As you can see by the last entry, I dropped the rig off for some needed upgrades/repairs. She was there a bit longer than anticipated, but the results are worth the wait.
I was disappointed that the Honda EV4010 I tracked down in New Hampshire doesn't fit. I had bought it sight unseen on Craig's List and paid for it to be crated, then shipped to FL. Turns out I did really well as it is a very strong unit with only 600 hours on it. They are very sought after as they were mostly used in ambulances, fire trucks, and other commercial vehicles. They are water cooled with their own radiator! I was told when I bought my coach that there were to only aftermarket generators that would fit in the space on a 23' coach. Well it turns out not to be the case if your 23 is a rear bath Birchaven. Jeff measured it every which way and finally said the only way would be to tear out the closet and the wall might have to be moved in the bathroom. We opted to scratch that off the list for now and re-group on that one. The other work was get some new tires, and bleed the brakes (since it'd already be on the lift for the new airbags. Also, had new gaskets installed around the rear window and windshield.
The new airbags was a big one, as the original Firestone bags were purpose built for these vehicles, they are no longer manufactured, so a workaround is needed. There are several options out there and after doing my research, I went with the 'Alex' bags, named after their inventor. They bolt right in where the old ones were and use readily available airbags for large trucks.
The bags installed on my coach. They added the valve so you can isolate the bags (to prevent leak down) for long term storage. They work well and the coach rode well, perhaps a tad bit firmer.
.I got a call from the shop when it was done (Monday afternoon) and then had to figure out how to get my rear end out to Okeechobee about 80 miles away to collect it. Normally, I would have Lucy run me out there, but schools out and summer camp has started for so she's pretty busy and unable. Saturday's are out for her as well, as that's her busy day with work at the studio.
I was scheming trying to figure out who I could conscript into driving me out there, when the light bulb went off in my head. Amtrak! It stops in Delray, 5 min from my house and also in Okeechobee less than 2 miles from the shop. I check online and it is the Silver Star that stops. The Silver Meteor does not. The timing on the trip is near perfect as well. 1:02PM to 2:26 PM and it's only $21!
I call my buddy Mark, who lives on the Gulf Coast to see if he wants to go camping as my family had plans already for the weekend. He says yes, it sounds fun! We plan for him to pick me at the train station in Okeechobee and take me over to the shop, then we will head out to Prairie.
Mark arrived and we were over at the shop in a couple minutes. I paid for the work and then went to find Mike in the back to discuss the details of what he did. I got the two minute tutorial on the air ride system as it was disconnected when I bought the coach. We got that squared away and went food shopping as we had 5 meals to cover. Usually, I try and pre-buy the food, etc. and leave home with a loaded coach, but not this time.
We made our purchases and off we went up to the Prairie. You can see it was just a couple of bachelors on this ride. We arrived onsite and I was surprised that the road (gravel) was pretty dry. They have been spending money on it as it is raised up a bit and seemed to have been graded fairly recently.
We got set up and made some cocktails and relaxed for a bit. We then got some firewood from the stand on the family loop. Usually the firewood is ready to go and nice and dry. Even though it is covered, the humidity made it fairly damp, which I noticed when I tried to break the bigger ones down with my axe.
Even the cabbage palm fronds were slow to start. As it was after 8PM already, I threw some charcoal briquets in the pit and lit them so we could cook. As it was it was after 9PM when the meat was done.
It was overcast, but never rained, so more drinks and watching the fire until bedtime.
Saturday morning I woke up around 7 and rolled out the door to see what types of wildlife were about.
Aside from a couple of vultures sunning, there wasn't much on offer. I fully expected to see turkeys and deer as usual, but didn't. In fact I did not see one turkey or crested cara cara the whole weekend. I did see one deer on Sunday running away from the fire.
One the walk back to the coach the low sun put a nice golden light on everything.
By now Mark was up and we had breakfast and hung out for a little. I suggested a short hike before it got brutally hot out. He agreed, and I picked the easy milk run hike that is also in a hammock, so there would be shade. We did walk over, so that added a half mile to it so all told, we did about 2 miles total.
