Louise's seminar links

For those who attended my seminar on finding places to camp, you can find the list of books that I discussed here.

You might also be interested in Sean's article about dispersed camping.

Thank you to everyone who attended the seminar. I learned a few things from you, too!

Seminar Slides

Several people who attended my seminar this morning on coach electrical systems at Bussin' 2010 in Arcadia have asked for copies of the slides. You can find them here in PDF format (caution: 2.2MB download).

The slides do not really stand by themselves -- you need to have attended the seminar. But for those who were there, they might be useful.

Bussin' 2010

We are once again at the Turner Agri-Civic Center in Arcadia, Florida (map), where we were this time last year. As then, we are here for the annual rally of converted buses and the people who convert them.

Our attendance this year is being sponsored by Bus Conversions Magazine, where Odyssey is the December centerfold. The publisher thought it would make for a nice package to have us do a Q&A session and open house here at the rally, where they will be handing out copies of the December issue. We arrived Sunday evening, after a pleasant drive from Fort Lauderdale, and have been cleaning the bus more or less since we arrived to be ready for the open house.

Truth be told, we had not planned to arrive until yesterday, but our plans to spend Sunday night at the Wal-Mart here in town were foiled by a new no-overnight policy implemented since last year, apparently due to problems with trucks abusing the privilege. It turned out to be fortuitous, though, since the extra night gave us a head start on cleaning, starting with a long-overdue pressure wash. As long as we dragged a hose over, we also filled the hot tub, which felt really nice last night after a long day of washing and prepping. The scooters also got sorely needed baths.

Today was a similarly long day; we set out a dozen or so "for sale" items that have been languishing around the coach, and a "free" pile as well. I also polished up the wheels and put a coat of dressing on the tires for the first time in five years. Since we'll be doing an all-around tour, I also spent a few hours cleaning out the bays, which tend to degenerate into chaos over time, and get grubby in the process.

Tomorrow we should be able to relax a bit. Other than a technical round table at 2pm, we have nothing on the schedule until dinner. Thursday will be our big day, with my electrical seminar at 9am, followed by Louise's seminar on ferreting out overnight stops at 10:30. At 2pm we start the Odyssey Q&A in front of the bus, and we'll be open for tours until 4ish. I expect we'll be bushed by dinner time.

One of Odyssey's sister coaches rolled in earlier today, an '80s vintage German Spaceliner also originally converted by Pegasus. We had a nice chat with owners Lou and Renea and are looking forward to touring their rig tomorrow; like us, they also completely stripped their coach and converted it over from scratch. Their coach has only two axles, making for a somewhat different arrangement in the driver area.

The rally runs through January 1st, after which we will head down to Port Charlotte to visit friends there. We'll be back in Arcadia on the 3rd for the workshop I'll be helping with all that week.

Happy Boxing Day

We are back home after our whirlwind holiday cruise on Royal Caribbean's Independence of the Seas. It's taken most of the day but we are finally completely unpacked, the coach has been tidied up, and the needy four-legged mammals have been reassured that we are back home for the foreseeable future.

I will share our thoughts about the cruise in just a moment. For any of our readers who do not care to slog through our tales of the high seas, I will first report that we intend to remain right here at our secret spot in Fort Lauderdale tonight, and will get rolling sometime tomorrow towards Arcadia and the start of the Bussin' 2009 bus conversion rally, where we are both slated to deliver seminars. I will remain in Arcadia through about the 8th, as I will also be teaching at the "Bring Your Own Bus" workshop following the rally, while Louise jets off to California to visit family and friends. She flies out of Tampa but returns to Palm Beach, so Odyssey and I will head that way when the workshop is over.

We had a nice cruise. This was our first on RCI and also on any ship this large; the ship was full, with 4,200 passengers and nearly 1,400 crew. Despite that, it never felt overly crowded and we seldom waited in line for anything. We ended up on this particular cruise simply because it met the criteria of being relatively cheap, extending through Christmas (but not into our rally), having balcony staterooms available, and departing from southeast Florida, where we already were when we booked it.

