Space Coast

As I type, we are southbound in the ICW, just south of Cocoa, Florida. That's a long way from my last post in Jacksonville; a lot has transpired and I've been pressed for time to post. I'll try to catch up here, including our whirlwind trip to Disney, which, ironically, is only some 50 miles due west of here.


The castle in its holiday finery.

When last I posted, we were just about to drop lines at Metropolitan Park. We had a very pleasant and short cruise upriver, on the flood, to the Ortega River, arriving very close to high tide of about a foot. This was by design, as there is a shallow bar across the mouth, and we had just a foot under our keel as we cleared over it.

We steamed upriver through two drawbridges and tied up at Lambs Yacht Center (map), where we had reserved a week to make our pilgrimage. When we arrived we discovered we'd been assigned to a dock with a covered walkway, so we first stopped at the fuel dock to offload one scooter.


The spectacular tree in the Grand Floridian.

I expected to pay a daily rate, plus the day rate for a 30-amp power outlet, but they gave us a prorated monthly rate instead, plus power. We normally require a 50-amp connection, but since we were not going to be there, all we needed was a little power to run the battery charger. Ironically, they only had 50-amp outlets on this dock, and I had to rummage around and find our single-50-to-dual-30 adapter in order to use our 30-amp inlet.

Monday morning we gathered up all the things we'd need for a four-day stay in an unfurnished RV (linens, cups, plates, utensils, food, and the all-important coffee pot, as well as various DC power adapters), and in the afternoon we rode the three miles to the Cruise America franchise, which happened to be a Goodyear auto service shop.


The door of our RV. We thought the graphic of a dog on the window was a humorous touch...

Pick-up hours are 1-3pm and, silly me, I thought it would be ready at 1. They had no shortage of rigs, with maybe ten or so on the lot. "We just need to clean one and then send it out for propane." We ended up sitting around in the customer lounge at the dealer until nearly 2pm, when we finally rolled out. A quick stop back at the marina to drop off the scooter and load up all the previously staged items -- two dock carts full -- and we were on our way to Orlando.


...but even the window itself was a graphic. The door has none.

I had hoped for a daylight arrival, but the delay at the dealer had us arriving just after dusk, and we backed into our camp site in the dark. Much simpler in a 25' class-C than it was in Odyssey, although I miss my backup camera. We were in the same section we'd stayed in on all our previous visits, so it was all very familiar. We had to back to an exact spot in the space to allow both the power cord and the water hose included with the rig to reach, stretched, as they were, in opposite directions.


Pretty base-case, but livable for a few days.

Even with the delay, we got settled in to the space in plenty of time to catch the boat across the lake to the Contemporary Resort, where I had made dinner reservations at the upscale California Grill. This is, perhaps, the best place to start one's Disney dining experience, because it immediately sets the tone for how much everything else will cost, and the other restaurants will seem reasonable by comparison.

One of the perks of dining at the California Grill is being able to watch the fireworks over the Magic Kingdom from their rooftop deck. I had expected we'd already missed them, but it turns out Disney has added a spectacular 9pm show, and we had a great view on a perfect evening. The show happened between our entree and dessert courses; perfect timing.


The fireworks show, as seen from the roof of the Contemporary. The photo does not do it justice.

What we had remembered from our very first visit to Fort Wilderness, Disney's own campground, is that the wait for a bus to get from your campsite to the transportation terminals at either end of the property can seem interminable, and returning from dinner Monday night confirmed that. Fortunately, I was able to cram our two folding bicycles into the luggage bay of the RV, and I set those up Tuesday morning and we used them for the rest of the visit. Sunday evening I had spent a bit of time airing up the tires and getting all the brakes and shifters working, with the help of some WD-40.


Posing in front of our favorite ride.

Tuesday afternoon we went over to Hollywood Studios and spent the afternoon and evening there, dining at Mama Melrose's in the park. I was very disappointed to learn that the over-the-top Osborne Family Lights for the holiday season were discontinued a couple of years ago. Many of the facades along the "New York Street" that hosted them are also gone this year, making room for the upcoming Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge attraction. I'm very glad we had the chance to see them when they were there.


"Sunset Seasons Greetings," the new holiday fanfare at Hollywood Studios.

In its stead, Disney has created a holiday-themed show along "Sunset Boulevard" that re-purposes the numerous "snow" machines, and uses the Hollywood Tower Hotel (the exterior of a great drop ride) as something of a giant, 3D projection screen for a variety of illusions, including turning the entire structure into an enormous gingerbread house.


Gingerbread tower.

Wednesday afternoon we went to the Magic Kingdom, which was open late that day. We enjoyed seeing the redeveloped FantasyLand, and Space Mountain is just as fun as ever. This is the first time we rode the campy Jungle Cruise in the holiday season, where it gets re-purposed into the even campier "Jingle Cruise." We more or less skipped the fireworks show, since we had a great view of it Monday night. The park was more crowded than I expected; I think some families kept their kids from school beyond the Thanksgiving break.


Main Street on a holiday evening.

We did leave the park at dinner time to have dinner at Citrico's in the Grand Floridian. There's no alcohol in the Magic Kingdom, so we customarily leave to have a glass of wine with dinner. Before heading back to the Magic Kingdom to finish the evening, we took in some of the holiday decorations in this grand dame of Disney hotels.


The enormous gingerbread (really) house in the Grand Floridian. Inside it is a counter selling treats.

Thursday we ruminated about going to another park, perhaps Epcot. We had three-day tickets; as Florida residents a three-day (the smallest resident ticket) is less expensive than even a two-day regular ticket. We ultimately decided to save the extra day for another time (it's good for six months, and we can add an extra day for twenty bucks) and, instead, have a more relaxing day at Fort Wilderness followed by an afternoon on The Boardwalk and evening at Disney Springs.


One of our favorite parts of the hotel, the balcony orchestra playing tasteful holiday music as background.

Disney Springs is a good deal larger than its predecessor, Downtown Disney, but still very similar. We enjoyed a nice dinner at the Mexican restaurant, strolled around a bit, and even took a boat ride over to the Old Key West Resort, which turns out to be entirely encompassed within Disney's own timeshare system. There is now an enormous balloon ride that goes up some 400', but it was not operating when we wanted to take it (we saw it up later in the evening, when we were ready to leave).


Balloon ride and Disney Springs, as seen from the boat to the Key West resort.

Friday morning we had to check out. We might easily have moved the RV to the day lot, as we've done in the past, and spent the day in a park, but that would have made cleaning and returning the RV by its 11am deadline Saturday a challenge. Instead we opted for a relaxing morning at our campsite, followed by the tank-dumping ritual. Cruise America wants the rigs returned with empty tanks and the valves open, or you get hit with an exorbitant dump fee.


More gingerbread in the lobby of the Boardwalk resort.

It's not legal, of course, to drive around with your dump valves open, and I won't do it. But we did take advantage of our full-hookup site to empty the tanks and rinse them out. I let them drain as much as possible and then closed the valves before we disconnected everything. When I fueled the rig at the gas station next to the rental place, I used a plastic jar to empty out the last few ounces before returning the rig with the valves open, as mandated.


