faster with no traffic as the way we went added about 8 miles (but was show 11 min faster the eve before).  Jury is out on that one, but the way we went was a country drive, vs. town with traffic lights so it was enjoyable.

Then a 4 hour blast down I-95 with one stop in Cocoa for gas (5 min pit stop) and we were in my driveway at 12:10.   Somewhere around Titusville I looked over at the northbound traffic and saw another GMC coming from the south.   I yelled "Hey a GMC!", and it flashed its lights at me as I stuck my arm out the window to wave.  Then I realized it was my good buddy Mike with my twinsie coach heading up to the Daytona Turkey Run.

Once home we quickly unloaded, realized my house AC was broken (compressor not kicking on), and quick shower and out the door at 1:10PM to collect my Mom for Turkey Dinner at my sisters.

Overall, she ran like a champ, although I need new mufflers, I think one is cracked as it's quite raspy. On the one tank I did mileage on (mix of highway and country road driving), it got 9.3 mpg

Short Hop to Tomoka - Day 3

 Day 3 of our trip overlaps both parks.   As it was only an hour drive or so from one to the other, we slept in a little.   I had already folded up the pop-up tent the night before as it was dry and I didn't want it to get dew on it and have to put it away wet.  We really didn't need it after the rain stopped as our site was pretty shady.

Naya was slow to get up as usual, so we cooked a big breakfast with bacon and eggs which turned into bacon and omelettes as we started throwing veggies and cheese in it.

After breakfast Lucy and I went on the nature trail nearby.   It had a geocache on it, so the hunt was on.   I wasn't a fan of these for a long time, but it turns out I'm pretty good at finding them.

It was the Ancient Dunes Nature Trail and was pretty short, but surprisingly had a lot of up and down as the name implies.  The geocache was off the trail by about 50ft in a hollow section at the base of a tree.  it was a fun couple minutes as others came down the trail and we hid in the bushes so they couldn't see us.   Me in my bright yellow t-shirt blended right in and they went by without seeing us lol.

We rolled out right around 1 and started heading south on A1A.  About 10 minutes down the road we stopped off at The Surf Station in Crescent Beach.  It's their second store and where they have all the used boards.  

Tommy and Hugo were left on guard duty while we went in.  I'm in the market for a new to me longboard, so wanted to check out what they had available.   The only board I liked in the place wasn't for sale (figures).   

Naya, however, found this cosigned 5'6" Rat Boy model Surftech reduced to $160.  It needs some minor epoxy repair, but it presents well and she is very excited to try it.  I would need a snorkel if I sat on this board as its so small, but she is light enough that it may work well for her.  It's her first board that is all hers so that's a big deal!

The area just off of A1A between Flagler and Ormand is an amazing marshy area with some great cruising roads.  This is a section of Old Dixie Highway heading south toward the park.  Lucy got some good video of the drive she is editing into a piece which will debut later.

Good ole spot 98 in Tomoka SP.  It's a great spot if you can find it!   We drove around the campground twice before we found it.   It's an oval and the sites start at 1.   They end at 97 so I was confused as they didn't have any park maps when we checked in.   There are two little 'side streets' and it is nestled back in one of them.  The site isn't as deep as it looks if you notice the 'street' curving toward the camera.  I like this picture as it looks like the coach is stalking you.

Naya wanted to read, so Lucy and I took off on the bikes to see if the Trading Post was open as normally they are closed Tues and Wed (the days we were there).  Luckily, they were open for the holiday week and we inquired about kayak rentals for the following day.   It's first come first serve so they advised to be early.  This is a shot of the river off their back porch.

Just North of the trading post is the tip of a peninsula where the Timucua Indians had a village.   Back in the 1950s this statue was built to commemorate it.  It was pretty cool, but unfortunately has fallen into a state of disrepair as there were some body parts of the supporting Indians laying on the ground where they had fallen off.  