When I booked this cruise, I took a balcony stateroom "guarantee," which meant we did not get to choose a cabin, but were guaranteed a minimum of the lowest category balcony, with the possibility of ending up with something nicer than that. (Usually that means the possibility of the same size stateroom, but perhaps on a higher deck or better location -- in practice, lines almost never bump a guarantee up to the next "type," such as a mini-suite when only a balcony is guaranteed). What we ended up with was an "accessible" stateroom in the lowest balcony category.

This turned out to be a major score. It's not even possible to book such a stateroom unless one has a verifiable medical need; it had never occurred to me that the line must assign these to their "guarantee" bookings when they have unsold accessible staterooms just a couple weeks before sailing. Our room was literally 150% the size of the "normal" staterooms in our category -- the size, actually, of a mini-suite. While we had the same appointments as any other balcony, we had a lot more room to move around, and our balcony was 50% longer. The only minor annoyances (emphasis on minor) we had to endure were the weird shower arrangement (the bathroom is probably twice the regular size, and the floor is flat all the way into the shower) and a little flip-down "bridge" over the patio door track to facilitate wheelchairs -- we just stepped over it rather than flipping it up and down all the time.

The other major score for us was landing a deuce in the dining room. Immediately after boarding I marched down to the Maitre d' to ask specifically for a table for two, knowing it would be nearly impossible on a full ship. It turned out, though, that we had already been pre-assigned to one, a circumstance I attribute to the fact that couples on this cruise were vastly outnumbered by larger families. We are much more accustomed to sailing on lines where an older demographic makes for intense competition for two-tops; the holiday likely meant this cruise was more family-intensive even for Royal Caribbean.

I have to say that we really liked the ship itself. I was afraid the "Royal Promenade," a four-story tall shopping-mall sort of affair running down the center of the ship, would be too "Las Vegas" tacky, but it turned out to be a really interesting space. We had breakfast nearly every morning at the little cafe right on the promenade, and it was a great place for people-watching. While we did not avail ourselves of the climbing wall, the ice rink (really), the Flowrider boogie-board attraction, the water park (aimed squarely at children) or even the miniature golf, all included, it was nice to know they were there and we enjoyed watching them in use. The ice rink hosts a production "ice show," and a retractable over-ice floor turns the space into a venue for other events such as the hilarious "Quest" game which I will not even attempt to describe, other than to say that you must go if you end up on an RCI ship.

We ate dinner every night in the main dining room, where the service was on par with some of the higher-end lines we've cruised. The food quality in all venues was below what we've experienced on other large-ship lines, but acceptable nonetheless, and some of the selections were outstanding. We generally had lunch in the buffet, although some of our shore excursions forced us to other venues. There is a Johnny Rockets on board, but we skipped it -- it's an extra charge, and, hey, we can eat there ashore. We did enjoy pizza and antipasto available almost any hour of the day from the pizzeria on the promenade, and it was excellent as well as included. Also included was self-serve frozen yogurt on the pool deck, although there was also an extra-fee Ben & Jerry's on the promenade. It sort of stuns us to think that people will pony up to buy food on a cruise ship; we also opted to skip the $25 per-person Portofino and Chops "alternative" dinner restaurants -- our experience is that neither the food quality nor the service warrants such an upcharge.

We really did not have enough at-sea time to fully enjoy the entire ship, with three ports in a row bracketed by only two sea days. We enjoyed some truly wonderful diving in Belize at Turneffe Atoll and in Cozumel on Palancar reef; in hindsight we should have taken the interim day in Costa Maya off completely and just enjoyed the port facility (complete with swimming pool and swim-up bar) and some of the ship amenities. Instead we went on a grueling six-hour excursion to the Biomaya park where two hours were spent in line to zip-line for five minutes. Once we were on the trio of zip-lines, totaling some 1,000 meters or so, we enjoyed it, but that was too much time for so little reward. It was our first time being hoisted up ~100' towers to the zip lines by our harnesses, though -- our previous zip line experiences all involved walking to the first platform.



All in all we had a great time, and someone else did all our holiday decorating, cooking, and cleaning. Plus, we can add RCI to our portfolio of cruising experience, and I think we can honestly say we would do another one should the circumstance arise.

Gone cruisin'

Our bags are packed and we are ready to go on our holiday cruise. This morning we will meet with the folks who will be watching the bus and the pets while we are gone, and we'll head over to the port around noonish.

