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Big Cypress

December 22, 2014 Drew

We found the gators – they are all hanging out upcountry at Big Cypress National Preserve. We spent two days down in the Everglades and only saw one gator. As soon as we pulled into the Big Cypress Oasis visitor center, we saw dozens of cold-blooded beasts lounging around.

The park ranger guy explained that in the dry season, a lot of the gators congregate in the canals that run along the roadways here. They were all just strung out along the highway soaking up the rays. He also said they basically just bask for days and weeks in the sun to store up energy, then expend it in a lightning burst to grab some unsuspecting prey. They only eat every couple weeks, and are good for a couple months if they catch something big.

We took a little detour down a gravel road loop to see even more gators. Honestly though, I was more interested in the ratty homesteads we found along the road – more than a couple sweet old campers buried in that there swampland!

The national preserve campground we stayed at in Big Cypress was the roughest yet. This place ended up not having a shower house, and the bathrooms were shady at best. I didn’t realize that when I booked the two nights…oops. It’s hard to understand how they can justify charging the same $30 for this dump as they do for the more built up Everglades site – I guess that’s just government logic for you.

So at this point we’ve come pretty far from the opulence of running water and clean bathrooms in the Keys. Instead I got to spend a half hour McGyvering up this beautiful outdoor shower contraption. We’ve got a solar shower from Cabela’s that is basically a big 5-gallon water bladder with a little screw-on spray nozzle.

I feel that you haven’t really maximized your marriage until you find yourself holding a really heavy bag of water up in the air while your significant other rushes to shower only inches from your face surrounded by a tarp contraption consisting of every bungie cord you could find, and a big, pink flamingo chip clip (thanks Carla!)

Needless to say, we are looking forward to heading out of the wilderness, and back to civilization for the holidays!

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

Walmart

December 2, 2014 Drew

We can officially cross “sleeping in a Walmart parking lot” off that big bucket full of lists we are carrying around with us – Success! We also ate a decent BBQ lunch at the Daytona Pig Stand – Yumm!

We’re headed further south into Florida, and in an attempt to keep the costs down a little, I’m trying out a strategy of dry camping (read: sleeping like a hobo) between campsite stays. Today, we headed for a Love’s truckstop down the road a bit, but found that it truly was a truckstop with overnight parking meant only for truckers or people who can’t hear very well. The noise of an entire parking lot of idling trucks was deafening, so we made the decision to head a little further down the road to Walmart.

It is fairly well known that Walmart has an unwritten rule that allows RV’rs to park overnight. Actually they had a written rule on the sign right outside the spot we picked that said in big letters “No Overnight Parking”. But screw that noise, we’re staying! A few more rigs joined us by the end of the evening – they parked right next to us too which was weird given the massive expanse of empty parking lot they had to work with.

When we first arrived, we naturally went in to do some shopping. There’s just… so many deals! We might have bought another boogie board, and some chips, and maybe even a deadbolt kit that I want to eventually install on the door… We went back an hour or so later. Noelle may have tried on some clothes including a t-shirt with wolves howling at a moon with Santa and his reindeer silhouetted like ET… We may have bought some Subway, and then returned a few hours later to buy some bread and some paper towels…

All in all, this “free” night at Wally World has cost us more than a night at a hotel! “It’s simple economics son; I don’t understand it at all, but… God I love it!”

Florida, Road Trip

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 28, 2014 Drew

Happy Thanksgiving! This is our first holiday away from both sets of families. While they know we love them, I can’t say we haven’t had a great Thanksgiving in Florida!

Earlier in the week, a big cold front came through, and the weather gods decided it would be a good idea to test my feeble waterproofing attempts. It rained hard for over 24 hours. A few hours in, I checked the weather – it said weather advisory – yep, it said flood watch – yep, it said lots of rain – yep, it said “Heaviest accumulations north of the I-4 corridor – yep, I looked outside – yep, we were in for a monsoon! My silicon-caulking job held at first, but eventually water started seeping in around the side window and the top of the front windows. The only other leak we detected was from part of the roof vent. Noelle rigged a nice little water catcher for that – she’s so smart!

I got bored and decided to fix the oven vent fan. It would vibrate, and make a real racket when running. I pulled the fan part off, tightened the support bolts, cleaned everything, and reassembled. Now we have a whisper quiet oven vent fan – sweet! I wish all projects were like that.

After the rain died down, the weather turned nice and pleasant. We’ve been able to get a decent amount of work time in. We also hit up this awesome used bookstore. An entire room full of romance novels kept Noelle pretty busy – and they had the good vintage stuff, none of this new age “everyone loves each other” junk!

We missed our families for the holiday, but we are still having way too much fun in the sun to go back now!

North Carolina, Road Trip, VW

Camper Regroup

November 15, 2014 Drew

Our camper shakedown cruise is officially over! We completed our round-about circle through the backwoods of North and South Carolina, and headed back to do a little house sitting for the in-laws.

It was certainly nice to have a stationary roof over our heads for a little while, but I’m also really happy with how our first bit of camping experience went. All the systems seem to be functioning properly on this thing; we didn’t really have any major mechanical troubles – sweet!

It was fun to do some catching up with the kitties – we’re very thankful that Norm and Carla are taking care of them while we are on the road!

We also got to do some catching up with the bus. You know… that stupid rotting VW bus that started us on this whole wingdinger of a trip!

I mentioned that I had decided to “outsource” the bus work to a shop in Charlotte before we left for Amsterdam. Unfortunately, they didn’t actually have the capacity to do anything either, so the bus just sat outside for a couple months. I would rant more about car shops and how worthless each and every one of them is, but it’s just not really worth it.

The drive back from the shop went really well – the bus fired right up! I almost took a wrong turn down the on-ramp to I-85 which was fun, it was really cold with no windows, but the thing drove beautifully. We made it an hour or so up the road, and it’s now tucked away nicely in the garage – success! (kind of).

I’ve got a camper project list a mile long, but at this point nothing is critical. We’re planning on heading south next – hopefully we’ll find a beach soon!