A couple of days at Gamble Rogers State Park

About 25 years ago on a whim, I headed east off of I-95 on Florida State Road 100 which headed into Flagler Beach, FL.   It was if I was in a time warp as the urbanization of Florida's east coast had passed right by this sleepy beach town.   I had just bought my house in Delray and was amazed that I could have bought the same size house and property less than a block from the ocean here!   I didn't get in the ocean on that trip as there was no surf at the time but when we left we drove south on A1A toward Ormond Beach, FL.

A few minutes south of town I noticed a state park with CAMPING ON THE BEACH!   As a tent camper at the time, I did find this interesting and said that I would stay here one day.  Well, I ended up getting married and having a few kids and while the park was on my radar, it was always booked out.  Much like Bahia Honda in the keys, it's tough to get a spot, so imagine my pleasure when back in December I looked and saw that a Sat-Mon was avail for ONE spot on the beach side of the park.
I didn't want to burn two vacation days and so I booked Sat and Sun nights.

The park is called Gamble Rogers after a famous Bluegrass/folk singer.   He drowned at the park in the 1980s trying to save another man who was in trouble in the ocean.  Gamble wasn't a great swimmer but the guy's daughter begged him to help and he went in....Neither of them made it.  His legacy lives on in his music and namesake of the park.   Here is just one of the many songs he recorded (shortly before he died):

In the car, Flagler is about 3.5 hours away, so it was about 4.5 in the Pineapple.   Trip up was fairly easy, only spotty rain.  I'll ad here that the forecast looked like crap.   Was supposed to rain all weekend they said with a fresh (15-20 mph) onshore flow of wind.   Well they got the wind part right anyway.

Know how fickle FL weather is, I packed a couple of surfboards into the coach for the first time

My 9'6" and Lucy's 7'6" (which I also love to ride), weren't too obtrusive while underway, but a third board probably would have been (need to investigate a roof mounting arrangement for future jaunts).

Somewhere along the I-95 corridor heading north toward Daytona.

Had to grab this photo for my OCD friends.  I did get one with the mileage at 7/10s but it was blurry.  Here it is as 7777.75.  Now I'm not going 55 in 2nd gear.  Both the speedo and gear selector are off as I'm in Drive and doing about 63-64.

Like any veteran surfer I no sooner turned off the engine than crossed the dune to check the conditions.   Looking south.

I noticed the water tower and jogged back to take this shot as the coach was framed out nice with the water tower in the background telling everyone we had arrived.

Originally, a week out the wind was supposed to be 5-10mph and I small weak surf.  As the week went on the marine forecast kept ratcheting up.  Hard to tell from the pic, but it's well overhead on the outside with 20mpd east wind making it really choppy and drifty and not very inviting.

Since we weren't going to surf, it was time for cocktails on a Sat afternoon at the beach...

Gratuitous selfie with the ocean behind me.....

Sunday morning we headed over to the river side of the park and these caterpillars were EVERYWHERE.  I mean every few feet they were running around with hundreds smooshed in the road.  They were the FASTEST caterpillars I've ever seen.  They moved pretty quick and I did accidentally kill a few while either riding the bike or walking on the nature trail.   Just thousands and thousands of them.

Couple of shots of the river side of the park.  For as big as the park is on the map, not much is accessible without a boat (this is good).

Going to guess this guy was a hurricane Irma victim as you could see damage to the park and the cuts on this sable palm looked pretty fresh.   He was on the nature trail, but also visible from your car as you enter the park.

The girls logging into one of several geocaches in the park.

Another pic looking west at the natural splendor.

So I found this now rare artifact along a walking path.  Thank goodness we don't have these around anymore!

Gaillardia pulchella

Indian blanket flower or Fire wheel.  According to the book they were out of season for North Florida, but the weather has been crazy lately!  They were blooming all over the park.

Piratus Drunkenuss

We took a 3 mile bike ride up to Flagler Pier and passed this Piratey homestead.   I liked it!

Flagler Pier and no one out surfing, tells me I made the right choice.  Half an hour later there were about 10 guys out, but shortboard inside chunk and dunk kinds of waves...

Having lunch upstairs at Finns.  Good Bloody Marys and EXCELLENT Onion Rings.

Beer battered goodness!

Dune level shot on Sunday afternoon.  You can see the rain coming.

I love the lines on this machine, it's beautiful....

