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The Campground Shuffle

December 11, 2014 Drew

We’ve had a pretty easygoing week in Port St. Lucie, and are looking forward to heading down to the Keys soon. We spent another great day at the beach, and enjoyed a few more days of our work/ camp lifestyle.

This post is going to be a bit of a reflection on our experience in finding and staying with the various campgrounds we have come across so far. In short: they are a random mess of prices, amenities, attitudes, and ambiance.

Take the current location; a bona fide “RV Resort.” We found this place via Passport America (they provide a 50% discount at participating campgrounds, many times with seasonal restrictions or a max number of applicable nights). The description read something like “Large Sites, Beautiful grounds, Pool & Clubhouse, WIFI, etc…” The Tripadvisor reviews were decent; most said something like “Great campground.”

This campground has the highest undiscounted rate of any that we have stayed at yet – it has also been one of the worst. The place is well manicured, the RV pads are level concrete, the bathrooms are clean… the sites are also tiny, the RV’s are only a couple feet apart. The “management” has a list of rules and regulations six pages long, and signs posted everywhere reminding guests to flush the toilets and only use the wifi for “1 hour for email.” I don’t even know what that means!

The worst part: the plumbing in the bathhouse barely functions; the toilets don’t flush right, and the water in the shower fluctuates wildly between scalding hot and freezing cold. Keep in mind the full rate at this place is as much as a decent hotel!

But this little parking lot calls itself a “RV Resort”, and has somehow convinced a number of real people to write decent reviews and ratings… WTF! This experience highlights what we have seen so far – price doesn’t indicate quality, and people can be real dumb.

So far the worst site has been the most expensive. On the flipside, the cheapest site was one of the best so far. That little campground had a beautiful setting, best bathhouse, awesome clubhouse, and great people. It felt a little like I was leaving home when we moved on! It looks like finding a good campground involves a mixture of research, trial and error, and a bit of good luck. It’s always an adventure with each new site, and hopefully we get some of that luck in the Keys!

Florida, Road Trip

Orion Launch!

December 5, 2014 Drew

We’re staying at a great campground this week situated right across from the Canaveral AFB. We saw the launch of the first Orion space vehicle, and it was awesome!

We got up at the crack of dawn on Thursday to watch the launch. You could just barely see the big Delta IV Heavy rocket across the lagoon – we set up our chairs and settled in for the view. The lagoon area is beautiful; the sunrise was amazing. While we waited, we saw a bunch of dolphins swim by, I saw a manatee or two, and the pelicans were fishing for the mullet that would periodically jump out of the water.

First we heard that a boat was delaying the launch… then the wind put it on hold again. The sun continued to rise, and we continued to wait. We heard that a valve issue was causing problems. At this point, I’m thinking how hard can this be? I mean, I got a 50 year old VW bus running with no valve issues… it’s not like this is rocket science… OK maybe it is.

They scrubbed the launch for Thursday morning, but we were back Friday. At 7:05AM, a bright light and a big cloud of smoke appeared. The rocket almost just sat there for a second, then accelerated up into the sky. It disappeared into the low hanging clouds within seconds – Noelle and I kind of glanced at each other with the same thought… that was it? We waited around two days to see a little bit of light take three seconds to disappear from view?

Then the sound hit us. It started as a low rumble, and crescendoed into a full blown roar. We couldn’t see the rocket anymore, but we felt that rumble all the way through our feet for what seemed like a long time. It slowly faded, the vibrations eased, and silenced ensued.

Well it wasn’t really silence because the nice lady with that lovely harsh, grating voice kept asking the little kid that was with her if he could hear the rocket. I’m sure if the kid was old enough to talk he would have said something like “Yes lady, I hear the damn rocket! It’s shaking my little boots off, now shut the hell up and just enjoy the experience!”

Here are my feeble attempts to take pictures – my lens is too small, my iso is too high, my skills are non-exsistent…

The launch was cool, and I’m really glad we were here to see it. I also broke out my fishing pole for the first time. I went to a bait shop just down the road, and got some great advice from the lady running the place. She got me some frozen mullet as bait, some hooks, and some 20lb line. I was honestly a little scared to catch some monster that my little cheap push button rod and reel couldn’t handle, but it all worked out. I caught a few big catfish, and some sea trout – success! Now I just need to graduate up to cleaning and eating them!

Florida, Road Trip

Flying J

November 22, 2014 Drew

We’ve spent the last few days at a great little RV campground outside Savannah, but it is still getting way to cold. We decided to make a long haul further south into Florida – this included our first dry camping stay at a Flying J – it actually worked out pretty well!

Before we hit the road again, we stopped at the historic Wormsloe Plantation estate. This place has been around since the earliest colonial period in Georgia around 1730, but all that remains of the original homestead is a little bit of decaying fort walls. Honestly, with a $10 entrance fee this place was not really worth it – especially compared to the really cool personalized tours we got for like $5 at the Carl Sandberg Home and Carson House earlier.