One of the things we love about Fort Wilderness is the over-the-top decorations people set up in their sites. This is less than a third of what was in this single camp site alone.

We spent Friday afternoon driving back to Jacksonville, with a stop at an outlet mall en route to pick up some more shorts and polos for yours truly, who goes through them at an alarming rate (boating, it turns out, is hard on your clothes). We were home in time to ride the scooter to dinner in the trendy Avondale neighborhood, just a few miles from the marina.

While we were in Avondale for dinner Friday, we learned that they were having the neighborhood holiday street fair there on Saturday. We spent Saturday morning emptying, cleaning, and returning the RV, and the afternoon putting everything away and getting the boat back in seagoing shape. In the evening we returned to Avondale to check out the festivities and have dinner. What struck us was that the block party on the closed-off streets was exactly what Disney is trying to emulate on Main Street in the Magic Kingdom. We prefer the real-life version. It was very much aimed at families and children, so we just wandered around taking it all in.


Holiday fair on St. Johns in the Avondale neighborhood. Everyone was having a good time.

Sunday morning marked the end of our pre-paid week, and we ruminated about just extending for another week since we had such a good deal, and the neighborhood was fun. But the weather for an outside passage south was looking perfect, and we decided to drop our lines Sunday morning and head straight out to sea, for an overnight run to Port Canaveral.

We left on the outgoing tide to have a nice push downriver. The Metropolitan Park docks, where we had stayed just before heading upriver, were packed solid for the Jaguars game, and the sheriff had two patrol boats in the river. The weather was gorgeous and we had a nice run downriver.

We did a last-minute weather check just as we approached the final anchorage, near the junction with the ICW. The National Weather Service issues marine forecasts on a schedule, and the latest had just come out. That forecast informed us that we'd be better off waiting another day, and so we dropped the hook in our usual spot, off-channel in the river. I'm sorry we did not know an hour earlier, when we could have stopped in dinghy range of downtown.


The yacht Le Grand Bleu from our anchorage. That's a 65' yacht on its aft deck as a "water toy."

Monday the weather was perfect, and we weighed anchor shortly after the tide changed from flood to ebb. We ended up racing down the river at nine knots, and we even had a dolphin escort for a short while. The price I paid was having to negotiate a "rage" at the inlet, wherein all the water racing out of the river met the opposing easterly wind and seas, forming enormous breaking waves. I had to pick my way through carefully until we were well out in open ocean, where it was the forecast two to three feet from the northeast on a seven second period.


Our dolphin escort downriver, perhaps a half dozen of them.

It turns out, though, that we left a bit too early. I did not expect it, but we had between a half knot and a full knot of push behind us on our southbound journey, and what I expected to be an 11am arrival at Canaveral inlet steadily decreased until it was reading around 8am. Nothing wrong with arriving in broad daylight at 8am, except for the fact that my watch ends at 3am, and having to be up and fully functional around 7am is challenging, and presents the risk of decision-making on insufficient rest.


Sunset over Florida. Clouds on the horizon make it look like an ocean sunset.

We ended up reducing RPM to 1400 early in the evening, pushing the arrival time back to 9:15 or so. It was a clear night with a nearly full "super moon," which made for easy nighttime driving; I hardly needed to leave the pilothouse. Moonless or cloudy nights, by contrast, have us going outside every 15-20 minutes to scan the horizon.


Super Moon rising. Best my cell phone could do.

We arrived yesterday morning at Canaveral inlet as predicted, a little after 9am. Just before 10, we were tying up at the free wall at Rodney Ketcham Park, at the very western end of the harbor (map). We docked literally 200' from where we paid over a c-note per night back in 2014, at the Ocean Club Marina right next door. End to end, this passage was the exact reverse of our very first overnight passage three and a half years ago, departing from Ocean Club and ending at the very same anchorage in the St. Johns River. We've come a long way since then.


Vector tied up at Ketcham Park. Those are storks on the grass. The dock in the background is where we stayed previously.

One of the things you have to do when you run offshore east of Cape Canaveral is check the rocket launch schedule. The launch safety zone extends far offshore, much too far to go around. Launch safety zones are often published in the Local Notices to Mariners, but schedules change frequently and it's best to check with USAF Range Safety directly; by the time you get close enough to the cape to hear announcements, it's a long way back to a different inlet.

And so it was that I learned just before departing Jacksonville that the Space Station resupply mission aboard a SpaceX Falcon-9 was scheduled to launch from SLC-40 this Friday afternoon, with the booster returning to the SpaceX Landing Zone just five miles away. I'm always up for a rocket launch, but the possibility of seeing the booster come back and land was even more inviting. We decided we'd stick around on the Space Coast until Friday's launch.


We arrived in port to find no cruise ships, a rarity. But the Norwegian Breakaway docked soon after we did, on a round trip Caribbean cruise from New York. This was the "Orlando" stop, and she stayed until 9pm.

I spent a bit of time with the charts during our passage, figuring out the best place to anchor in the Banana River to get a view of the landing, if at all possible, and studying the security zones. With no restrictions posted on the free dock, we figured to just stay there until the time came to pass through the lock and anchor in the river for the show. Last night we walked the mile and a quarter to the handful of restaurants near the port and had dinner at Fish Lips.

This morning when I checked the launch schedule again, I learned that it had been rescheduled for no earlier than the 12th, where it would be a night launch rather than the afternoon affair scheduled for Friday. While we had been willing to wait an extra two days in Canaveral for the launch, waiting a full week was not in the cards, and so this afternoon we dropped lines and proceeded west through the lock.


View back toward the Space Coast from the lock. A Carnival ship is in port, and in the distance to the left can be seen the SpaceX launch complex.

I'd much rather make my way south from Port Canaveral on the outside, coming back in at Fort Pierce or St. Lucie, but the ocean forecast is not amenable for that anytime in the coming week. In order to keep making progress, we opted to continue inside, down the ICW. Which is how we find ourselves here.

By coincidence, we heard from our Australian boating/RVing friends last night that they have arrived back in Florida and are making their way up to Green Cove Springs by car, stopping to spend tonight and tomorrow with friends in Eau Gallie. We were lamenting that we'd had to leave the Jacksonville area before they returned and were wondering how we could find a way to get a visit in, so this is perfect timing. We're hoping to connect with them tomorrow sometime as we pass through Eau Gallie.

Update: We are anchored in the Indian River, just north of the Pineda Causeway (map). We dropped the hook just before sunset. We are just an hour from Eau Gallie and we have arranged to meet our friends for brunch in the morning.


Sunset from our anchorage. Pineda causeway bridge to the left.

I had hoped to get the blog posted shortly after anchoring. But when I fired up the generator to warm up the grill for dinner, the generator quit after running just three minutes. A quick check revealed nothing catastrophic, so we made dinner with the batteries and I set to work on it after dinner when things had cooled down a bit. I had figured it to be the impeller, as this generator has a voracious appetite for them, but it turned out to be a broken fan belt. I had a spare, but it was a fight to get it on, as the alternator bolts are in a nearly inaccessible place and had been torqued by a gorilla.