I do not expect I will get the chance to blog from Belize or Mexico, so I will take a moment now to wish all our readers a very happy holiday season.

Catching our breath

We are in a weather-imposed holding pattern on the project list -- it's been pouring down rain here since we got back from dinner last night, and the weather alert has gone off every 20 minutes or so with flood warnings, tornado watches, and small craft advisories. Rain fade has our Internet in yo-yo mode, and even posting this is challenging. The radar says we'll be in this the rest of the day.

That means I probably won't get the wetsuits back to Sports Authority or the circuit breaker installed until tomorrow sometime. Our friend Steve also asked me to come over tomorrow to help him with his anchor windlass, and between all that and packing I think that will kill the rest of the time we have before our cruise.

When we get back, we will only have a day to recover before we head off to the bus conversion rally in Arcadia, wrapping up what will have amounted to over a month here in south Florida. Notwithstanding plans to relax, take it easy, and get a few things done while we were here, it seems like we were overtaken by events (a technical term used to describe, among other things, why airplanes crash or nuclear reactors have disasters). We've been booked every night since returning from the Keys; I think Louise and I had only a single night out just the two of us.

I'm not complaining -- it's been great, and we've enjoyed almost everything we've done here (not counting the brake job and the compressor failure). But I know we have some readers here in the area that wanted to meet up, and we did not get to that, nor did I get to my backlog of computer-related projects.

At this writing, however, it is looking favorable for our return here in the later half of January. As I wrote here ten days ago, our plans had been to leave Florida for parts unknown but west of here after the Stuart boat show mid-January. However, there is a good possibility that we will need to be back in Florida at the end of February for a conference. If that comes to fruition, it will make little sense for us to stray too far in the interim, and so we will likely remain here, although that will mean missing our cherished annual pilgrimage to Death Valley on Presidents Day.

At this point, our plans are pretty firm through mid-January. When we return from our holiday cruise, we will head to Arcadia for the Bussin' 2010 rally, which runs through New Year's day. We have friends in Port Charlotte that we will visit immediately afterward, and then we'll return to Arcadia where I am scheduled to teach about hydronic heating systems and possibly other topics at the first "BYOB" (Bring Your Own Bus) workshop which runs the 4^th through the 8^th. That will give us a week to make our way to Stuart for the boat show and Cruise Expo, which runs the 15^th through the 17^th.

After that, the crystal ball becomes cloudy. If we commit to the late February conference, then we will register for TrawlerFest right here in Fort Lauderdale, which runs January 29^th through 31^st. As long as we're doing that, we might as well also hang around for at least the first day or two of the Miami Boat Show, which runs February 11^th through the 15^th. That plan would have us here in the Fort Lauderdale area from the 1^st through the 10^th with little agenda, in which case we can tackle some more of the project list as well as get in some of the visits we missed in the last few weeks.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I will start packing for the cruise, one of the few things I can do today while pinned down by the rain.

Countdown to cruising

I am back home after my whirlwind trip to California. Louise picked me up at FLL Tuesday night on the scooter, which meant taking the scenic freeway-avoiding alternate route. I am just now, a full day later, recovering from the combination of jet lag and emotional drain.

Yesterday we did a little shopping for our cruise. The dive packages I booked in Belize and Cozumel include the essential dive gear, and even masks, fins, and snorkels (we have our own masks and snorkels). Not included, however, are wetsuits, and we know from experience we will need them in the ~77° water at both sites. I'm sure these dive operators will be willing to rent them to us, for an extra charge.

That said, 3mm wetsuits are in the neighborhood of $100, and it won't take many $5-$10 rentals to get to that number. Besides, getting one that fits right on a dive site is always a gamble, and of all the rental gear, the wetsuit is perhaps the most personal. (One instructor told us there are two kinds of divers -- ones who admit to peeing in their wetsuits, and ones that lie about it.) So we headed out to check used-equipment retailer Play It Again Sports, Sports Authority, and Divers Direct, a chain of discount dive gear stores.

