Last Gasp Before Summer Comes

About 3 or 4 weeks ago I thought, "Gee, I need to use the coach more often!"  I know I did have the reservation for Flagler Beach set up and that was coming, but I realized that May was pretty booked up already, and June is already booked up every weekend.   After that, it's just brutal out with the heat and afternoon Thunderstorms....

So I looked to Reserve America (who handles all the Florida State Park reservations online).  Wow, Johnathan Dickenson was wide open on Mothers Day weekend (the ONLY weekend in May we had free).  So I posted in the GMC and Vintage FL camping FB groups, along with my own page.   Well all the serious hits came from my personal page.  I managed to rope in one other GMC owner and one of our tent camping friends (we are only recent graduates from that and still do it sometimes).   We booked 3 site consecutive sites on the River Loop, as we wanted to bring our kayaks, plus anything to do, you can walk to from the River Loop vs. Pine Grove.   

As we found out on arrival was that Pine Grove had two advantages this time of year as it's on higher ground: more breeze and less no see ums.   The little guys were out and biting!  It only lasted for about an hour around sunset, but a little annoying.  Also the campfire helps keep them at bay.

So this other coach is (If I recall correctly) a 1975.   It's a 26' foot side bath model, where ours is a 23' rear bath.  This coach probably has over $80K into it and it shows.  All modern windows, fresh paint, and a remodeled interior.  The interior reminded me of a yacht as it was very tastefully done with high end materials.  I loved the flush (on the outside) windows......until I went in and sat at the dinette.  That low cross bar you see in the top picture was exactly eye level while seated.  Kind of disappointing really.   Other than that the coach was really really nice, and something for us to work toward in the future.

Our other friends, Aaron and Gaby, conscripted a co-worker to come along and soon, we were cooking dinner and roasting meat on the fire.  About 5 years or so ago we stayed on the same loop with them and my surf buddy Ernie.  Back then he told the story of the Ghost Train and scared the crap out of his young daughter.   They were not on this trip, but stories of the Ghost Train were spun and we were on a mission to go find it!

Around 11 or so, the fire started to wind down and instead of stoking it back up, we piled into Marc's SUV and headed up to Hobe mountain.  Hobe mountain is the highest natural spot south of Lake Okeechobee in all of South Florida.  86 ft above sea level, the observation deck is probably about another 30-40 ft high on top of it.  It offers a commanding view of the surrounding area.  It was dark, so you'll have to look at our blog entry from 2 summers ago for daytime pics...here are two of them:

 Looking east to the ocean 

Shot from the ground, you get the idea.

So we all pile up there and Marc brought his small telescope, but it's too cloudy to really see anything....but then, HERE COMES THE GHOST TRAIN!    Well not really, but it is an FEC frieght train heading south.  It's really cool at night to watch a train wind through the park as its headlight lights up the woods.   As it was cloudy with a low ceiling, there was LOTS of reflected light so we could see the whole train span the park from to to bottom!  Pretty neat.

The next morning I woke up early and got on the bike for a ride, trying to find a good vantage to get some sunrise photos.   Not quite what I was hoping for, but they were okay.

Back to the campground, I saw a bunny hopping around the nature center, and took a trail through the woods that wound up outside two of the ranger's houses.

Got back to the site and people were up and about.  Breakfast started on our site and then migrated to the other one.  I went back our site for something and found this little guy tore open our trash bag and was snacking on a muffin wrapper.

After breakfast, we headed over to the nature center for the skins and skulls class for the kids.   I learned a few things like Manatee bones are solid (unlike ours) so they can sink better.   Here is a manatee skull:

The volunteer ranger was very knowledgeable and talked to the kids (ours were the oldest, some were 5 or 6) about the different animals and there skulls.  I learned quite a few things myself.

On the left is a diamond back skin on the piece of wood, followed by a shed, a wild pig, an eight point buck, a coyote, a raccoon and a tortoise shell.

Go go gator

Couple of big takeaways:

1. They trap over 140 feral pigs a month in the park, but are losing as they are procreating faster.

2. Gopher Tortoises dig really long tunnels that all the animals hide in together during forest fires and don't eat one another.  Kind of an emergency truce.   Ranger said they opened one up and over 400 animals came out of a single one!

3.  Coyotes are indigenous to the area and their main diet is rodents, not road runners.  (further research shows that they became established in South Florida in the 1980s and back filled in where the wolf population was destroyed by humans).

They built this huge Chickee next to the river where the old amphitheater was.  It was about 75x35 feet under the cover! It still smelled fresh.

As we had brought the kayaks, Naya forgot the paddles, so we had to wait until Lucy went to work on Saturday and ran by the house to get them.

It was forecast to rain really bad in the evening and it being mother's day, the tenting folks, decided to pack up their tents, but hang around.  We got the kayaks launched and they rented some canoes and we went upstream to Kitchen Creek.    It was a fun easy paddle that lasted just shy of 2 hours.

Marc really liked the GMC and dug the view from the driver's seat

As dusk set in and the no see ums came out to feast Aaron and company split the scene and back to Broward and AC suburban living.

We had a nice visit with Jim and Janie, but they turn in early as they were leaving around 8AM to beat the weather home.  The promised rain never showed itself, and we went back to the tower lookout again on Saturday night as I didn't have enough wood left to get a proper fire going.

Around 5 AM I woke to the plunk plunk of rain drops, but it never really got going.  Just enough to wet the pop up tent cover.   After J&J left, it was just us, so I saw the real rain heading toward us on the radar, so we packed up and were off the site around 10:30.   Being Mother's Day,  I called my sister and told her we were on our way as she was having a brunch for our Mom.

Driving south, here came the rain.  It poured pretty good about 5 minutes down the road from this picture.

We got home and cleaned everything up before it started to rain again, so we had pretty good timing.

Next 6 weeks are just crazy busy, so won't be much camping probably until September as after this run, we have a family reunion in early August and then Naya starts high school!

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....