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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

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

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!

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!