All is quiet now and I can finally wrap up. I actually started putting this post together at sea, editing most of the photos, and uploading them while I still had connectivity in the first half of the passage. I had hopes of writing some of the text, too, but seas became progressively rougher throughout the night, and I ended up spending my watch on more mindless pursuits, which is sometimes what it takes.


There is no escaping Mickey at Disney.

In the morning we'll weigh anchor and make the short run to Eau Gallie for brunch. I expect we'll end the day somewhere in the neighborhood of Vero Beach, and by Saturday night we should be in Stuart.

Relaxing on our detour

We are at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park and Campground (map).  Music lives here, according to their motto, and so do our friends, so it is a familiar stop for us.  Our good friend Charles just retired from a quarter century as a route air traffic controller with the FAA, and coincidentally he's been having something of a retirement / birthday party over this weekend, so our drop-in was very timely.  We were up late around the campfire last night, eating pulled pork and gumbo with a dozen or so of his closest friends.

After yesterday's post I finally heard back from Chase and the manager of the San Jose branch.  He basically declined to do anything on his own authority, but said he would check with the regional manager when she came in on Tuesday.  I argued that, in the age of cell phones, he ought to be able to get an answer that afternoon, as it would mean the difference for us between a long detour or a direct route, and a delay of two days.  He told us he would try and would call us back later.

We opted to get on the road, and get at least as far as Valdosta, where the detour decision point would be.  As luck would have it, his call came in just ten minutes shy of that point.  The decision from the regional manager was that if we presented ID and got signatures notarized and overnighted to them by Tuesday they would make an exception and do the wire then.  We pulled over in Valdosta to ponder our options, and look for a notary.

There was a notary in Valdosta open on Saturday and we could send the papers second-day air, as UPS considers Monday a regular business day.  Total cost about $40. The problem with this whole proposal, however, is that the bank in San Jose doesn't even open until 9am, which would be noon here, and by the time UPS got there, the wire could be started as late as 10am, even if everything went perfectly.  There's a better than even chance that the wired funds would not make it by COB Tuesday.  On top of that, we could see many things going wrong -- just last week, we "overnighted" papers to the documentation company, and UPS slipped by a full day due to an undescribed "transportation accident."

So we bit the bullet and decided instead to divert to Jacksonville.  This way we can be there right when the branch opens, at 9am eastern time, and get the wire started, and if there is any issue with it we will be right there in person.  The diversion will only cost us twice what sending the paperwork to San Jose would cost, so we are really just losing a couple of days in the process.  The pony at the bottom of this pile was that the diversion route would bring us right past here, and we could have a couple of days of downtime with good friends.  This is also the warmest we've been in weeks, and I spent today working outside the bus in short sleeves.

My rant here yesterday about Chase generated a lot of replies, many of which came by direct email.  Lots of good suggestions, and we are following up on them.  That said, we know now from multiple past experiences that, no matter what kind of good deal and service we find, there is always a possibility that the bank (or brokerage house) will be bought out by someone with a less beneficial customer service policy.

Tomorrow we will leave here and head to Jacksonville, so we can be at the bank right at opening time Tuesday.  I expect it will be crowded, as it is literally the only branch in town, and it will be the first day after a holiday weekend.  If we can be in and out in an hour, we ought to make it to the marina in Savannah by 2pm or so.

Photo by Cut To Pieces, used under a Creative Commons license.

Stuck at the happiest place on Earth

We are at Disney's Forth Wilderness Resort and Campground, in the heart of Walt Disney World (map). Regular readers will know that we've been here several times before, and we always seem to end up right here in the 1600 loop, Timber Trail. We are under the trees again, and so are online courtesy of my Sprint cell phone.

As private campgrounds go, this is among the best, if also among the most expensive. But it gives us access to the extensive transportation system as well as some extra hours in the parks, and we can charge absolutely everything on our room cards, which meant we only needed to carry one item to the water parks, very convenient.

One of the hazards of coming to Disney at this time of year is dancing around the nearly daily afternoon thunderstorms. We did not quite get it right -- we ended up at the Magic Kingdom Sunday night for extra magic hours, after dinner at Narcoosee's in the Grand Floridian (excellent). Apparently, Sunday night is still pretty busy compared to weeknights, and with half-hour-plus waits, we only made it onto a small handful of rides. In hindsight, we should have taken Monday night's extra magic hours at Hollywood Studios instead.

Tuesday afternoon we went to Typhoon Lagoon. We enjoyed the lazy-river attraction as well as the awesome wave pool (I've been in a lot of wave pools, and this one was, hands-down, the best), but before we could even get in line for one of the slides, the thunderstorms moved in and they closed the attractions. Just in the nick of time, too, as lightning then struck a tree inside the park, less than a thousand feet from where we were seated under cover. Quite impressive, actually.

We had a beer and hung around for nearly an hour to see if they would reopen the attractions, and, of course, they reopened right after we had showered and dressed for dinner in the locker rooms. Oh well. We did have a nice dinner al fresco at Downtown Disney.

Because we got rained out, I extended our stay by one night and called the tire shop to let them know about the delay. And we ended up using our second water park pass to go right back to Typhoon Lagoon yesterday afternoon, which was far more successful. We'll have to save Blizzard Beach, the other water park, for another visit.

When I stepped out of the coach yesterday, however, I noticed our right tag tire was flat. In fact, it was more than flat -- so much air had come out that the weight on that axle un-beaded the tire. That's not something I can handle myself, and so we rose early this morning and called Coach-Net (ironically, on the very last day of our membership year, although we've already renewed), and they were able to send a truck from the very place where we are headed for tires this afternoon. He brought one of our new tires with him, and after rolling the bus onto some blocks so we could get the jack under the A-frame, he put the new tire on the tag. It turned out we had picked up a sheet metal screw on our way here, which caused the tire to leak down while we were parked. Better on the old tire, a few days before its scheduled replacement, then on a brand new one, I suppose.

(Yes, I know the tire is also bald -- more on that in my next post.)

I had called the desk to let them know the tire truck was coming and that we might be a few minutes late departing, and they extended our checkout to 1pm. After a hot morning helping with the tire, and with more than an hour to our new checkout, I ran over to the pool for a quick swim before departure. We had already loaded the scooters and dumped the tanks while we were waiting on the tire truck.

In a few minutes, we will head out of the park and roll the 17 miles to the tire shop, to have the other new tire mounted, both new tires balanced, and the current steer tires moved to the tag axle. After that, the plan is still very much up in the air.

Depression Five

We are at the Southgate Village mobile home park in Vero Beach, Florida (map). This is a traditional mobile home park (as distinct from an RV park) that has a handful of spaces available for transient RVs. The place is deserted, as most of the residents are here seasonally, in the winter. We had the pool to ourselves this afternoon.