Our first stop was a bust, but we found "acceptable" Body Glove suits at Sports Authority for $100 apiece, which we bought just to have the bases covered. Later we found better-fitting suits at Divers Direct, their house brand "Evo" (made by Mares, I'm told) and bought those, too, so I will be making a return trip to Sports Authority today or tomorrow. The Evo suits are also thicker (3mm all over, vs. 2mm on the extremities for the Body Gloves) and have more dive-specific features. Mine was actually cheaper at $80; Louise had to go with another $100 suit to get the right fit.

We also ended up buying booties, gloves, a small writing slate, and a pair of bottom-of-the-line dive computers. These latter items were $200 apiece, making the whole shopping trip a bunch more than I really wanted to spend on a hobby we'll participate in only occasionally until we move from the bus onto a boat a few years from now. That said, a dive computer is almost a necessity nowadays, especially if we move to Nitrox, and these were an unbeatable deal -- might as well get them now so we can use them in the Caribbean, rather than waiting until some arbitrary future dive. We'd have needed to buy dive watches if we didn't get the computers; my 100-meter (10 bar) rated watch managed to get moisture in it on our last 47' dive (fortunately, I was able to dry it out when we got back).

We have our work cut out for us between now and the cruise. In addition to returning the unneeded wetsuits, we'll need to learn how to use the new dive computers, and I also have to replace the thermal cutout on the air compressor. I was unable to locate a 17-amp model, which is what is really called for, so I will be installing a 20-amp item in the interim, so that there is at least something with thermal sensitivity down in the compressor itself (it is also protected by a 20-amp breaker in our electrical panel). If any of our readers has a source for a 17 amp push-to-reset thermal circuit breaker, please drop me a note.

Tonight is our friend Martin's last night in town, and we will join him for dinner. The rest of today we'll be going through our clothes for the cruise; I'm not going to have a chance now to have my tux taken in, so it looks like my braces will get a little extra workout. This is, I think, my third tux in 30+ years; while Joe's daughter Julie, with whom I skated regularly back in the day, was going through old photos for his memorial, she came across this photo of me.

Yes, I am skating in a tuxedo, circa 1985 or so, at the Halloween party at the rink in Milpitas. I had hair back then, but Louise says she recognized me right away on account of the giant nose. That, incidentally, necessitated purchasing a scuba mask with an extra large nose pocket -- none of the rental masks ever fits me.

Rest in peace, my friend

I am blogging today from my old home town of Milpitas, California, where I am staying on Hilton points at the Hampton Inn.

Yesterday was a grueling day. Louise dropped me off at FLL at 5:30am. Thankfully, having arrived well in time for my 7am flight, I was able to swap my center seat for a window, albeit in the last row, which does not recline. But at least I was able to lean up against the window and get another hour or so of shut-eye. Other than being full to the last seat, the flight to Phoenix was uneventful.

Unfortunately, SFO was apparently socked in with fog all morning, and so my connection was held on the ground in Phoenix for another hour. I lucked out on a seat again, as the agent in FLL was able to swap my center on this flight for an aisle seat behind the first-class partition, which got me off the plane earlier. Still, by the time my mother-in-law got me to my friend Eric's house in the hills, where I picked up the car I am borrowing for the visit, and I made my way to Milpitas, it was past 3pm, a total of over 13 hours since I left Odyssey in the morning.

When I arrived at the house, my friend Joe was already past consciousness and nearly comatose. Still, I sat and talked to him for several minutes, and I think (perhaps wishfully so) that he at least knew I was in the room, as his breathing changed and his eyes moved somewhat. Mostly, I spent the next three or four hours talking with his family. It was his wife's birthday, and we had cake and ice cream and sang Happy Birthday as cheerfully as we could. I stopped back in his room for a few minutes before heading to my hotel to crash.

Early this morning Joe passed away peacefully in his sleep. I am unspeakably sad right now, and it has been a rough morning. His family wanted to be left undisturbed for the day, although I offered whatever help I could provide. We will get together this evening over dinner. In the meantime, I have been staying in my hotel room, trying to catch up on the rest of my life.

The Hampton has free WiFi, and I took advantage of the connectivity to book some shore excursions for our cruise next week; on-line booking is only open another day or so, and it took my mind away from Milpitas. I booked a two-tank dive off Turneffe Atoll in Belize, and another two-tank dive on Palancar Reef off Cozumel. In between we are in Costa Maya, and I wanted to book the zip-line tour, but it is sold out. We'll probably just chill.