A closeup of the Chief.  We bought a magnet for the coach with a drawing of this statue on it.  His sword needs a little fixing up too.

Shot from the peninsula's tip looking west.  I strategically silhouetted the sabal palm to cut the glare down in the picture.   I think it came out okay.

Looking north off the peninsula.  Lucy was having fun with her video camera.  It was about 5PM here so daylight was going to disappear fairly quickly.

We rode back to the campsite and I started the fire just as twilight was dwindling.  I won't bore you with another campfire picture, but I built it up to cook with.  Lucy made some chicken skewers and I quickly found out we needed the trusty grilling cage again.   

After dinner, we threw some more logs on and had a great view of the Moon and Mars in conjunction.  They were VERY close in the sky.   There was a small gap in the tree canopy at just the right angle and time we are looking. Neither of us had to even move out of our chairs.  Super clear evening and less breezy than it was near the beach, but just enough.  It cooled down to the mid 60s overnight.

Anastasia SP Day 2

 One of the things I noticed was how cold the air/wind was compared to SFL.  The ocean was fine at 71F, but the wind was cooler than the water and blowing about 15mph.   This was good to keep the bugs down, but the wind was not helping the waves as it made them fairly choppy.

Slept in a bit, had my coffee and sauntered over to the beach around 9:30.  I knew the wind would be sideshore as it was the night before too, so wasn't in a hurry.   I had forgotten my wetsuit, so it was going to have to be pretty good for me to be cold as the last thing anyone needs now is a cold or fever.

I love how undeveloped this beach is!  This is looking north toward the inlet.

Notice how many more clouds in this pic from the last one.   It was less than 10 min later.  These clouds were pretty low and moving fast with the cool damp air. This is walking back through the dunes to the parking lot.

With one bike having a leaky tire, no long rides in the mix for today, so we walked about a mile south on the beach and had lunch at Little Margies FA Cafe as it wasn't a chain or high dollar place, it was convenient, and had good reviews.   The menu was quite varied as Naya had Chicken Wings, I had Manhattan Clam Chowder (hardly ever can find this in a restaurant!), and Lucy had a Filipino dish of Pancit with shrimp. 

North side of St. Augustine pier.  Surf was about 2-4 foot.  I watched some guys out, but no one was getting good waves so I felt better about not going out.

Two Chinook helicopters went over fairly low.  Constantly in production since 1961, they are the US military's heavy lift copters.  If you have ever seen one up close, they are pretty big with a fuselage of 52 ft or over twice as long as the Space Pineapple!  It can hold up to 55 troops in it...

Anyway, it's impressive when they came down the beach.  We had a nice leisurely walk back up the beach with Lucy shooting lots of bird videos and us looking for shells.  Great way to relax and kill an afternoon.

This basket, I don't even recall where I got it, but it's super useful with the campfire.   On the grate this evening is a Dominican Sausage coil.   It was pretty tasty and we had a nice salad with it.

The Pineapple LED is also of great use as it's become our campground light as it's fairly bright but the yellow and green keep it from being too glaring.   just a low key evening for the three of us, sitting around burning wood and chatting.  

Pre-Turkey trip to North FL. Day 1 St. Augustine

 As mentioned it was a quick turn from picking up the coach to rolling out the next day.  Lucy works on Saturdays and with all that's going on in the world, she needs to be avail, so we left a a day later (plus the coach pickup, etc.).   As I got back home around 1ish on Saturday, I went through all the mechanicals and made sure everything was ready to roll for a decent run of about 270 miles.   All systems were go and she ran like a champ on the 90 miles back from Okeechobee, so I started the load out for the next morning, as I wanted to be on the road no later than 10AM as I surmised it would be about 4:45 to 5 hours.

Things went as smoothly as one can expect, and we were indeed on the road at 9:59AM.  The ride north had a bit of a headwind, and bouts of rain.  