We're here because it's the closest (and least expensive) option to our friends Chris and Alyse here in town, just three miles away. For $33 we have 50 amps of power and full hookups, plus the aforementioned pool. Last night we rode over for a great visit wherein they fixed us a wonderful home-cooked dinner. Cocktails and conversation lasted well into the evening and we left when Chris could no longer keep his eyes open. We might be right back here on Saturday if the timing works out.

In the meantime, we have our eye on Tropical Depression Five, which we've been tracking since it was Investigation Area 99L. The storm is struggling to survive, but if it does, it may well become Tropical Storm Ernesto, and if it manages to sneak around the west end of Cuba into the gulf, it could become a problem. Frankly, we're hoping it does just that, but at TD rather than TS levels, because the center of the country could really, really use the rain.

In a few minutes we will head to North Palm Beach to see a boat, and I expect we will end up tonight at the Elks in West Palm Beach.

Duke vs. UNC

We are at the Birchwood RV park in Durham, North Carolina (map). We are more or less smack in the middle between UNC at Chapel Hill, and Duke University in Durham -- two of the three vertices of the "Research Triangle." It's basically a trailer park with a few transient spaces, but it was convenient and we have 50-amp, full hookups for $32 per night.

We came here to visit our niece, who in turn came here to visit the two aforementioned educational institutions. She is a junior in high school, and is working up the list of schools to which she will be applying. She and her mom drove down here from Charlottesville, Virginia, where she visited UVA. It is somewhat odd that our paths intersected here -- they live in California -- but it was right on our way to the coast, and we merely needed to speed up by a day to make the logistics work out. We had a great visit over dinners the last two evenings. Sorry, Tarheels, but I think she prefers Duke.

This morning we will pull up stakes and drive just a short distance to the third vertex of the Research Triangle, Raleigh, where Louise's cousins are on faculty at NC State. We should have another nice visit this evening, and tomorrow we will continue east to New Bern, where we are scheduled to meet with our broker Monday morning.

Ch-ch-ch-changes...

We are at the Lowry Grove trailer park in the St. Anthony district of Minneapolis (map). We are here because it is really the closest parking spot to downtown; as long as we were paying $37.50 for the privilege, though, we were happy to have the power to run the air conditioners in the heat of the afternoon. Other than that, this is a typical "trailer park" which is a distinctly different animal from an "RV park." For a while, I lived in a park very much like this one in San Jose, in my 32' Fleetwood Flair.

After we had exhausted all our usual freebie overnight resources, we turned to our Woodall's directory -- the least-used of all our camping directories -- and this park was listed (many parks of this sort are not). Also, our friend Ben, who grew up just a mile from here, reported that he stays here in his Prevost when he is in town, so we knew the place could accommodate Odyssey. Louise took advantage of the on-site laundromat, and we walked the half mile or so to the St. Anthony Village Pub for dinner on the patio, next to the Bocce court, which was quite popular on a pleasant evening.

We came to Minneapolis principally because it was more or less on our route to Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, where there is a boat we had planned to see. Once we had it on the route, we started making plans around it, and specifically our niece is spending a few days here on her way from California to her summer camp in Bemidji. Today is her last day, and she needs to be back at the airport this afternoon to meet up with the other campers and catch the bus to the camp.

We also have some friends who are in the process of moving here from Florida, and we were hoping we might catch them. However, it turns out that they will not be arriving until July. We also figured if we were going to be in town for a few days with these visits, that we'd try to take in some more of the city, as we really enjoyed ourselves when we were here for a conference a couple years ago. Back then, however, we had a good excuse to get ourselves a more pleasant, convenient, and inexpensive parking spot at a local church, an option not available on this visit.

Yesterday, before we left St. Peter, we had an email exchange with our boat broker that, after a day of discussion and looking at maps, has caused us to change our plans. I had been planning a grand loop of sorts, a backwards "C" starting in Sturgeon Bay and then proceeding to Lake Erie and down the east coast to the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. A few weeks ago we learned that the boat on Lake Erie is in rough shape, and is probably not a candidate for us. Yesterday we learned that the one in Sturgeon Bay is not much better. Neither boat is even in the water this season.

On top of all of that, a boat that we want to see in New Orleans has just been lowered in price. The new price is below one of those "magic numbers" that will mean it will probably get a lot more interest now. So after careful consideration, we've decided to forego seeing the boats in the upper Midwest, in favor of turning south here and heading downriver to New Orleans. As such, the only reason we continued all the way here yesterday is to meet up with our niece.

We'll be rolling out of here in a few minutes to pick her and her grandmother up at their hotel downtown. There's no way to park the bus anywhere in the heart of the city, and so we've decided instead to then head to the Mall of America, where we can easily park for the day (no overnight allowed, though) and have lunch, plus we think she'll get a kick out of it. There are lots of things to keep us all occupied until it is time for her to go the airport, which is just a ten minute light rail ride from the mall.

When we are done at the mall, we will head south out of town. Once we are out of the city limits, we should have some more overnight parking options available to us.

Holidays at the fort

We are at Disney's Fort Wilderness campground (map), on the Walt Disney World campus near Orlando, Florida. Long time readers know we have been here several times in the past, and it is one of the few "resort" campgrounds we'll willingly pay for. That's because, as spendy as it is ($57.50 per night, tax included, after our AAA discount), it's the least expensive way to stay on Disney property and get all the on-site benefits such as extra park hours and access to Disney's extensive transportation system. Plus, Fort Wilderness is very festive around the holidays.

This year we are again in the same loop as one of the perennial holiday decorating champions, whom we wrote about a few years ago. We're just two sites away, which means we can never get lost -- I'm pretty sure his site is visible from space. Last night we rode the scooters around about half the park just to look at all the decorated sites. Even though we were here earlier in the season last year, in November, this year there seem to be fewer decorations. Also, the campground seems much emptier. I'm not sure if fuel prices have grounded some RVers. or the ever-increasing cost of a Disney vacation is just not in some family budgets this year (or both).

Since this visit is a quick fly-by for us, we only bought two-day park passes. The downside to that is there are really no discounts available on those. We spent Tuesday at Disney's Hollywood Studios, and the light crowds meant we got to ride several of our favorites, including the Tower of Terror and the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, more than once. This was also our first time on Star Tours since the revamp that changed the script and added 3D. The Osborne Family Lights was spectacular as always, and we enjoyed dinner at the Brown Derby.

We discovered that we could see most of the fireworks at the Magic Kingdom from our roof deck in this space, although this is the first time we were unable to get the satellite dialed in. We're using the mobile hot spot on my phone instead, with good 3g service available here in the campground. After getting parked and set up Monday afternoon, we went over to the Wilderness Lodge for dinner at Artist's Point, which was disappointing. Everything at Disney is overly expensive for what it is -- all part of the gestalt -- but at this restaurant I felt it was not worth it. By contrast, the Brown Derby was excellent.

