Skidaway Island Camp site

Our camp site at Skidaway Island State Park was huge. The sandy area is the tent pad. This is a pull through site, #60.

Hung up some hammocks for talking and relaxing. It's the first time we have been able to use our hammock, it's not allowed at Florida State Parks to hang things in trees. We ended up with two areas, the hammocks were daytime hangouts since that area had shade during most of the day, and the fireside was used more at night. Chairs got moved back and forth as needed, especially the yellow rocking chair.

View of the vehicles from the hammock. The picnic table was a long one, longer than our tablecloth.

Set up a dishwashing station because the bathroom sink is tiny and the kitchen sink doesn't work. 

Fauna checking us out.

There was a oak stump that she was throwing at, but it's surprisingly hard to get the knives to stick.

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Birthday Camping

Last month I noticed on the trip that the middle tire on the passenger side was wearing unevenly.  Obviously the bogie arm (Suspension piece that holds the wheel) is bent.   What I don't know is how long it has been that way.   The tires have about 5-6K miles on them as they went on right when I bought the coach.   It probably was not bent when the wheels went on as the brakes and bearings were all replaced and I think they would have noticed.   Anyway on our eclipse trip I hit a big pothole on that side which took off one of the exhaust tips (see pic).

As you can see from the photo on the right, how bad it is.  That's not a photo effect, the tire is slanted that much!  It falls right over if you let it go.

I had the spare on the steel wheel you see above.  The tire is like brand new and is just reaching the end of it's 6 year life. (If you don't check date codes on your tires, you need to go google how to do it!).  As I just bought another, this one will be my sacrificial lamb to see how bad of a bend this is.  Hopefully in the next thousand miles or so, I will get new airbags so this will all be apart anyway.....

So prior to leaving on went the spare and it's still there, coach ran fine on it.

Used to be this park always had availability, but the word has gotten out and you need to book a few months in advance now.   I had booked this weekend not because it was my birthday weekend (birthday was actually the Monday after), but the week before with the new moon was sold out.

I was fine with a quarter moon, as it's easy to find in the telescope and offers up some very very cool things to see.  The weather cooperated both nights this trip which was a bonus as our friends Beth and Lee were coming up as well.

Normally, I take a half day off of work and try to be on the road by 1PM, but my daughter talked me into bringing her friend along.  We had to wait for her to get out of school and be driven over by her Mom.  They were actually a few minutes earlier than they said and  we were out of the driveway by 3:25PM.   The drive up was uneventful with good traffic and no mishaps.  Didn't stop at all as I wanted to make up a little time and sure enough we rolled through the gates of the park right around 5:40PM 

They had regraded the gravel up to the turn (couple of miles) so it was easy driving in, but had the girls close the windows as it was very dusty.   After the turn, they had not regraded from the previous month and the washboard slowed us down alot.  This was good as it was twilight and we saw something like 7 or 9 deer on the way to the campground.

Naya was a big help when we arrived as I barked out orders and she executed.  It's a fairly easy affair setting up the coach on arrival.  Block the wheels, plug in electric and hook up water.  Got that done and UH-OH!, no power.  Hmmm,  checked the breaker outside and reset it and still nothing.  Decided to check the plug on the inside.  The PO (previous owner) had done wire work and the 25ft cord that you pull out to plug in, actually has a female outlet on the other end.  There is then another male plug on ROMEX that plugs into that and goes to the breaker panel.  Of course it's under the floor in the closet so I had to empty the whole closet out (where we pack MOST of our stuff while traveling) and sure enough, it had rattled loose on the washboard road.  PHEEEEWWW!

So now that I lost 10 min of daylight,  I'm all in a hurry to get the telescope out before it gets too dark (It gets VERY dark in the park).  We get out the wagon and load the telescope and the girls pull it over to the field (about 100 yards away).   I carry over the tripod and start getting stuff together.  It's been a year since I had the rig set up, so I'm not going real fast.   

Look the Moon!

We get the heavy lifting part done of setting the tripod, equatorial wedge and mounting the scope to the wedge.  It's now that I realize my 12V power pak (for jumping cars, etc) does not have a built in inverter (I thought it did).  As the sidereal clock (built in motor in telescope base that turns the scope at the speed the earth turns) runs on 110V, I'm out of luck.  Sure I have 100' of extension cord, but the coach is about 300 feet away.  I send Lucy a text asking her to bring it when she comes tomorrow.

The girls head back over to the coach and start cooking dinner as they are hungry, while I finish setting up the scope.  I head back and we eat fairly quickly without much ceremony.  Two teenage girls have BIG appetites and the three of us rail right through all the food (4 sliders each)!

Now it's nice and dark and I get the telescope dialed into the moon.  The girls are fascinated and take turns for close to half an hour, looking all around the waxing crescent at the craters, rills, etc.

Girls checking out some craters

 One of the cool things without the clock, is as you pump up the magnification, you can start to see the Earth's rotation as the moon appears to be moving through the view piece.  Of course this is relative motion as everything is moving, but on the highest power, it takes under a minute for a feature to 'wander' out of view.

After they got bored with the moon, I set my eyes on the next target:  The Orion Nebula.   Even though the moon was just shy of a quarter, it still put off plenty of light and made shadows on the ground.   We don't notice that in town with all the light pollution. 

I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly I was able to get dialed in on the nebula.  Even though it's a naked eye spot, getting a moderately high powered telescope on an object takes a little bit of patience, especially when it's a 1975 scope with no electronics  other than the clock. (period correct for the motorhome! ).  Here are a couple of photos I did NOT take of the nebula.