Around Melbourne, we hit an accident.   I was ready to get off and use Wickham road as an alternate, but Lucy said WAZE was saying it was only a 10 minute delay.  It was closer to 20, but even so, probably close to a wash with the detour, so we stayed the course.

This allowed me the time to get an odometer shot for my buddies (we play this game and to win, I should have been going 94 MPH which would be ludicrous in the GMC)....the speedo is off as I was actually not moving and it reads about 10 mph slow.   the Odo is spot on though.

The worst of the rain was around New Smyrna/Daytona area.   We powered through it and got into the sunlight for a short time.   By the time we are at the gate and waiting our turn to enter the park (3ish), I saw on the radar that the nasty stuff we ran through was chasing us.

We got to our site and I plugged in and hooked up the water.  I immediately took a bike off (oh BTW, my bike tire was flat after filling it up right before we left so 5 hours max on ride time) and did a proper surf check.   4 guys out, wind hard sideshore and cold, and while it was head high, didn't see anything rideable in the 15 min I was watching it.  Should have brought  a spring suit but as a SFL guy didnt think of it.  Anyway, the rain was coming up fast, so I peddled hard back to the campground whizzing past Lucy who had just turned around herself.

We arrived back at the site just as the monsoon rain was setting in, and our friends Beth and Lee and their  dog had just shown up.   We put our 13x13 shelter up in the rain and moved under it.   We need to Scotch Guard it again as it leaks, but it took care of us for the most part.

Here we are riding the storm out, albeit without the REO Speedwagon soundtrack.

Plan B for the filet mignon that Beth and Lee brought over.   Hard to light a campfire in a deluge, so the trusty camp grill did the trick, and Lucy prepared the veggies on the griddle inside the coach (nice to have options!).

 

About the time we finished eating the rain moved out and we got busy burning wood for light, conversation, and entertainment.   As you can see it was a roasty-toasty fire.   We enjoyed this for quite awhile and just before they left for the evening (they live fairly close by), we headed down to the beach.  Full on hijinks and hilarity ensued and we chalked it up to another classic evening spent with friends enjoying the good life.

Dry Dock Results Post

 I had arranged for a fairly quick turn around on the new flywheel install, as we had a trip planned for the day after I picked it up.

I had discussed with the shop, to 1. replace the flywheel, 2. install the new speedo cable. and 3.  try to identify where the leak on the driver's side was coming in.   I said that 2 and 3 were optional if they had the time.   Well they got 1 and 2 done so I was happy.  I knew the leak is a lot more time consuming, so didn't expect that.   Until we resolve it, we can't really move forward on the interior remodel.

My good friend Scott agreed to shuttle my back to Okeechobee to pick it up Sat. morning.   We were going to leave around 8:30, but then he called me the night before with a conflict.   He had to drop his oldest off at Boy Scout camp in  Jupiter FL at 7:30.    Not a big deal and it's on his way really, so they collected me at 6:30 and we went to breakfast after dropping his boy off.  

We picked the coach up right as it started to rain.  So I chatted with a couple that were there looking at coaches to buy.   I answered a few questions about the reality of driving a 45 year old motorhome.  They seemed nice, I hope they get one :)  

Getting ready to pull out of Sirum's and head back home. Photo by Flash Gumby

The ride home was interesting as the rear bags were jacked up pretty high and the wind was about 15+ broadside, so she was a handful.   I stopped for gas and let air out of the bags and she was a lot easier after that.

Action photo on the BeeLine Highway heading back toward WPB.  Photo by Flash Gumby

Jeff gave me the old flywheel as a souvenir and you can see the carnage.

The starter only had about 5K on it like the engine, but the bendix got chewed up a bit too.   I had a spare one from our KY trip and took it with.  They wisely used it.   I'm told, I can swap the bendix sprocket out, so I'll do that and this will become my spare.

The speedo cable also gave them issues as the holes didn't line up (I had figured that out), so they dremeled out the hole to make it work.   After cursing my head off for 3 hours on the Prairie earlier this year, I was happy to pay the labor for this. Is nice to have a speedometer again after about a year (and I figure about 2000 miles).