Other vintage interlopers.  Girl said it was a 1982 so only six years younger than the Pineapple

Neat fiberglass unit, a retired couple are full timing in it and doing the lower 48.  On the road for almost 2yrs they are loving their golden years.  They were very interested in our coach and we gave them the  royal tour.

View of the accomodations

For all the talk about rain and horrible forecast, it only rained for about 10 minutes on Sunday afternoon and then we got beautiful rainbows....  It was a double, but not all the way across the sky.

The kid showing off her handstand skills.  The rainbow had just disappeared :(

Monday morning was hazy and the ocean had laid down quite a bit, but still not enticing enough for me to paddle out :(   I watched it for close to an hour and saw exactly ONE rideable wave the whole time...hopefully next time!

She looks so nice in the morning light!   I really need to get some wax on her.

We got home on Monday and my new spare tire cover was waiting in the mailbox.   It's an OEM Jeep part from their Islander Edition that came out in 2010.  I spent 25 bucks on the skull and crossbones and the UV killed it in about a year.   Hopefully, this will last longer as it was a bit more ($65) but the material is alot thicker so high hopes :)

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....

Kissimmee Prairie weekend

By now you've figured out I like to go to KPSPP.  It's quiet, it's dark, and it's pretty darn close to home.  This was the third January in a row we have gone.  I chose the weekend closest to the new moon, as I was going to give the Celestron 8 another go.   I checked the calendar and it was open, so I booked the site for Fri and Sat night.   Whoops!   turns out it is the weekend our daughter's Robotics Competition.   As it was all paid for and you lose the first night on a cancellation, I decided to go by myself anyway.

The coach hadn't been out since early November when we went to Auburndale Speedway for the "Night of Destruction!"   No good pics from that trip as it was a quick up and back, but here is a teaser video of some figure 8 school bus racing:

It starts getting interesting around the 2 min mark.  Anyway it was fun, but this weekend, I took a half a day off of work and drove the coach to work and parked in my normal spot 

I left at noon, hopped right on the turnpike and soon was zipping out the BeeLine Hwy toward Okeechobee.  I got there before 1:30 and with some time to kill stopped in at Sirum's GMC to introduce myself and check the place out.   I found out Friday afternoon is not a good time for a social call, for while they were all very friendly, they were busy trying to finish up some coaches as people were coming to pick them up.   I had a nice chat with Jeff's parents who were visiting too, and the mechanics came out to see my Olds 350 install as they didn't believe it when I told them :).  I met a Facebook friend and local Yolanda who was dropping off her coach, and took a quick spin around the shop to see the operation 

It was then back in the coach and off to the Prairie.  Originally the weather forecast was excellent for star gazing, but I was seeing some high clouds on the way in that made me nervous....

You can see the coach in the bottom shot.  This is the Equestrian loop which we like as the spots are larger than the family loop.  Only thing is the bath house is half a mile away.    It was still pretty early around 3:30, so I slowly started farting around with bringing out the telescope.  As I was by myself and planned an evening of star gazing, I didn't unload the firewood, chairs, etc.

You can see here I have the tripod out with the equatorial wedge mounted, the Celestron scope on the picnic table and wagon ready to haul it about 75 yards to the clearing.  The scope is period correct for the GMC as my Dad bought it in 1975. It was top of the line at the time and is an amazing piece of equipment.  I'm just getting started with it and it takes awhile to set it all up.

Here is the viewing area I have where I set up in before.  They do have dedicated astronomy pads, but the RV won't fit on one as they are small and they lack any amenities other than 110V.  The horse paddocks are on the left and loop is ahead and to the right.

4:30PM and it's still looking iffy.  My phone told me the moon is in this pic, but yeah, not looking too good.  I'm at a turning point here.  When I checked in, the ranger mentioned a volunteer astronomer on the family loop avail from 6-9PM.    Hmm, it's going to be 40 out tonight, I'm alone, the sky is iffy... maybe I'll pedal over to the family loop and see what the volunteer has going on.....  I pedal over and sure enough his scope is out and wrapped up.  It's bigger than mine so that seals the deal.  Someone to talk to, a better telescope, and more knowledge that I may benefit from....  I go back and pack everything away and put it in the coach.  It's 5:15 now so I cook up a hot dog on the griddle and get my warm clothes out.