About the color and size we could see with the moon so bright

The nebula has alot of color if you take a time exposure but the above pic is close to what the naked eye can see.  The moon was close in the sky and washing it out a bit so it was fainter than above, but you get the idea.  I do plan on getting to the point of taking photos with my scope in the future.

By about 8:30PM dew was starting to set up on the telescope case, so I packed it all up for the night.  The new dew shield worked great, but after the incident last year, I was quick to pack it away.  We got it all put away and heard from Beth and Lee that they would were on their way and should arrive in about an hour...  Well it turned into 2.5 and by the time they got there, I had burned ALOT of the firewood already and was sitting by myself as the girls were have a party in the coach.

 The next morning rolled around and we were up by 7:30 and off for a buggy ride.  It's your typical Florida swamp buggy that holds 7 people and the driver.  The park runs 4 trips on the weekend and it fills up pretty quick as I learned last month...  Anyway we got on the morning one, and Beth was able to hop on as we had one extra no show seat.  It's about 2.5 hours long and you go out where hardly any people get to in the park as it's miles from the campground.  Below are a couple shots from the back where I got to sit.  JT and I rode our bikes down this water filled path on a previous trip.

 

Military Trail across the prairie 

Back at the campsite, I noticed this Minne Winnie the evening before.  French Canadian couple who were real nice.  They liked the GMC and told me it looked big lol.  Well next to their 20ft I had to agree.  I think he said it was a 1984 or so. 

You can see the tripod with the wedge mounted on it next to the coach.  I wanted to learn more about it, but they packed up and left shortly later.

Closeup of the Winnebago, not much bigger than a van.

 Lucy arrived later in the afternoon and I had a conference call with my study group.  I'm working on my Master's degree and we had an online meeting.  While 2 bars of service is ok for sending texts, voice, and facebook updates, don't try to run video conferencing software over it.   It kept dropping me and finally I just gave up on it.

As twilight approached I broke out the telescope again and set it back up so the other adults would have a chance.  Was very interesting to see how much more of the moon's surface was illuminated vs. a day earlier.  The day/night horizon is nice to look at as you can see the shadows on the moon.  They of course were different than the day before, so the girls and I enjoyed that.  I was also able to dial in the nebula again, and a few other stars (all the other planets were below the horizon).

The rest of the evening was sitting around the campfire enjoying grilled shrimp and potatoes along with other delicious sides, and rum cocktails.

Sunday I had to get back to study so after pancake breakfast, packed it up and headed home....

Holiday camping with the family

My dad was in town, so we got him, his sister and her son and grandchildren to all go to Kissimmee Prairie Preserve state park for a weekend of camping. Here I thought I would let the elders have the coach beds, but they both chose to sleep in the tents. Our tent is the bigger one on the left. This is the equestrian loop, so there's only a composting toilet and no showers. They were not impressed until we told them to go to the main bathhouse. We used the bikes to get there. Nobody seemed to even want to set foot in our coach. But the sky was nice and clear, and we all spent time laying on the ground looking at the stars. We actually were in the road, the campsites had so much tree cover that we had to walk to the other side and laid tarps down. My cousin brought a bottle of wine, the kids had blankets and saw fireflies and so many stars.

This time of year is nice with the windows open.

Coach is full of wood for burning...

Pyroman - can't camp without a fire!

Kids in trees at night

Kids in trees in daytime

Sunset over the trees

My outdoor washing station had a visitor. I'm not sure how I'm even going to be able the wash that cutting board inside, I guess I'll have to use the tub.


We were able to go on the buggy ride, which gives you a tour of the preserve. The ground was wet, the buggy had some deep puddles to go through, but it was interesting. Especially considering there was a part of a Military Trail there, thinking about the poor men slogging through the wet marshes in the late 1800s. If you want to see a bit of old Florida, there's also land for sale nearby, reminding us of the old Florida swamp land sales. Still going on. Anyway, this park is also the only Florida habitat for the Crested Caracara bird, which normally is more in S and Central America. Definitely a cool bird.

Pair of Crested Caracara birds

Jonathan Dickenson State Park

JD - southern pine snake

We were only able to get wednesday and thursday nights at Fort Wilderness, so we moved on to Jonathan Dickenson State Park for Friday night. It's not our favorite, mainly because the trees shading the Pine Grove campground are all gone, but other parks were full. We rode our bikes to the lookout tower at night, and also went to the visitor center where we met JD out for a slither in the grass. He was recovering from an accident and it was the first time he had been outside in 6 weeks! Apparently someone dropped the cage top on his tail and broke something so they were being extra careful.

Outdoor kitchen

Pine Grove campground is no longer piney

Me driving curvy roads!

Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park

Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park

 

One of our favorite state parks, not too far from home, but a completely different feel, with wide open spaces and dark skies. It's a favorite spot for local Astronomers, far enough away from city lights for sky watching. There is a special pad for setting up your astronomy gear and exterior bathroom lights are all red to keep from destroying your night vision and reduce light pollution. There's two loops, one for equestrians with horse paddocks in front. We're in the main loop right now. The campsites are pretty well shaded, but the rest of the place is prairie. Last night there was a big storm and the power was out for over 3 hours. So we don't have a generator, we haven't tried out the toilet yet, we think the tanks may have a crack. We can use the bathroom sink, but somewhere there is water dripping from one of the tanks, probably grey.

There is a big scratch on the passenger side.

Fridge Compartment - a mouse nibbled everywhere

Mud on the tires, the ground was wet coming into the park

Happy in bed

Cool beetle we found - Rainbow Scarab

Somewhat better pictures of the poems on the side windows.