Florida

We are down in Florida now as far south as we are planning to travel. From Sue and Fran's we traveled to Jacksonville Beach Florida to stay with our good friends Cathy and Joe. I like to give people nicknames and we usually refer to them as JoeCat. After a bit of confusion on which day we were arriving, we made it down to their house on Saturday April 16th. JoeCat were ready for us with a great bike ride to the beach and a homemake lobster roll dinner- yum! We also got to see St. Augustine and spent the rest of the day on Jax Beach. My first swim in the ocean this year.

Flagler College, St. Augustine

Ruth Taking the Shot

One Happy Group

Next stop on our trip was Wekiva Springs State Park. The park is located a little outside of Orlando and is a unique spring fed creek made into a swimming area. The campground is really nice but a little bit noisy from street traffic. We also found a really cool swimming hole on Wekiva Island with a two story bar and food truck serving tacos. This place would really be a zoo on a summer weekend but it was pretty calm during our trip. 

Wekiva Island

Nice Campsites

Local Fauna

Turkeys in the Campground

Liming

Nice Fire

Sarasota Florida is our most southerly stop and we are staying with Ruth's sister Susan and her husband Pat. This is our last stop with family and friends and we are on our own from here on out. We are parked in their driveway and it's camping from now on. Nice dinner on the water and at their house with trips to Siesta Key (number 1 beach in USA), Sarasota open market, and Myakka River for the canopy hike. It's almost 90 degrees down here and the locals are still wearing long pants. Must be cold for them.

Sarasota Market

Wekiva Springs

Myakka Canopy Tour

Gators

We still have a few more stops in Florida and will be heading north Monday. Everything is working well and hopefully all the RV maintenance is behind us. A big shout out of THANKS for family and friends that hosted us during the first leg of our journey.

Carolinas

One of the things I really love about the East Coast is the history. Next on our stops was New Bern and Carolina Beach in North Carolina. New Bern is one of the Towns I have thought about moving to but the hurricanes and flooding have changed my mind. However, it is still stunning with lots of Civil War History. We stayed at the New Bern KOA over the bridge and took the trolly tour in New Bern. They escort you to your site in a KOA and they had lots of staff and a very clean campground. So far we are liking KOA campgrounds.

Sunset from the Campground

Beautiful Gardens

My Favorite House in New Bern

After the trolley tour, Ruth and I went back to some of our favorite spots for a closer look. We were especially excited to go see the oldest Mulberry Tree in New Bern and they built a house in a "U" shape around the tree to preserve it. Much to our surprise, when we rounded the corner to see the tree it had been cut down! Apparently Mulberry Trees don't grow well down here. 

Carolina Beach State Park

Out Riding Bikes

Micro Brew and Frisbee Golf

After North Carolina we stayed at the Santee Coastal Reserve and then our friends house in Sun City, South Carolina. Santee was our first true boondocking experience but the mosquitos were so bad that Ruth would not venture out of the camper. I didn't want to sleep turtled again so I braved the mosquitos and put one end of the camper down so we had a decent place to sleep. I then doused myself in bug spray and went for a quick walk.

Santee Coastal Reserve Entrance Road

Santee

Someone's Watching!

Our friends Susan and Fran Herman live in Sun City in Beaufort County, South Carolina. There is also a Beaufort North Carolina and they are pronounced differently. NC is like "Bofort" and SC is like "Bufort". You can remember this by saying "Beautiful Beaufort by the Sea". Quite a few films have been made here including a large portion of Forest Gump. They even turned one of the estuaries into the Mississippi River and filmed the running scene over the Mississippi River here. They love Tom Hanks here but are not too fond of Barbara Streisand, you will have to take the tour yourself to find out why. We took a horse drawn carriage tour of the Town of Beaufort and had a great couple of days with Sue and Fran. The elevation is only 14-16 feet above sea level down here and the area is called the "Low Country".

Beaufort Docks

Ruth Enjoying a Late Lunch

Beautiful Beaches

Next stop for us is Florida.

Heading Down the East Coast

Trip has been everything Ruth and I have hoped for. A few minor travel trailer fixes and I think I finally have stopped that pesky window leak. So far we have traveled 143 miles to Cape Henlopen State Park. We really liked this park and it was clean and well maintained. The sites are a little close but there is a lot to do in this area. We rode bikes to the beach and then toured Lewes, DE in the afternoon.

Cape Henlopen Camping Site

Beautiful View of the Delaware Bay

Lewes Delaware

Our next stop was First Landing State Park just outside Virginia Beach. We got to travel over the Bay Bridge Tunnel which is always an exciting experience. This is a beautiful State Park with sites well spaced although the bath houses are a bit more rustic than Cape Henlopen. We ride bicycles down to the landing and visited Cape Henry. First Landing gets it name from being the first place english settlers landed back in 1607. Ruth and I really liked this Park and would definitely come back.

Sunset Over the Chesapeake Bay

First Landing Swamps

Tuesday April 5th we took up camp and traveled to Oregon Inlet Campground on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Extremely windy that day with wind gusts forecasted to be 50 miles per hour plus overnight. Ruth and I decided to go "turtle" our first night. Turtle is when you don't put the hybrid ends out on the trailer to protect the canvas from high winds. The trailer rocked all night long and we slept on the couch and dining area. Not too bad but I wanted want to sleep this way every night. The next two days were beautiful and we enjoyed a long walk on the beach one day and exploring Nags Head the second day. We enjoyed watching dolphins feeding inside the shore break, pelicans swooping along the top of the waves, and even played some mini-golf. A great stop on our way down south.