I got home around 1PM and immediately started prepping for out departure the next day.

Starlog 1114.20 - Scheduled Dry Dock Maintience

 As previously logged, the Intergalactic Space Pineapple, suffered damage to the warp core during our tour of the Floridian system.  The radiation shield was repaired at a remote friendly space port as described in the previous log entry.

Today we set forth for a Federation maintenance facility on the planet Okeechobee for a much needed repair to warp induction disk (aka the flywheel).   After the rear stabilizers were pressurized, we engaged the starter coils and crossing our fingers that the warp core would engage.   The damaged disk groaned and complained for a second and just as we thought it wouldn't the warp core came to life with that familiar rumble.

I eased her our of the docking bay and while I kept her running, added 5 gallons of unleaded dilithium to the reserves so that she was near full for the journey.  Today's journey would be a crew of one, which is always challenging, as any in flight issues are difficult to handle while piloting the craft.  

I had thoughtfully prepared prior to launch to load needed supplies on board, and with only a few minutes of idling, I communicated to my extraction team that I was underway.

The trip itself was uneventful, an I made the Oke run in under 1.5 hours.  As I dropped out of warp, I radioed the maintenance facility for final approach instructions and followed them to a docking bay.  I went over IGSP's  maintenance requirements as my extraction team went into orbit around the planet.

10 minutes later, I was beamed aboard this sleek black shuttlecraft and we blasted out of orbit.

The captain and his mate were quite gracious to collect me from the surface and return me back to headquarters after stopping off at a Cantina to enjoy a wonderful lunch.

The Pineapple will be under going a flywheel replacement this coming week and hopefully getting a new speedo cable installed and some leaks addressed.

Sunvisor Re-Install

 So my buddy Mike from Trailer and Marine Services, in Ft. Pierce, FL ( I HIGHLY recommend them for all your trailer needs)  Helped me put the visor back on my GMC.

Mike has my almost twinsie coach, another yellow 23'.  His is 3 years older and different floor plan, but due to the fact we only live about 80 miles apart, people we know mistake our coaches for each other (even a few in the GMC community).

That's his in the foreground and ours in the background.  As you can see the windows are different as his has the bed in the back and a side bath, vs. our rear bath.

Anyway, I got rolling and made it up to his shop and we got right to work on the issue.  The first thing he showed me was how he modified his visor after his flew off too (well his stay partially attached).  

After we cleaned up the tape residue and drilled out the holes where it ripped out.  Previous install just had screws into the fiberglass with no backing!   We used a hole saw and made a couple of cuts.

Mike then taped out a scribe line  from the top of the hole to the corner.

Using a body saw (very high RPM air tool), he ripped down the line enlarging the space between the top of the coach and visor, thus reducing the wind load on the visor that wants to rip it off the coach.

The beauty of this mod is that you hardly even notice it even when you know what has been done.

Air foil reduction!

As mentioned the big bolts up front were just lag bolts screwed into the fiberglass.  How they held with the adhesive for 20 years is kind of amazing.  Anyway, Mike used Rivnuts.  They go in like a rivet and the back side mushrooms out, and it is a threaded nut.  Pretty cool stuff.

Washers and bolts and of course we used some strong adhesive under them.

Sporting my sweet color matched Birchaven (the model of GMC we have) T-shirt I just got. Had to wait a couple hours for the adhesive to set, so we went to see the boat Mike just bought to restore and then off for a sandwich and a brew.

After 2 hours I gingerly drove her home as I had my sister coming for dinner.  I tried to stay under 50  mph the whole way home and for the most part I did, but it was PAINFUL.  The hour and half ride up took 2:15 on the way home, but she got here and the visor stayed on!  

The broken flywheel is a far bigger issue than I thought it would be and today I ordered a new one, now just need to get it installed before our Thanksgiving adventure.