Short Hop to Tomoka - Day 3

 Day 3 of our trip overlaps both parks.   As it was only an hour drive or so from one to the other, we slept in a little.   I had already folded up the pop-up tent the night before as it was dry and I didn't want it to get dew on it and have to put it away wet.  We really didn't need it after the rain stopped as our site was pretty shady.

Naya was slow to get up as usual, so we cooked a big breakfast with bacon and eggs which turned into bacon and omelettes as we started throwing veggies and cheese in it.

After breakfast Lucy and I went on the nature trail nearby.   It had a geocache on it, so the hunt was on.   I wasn't a fan of these for a long time, but it turns out I'm pretty good at finding them.

It was the Ancient Dunes Nature Trail and was pretty short, but surprisingly had a lot of up and down as the name implies.  The geocache was off the trail by about 50ft in a hollow section at the base of a tree.  it was a fun couple minutes as others came down the trail and we hid in the bushes so they couldn't see us.   Me in my bright yellow t-shirt blended right in and they went by without seeing us lol.

We rolled out right around 1 and started heading south on A1A.  About 10 minutes down the road we stopped off at The Surf Station in Crescent Beach.  It's their second store and where they have all the used boards.  

Tommy and Hugo were left on guard duty while we went in.  I'm in the market for a new to me longboard, so wanted to check out what they had available.   The only board I liked in the place wasn't for sale (figures).   

Naya, however, found this cosigned 5'6" Rat Boy model Surftech reduced to $160.  It needs some minor epoxy repair, but it presents well and she is very excited to try it.  I would need a snorkel if I sat on this board as its so small, but she is light enough that it may work well for her.  It's her first board that is all hers so that's a big deal!

The area just off of A1A between Flagler and Ormand is an amazing marshy area with some great cruising roads.  This is a section of Old Dixie Highway heading south toward the park.  Lucy got some good video of the drive she is editing into a piece which will debut later.

Good ole spot 98 in Tomoka SP.  It's a great spot if you can find it!   We drove around the campground twice before we found it.   It's an oval and the sites start at 1.   They end at 97 so I was confused as they didn't have any park maps when we checked in.   There are two little 'side streets' and it is nestled back in one of them.  The site isn't as deep as it looks if you notice the 'street' curving toward the camera.  I like this picture as it looks like the coach is stalking you.

Naya wanted to read, so Lucy and I took off on the bikes to see if the Trading Post was open as normally they are closed Tues and Wed (the days we were there).  Luckily, they were open for the holiday week and we inquired about kayak rentals for the following day.   It's first come first serve so they advised to be early.  This is a shot of the river off their back porch.

Just North of the trading post is the tip of a peninsula where the Timucua Indians had a village.   Back in the 1950s this statue was built to commemorate it.  It was pretty cool, but unfortunately has fallen into a state of disrepair as there were some body parts of the supporting Indians laying on the ground where they had fallen off.  

A closeup of the Chief.  We bought a magnet for the coach with a drawing of this statue on it.  His sword needs a little fixing up too.

Shot from the peninsula's tip looking west.  I strategically silhouetted the sabal palm to cut the glare down in the picture.   I think it came out okay.

Looking north off the peninsula.  Lucy was having fun with her video camera.  It was about 5PM here so daylight was going to disappear fairly quickly.

We rode back to the campsite and I started the fire just as twilight was dwindling.  I won't bore you with another campfire picture, but I built it up to cook with.  Lucy made some chicken skewers and I quickly found out we needed the trusty grilling cage again.   

After dinner, we threw some more logs on and had a great view of the Moon and Mars in conjunction.  They were VERY close in the sky.   There was a small gap in the tree canopy at just the right angle and time we are looking. Neither of us had to even move out of our chairs.  Super clear evening and less breezy than it was near the beach, but just enough.  It cooled down to the mid 60s overnight.

Anastasia SP Day 2

 One of the things I noticed was how cold the air/wind was compared to SFL.  The ocean was fine at 71F, but the wind was cooler than the water and blowing about 15mph.   This was good to keep the bugs down, but the wind was not helping the waves as it made them fairly choppy.