Yesterday we spent most of the day right here at Fort Wilderness. I had hopes of making it to the pool, but we ended up riding the monorail around to some other resorts instead. Today we will use our final park day to visit the Magic Kingdom, and I might try to get over to the pool tomorrow instead. We'll need to check out in the morning, but we'll spend the afternoon in the section of the main parking lot reserved for that purpose.

Tomorrow evening we will head over to our stealth parking spot across town for the weekend. We have dinner plans with Chris and Cherie of Technomadia, who are rolling in to Orlando to pick up a relative at the airport in the evening. On Sunday we'll continue east to Cocoa Beach.

Photo of the Osbourne Family Lights at Disney's Hollywood Studios by random letters, used under a Creative Commons license.

At the roost

We are at the RoVers Roost Escapee Cooperative west of Casa Grande, Arizona (map). We are in the "boondock" area where the first night is free, immediately across the street from our friends Tom and Kathy. The sole purpose of our stop here was to visit, and we went to dinner with them last night in town.

We had a great visit. Tom and Kathy are fellow full-timers and, of course, Escapees, whom we met in the Red Cross. Medical issues have kept them trapped here in Casa Grande for the last year, and we can tell they miss traveling. We are holding a positive thought that the latest surgery on Kathy's foot will be the one that finally releases them from their desert bondage, and we can meet up with them elsewhere on the road next time.

In a few minutes we will pack up and head north to the Phoenix environs so that we have plenty of time tomorrow to get settled in someplace for my flight to Memphis. I leave first thing Thursday morning and don't get back until fairly late Sunday night, so we need a place that will be good for five nights; there are a couple of Elks lodges and a casino on our short list. Tonight we will probably end up at one of the casinos just south of the city.

Photo by corydalus, used under a Creative Commons license.

Back at the House of Mouse

We are at Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort, in the 1700 loop (map) where we stayed a few years ago and just across the way from where we were at Christmas, 2008. We pulled in yesterday around 2ish, after having spent Saturday night at our secret spot in an industrial park across town (map), where we'd also parked back then on either end of our Disney stay, and again on our way north to the inauguration. It would appear that the building next door has not had a tenant since we vacated it at the end of 2008.

After we checked in and got the handout on this week's park hours, we learned that last night was the only evening of our stay with "Extra Magic Hours" for the Magic Kingdom, from 8-11, and so we decided to hit the park after a light dinner at Crockett's Tavern here in Fort Wilderness. In stark contrast to our last experience at Christmas week, the park was virtually empty, and we whizzed right on to Space Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, and many other attractions that normally have at least some wait. It was odd to be in the Haunted Mansion with so few people that the guides could not even use their standard joke about filling in all the "dead" space.

The park was, in fact, so empty that we managed to see and do absolutely all of it between the end of "Wishes", for which we arrived right on time at 8pm, and park closing at 11, and I dare say we don't need to return to the Magic Kingdom on this visit. And while it may seem wasteful to have blown a park admission ticket on a mere three hours, in fact I picked up a pair of 5-day passes at the 3-day rate at one of the many ticket discounters in Orlando Saturday afternoon. We really had only been shopping for a 4-day pass anyway, giving us essentially one "free" day we didn't need, so the last-minute decision to visit the park last night was easy.

Staying out till past 11, by the time the boat brought us back from the park and we rode back to our site, really knocked us out, and here we are still sitting around the bus at 3pm. This afternoon we will head off to Disney's Hollywood Studios, where again we have "Extra Magic Hours" till 11pm (the park closes to non-resort guests at 8). I'm hoping to get in to the Brown Derby there for dinner tonight, even though we could not get a reservation. We have reservations at Il Mulino in the Swan, a short boat ride away, as a backup.

These extra resort-guest only hours at the parks is one of the great perks of staying at Fort Wilderness. On some days the extra hours are in the morning, and on others they are in the evening, but we're never up and ready to go even when these parks open at their normal hours, so having an extra hour starting at 7am is not for us. Besides which, the extra morning hours tend to be busier than the evening ones, considering the number of families here with small children. That said, we still saw plenty of toddlers at 11pm, struggling to stay awake, being dragged around the Magic Kingdom by parents intent on squeezing every cent from their admission tickets.



We were once again very lucky to get the satellite on-line here, with all of the pets-allowed camping loops in the park being under heavy tree cover. We're shooting through perhaps a 4' wide gap in tree cover a good 60' up, and I think we'd be off-line if I moved the bus a foot in any direction. Even so the signal strength is a bit low and the best symbol rate the system will allow me is the first step of three available, so things are a bit slower than normal.

We're looking forward to a very pleasant stay and another three or four park visits before our scheduled departure on Friday. I again expect that we will then just roll across town for another casual night in our stealth spot before having to leave Orlando for points unknown. I'm afraid I have not done any real work on where we will head next, and, of course, the Thanksgiving holiday will mean we need to be settled in someplace before the hordes of holiday campers descend on all the good spots.

Our first SKP park

We are at the RoVers' Roost SKP co-op, several miles west of Casa Grande, Arizona (map). Uncharacteristically, we are in a full hookup site ($15) rather than the boondock area ($5, with the first night free).

We are here visiting our friends Tom and Kathleen. We did just see them less than two weeks ago, at our Red Cross meeting in Tucson, but we did not really get a chance to spend time and catch up. Kathleen is in a leg cast, limiting their mobility, and we took the hookup site to be basically right next door to them, since we were providing dinner one night. With night time temperatures in the low 40s, though, it was nice to have the power for the heaters, and our poor tired batteries needed the rest and full recharge.

Speaking of the batteries, my fix to the terminal posts resulted in only a minor improvement; it looks like we will need a new set of batteries. A friend of ours who carries Deka batteries can get us a set for 10% over his cost, which we can pick up at any East Penn distribution center. That will bring the cost of a new set down to under $3K, after cores and tax. There is a distributor in Phoenix, and if I can find some help there to get the batteries in and out, that's probably where we will get them. I'm also going to need eight sets of post adaptors, as the Dekas have only automotive terminals, while the Trojans they will replace also had threaded post terminals. I have to say I am very disappointed in the Trojans. One upside to the Dekas is that they are higher capacity, bringing the bank up to 980 amp-hours, from 920.

We've had a nice visit. We made dinner on Tuesday night, and Tom cooked for us last night. In addition to sitting around chatting, I managed to get Louise's scooter repaired yesterday during the nicer part of the afternoon. I used my Dremel to clean up the burrs and rough edges on the existing half-pulley fins; it did not look badly enough damaged not to re-use. We had three sets of eyeballs on it before coming to that conclusion. After torquing the pulley nut as far as my impact driver would go, I made a pair of punch marks on the nut and spindle, and we'll open the case back up in another few hundred miles to see if there has been any relative movement, in order to avoid a repeat. While I was under there, I also blinged out her scoot with a set of ultra-bright blue LED strips facing the ground, replacing the wimpy ones we put in months ago that you couldn't even see.