The hammock walk was fun, and I was surprised it was actually drier than December when I went with JT and MJ. I also noticed the wild Papayas that were growing and fruiting in December were nowhere to be seen. I was surprised they were there in December, and not surprised the non-native vegetation was removed. Mark's wife is into native vegetation, so he was quite interested in a number of plants we saw, that he was not familiar with.
Only pic I took on the hike. These mushrooms were the size of coffee can lids. I expected to find Alice under one. The hike was short and we stopped back at the ranger station and sat on the rockers looking north. A thunderstorm was blowing up to the NE and we watched it progress across the prairie shooting lightning bolts down.
At this point I will mention that I fully expected it to be a very wet and soggy weekend. So far it had only spit rain for a minute or two here and there. We started getting hungry and headed back to the coach and made sandwiches. After lunch we were cooling off in the coach and finally it started to rain.
Mark announced it was nap time so I grabbed a book Naya wanted me to read and sat in the passenger seat and started reading and occasionally looking at the rain outside. It rained for about half and hour fairly steadily and then let up. I was into the book now, and an hour slipped by. Mark woke up rejuvenated and I could tell he was antsy and asked about going into town. I said it was a bit of a ride, but he wanted to go.
I looked at Sebring Raceway to see if there was a public event and saw a Porsche club had the track rented for the day. I had never really explored Historic Downtown Sebring, so I agreed and we hopped in his wagon. Turns out it was 48 miles and took us an hour to get there.
What looked good on the map and google as a thriving historic downtown area (Wikipedia entry: The Sebring Downtown Historic District is a U.S. historic district (designated as such on March 16, 1990) located in Sebring, Florida. The district is at Circle Drive and Ridgewood Drive from Mango Street to Magnolia Avenue. It contains 22 historic buildings.)
was far less impressive upon arrival. The circle was nice, but there was nothing going on. I mean maybe a dozen cars total parked around the circle at 5PM on a Saturday and the only business doing anything was the ice cream shop.
We drove around the circle and then went out a block to a bigger circle and went around that. Then we started taking random turns driving around the neighborhood looking at the houses and buildings. We both like Mid Century Modern architecture, but a lot of it was older or newer (we did see a couple pretty cool houses).
Our exploration continued and we looped around Lake Jackson and ultimately made our way back to the west side and US 27. We headed to the Sunset Grille with a view of the lake looking west.
We opted for outside, then worried about rain, but it all went by to the North as pictured. A seaplane took off and that was pretty cool. The service was meh, but they brought us chocolate cake as a consolation for making us wait 40 min for food (it wasn't busy). The food was decent quality, but not super good.
We finished and headed back to the campground. We still had an hour of light and got busy prepping the fire. Tonight was more successful as I didn't need any accelerants to get it going, just cabbage palm fronds, but arguably they are like nitroglycerin lol.
You can see the beginning of the sunset in this photo, but a few minutes later, mama nature put on a show the likes of which I haven't seen in decades.
We burned through a lot of logs and called it a night.
On Sat afternoon, the campground host stopped by to let us know there would be a few controlled burns in the park the next morning. We got a late start ( I woke up at 5 but went back to bed). As we had gone out for dinner, I had steak in fridge that wouldn't make it home. I diced a couple of potatoes and an onion and left Mark to tend the skillet while I cut up the meat. It was all cut up so it cooked quickly and we had breakfast bowls of steak and potatoes (with onion). Very tasty and by the time we were done, they were lighting fires.
It got closer! You could feel the heat from the edge of our site. The fire was about a hundred feet away but blowing away from us.
By now, I had mostly packed up everything and was watching the fire. I decided to let it burn out a little as it was right on the edge of the loop road.
We then vacated the site and drove right by where I said I wouldn't in the above video ha ha ha.
I got to the road on the way out and was confronted with a minor issue:
I idled through it and was the no worse for wear. I dumped the tanks and got rid of the trash and bid farewell to Mark as I won't see him until Oct or Nov, as he will soon migrate north like the snowbird he is (he stays longer every year).
On the way out of the park I saw a snake run across the road in front of me (black racer), and a deer running away from the other fires they set.
The ride home was uneventful (hooray!) and I was back home around 3:30PM.
