Camping with the Sunshine Statesman

 Had a very ambitious week planned, but while it didn't go off as planned, we still had alot of fun.  

Originally, I was going to be in Tampa all week for work and blast home Thursday night and then turn around and be out of here by noon on Friday to go camping.    Well Mother Nature had other plans.  Lucy's family was in town and while they were supposed to leave Friday morning,   Fort Lauderdale received a 1000 year rain event.

Just under 26 iches in 24 hours and over 20 of that fell within a few hours.   Most of Ft. Lauderdale was underwater including the runway at the airport.  3 ft of water on the runway they said.   Took 2 days before it reopened.

So I got home Thursday night, got to meet my nephew for the very first time (he's 16 months old already!).  Friday, I ended up going into work for 4 hours in the morning as I had a whole slew of projects going on.  I left at noon and was home in time to see the extended family all leaving to go do family stuff.  I opted out and pulled the coach out from the side of the house to prep so we could leave Saturday morning.

I pulled the coach out and left it running while I jockeyed my work car into the spot the coach takes as we had an overflow of cars at the house.  I decided to check the transmission fluid and when I lifted the cover a bunch of leaves flew up and hit me.  

As soon as that happened I could smell that the leaves were about ready to burn so I quickly shut down the engine.  At first I thought it was very weird the the wind would blow the leaves up there, but then I saw the sock and realinzed the leaves were from my mago tree in the backyard (coach is up on the side of the house), so I had most likely a rat that was setting up shop on top of my engine.

I put on some gloves, got a bag and filled two plastic grocery bags with leaves and the sock (where does a rat find a sock?).  I then got my shop vac and went to town making sure it was off the engine.  A visual inspectiion showed that Mickey the Rat was kind enough to not chew any wires up.   

45 min later, I can now check the trans fluid.   It was low (this thing leaks like a British car), so I added a quart.   It came up a bit, but I wasn't sure so I added another pint and that brought it up to the happy range.

I spent the next 2 hours generally cleaning up and checking all maint items.   By the time the family came back and we headed out to a cousin''s house for a dinner party.

Saturday, the family was still here, but our daughter appeared and they all went to the beach.  Lucy and I were on our way by 10AM.  My goal was to get there before noon.   I had to stop for gas and wound up going to 3 stations to find gas.  Apparently not only was the airport under water but Port Everglades where ALL of South Floridas gasoline comes in, was also flooded.  While they had alot of gas, the trucks couldn't get to the depot to fill up!!!

I got gas at the third station and off we went.  The coach ran like a champ and we were parked in the campground with 10 min to spare before lunch time hit.  Perfect timing!

After lunch, we were invited to go for a boat ride.  Some of the folks wanted to go to a bar, but I piped up and said I had never been out on Lake Okechobee before, so they obliged us.   Here we are entering the lock.

This was also my first trip through a lock on a boat.   I had watched the lock in the Pt St Lucie waterway work before and the water level was 5 or 6 feet different.   I was a little disappointed when I found out it was only 6 inches in this lock lol.    Anyway, here is the view off the bow looking south toward Clewiston way over the horizon 34.5 miles away!

Wikipedia says:

Lake Okechobee is the tenth largest natural freshwater lake among the 50 states of the United States and the second-largest natural freshwater lake contained entirely within the contiguous 48 states, after Lake Michigan.^[4]

Okeechobee covers 730 square miles (1,900 km²) and is exceptionally shallow for a lake of its size, with an average depth of only 9 feet (2.7 metres). It is not only the largest lake in Florida or the largest lake in the southeast United States, but it is too large to see across, giving it the feel of an ocean.^[5] The Kissimmee River, located directly north of Lake Okeechobee, is the lake's primary source.

Here we e living it up on the bow of a Pontoon boat!  NO shade here!

A couple hours later back in the lock.  I was the official holder while the lock functioned.

You can see the slight water level difference on the lock gate here.  Only took about 3 minutes to adjust to the other level.

We got back to the campground and went to the pool for about an hour then got ready for dinner.   At the rallies, you throw some money in and most of the food is provided (breakfast and dinner usually,   this time Saturday lunch was a last minute add on).  

We went to dinner and then the club business was attened too.   This was our third rally with the Sunshine Statesmen.   I ended up getting elected to the board of directors even though we just joined.   It was fine though as they are looking for the next generation as the original memobers are pusing into their 70s and 80s (original coach owners!).

After that some of us played some games and I had a good time with a domino game.  We headed back to the coach around 10PM or so as the sun killed us.