In a short while we will head out for the Phoenix area, likely to stay at one of the casinos. While we enjoy the company of our friends, we are a bit out of place here, as it is really a senior park (they assured us that they were permitted a certain percentage of non-senior overnighters). It is also the sort of campground that is the antithesis of what we normally seek, with spaces right next to each other and arranged in neat rows. It is also in the middle of nowhere, which is great for a more rustic setting, but not so good for what amounts to a trailer park. In over five years of being Escapees, this is our first stay in one of their cooperative parks.

Westbound

We are at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park and Campground near Live Oak, Florida. We have good friends who live here part time; he's a Route Air Traffic Controller and had to leave this morning for the Jacksonville Center in Hilliard, where they live the rest of the week. So last night was really our only chance to see them on our way west.

As we've written here before, this is really a lovely place, with oodles of camp sites ranging from primitive to full hookup, a restaurant/bar/music hall, WiFi, and plenty of recreation opportunities. We always enjoy our stops here, brief as they usually are. One of these days, we're going to come for another festival and spend a whole week.

In a few minutes we will head west to the panhandle.

Return to Sender, Address Unknown...

We are at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park, on the Suwannee River (yes, the one made famous by the Stephen Foster song), just north of Live Oak, Florida (map). We've settled in for the weekend, taking the scooters out to zip around the park, and even setting up the patio mat and the hot tub.

We have a nice site in the woods with full hookups. We can't get the dish on-line, but we have plenty of signal from the park's Wi-Fi network. Festival admission is being handled by an outside promoter, but we were able to get the insider rate, and we have our wristbands. Now all we need is some tie-dye to fit in (and plenty is available for sale).

We've been able to enjoy lots of the music right here at our site, which is fairly close to three of the main stages. That's good, because I decided to tackle the "dish project" today, and spent five hours or so on the roof. The music made a nice backdrop.

"What dish project?" I hear you ask. The MotoSat DataStorm self-aiming internet satellite system has been creaking a lot lately, and I've had it on my to-do list to get up there, pull all the servo-motors out, and lubricate everything. The reflector was also "done," in the sense that it's got lots of cracks in the gussets, and the lower lip, to which is attached the feedhorn mounting arm, appeared to be on the verge of self-destruction. We've used this thing constantly for over five years, and I bought it third-hand to begin with, not to mention we whacked the feedhorn off once on a low overpass, so it's really no surprise.

Back when we destroyed the feedhorn, I repaired the system myself by buying an entire used DirecWay system on eBay. I think I spent about $150, and I was able to just mount up the feedhorn bits that had been destroyed to our existing reflector and mount. That left me with a spare modem, which I sold on eBay, a spare transmitter, which came in handy a few months ago when the old one quit, and a spare reflector, which I asked my folks to store in their attic. Knowing I needed to refurbish the dish, we picked that up from them when we visited last month.

I've been waiting for the conjunction of warm weather, a full spare day, and access to Wi-Fi (in case I needed to look something up while I had the dish apart and off-line), and today was it. The spare reflector has otherwise been taking up space and generally getting in the way down in the scooter bay, so we really did not want to wait for the next opportunity.

It took me all afternoon -- I had not realized the new reflector would need some additional holes drilled into it, and the mounting studs removed -- but the whole mount has been cleaned and lubricated, the reflector changed out (and hardly a moment too soon, based on the extensive cracking at the feedarm mounting point), and the full range of motion tested. I can't actually check the system "hot" here under the trees, but I have no reason to suspect anything I worked on today will impact the ability to acquire signal.

While I was in the middle of reassembling everything, Louise popped her head up through the hatch to tell me "we have a huge problem." I thought one of the pets had escaped, or the toilet had quit working. Nope -- she had just called our mail forwarding service to confirm they sent our mail out yesterday, and they casually informed her that "oh, we've been meaning to call you -- we are closing permanently on December 1st."

WHAT?!? With only two weeks notice?

So, yes, we have a huge problem. We have just two weeks to find another mail service and change our address with absolutely everyone. The post office will not forward mail for PMB's, so we can't just fill out one of those moving kits they have there at the counter and expect any mail to follow us. And we have to do it all by remote control; non-trivial, since the post office requires positive ID and a signature on a form in order to open up a PMB at a new service.

One of the things we are now considering is whether to open a PMB in a different state. As long-time readers here know, our plan for when we are "done" with the bus (whenever that is -- we have no schedule for it, and it could be as much as five years from now) is to get a long-distance power boat, and continue our adventure by sea. The domicile considerations for boat ownership are different than those for full-time RV living, and Washington is not necessarily the best option. However, I'm not sure I can fully research these issues in the limited time we now have available to us.

In the meantime, if you are one of the very, very few entities that has occasion to send us anything by mail or delivery service, if it arrives after the end of this month, it will be returned to sender. As soon as I have a new mailing address, I will update our contact page and post it here.

Photo by shoehorn99, used under a Creative Commons license.

Vega$

We are at Sam's Town RV resort, on Boulder Highway in Las Vegas (map).

We've stayed here before, under similar circumstances. As then, it is stinking hot here now, 113° or so, and we're making good use of the 50-amp hookup to run all three roof air conditioners. And the pool, in this weather, is mighty refreshing.

Colorado lost the coin toss, so to speak, although several folks voted for that route (after we had already left Tonopah). After arriving in Tonopah from our lovely digs in the desert, we made a quick stop at the Napa Auto Parts store, where I had called the previous day to inquire about motor oil. Despite having told me they had plenty, and my telling them I would be in to pick up a couple gallons, the local mine had come in first thing in the morning and cleaned them out. I was very annoyed.

We then rolled over to the local no-name gas station and put in 75 gallons at $2.719, which would later prove to be 30 gallons too much. But at least that let us fire up the generator. The only heavy-duty tire outfit in town did not have our size, which left only a quick stop at local market Scolari's to replenish the larder, and we were ready to leave town.

We actually sat there in the Scolari's parking lot for a good ten minutes, trying to decide which way to go. Ultimately, our nervousness about finding tires and motor oil tipped the scales in favor of US-95 to Las Vegas, even though our weather and scenery sensibilities were calling us towards Colorado. As it turns out, just a few minutes down the road, some tooth pain Louise has been having flared up with a vengence, confirming our decision: it would be much easier to find a dentist in Las Vegas than in Ely.

As it turns out, we left Tonopah (and got our shopping done) just in the nick of time. Yesterday was the first day of the "Vegas to Reno The Long Way" off-road race, and Tonopah was the overnight stop for the whole shootin' match last night. As we rolled past the high school (across the street from the market), there were already a couple hundred rigs, and dozens more lined up down the highway to get in. I counted at least four high-end Prevost conversions (this sport has some money), plenty of HDT/MDT conversions either with garages in back, or towing race trailers, and hundreds of more conventional RVs of all stripes, including class-A and -B rigs pulling race trailers, and work trucks pulling toy haulers. Rental units were also well represented.

We passed another hundred or more rigs on US-95, and were thankful to be going the other direction. We could also see rooster tails in the desert from the actual racers in the distance, and we passed two of the day's pit stops on our route, along with another couple set aside for today. Wednesday, we had passed another one out on US-6; they really mean it when they say "the long way."