Slept in a bit, had my coffee and sauntered over to the beach around 9:30.  I knew the wind would be sideshore as it was the night before too, so wasn't in a hurry.   I had forgotten my wetsuit, so it was going to have to be pretty good for me to be cold as the last thing anyone needs now is a cold or fever.

I love how undeveloped this beach is!  This is looking north toward the inlet.

Notice how many more clouds in this pic from the last one.   It was less than 10 min later.  These clouds were pretty low and moving fast with the cool damp air. This is walking back through the dunes to the parking lot.

With one bike having a leaky tire, no long rides in the mix for today, so we walked about a mile south on the beach and had lunch at Little Margies FA Cafe as it wasn't a chain or high dollar place, it was convenient, and had good reviews.   The menu was quite varied as Naya had Chicken Wings, I had Manhattan Clam Chowder (hardly ever can find this in a restaurant!), and Lucy had a Filipino dish of Pancit with shrimp. 

North side of St. Augustine pier.  Surf was about 2-4 foot.  I watched some guys out, but no one was getting good waves so I felt better about not going out.

Two Chinook helicopters went over fairly low.  Constantly in production since 1961, they are the US military's heavy lift copters.  If you have ever seen one up close, they are pretty big with a fuselage of 52 ft or over twice as long as the Space Pineapple!  It can hold up to 55 troops in it...

Anyway, it's impressive when they came down the beach.  We had a nice leisurely walk back up the beach with Lucy shooting lots of bird videos and us looking for shells.  Great way to relax and kill an afternoon.

This basket, I don't even recall where I got it, but it's super useful with the campfire.   On the grate this evening is a Dominican Sausage coil.   It was pretty tasty and we had a nice salad with it.

The Pineapple LED is also of great use as it's become our campground light as it's fairly bright but the yellow and green keep it from being too glaring.   just a low key evening for the three of us, sitting around burning wood and chatting.  

Pre-Turkey trip to North FL. Day 1 St. Augustine

 As mentioned it was a quick turn from picking up the coach to rolling out the next day.  Lucy works on Saturdays and with all that's going on in the world, she needs to be avail, so we left a a day later (plus the coach pickup, etc.).   As I got back home around 1ish on Saturday, I went through all the mechanicals and made sure everything was ready to roll for a decent run of about 270 miles.   All systems were go and she ran like a champ on the 90 miles back from Okeechobee, so I started the load out for the next morning, as I wanted to be on the road no later than 10AM as I surmised it would be about 4:45 to 5 hours.

Things went as smoothly as one can expect, and we were indeed on the road at 9:59AM.  The ride north had a bit of a headwind, and bouts of rain.  

Around Melbourne, we hit an accident.   I was ready to get off and use Wickham road as an alternate, but Lucy said WAZE was saying it was only a 10 minute delay.  It was closer to 20, but even so, probably close to a wash with the detour, so we stayed the course.

This allowed me the time to get an odometer shot for my buddies (we play this game and to win, I should have been going 94 MPH which would be ludicrous in the GMC)....the speedo is off as I was actually not moving and it reads about 10 mph slow.   the Odo is spot on though.

The worst of the rain was around New Smyrna/Daytona area.   We powered through it and got into the sunlight for a short time.   By the time we are at the gate and waiting our turn to enter the park (3ish), I saw on the radar that the nasty stuff we ran through was chasing us.

We got to our site and I plugged in and hooked up the water.  I immediately took a bike off (oh BTW, my bike tire was flat after filling it up right before we left so 5 hours max on ride time) and did a proper surf check.   4 guys out, wind hard sideshore and cold, and while it was head high, didn't see anything rideable in the 15 min I was watching it.  Should have brought  a spring suit but as a SFL guy didnt think of it.  Anyway, the rain was coming up fast, so I peddled hard back to the campground whizzing past Lucy who had just turned around herself.

We arrived back at the site just as the monsoon rain was setting in, and our friends Beth and Lee and their  dog had just shown up.   We put our 13x13 shelter up in the rain and moved under it.   We need to Scotch Guard it again as it leaks, but it took care of us for the most part.

Here we are riding the storm out, albeit without the REO Speedwagon soundtrack.