The Hampton also has a hot breakfast, and I went down twice, since I am still on east coast time. So I got breakfast and lunch out of it, if you will. It's actually quite a pleasant hotel. There is also a free internet workstation in the lobby with a printer attached, so I was able to print boarding passes for tomorrow, although, oddly, this blog is blocked on the lobby computer by Windows Parental Controls. I guess I need to quit with the colorful language...

The latest checkout I could get was 2pm, which is coming up in just a few minutes. I'll head out to run a few errands to bide my time until dinner; the car I am borrowing needs washer fluid, and I could use a couple of things at Fry's. If I have time, I will swing by our rental condo just to check on things. After dinner, I will head up to Woodside to return Eric's car (thanks, Eric!); he's schlepping me to the airport in the morning, so I will just spend tonight at his place. Tomorrow will be another full day of travel, I don't get back to Fort Lauderdale until after dinner time.

I am very thankful that I was able to get here in time to say goodbye to Joe. I wish I had been able to be here a day sooner, when he was still conscious. And as hard as it is to sit here in my hotel and just be with myself and my feelings, it brought closure for me to be with the family last night. I am actually looking forward to dinner, where I think pleasant memories will emerge through the grief.

Everyone loves a parade

We are parked in a secure location in the Fort Lauderdale area, the exact position of which I will not disclose for security reasons.

Yesterday afternoon our friends Martin and Steph picked us up and we headed north to Del Ray, where some cruising friends of theirs have a house right on the ICW. We all sat on their boat over wine and appetizers watching the Del Ray holiday boat parade - what a hoot. Afterwards we walked down Del Ray's cute but touristy main drag and had dinner at a local eatery.

Dinner was quite tasty, and we enjoyed meeting CJ and Margie. We had great weather for the parade, good wine, and good company. It was our last chance to see Steph before she headed out today

This morning I packed for my brief excursion to California, and I also found time to remove a bad thermal cutout from the air compressor -- Louise would otherwise have had to move the bus to reset the darn thing. I'll try to get a new one before we leave on our cruise; it's merely bypassed for now.

As I am writing this on my Blackberry, we are on our friend Steve's boat, anchored on the ICW awaiting the start of Fort Lauderdale's holiday boat parade. I expect this one to be much larger than last night's, but we'll probably see quite a few of the same boats.

Tomorrow Louise needs to get me to the airport at 5:30. Ugh.

Scrambling

Short post today, as we are scrambling to keep up.

We are again at the Isle Pompano Casino and Racing; we arrived Wednesday afternoon after wrapping up with the tire guy. We finally had the chance to try the buffet for dinner, which was surprisingly good, considering it is only ten bucks on weeknights. Soon after we arrived, we pulled the scooters out and ran over to Scuba Network to rent our dive gear, meet the instructor, and get the paperwork in order.

Yesterday morning Martin and Stephanie picked us up at 8am, and we all headed over to the marina at Hillsboro Inlet. A bit more paperwork for the boat, and we shoved off at 9am for the Sea Emperor wreck, a sunken barge that is part of Florida's artificial reef program. We had a fantastic dive with near-ideal conditions: calm seas, and a warm sunny day with great visibility. We saw a friendly sting ray who likes to be petted by divers, as well as a bright green eel that has also tolerates them. Louise finished up some of her skills, and I followed along since, apparently, our last instructor, umm, left a few things out.

Our second tank was at Horseshoe Reef, which was just teeming with fish. We had two really great dives, Louise finished all her skills, and we are now both certified open-water divers. We hope to exercise that privilege on our upcoming cruise in another week. Steph took some photos, so check back here -- we'll post one or two if we can when we get them.

After diving we had a nice lunch with them at Houston's on the ICW, then spent the whole afternoon catching up here aboard Odyssey over Pinot Grigio. We'll see them again this evening for the Del Ray holiday boat parade.

This morning we ran out to Walgreens across town to get H1N1 immunizations ahead of our cruise. I also spent most of the morning making more travel arrangements, unfortunately for a much less pleasant reason than another cruise.