We had toyed with the idea of ending our day in Beatty, but opted instead to press on to Vegas and just spend two nights here. Louise managed to get a dentist appointment for first thing this morning, and I settled in to find oil and tires. That took me a good part of the day; our tire size is not all that common, and while many shops were willing to sell me a pair of brand new ones that would come to something well north of $1,000 after FET, mounting, and disposal fees, I only found one place in town that had a pair of used take-offs in decent shape, for a total of $330. They are open till noon tomorrow, so we'll head over there around 11, on our way out of town. I had also checked Kingman and Flagstaff, to no avail, since we're heading that way.

As we rolled into town here, I put another 150 gallons of fuel in the tank at an incredible $2.479, a full 12 cents cheaper than anyplace else in town (and 24 cents less than what I paid earlier in the day, in Tonopah, making me wish I had put in less there). Unfortunately, it was at a crappy little 7/11 store, where the dispensers would only sell $75 at a pop, and the clerk could only go to $150. It took three transactions to put in $375 worth, and I finally quit in frustration, even though we could have taken on another 30 gallons or so. We won't see these prices again until Texas (if we're lucky), if current price trends continue.

Last night's project, in the relative (low 90s) cool post-midnight, was to rebuild the fresh water pump, which appeared to have quit after five full years of continuous, 24/7/365 operation. Of course, only after replacing the pump diaphragm with our on-board spare and cleaning everything up did I discover that it was merely a plugged water filter. I now have to repeat to myself "check the simple things first, stupid" before every repair project. Oh well, at least I know my spare is working.

Since our last stay here, another casino hotel has gone up next door, here on the "Boulder strip," a row of casinos between Las Vegas proper and Henderson that markets heavily to locals. The Eastside Cannery, which is actually closer to where we are parked than our host Sam's Town, has a 16-story glass hotel tower completely girded with color-changing lights, and a night club on the top floor which we are hoping will be fairly low key on Friday nights, given that I could easily hear the recorded stuff last night while I stood outside grilling. Speaking of which, 110+ is too hot for that (although at least the sun had dropped below the hills by then) -- tonight we're eating out.

Photo by Jack Black's Stunt Double

Broiled alive

We are at the 88 Shades RV Park in Quartzsite, Arizona (map).

We had a great time on Saturday, swimming in the nice pool at the Wingate hotel, going to see Ice Age 3 with our nieces, and following up with dinner at Earl's and ice cream at Ben & Jerry's, all in the same neighborhood. We left the hotel after dark, and agreed to meet again Sunday morning after breakfast, since they had an hour or so to kill before their flight.

By the time we got back to the bus Sunday, it was blazing hot. After ruminating for an hour or so about where we needed to be this morning, we finally decided to just extend our stay at Westworld another night, where we had 50 amps of power, the AC's were already humming away, and we had the tub set up as a cool plunge, which, by this time, had dropped to a downright chilly 87°. Mostly, neither of us was in the mood to start loading scooters and breaking down the hot tub in 110° heat and full sunlight.

The other thing that our 110° lethargy told us was that there was no way we were going to want to fiddle around a bus garage today in even hotter (113°) temperatures poking at the turbocharger. I checked the oil seepage and the torn hose, and the former was still in the range of a few drops per day, and the latter was holding steady. We decided instead to clear out of Scottsdale today, and make for the Pacific coast, where temperatures are much more civilized. We have other reasons to want to be in California, and the current forecasts for the Atlantic hurricane belt are so clear that we are, frankly, more likely at this juncture to be called out for a western wildfire, a prospect which grows more likely by the day.

That gave us the opportunity to load scooters and drain the tub in the "cool" of the evening last night, well after sundown. I put that word in quotes, because it was still well into the 90s when we finished with the scooters, and I spent the whole time that the tub was draining sitting in it to keep cool. I saw an item today from NWS Phoenix that today's low of 92°, which would have been sometime around 5am, was a record high low (how's that for an oxymoron). Except for the tub, which I drained and inverted to dry out overnight, I had everything packed and loaded before I turned in.

This morning I called both shops and waved off any work on the bus due to the heat, and then spent well over an hour working on finalizing a route plan. It was 11am by the time we unplugged and rolled away, after which we had to stop at the office to pay for the third night (and wherein I confirmed that they were open to the public for RV parking pretty much all the time, other than major special events, and also found out that they have 400 RV spaces with electricity and water). We then rolled over to the dump station for an electrifying experience.

We did a quick roll-by of the shop where we left the Honda Metropolitan on consignment back in February, just to make sure they were still there, but we knew they would be closed Monday. We had hoped to stop in on this trip, but again the heat nixed any idea of sticking around until they opened on Tuesday. It was only a few blocks out of our way, though, because our next stop was Surprise, due west.

I knew from previous research that we would find some inexpensive diesel in the Phoenix area, and as of last night that looked like $2.19 in the very southwestern part of the city. But this morning's check revealed that two stations in Surprise, across the street from one another, were duking it out, selling diesel for just $1.999 per gallon. One of those was Safeway, where we garnered another $0.03 discount for having a club card, and so I put in 190 gallons at just $1.969, the least we've paid in quite a while. Putting that much fuel in with a single automotive-style dispenser, however, takes the better part of an hour. Thus it was that we did not hit I-10 until well past 1pm.

By this time our indoor/outdoor thermometer in the cockpit was telling us it was 113° outside, and it was rapidly climbing to 100° in the cockpit, as the air conditioner struggled to keep up. As we continued west, the sun moved from slightly behind us, to directly overhead, then to in front of us where it relentlessly pummeled the windshields, turning us into hothouse vegetables. By 3pm it was 114° outside, and 104° and still climbing in the cockpit, and we knew we had to stop before the sun got any lower.

(Added by Louise: The photo at the top shows our indoor/outdoor thermometer. Cockpit temp on the left, outside temp on the right. 115° was the highest we saw, briefly in Surprise, AZ. I was too limp to take a photo of the inside temp going over 104° later in the day...)

There are not a lot of RV parks between Phoenix and Palm Springs, and The Q shaped up to be our best option. We pulled into town around 3:30, just as the mercury hit 105° at the driver seat. For the last hour or so, we had been spritzing a mister bottle full of water at the fans periodically as a sort of redneck swamp cooler, just to keep our bodies from overheating.

There are probably a half dozen RV parks along Main Street here that are still open in the summer (and many others that are closed for the season), and we picked this one pretty much completely at random. The office was closed when we arrived, so we self-registered ($25 with AAA or Good Sam) and picked a 50-amp space facing mostly north, poised for a quick getaway in the morning. I then spent 20 minutes or so with a garden hose getting some evaporative cooling going on all the wheels, the engine bay, the roof, the awnings, and the sunny side of the bus, as well as the gravel around us out to two or three feet.

With all the AC's going full tilt on top of my evaporative cooling efforts, we got the inside temperatures down into the 90s in short order, and in an hour or so down into the high 80s. As I type this, just after midnight, we are down to only one air conditioner still running, and it is maintaining a comfortable temperature in the high 70s. It's still in the mid-90s outside, but the forecast says it will be down to a low of 86° at 5am.