As I'm leaving the neighbor mentions that there is a launch from Cape Canaveral at 7:45 so this sounds pretty good too.  I pedal over and meet Alan who is a super nice guy from upstate NY.  He is uncovering the scope and we get to chatting.  The moon is already setting as it's 2.5 days old, so that's the first thing he zeros in on.  It's a waxing crescent and a thin one at that.  I like the moon like this as the sun is low and throws long shadows on the surface, so you really get a sense of the topography.  I tried to take a picture with my phone and it sorta worked...

After about half an hour, the moon started to dip behind the trees so that was done.  Next he looked at the Orion Nebula as it was high enough and not in the clouds.  I saw a meteor while he was getting that dialed in.  His scope was 100% manual  with no clock or anything, which impressed me as he was whipping it around nailing one object after another.   I asked him a bunch of questions and he was most gracious, so I have a leg up for the next outing.   As 7:30 approached, other campers started to filter over as the launch was still on...  One of the ladies had her phone streaming the launch which was nice.  About 5 seconds after liftoff, up to the NE we saw the horizon glow orange and then a bright point of light started climbing upwards.   We were able to see the Atlas rocket lifting it's defense satellite payload for at least 5 minutes.  With the audio, we could easily see the first stage burn out, then the second stage fire as it kept on going up up up.  Photo is probably 4 minutes or so into the flight when the arc had already started to flatten.  If you zoom in you can see two exhaust flames.

 I was VERY surprised what a great launch viewing area the prairie is!   I figured it for over 100 miles to the launch pad, but google tells me it's closer to 75-80!  The park is a little more north than I imagined...
We looked at other stuff like the Andromeda galaxy,   Castor (multi binary system), several star clusters and M81 and M82.   The clouds were moving in albeit slowly, leaving overhead clear, but more and more light was reflecting off of the clouds making it brighter than usual.  He closed up shop around 8:45 as the clouds were the final curtain for the evening. I had a very chilly pedal back to the coach.

As soon as I came in the coach I heard it.  An electrical buzz, like a transformer or fluorescent light ballast.   I could tell pretty quick it was coming from the exhaust fan.  I was COLD, so I started heating water for hot chocolate and started to investigate.   For some reason I decided to grab the exhaust tube in the pic above and turn it (thinking it may stop).   It didn't.   In fact is SPARKED!!!!   Uh Oh.  

As you can see the PO was a wire nut fiend and it was connected with them.  Easy.  I took off the hot lead, and it stilled buzzed.  I took off the neutral and bingo it stopped.   Now the question is why is my 110 system grounding through my exhaust chimney...a puzzle for another day as I was tired and went to sleep before 11PM.  

I slept good, but man it was CHILLY at 5AM when I woke up.  I went back to bed until about 7 when a herd of wild turkeys decided to hang out right outside my window.  Tried to get a pic but they wandered off before I could get the phone camera to work.  I figure the coach is good for about 10 degrees over outside temp, so it was around 50 in the coach.  I went back under the covers for another 2 hours (hey, I'm relaxing!) and got up at 9ish.

Ernie was on his way and he called shortly later and was at the site by 9:30.  I ate breakfast and they started to put up their tent around 10.

It was obvious that today was going to have alot of cloud cover.  By the late afternoon it was completely overcast, but saw a lot of cool clouds.

Last March there was a tornado that came through the park and a walk through one of the hammocks it traversed it was very east to see the path of destruction.  About 40-50 feet wide, everything was mowed down.  It did flip a few trailers in the family loop, and stayed on the ground for much longer than a typical FL tornado.  Here is action Ernie snapping pics of a lovely model.

Long story short, I became a baby sitter for about 3 hours Sat afternoon.  Here I am dazzling the kids with the magic of fire.  They weren't impressed, but I got a good start on a bed of coals for the meat fest we had after dark.  One of the cool things, was the 4 kids decided they liked hanging out in the coach playing cards at the dinette, while us grown ups sat around the fire with cocktails enjoying ourselves without screaming kids.   I did have to open the door and throw in a bag of chocolate chips which seemed to buys us more time until the sugar kicked in......

Sunday Morning the animals came out as it was much warmer.  Freddy the manatee didn't like the prairie so much, complained it was too dry.

Tommy and Hugo on the other hand loved the buffet brunch they got.

Rare Narwahl sighting in central FL.

 Hugo and Tommy chillin while we pack up

 Hugo was excited about the prairie and wanted to gallop free.

Gratuitous Hammock Shot

We went back and did the hammock loop for those that missed it on Saturday, and then headed home.  Another successful trip in the books....