Plan B for the filet mignon that Beth and Lee brought over.   Hard to light a campfire in a deluge, so the trusty camp grill did the trick, and Lucy prepared the veggies on the griddle inside the coach (nice to have options!).

 

About the time we finished eating the rain moved out and we got busy burning wood for light, conversation, and entertainment.   As you can see it was a roasty-toasty fire.   We enjoyed this for quite awhile and just before they left for the evening (they live fairly close by), we headed down to the beach.  Full on hijinks and hilarity ensued and we chalked it up to another classic evening spent with friends enjoying the good life.

Dry Dock Results Post

 I had arranged for a fairly quick turn around on the new flywheel install, as we had a trip planned for the day after I picked it up.

I had discussed with the shop, to 1. replace the flywheel, 2. install the new speedo cable. and 3.  try to identify where the leak on the driver's side was coming in.   I said that 2 and 3 were optional if they had the time.   Well they got 1 and 2 done so I was happy.  I knew the leak is a lot more time consuming, so didn't expect that.   Until we resolve it, we can't really move forward on the interior remodel.

My good friend Scott agreed to shuttle my back to Okeechobee to pick it up Sat. morning.   We were going to leave around 8:30, but then he called me the night before with a conflict.   He had to drop his oldest off at Boy Scout camp in  Jupiter FL at 7:30.    Not a big deal and it's on his way really, so they collected me at 6:30 and we went to breakfast after dropping his boy off.  

We picked the coach up right as it started to rain.  So I chatted with a couple that were there looking at coaches to buy.   I answered a few questions about the reality of driving a 45 year old motorhome.  They seemed nice, I hope they get one :)  

Getting ready to pull out of Sirum's and head back home. Photo by Flash Gumby

The ride home was interesting as the rear bags were jacked up pretty high and the wind was about 15+ broadside, so she was a handful.   I stopped for gas and let air out of the bags and she was a lot easier after that.

Action photo on the BeeLine Highway heading back toward WPB.  Photo by Flash Gumby

Jeff gave me the old flywheel as a souvenir and you can see the carnage.

The starter only had about 5K on it like the engine, but the bendix got chewed up a bit too.   I had a spare one from our KY trip and took it with.  They wisely used it.   I'm told, I can swap the bendix sprocket out, so I'll do that and this will become my spare.

The speedo cable also gave them issues as the holes didn't line up (I had figured that out), so they dremeled out the hole to make it work.   After cursing my head off for 3 hours on the Prairie earlier this year, I was happy to pay the labor for this. Is nice to have a speedometer again after about a year (and I figure about 2000 miles).

I got home around 1PM and immediately started prepping for out departure the next day.

Starlog 1114.20 - Scheduled Dry Dock Maintience

 As previously logged, the Intergalactic Space Pineapple, suffered damage to the warp core during our tour of the Floridian system.  The radiation shield was repaired at a remote friendly space port as described in the previous log entry.

Today we set forth for a Federation maintenance facility on the planet Okeechobee for a much needed repair to warp induction disk (aka the flywheel).   After the rear stabilizers were pressurized, we engaged the starter coils and crossing our fingers that the warp core would engage.   The damaged disk groaned and complained for a second and just as we thought it wouldn't the warp core came to life with that familiar rumble.

I eased her our of the docking bay and while I kept her running, added 5 gallons of unleaded dilithium to the reserves so that she was near full for the journey.  Today's journey would be a crew of one, which is always challenging, as any in flight issues are difficult to handle while piloting the craft.  

I had thoughtfully prepared prior to launch to load needed supplies on board, and with only a few minutes of idling, I communicated to my extraction team that I was underway.

The trip itself was uneventful, an I made the Oke run in under 1.5 hours.  As I dropped out of warp, I radioed the maintenance facility for final approach instructions and followed them to a docking bay.  I went over IGSP's  maintenance requirements as my extraction team went into orbit around the planet.

10 minutes later, I was beamed aboard this sleek black shuttlecraft and we blasted out of orbit.

The captain and his mate were quite gracious to collect me from the surface and return me back to headquarters after stopping off at a Cantina to enjoy a wonderful lunch.