The trees were cool though! We drove the rest of the day, making it down the road to a Flying J outside of St. Augustine. Interestingly enough, this isn’t the first time we’ve slept at a truck stop, but it is the first time with the camper. The place was pretty full, but we found a spot in between two bigger rigs.

I’m a big newb at all of this, but even I know that truck stop etiquette says you don’t deploy your RV slideouts, and you definitely don’t run your generator for more than a few minutes at night. The lovely old couple next to us missed that memo. By midnight, we couldn’t take the rumbling noise and noxious gas fumes so we moved over to a different spot.

Unfortunately 5 minutes later a truck cab pulled up right next to us – which wouldn’t be a big deal except that they never shut that thing down. It just kept rumbling away at idle… for hours… Everything in the camper was vibrating from the cabinets to the light fixtures – I felt like my eyeballs were bouncing out of my head! Ok that’s a little dramatic, but it turns out there is this whole RV’er vs. trucker battle out on the internets. On the RV’ers’ side, peace and quiet; on the truckers’ side, comfort and lower maintenance costs. I’m an RV’er so screw those trucker bastards!

We moved to a third location at about 2 in the morning, nestled between a big boxy 80’s motorhome and a 70’s VW bus. The camper must have felt right at home there, and we got a decent night’s sleep. Overall, we were pretty happy with the Flying J experience. The restrooms were clean, the attached Subway provided dinner, they have donuts in the morning – and you can’t get cheaper than free! We will definitely be adding truck stops to our camping repertoire from now on.

So after a long day of driving and a long night of Flying J’ing, we’ve officially arrived in Florida! Let the sunny good times begin (hopefully)!

Road Trip

Water Troubles!

November 19, 2014 Drew

We are continuing our journey south, and have booked a few nights at a “RV resort” outside Savannah. Last night was the coldest night yet – it was also the night the hot water heater decided to spill its guts!

Coming from Chicagoland, Noelle and I are definitely not afraid of a little freezing temperatures every now and again – remember when the bus fell apart in the below zero temps last year?! Tonight they said it was going to get really cold – a whole 25F, brrrrr. I wasn’t too worried about the pipes bursting or anything, but those thoughts were lingering in the back of my mind as we went to sleep.

I woke up sometime in the night to the sound of gushing water – “Oh shit!!” I hopped up and ran to the back of the camper – ice-cold standing water, the carpet runner is soaked through, the sound of a massive amount of water gushing from behind the wall. I scramble to find my pants. You can never find your pants when you really need them, amiright!

I ditch the search for the pants, run outside and shut off the water. At this point I’m thinking either the pipes froze and burst, or the water pressure was too much – either way, we got’s ourselves a problem! But it’s 4 in the morning, I’m going back to bed.

The harsh light of day reveals a bigger problem – the water was actually gushing from behind the control panel of the water heater. The metal had corroded away over time, and the o-ring had failed. The flowing water shorted out the electrical, tripping the GFCI outlet that powers the heater and the fridge – good thing that was there!

We headed 30 minutes down the road to the closest big-box hardware store for a replacement. I gave us a 60% chance of needing to return to Lowes a second time for this project – Noelle just shook her head and said “Nope 100%.” We get back to the campsite, pull the new unit out of the box only to discover that the plastic housing is completely cracked and falling apart – she was right!

So two trips to Lowes, a few hundred bucks, and about four hours later, I have the new water heater hooked up and pumping out luxurious amounts of piping hot water – Success! I also made the fittings out of flexible faucet pipes that can be easily disconnected 10 years down the road when this happens again.

While it’s never fun to wake up in disaster mode like that, I’m really glad we’ve got this rat-tastic 60’s camper. Pretty much everything can be fixed with a wrench, or a screwdriver, and none of it is rocket science – ‘cause I can’t be thinkin too much for them rockets and such!

We celebrated the return of hot water by setting up our new $8 mini air hockey table from the Cracker Barrel. Noelle won… both games… so fun!

Road Trip, South Carolina

Ninety Six

November 6, 2014 Drew

Ninety Six is the name of the site we visited today. This Revolutionary War era National Historic Site is steeped in pretty a violent and bitter history. The place is basically just a bunch of earthen mounds (the remnants of a star shaped fort and attached town) with a visitor center at this point, but the story that they contain is pretty intense!

It was decently warm, but raining this afternoon, and there weren’t really any other visitors to the site. We checked out the little museum, watched a very well put together video, and went out to the site.

Ninety Six started as a popular Cherokee trading route. Some early pioneers built a trade post, and a town eventually formed. Then everything fell apart. The gist of the story pits one group of Americans (the Loyalists) vs. their former friends and neighbors (the Patriots) in a strikingly similar, mini precursor to the later Civil War. It’s a story about people fighting each other over a site that very soon afterwards lost any real significance, and is now essentially non-existent.

We felt the graveness of the battlefield, we imagined the struggles of the people that used to live there… then we found ourselves down the road shoving our faces full of greasy fried chicken and sweet tea. Such is life on the road in South Carolina!

We’re staying in the Greenwood State Rec area, and got a sweet site on the shores of Lake Greenwood.