A good friend in California, who earlier this year was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer, has taken a turn for the worse, with his kidneys shutting down. They are giving him a few days to a few weeks at most, and I am flying out there Sunday to see him. We tried to work it out for both of us to go, but the logistics are daunting. In part, that's because the dog is going through another bout of colitis, and needs fairly close attention; she's had two accidents in the house in as many days, and we can't really ask anyone else to have to deal with that. So Louise will remain here and tend the home fires.

Stops on a dime

We are parked in a small industrial enclave surrounded by residential developments (map), adjacent to the CSX tracks, the Tri-Rail line, and I-95.

We're here because our friend Steve's shop is nearby, and he has some 12R22.5 tire take-offs we can use on our tag axle. The used Michelins we had put on in Las Vegas are done; I'm a little disappointed to have gotten only 6,000 miles or so on them. Steve's got ten year old Michelins which appear to be in much better condition, and they have plenty of tread; from that standpoint, they look nearly new. Our rule here aboard Odyssey is not to run tires older than seven years (having been badly bitten by old tires in the past), but I'll make an occasional exception on the tag axle; in this case, I think the tires are probably safe even if a bit older than we like.

We had planned to get here yesterday afternoon to get this done, and then be back up at the race track. However the brake job literally took all day. We arrived at Power Brake and Suspension as requested at 9:30, but they could not get us into the shop until nearly an hour later. Within half an hour or so they had the brake shoes off and sent them off to a different shop -- Power Brake did not have the die for the weird German rivets.

As it turned out, the rivets that came with the linings were too long. The shop that relined the shoes had to come up with some other rivets that would work; the result does not look pretty, but Power Brake says they'll stand behind it. One of the linings also cracked while it was being riveted in place, apparently due to a hairline fracture that spread under pressure. That piece had to be bonded back on to the rest of the lining and the shoe, and waiting for the bonding agent to cure induced quite a delay.

Between all that and some kind of huge traffic accident on the freeway backing things up for the return trip, the finished shoes did not arrive back at the shop until nearly 4:30; it was past 6 when they finally had everything back together. The good news was that the total bill was only $325, and they credited us for the $75 we spent to have them inspect the brakes last week. So we were out of there for $250, half what we spent on the parts themselves. They also had Wi-Fi in the shop, so we had plenty to keep us occupied while we waited all day.

When we finally got under way at 6:15, it was past sunset and getting darker by the minute, so we just rolled right over here so we would be ready for tires this morning. I didn't want to drive ten miles to the casino last night just to drive ten miles back today. On our way here, a white pickup truck pulled up next to us and rolled down a window -- it was George Cable, at whose private yard we spent a couple of weeks five years ago, also on a cruise. We'll give him a call while we are in town; it would be nice to see them again.

I exercised the new brakes as much as I could on the drive over; so far, everything seems good. The loud squeal we had been hearing at low application pressures is gone, replaced by more of a soft whine that I expect will go away as the new linings seat in. We did not have the drums turned, as they did not really have enough metal left on them, and they were in excellent condition anyway. So seating the new linings will take a bit longer.

It's shaped up to be something of a busy week. Between the brake work yesterday and the tires and dive shop today, we've had our hands full. Tomorrow will be diving, then Friday we are scheduled to help Steve string some lights on his boat during the day, followed by dinner with Martin and Steph before she leaves town Saturday. Saturday morning we'll tag along for I Got Lucky's sea trial after she gets a new port drive tomorrow, then Saturday evening we will be on Steve's boat to anchor and watch the annual holiday boat parade. I expect Sunday to be a day of recuperating from the rest of the week.

Next week we are a bit less scheduled. We have at least one reader in the area who has asked to get together, and we'll see if we can reconnect with the Cables. I'm pretty sure I will also need to get my tux altered for our upcoming cruise; thankfully, this time it needs to be taken in, after being let out for the last couple of cruises.

Speaking of the cruise, when I got on the web site yesterday, I noticed the price had dropped by $100 since the day before, when we booked. I immediately called the agent to see if we could get a credit, but no dice. The line decided to do a one-day sale to clear out the cabins it had left; we had taken a balcony guarantee the day before, and I could have booked a higher-grade balcony for less money yesterday. Today, I see, the price is back up, to $200 more than we paid, so I supposed I should count myself lucky.