Exposed Camping on the Outer Banks

Pelicans Flying

Bodie Lighthouse

Ruth and I are doing well living in such tight quarters. You have to be patient and wait for someone to finish what they are doing to get around them inside our trailer. Waiting for warmer weather when we can hang outside more. Internet coverage is very spotty so I will be posting updates on instagram and getting to the blog when we are connected to the outside world.

Ruth in Her Bunk

Ruth did approve posting this picture.

Challenging Start

We have had a challenging start to our trip but are back on track. Ruth had this great idea to park the trailer at our neighbor's house a couple of days before we leave so we can check the systems out. This involves putting in the batteries, flushing the water heater, flushing out the antifreeze, checking the water system, tire check, electrical check, etc. Things started out pretty well with using a 2:1 water ratio to clean out the water heater and flush. 

Home made system to put the vinegar and water solution into the tank. Let it sit for several hours and then empty/flush out the tank. Put in the new sacrificial anode and the water heater is good to go. 

Next step was to put in the battery, put some water in the water tank, and pressurize the water system. The pink anti-freeze is then flushed out of the system. Once that is done, you change the valves that bypass the water heater and fill the water heater tank. That is when the trouble started! Lot of leaks at almost every fitting going into and out of the water heater tank. This is hidden behind a panel so who knows how long this has been going on. 

Water Heater Tank Mess

The fittings are all PEX crimp joints with oversize Camco hoses and PEX piping. A trip to the hardware store to buy a crimping tool and I tightened down all the fittings. There isn't a whole lot of room in here and I had to be pretty aggressive to get access for the tool. Every fitting was fixed pretty easily EXCEPT for the top fitting that I just couldn't get to stop leaking. I had to replace the top braided tubing with a piece of PEX piping and tighten down the entire thing. Luckily that did the job and we are back in business.

It is really disappointing how cheaply these trailers are made. All someone had to do was take the time to properly crimp each joint and this never would have happened. We checked for leaks everywhere else and found none. Electrical, refrigerator and everything else checked out so we will be able to leave on time except for missing one night at French Creek.

Ready to Go

We are off tomorrow and will be highlighting the places we are stopping and exploring, enough of the maintenance! A special thanks to our neighbor for allowing us to park at his house for a few days.

Ice Sunk Our Sailing Dream

 

Our dream all along was to buy a sailboat and sail the Caribbean for at least one year. If things went well we might decide to go further but we were planning on sailing from the east coast down to Grenada and back. All our efforts were in this direction and if you have been following our blog you know that Ruth and I (Drew) completed many ASA courses including:

ASA 101 Basic Keelboat Sailing

ASA 103 Basic Coastal Cruising

ASA 104 Bareboat Cruising

ASA 114 Cruising Catamaran

ASA 118 Docking Endorsement

In addition, I have taken:

ASA 105 Coastal Navigation

ASA 106 Advanced Coastal Cruising

ASA 111 Sailing Docking Review

We bought a small 19' O'Day sailboat and dock it in Lake Nockamixon, Pennsylvania sailing dozens of times each year from April through October. To increase our experience we have bareboated in the Chesapeake Bay a half dozen times, the British Virgin Islands twice, Bahamas once, Spanish Virgin Islands once, and a big trip to Grenada two years ago. For those that don't know, bareboating is when you charter a large boat without a captain and you are in complete control of the boat. I am confident in our training and ability to take our sailing trip. So, why the change from a sailing trip to a RV trip?

In one word, "ice". Now there are certainly a lot of factors that have gone into this decision. Ruth's enjoyment of our adventure, COVID issues and difficulties moving between countries, not finding the boat yet, desire to be more accessible to our grandchildren, etc. What it eventually came down to was ice. I really enjoy a cold drink at the end of the day and ice is a scarcity on a sailboat. I am using ice as a metaphor.  Comfort on a boat is a big issue and we are confident that a tour across our great country is more our cup of tea right now. I know Ruth would have come along with the sailboat plan and this was a mutual decision.

Is the sailboat dream dead? I don't know but I certainly hope that it isn't. We might scale that down to just cruising the Chesapeake Bay and the ICW down to Florida. I can still see the possibility of heading to the Bahamas but I'm sure we won't go beyond there. Bareboating instead of buying our own boat is still on the table. 

Thank you for following along and I hope you enjoy our land adventure across the USA. For you hard core sailors, we should be back in sailing mode in some way next year.

Retirement News

Ruth and I have turned in our retirement notices and we are getting ready for our trip! We have completed the saving part of this journey and now it is time to go on our adventure and reap the rewards of our sacrifices. We are both officially retired at the end of March and the official start of our journey is April 1, 2022. 

You may have noticed a slight change in our blog name and avatar. We are going to be called RVing/Sailing Lifestyle and the first part of our journey (sounds like an America song) will be via RV. Sailing has always been the cornerstone of my plans and we should have some sailing adventures after this trip is over. I will explain this decision in later blogs. For now there's lots to do including:

• Finish our taxes
• Show Peter (our son) the ropes on taking care of the house while we are gone
• Finishing touches on getting our travel trailer ready
• Booking campground reservations at the popular locations

We are very fortunate that Peter is still living with us and can take care of the dog and the house while we are gone. Peter will be getting a lot of support from friends and family. Thank you for following along and hopefully the RV tour will interest you as well.