The Pineapple will be under going a flywheel replacement this coming week and hopefully getting a new speedo cable installed and some leaks addressed.

Sunvisor Re-Install

 So my buddy Mike from Trailer and Marine Services, in Ft. Pierce, FL ( I HIGHLY recommend them for all your trailer needs)  Helped me put the visor back on my GMC.

Mike has my almost twinsie coach, another yellow 23'.  His is 3 years older and different floor plan, but due to the fact we only live about 80 miles apart, people we know mistake our coaches for each other (even a few in the GMC community).

That's his in the foreground and ours in the background.  As you can see the windows are different as his has the bed in the back and a side bath, vs. our rear bath.

Anyway, I got rolling and made it up to his shop and we got right to work on the issue.  The first thing he showed me was how he modified his visor after his flew off too (well his stay partially attached).  

After we cleaned up the tape residue and drilled out the holes where it ripped out.  Previous install just had screws into the fiberglass with no backing!   We used a hole saw and made a couple of cuts.

Mike then taped out a scribe line  from the top of the hole to the corner.

Using a body saw (very high RPM air tool), he ripped down the line enlarging the space between the top of the coach and visor, thus reducing the wind load on the visor that wants to rip it off the coach.

The beauty of this mod is that you hardly even notice it even when you know what has been done.

Air foil reduction!

As mentioned the big bolts up front were just lag bolts screwed into the fiberglass.  How they held with the adhesive for 20 years is kind of amazing.  Anyway, Mike used Rivnuts.  They go in like a rivet and the back side mushrooms out, and it is a threaded nut.  Pretty cool stuff.

Washers and bolts and of course we used some strong adhesive under them.

Sporting my sweet color matched Birchaven (the model of GMC we have) T-shirt I just got. Had to wait a couple hours for the adhesive to set, so we went to see the boat Mike just bought to restore and then off for a sandwich and a brew.

After 2 hours I gingerly drove her home as I had my sister coming for dinner.  I tried to stay under 50  mph the whole way home and for the most part I did, but it was PAINFUL.  The hour and half ride up took 2:15 on the way home, but she got here and the visor stayed on!  

The broken flywheel is a far bigger issue than I thought it would be and today I ordered a new one, now just need to get it installed before our Thanksgiving adventure.

Sunvisor Renewel

 As you may recall, part of out July adventure  had an event of unexpected disassembly whilst motoring along at 60mph.  Our Sunvisor flew off!

You can read the account here:

http://yellowgmcmotorhome.blogspot.com/2020/07/summer-vacation-2020-rainbow-river-days.html?

Short version is, it landed on the edge of the road and slid off into the grass.   It didn't look too bad at the time and we motored on.  

Life getting in the way and all that and 2.5 month later I got around to fixing it.

My best guess is the Rig was painted around 2000 when the PO bought it.  He told me the color was 2000 New Beetle Yellow.  As I had had such a colored creature pull up to me at a gas pump before I believed him as the two vehicles matched perfectly.   I went to a local paint supply but they no longer mixed custom rattle cans.   The guy was super cool and said while he'd take my money, from what I told him, he said the rattle cans were a better option.   So off I went to Glue Products in WPB.

They easily matched it up, but I was surprised by the price....$40 a can!  I figured around 25 per.  Man paint has gone up alot.  Beggers can't be choosers so...

The leading edge of the visor.  obviously the first part to hit the ground.   Once it flew off I didn't see how it took flight.  I was honestly worried about oncoming traffic or the Mini that was following me.  From the best guess it naturally by it's weight would land on this edge.  There were 5 or 6 impact chips like this.   I didn't notice the fracture lines until I started to sand it down.

Post sanding, before I applied the Bondo.

Close up of the filled in scratches.   Click on the pic to blow it up.

Post sand before I went to get the paint.

The underside had be flat black, but alot of it was thin or I sanded it off, so I hit it again, taping off the areas where the adhesive goes.

The almost finished product.  I need a 2nd coat then a buff out before it goes back on.   Not including the time to go get the paint, I probably put about 8 hours labor into this which is about 5 more than I thought it would, but if you want quality results, prep prep prep.