While I was on the phone with the agent, I found out that we now have a cabin assignment. It's an "accessible" cabin, meaning all the doors and aisleways are sized for a wheel chair. That means our E2-grade cabin will actually be a fair bit larger than cabins two and three grades higher, so I can't complain (but sometimes I still do, just like Joe Walsh). I'm also taking it as a good sign that the line is still struggling to fill the ship less than two weeks from sailing. That suggests the ship may sail at less than 100% capacity; since many holiday sailings leave at 104%, that's a good thing.

As soon as the mobile tire guy finishes up with us here, we will head back to the casino. That's much closer to the dive shop where we need to try on some gear later today, as well as to the marina we need to be at tomorrow morning at 8am (ugh) to finish up Louise's dive certificate. Our friends Martin and Steph will be joining us for the morning dives; we're looking forward to it.

Perfect Bubbles wins in the seventh

We are back at the Isle Pompano Casino and Racing (map).

After leaving Miccosukee, we arrive here mid-afternoon Sunday and got settled in, and our friends Martin and Steph drove over from their hotel near the beach in Fort Lauderdale. We had a great evening catching up; the last time we saw them was a year ago in Naples, as they were preparing to embark on a year of cruising the Caribbean on their boat, I Got Lucky.

As it turned out, Lucky has been out of service for maintenance nearly half that time, mostly right here in Fort Lauderdale. Martin and I had discussed boats before he bought Lucky, knowing that we had been to a couple of shows and were investigating boats; he took the plunge well before we were ready. We've been following his adventures ever since, and so the saga of the problems he's had with the whizzy azimuth drives on this boat (the first year they came out) has been something of a cautionary tale for us. You can read about their adventures on their blog.

We had a nice dinner with them and made plans for later in the week. They are avid divers, and we will all rendezvous Thursday morning at Hillsboro Inlet; we've lined up an instructor to finish up Louise's last two dives for her open water certification. That will be important, because last night I booked us a 6-day Caribbean cruise over Christmas, and I think all three of the port calls are good dive spots (Belize, Costa Maya, and Cozumel, where we did our last "resort" dive).

I spent all day yesterday working on cruise reservations, travel insurance, and preparations for the class I will be teaching at the end of the month. Our thinking has been to hang here in Florida only until the Stuart boat show mid-January, then head west, but circumstances have changed, and it looks like we will be in the Southeast through the whole first quarter.

It was pretty late, for us, by the time we walked the two blocks south to a casual Italian joint for some dinner; the Walgreens on the way back was a handy stop to pick up a couple of essentials that just couldn't wait for our next grocery trip. When we got back to the bus, To The Post was playing on the track's loudspeakers -- we can just about see the trotters from here. The nearest trash can, though, is up at the grand stand, and I caught the seventh race as I walked over to drop off our small sack (yes, Perfect Bubbles won).

In a few minutes we will clear out of here; the brake linings arrived from England yesterday; the shop opened them and all is in order. We have a 9:30 appointment to get the brake work started. Whenever that's done, we will head over to our friend Steve's business, where he has a couple of take-off tires from his bus that we need for the tag axle.

Photo by Jan-Willem Swane, used under a Creative Commons license. Probably not Perfect Bubbles.

Bug-free at last

We are at the Miccosukee Casino Resort, off the Tamiami Trail west of Miami (map). There are no no-see-ums here.

We've stayed here before, and remembered it as a nice overnight stop. Security gives you a pass for overnight parking, so long as you promise not to leave your rig while you go sightseeing off-property. Back then, apparently, we were not yet in the habit of signing up for players' cards, so we did so this time.

As first-time club members, we each received $15 in slot credit, and coupons for 2-for-1 at the buffet, plus $10 credit good next month, should we end up back here. We parlayed the $30 in funny money into $20 in cash, and we put the $9 we had left over after buying two buffet dinners for $11 towards a bottle of wine ($15; yes, we drank more than we ate). All told, an excellent stop.