With no packing, loading, or errands for the morning, I expect we can get an early start tomorrow, and do most of our driving with the sun behind us and off the expansive front glass. It will be another record scorcher tomorrow in this region, with a high around 114° again, but we should be through the worst of it by mid-day. We still need to have the turbo looked at, and I have my sights set on PEDCO in Santa Fe Springs, where it will be a balmy 85° tomorrow.

Back on the road

We are at the A/OK RV park in Green River, Utah (map).

You might notice that AOK is KOA backwards, and, indeed, this park was once a KOA, with the unmistakable A-frame office architecture and the standard KOA pool, which here has been turned into a koi pond with murky water, vaguely reminiscent of a scene from Y tu mamá también.



This is an odd choice for us, and the park is not even listed in any of our directories. It is more or less across the street from Green River State Park, which was our intended destination. While the state park is very lovely, it was 96° when we arrived yesterday at 5pm or so, and they have no hookups. Faced with paying $16 for the night, yet still having to run the generator for five or six hours to keep the air conditioning on, we opted instead to cross the street and get a 30-amp hookup for $20.

There is also a newer KOA in town, along with one or two other commercial parks, with rates probably closer to $40. This place was fine -- it's a bit off the main road (likely one of the reasons KOA abandoned it), and we were one of only three transient rigs here last night. There are also perhaps half a dozen long-term rentals, in a park designed for a hundred or so spaces. It was quiet and dark, a stark contrast from the KOA in Salt Lake, which was full to capacity every night, with lots of traffic at all hours, a childrens' park atmosphere ever-present at the pool, and enough street lighting to force us to close the windows if we wanted it dark enough to sleep.

Speaking of which, we left that KOA yesterday at the noon check-out time. Our conference ended Sunday evening, and we had planned to leave Monday, but when we learned that good friends from the SF bay area would be passing through and staying downtown Monday, we extended by one night so we could meet them for dinner, thus "bracketing" our Salt Lake stay with visits from friends.

The Salt Lake KOA gave us that final night gratis, after I complained about my experience in the pool on Wednesday. At the risk of turning your stomach, let's just say that someone defecated in the pool and somehow I ended up in the water before the pool got cleaned and shock-treated (although, IMO, they really should have drained it completely to disinfect it). Suffice it to say I went directly to the shower to, umm, disinfect in a scene reminiscent of Silkwood (apparently my day for movie metaphors). We opted to skip any further use of the pool for the remainder of our stay -- a shame, really, in 90+ temperatures.


Photo by Groovnick

We go on the on-call list with the Red Cross for hurricane season today, and so we decided to start moving generally southeast, sending us further into the oven. We opted to come down US-6 and perhaps spend a little time in Canyonlands and/or Arches national parks, which is the direction we will head in a few minutes. It's going to push 100° today, so I foresee some generator time this afternoon.

Going down to the River of Jordan

Time for just a very quick update here...

We are at the Salt Lake City KOA (map), a quick scooter ride from the Salt Palace Convention Center, and theoretically right on the Jordan (although I haven't seen it). Long time readers know that we detest KOA, and when I have more time, I will post why this one is no exception (in the meantime -- if you come here, stay out of the pool). However, this is literally the closest legal RV parking to the convention center, and so we just had to suck it up for the duration. At least we have 50 amps of power, which has been handy in the 90+ temperatures here to run the air conditioning.

Wednesday evening, shortly after we got registered for our conference, we had a visit from Ara and Spirit, who actually stayed until Thursday morning, only the second time ever that we've had an adult sleep on our guest bed. Spirit and Opal managed to work things out after several tempestuous moments, finally enjoying a peaceful coexistence as members of the exclusive dogs-with-goggles (and helmets) club.

I'm afraid that's all I have time for -- we are seriously overbooked while we are here. It did not help the schedule that last night's farewell party for outgoing President Bill Sinkford included a surprise (to him as well as us) appearance by The Persuasions -- I was out way later than I planned; they may be old, but they've still got it.

Please, sir, may I have Samoa?

We are parked outside of the Samoa Cookhouse in Samoa, California (map), across Humboldt Bay from Eureka.

Long time readers know that this is one of our favorite restaurants, although we've only ever been here for breakfast or lunch. The last time we ate here, though, the dinner menu appealed to us, and I asked at the desk if we could park overnight in their lot, were we to eat dinner here. They gave us a hearty "yes," and so this morning I called to re-check that information, and to find out what's for dinner (roast beef, and pork steaks).

This will work out well, because we can have a glass or two of wine with dinner, and just stumble back home. In the past, before we thought to ask about spending the night, we'd stayed at the Samoa Boat Ramp county park, about five miles down the road. In addition to saving the ten mile round trip, we save the $15 (last we checked) it costs to dry camp there. I've always thought of the Cookhouse as a breakfast place; we'll see how we like it for dinner.

For the uninitiated, the Cookhouse serves all meals family style, and you eat whatever they are serving that day. There is no "menu" and no choice, other than whether or not to help yourself to whatever is on the platter. They keep bringing more helpings until you tell them to stop -- all you can eat (as opposed to all you should eat). I was initiated at a motorcycle rally, where we nearly filled the place for breakfast, and the platters were heaped high. When Louise and I eat here by ourselves, they bring more reasonably sized platters.

We had a short, pleasant, and sunny drive here from Benbow, where we spent last night at the Benbow RV Resort (map). Here again, long time readers may recognize that we've been there before, and, in fact, this trip is shaping up to be the exact reverse, stop for stop, of our trip southward in January of last year.



As then, our purpose for stopping there was really to have dinner at the Benbow Inn, a wonderful white-linen place with a great chef. Yesterday was our sixth wedding anniversary, and we wanted to eat someplace nice, rejecting several other stops along the way. Unlike last time, when we were there off-season, yesterday's stay set us back $52, after AAA/FMCA discount and including the $5 dog surcharge (up a whopping 67% since our last visit). Nevertheless, it was worthwhile for the meal, and I even managed a soak in the hot tub and swim in the pool this pleasant morning (it rained cats and dogs last night, precluding any such pleasantries when we arrived).

So far today we've managed to stay dry, but yesterday's storm system forced buckets of water into the coach through all our various leaks, including several gallons raining down on the dash from some ingress into the cockpit ceiling while under way.



Our principal goal for our visit to Infinity Coach this month will be to try to deal with these leaks yet another time. We have leak management down to a science now, so they are annoying but not destructive, but still, we'd like to have a leak-free home for the next few years, and besides that, we'll never be able to sell Odyssey without fixing them -- it's not as if any potential buyer can't just look here on the blog to see every problem we've ever had with the bus.

We've been moving north rather faster than I had expected, and I am hoping tomorrow we will find a nice spot for a couple days of down time. I have some work to do around the house, and, frankly, we really need to unwind from our rather hectic schedule in the bay area.