We also tried to book massages in the on-site spa ($55 for 50 minutes), but they were all booked through today. If we end up back here in January, we still have $20 in slot credit and another buffet coupon; not out of the question if we decide to go to TrawlerFest.

Today we will continue to Fort Lauderdale, where I am guessing we will end up again at the casino a few miles north. I was able to order brake linings from England, and they should arrive at the shop sometime tomorrow; we'll see when they can schedule us in to do the work.

Photo by Matthew Stinson, used under a Creative Commons license.

Done with the Keys

We are at Captain Slate's Atlantis Dive Center, on Key Largo (map).

Today was the third and final day of our NAUI open-water diver class; I'm really sorry we spent two full days in the campground at the state park, however, since these last two days have been horrible diving conditions, with barely 10' visibility, heavy surge, and rough seas, whereas the two days before that were excellent. I managed to make it all the way through the class, but Louise is two dives short -- between the first dive each day being less than perfect, followed by half an hour on a pitching and rolling boat in choppy seas, she was too queasy to go on the second dive each day.

We could easily stay here another day to finish up, but conditions tomorrow are not forecast to be any better, and the no-see-ums are continuing to take their toll. We've elected instead to bail out of their sovereign territory; Louise has finished her class work, two dives, and most of the skills, so she'll take referral paperwork from here and finish her last two dives someplace else.

We enjoyed a bit more of Key Largo during our stay, shunning the greasy spoon right next door here in favor of riding the scooters to dinner. Wednesday night was prime rib night at Sundowners, which we can recommend, and Thursday we went to the Fish House on the recommendation, which we can now second, of our friend Steve in Ft. Lauderdale. We happened to have a coupon for this latter restaurant that they handed us at Pennekamp when we checked in.

In a few minutes we will load the scooters and head north to the mainland. I am not sure where we will end up tonight; we have plans to connect with our cruising friends in Fort Lauderdale tomorrow.

Odd tweets

Something strange is happening with our Twitter feeds in the sidebar. As of 9pm this evening, someone else's tweets are showing up there. The folks who created the widget we use for that display seem to be working on it. I'm going to leave it up for another couple of days. If it isn't fixed after that, I'll remove it.

Chirp!

Just like Bogie and Bacall

We are in the campground at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, on Key Largo (map).

The principal feature of this park is, of course, the coral reef, and the vast majority of the park's acreage is actually submarine. From the marina, just a short walk from our camp site, one can take a glass-bottom boat tour of the reefs, or charter a dive boat. We're holding off, because later this week we will be doing our PADI open-water diver certification with a dive operator nearby, and we expect our four open-water qualifying dives to be in the park anyway.

We're here in the campground for a much more banal reason, namely, that we wanted to spend a few days in the Keys, and this park's campground happened to have three consecutive days available in a space that would fit us. As it turns out, though, we'll only spend two nights, as our dive lessons start first thing Thursday morning, so tomorrow night we will situate ourselves outside the dive shop. This afternoon I scooted over to the gatehouse and had them refund our third night; we need to be out of our site tomorrow at 1pm, but we'll just move to the boat ramp parking for the rest of the day, and perhaps spend a couple hours in the aquarium here. Unfortunately, the aquarium's largest tank is empty for maintenance right now.

This morning we had a nice ride through town, checking out our digs for tomorrow night just to make sure we'd encounter no low trees or other obstacles, and whizzing past the Caribbean Club, where the very small handful of location shots for the movie Key Largo were filmed. We did not stop; I understand the joint is chock-full of Bogart memorabilia nowadays. We did stop at the Winn-Dixie to pick up a few groceries. This evening we rode to dinner at Rib Daddy's, virtually across the street from the park entrance.

The weather has been absolutely perfect, and it is beautiful here. Unfortunately, we've been more or less quarantined inside the bus, because the Keys are full of no-see-ums, an aptly named minuscule gnat (also known as sand fleas) that inflicts a painful sting upon alighting on one's bare skin. They don't seem to have a huge effect on me, but Louise welts up instantly, and the stings become inflamed and sometimes infected in short order. We can't set foot outside the bus without being inundated with them. So cutting our stay here short by one night seems like no sacrifice at all.

Image uploaded by Shannon Coffey, used under a Creative Commons license.