Decided we'd like to see Lake Okeechobee, that big hole in the Florida peninsula. This is the second largest lake wholly within the US, after Lake Michigan. So, we chose a route that bypassed Miami (and its toll road that we contributed to generously on the way down) and angled up to Okeechobee. Bypassing Miami took us through downtown Homestead and then through a long rural stretch lined with nurseries. So this is where all the landscaping palm trees, in the various varieties, and other flowers and shrubs come from! (Which reminds me: After our Key West guide had talked about various Democratic presidents who came to KW, he pointed out, for balance, at one point: two Bushes.)
At the town of Pahokee we stopped and walked up on the dike surrounding the lake. Been there, got the picture:
Not the greatest shot, but it'll have to do. From the internet, here's a satellite picture and a more interesting snapshot. Pahokee's at about the 4 o'clock position on the lake shore.
From Okeechobee we angled over to the coast and found a nice RV park near Vero Beach. I always wanted to make it to Vero Beach when the Dodgers had their spring training there, but didn’t. It was described as an idyllic setting, what spring training used to be like before it went bigtime. Now, alas, the Dodgers’ spring training camp has moved to Arizona in, I’m sure, a more revenue-driven atmosphere.
Another reason for a Vero Beach stop was the chance to visit Jose Daniel and Dharma Flores. Jose Daniel was the St. John’s choir director until moving to Vero Beach six years ago. We had a great visit, catching up on family news and church things, his and ours. As friends of Jose Daniel’s would expect, he’s very busy, choir-directing, playing the organ, and organizing concerts. The church he is in hosts several community concerts during the year. They have a lovely house and live in one of those nice neighborhoods with ponds and lighted fountains spraying therefrom. (We were after dark and couldn't see anything else.) Their Albuquerque time was special to them and they hope to visit some time. Almost did recently to celebrate an anniversary, but they had the option of taking a cruise on which their daughter was working as a dancer, so that was hard to turn down.
From VB we traveled on Monday to Jacksonville, where Susie’s sister-in-law, Joyce, and her husband, Jay, were working a Habitat for Humanity house project. As many of you know, they’re full-time RVers and travel extensively for Habitat projects. Our RV paths have crossed several times and we always enjoy being with them. We camped near them in a cozy, heavily-forested city park in Jacksonville Beach, the Kathryn Abbey Hanna Park, just a short walk from the beach. The weather had changed considerably – much cooler and raining. It was going to get worse. Jay and Joyce took us on a drive around the area, then we had dinner at Outback - kept my streak going with shrimp on the barbie .
When we got to Jacksonville I called my brother, Lael. They were moored there before and after Christmas making preps for their big sail, but I didn't know if they still were. I said, We're in Jacksonville. He said, We just sailed into Key West! Oops. If I'd only called two days earlier. We did do them the favor of pointing them to the Hogfish Bar and Grill. They're going to wait for a good weather window for crossing to the Panama Canal. Maybe we can meet them in Tahiti some day.
Tuesday we proceeded north, bound for Charleston. It was raining all the way and conditions were made worse by construction all across SE Georgia on I-95. This meant narrow lanes, bounded by either orange barrels or cement barriers. The cement barriers were used on the bridges, of which there seemed to be as many as on the overseas highway to Key West. Throw in a steady stream of semis constantly passing me and it was white-knuckle time.
Fought it for about an hour, thinking, surely we’ll get out of this construction zone soon, then finally gave up and got off and took very serene back-country (Low Country) roads to Charleston. Resolved to cut back on interstate driving the rest of the trip. I greatly admire the Eisenhower interstate highway system and the trucking industry that uses it, which seems to me to be a healthy mix of independent entrepreneurs and government oversight and infrastructure, to use a political term du jour, but leisure traveling in a motor home doesn’t always fit into the equation. Non-Interstate four-lane highways are the ideal, I think.
In Charleston, we stayed in a very nice campground in a city park on James Island. We picked it because it was the closest to downtown Charleston. So, both here and in Jacksonville, we found excellent RV parks in city or county parks. I don’t know if they’re money-makers, but I hope so. Would like to see more of these.
Here's a shot of Tuzi in the campground. Note the small mirror atop the right mirror (on your left) that is missing from the left mirror. After the bird dislodged the glass on that mirror, I removed the mirror frame. Will probably do the same on the right because I don't really use that mirror. It's a fish-eye mirror and the large mirror unit already includes a fish-eye. I've got redundant fish-eyes on the right side.
Also want to say a good word for GPS guidance. Both this park and the Jacksonville park would have been very difficult to find with a navigator anticipating and finding all the required twists and turns and communicating instructions to the driver. The parks were miles from the major highways into the cities, for one thing. Miss Magellan tells us, Left turn in point five miles, and, by golly, she’s almost always right. I haven’t updated my maps for a couple of years and that can confuse Magellan a bit. Leaving Jacksonville we were apparently skimming across creeks and marshes.
Next day, Wednesday, 1/14, we did Charleston. I’ll do a separate posting on that charming city.
Thursday, we proceeded north, avoiding I-95 and its brethren. Took us forever to get out of the Charleston environs, but we have a day and a half to get to Raleigh, so no sweat. To the extent possible, we struck out generally straight north, ending up on US 1 in northern SC (didn’t see any wayward Key West trolleys). Along the way the terrain changed from coastal low, flat country to rolling farmland and woods. Also, some very charming (to our eyes) small towns in both SC and NC – stately, well-maintained homes, wrap-around porches, nicely landscaped, … . Wanted to stop in a couple towns, but convenient parking places didn’t pop up when we needed them. I generally try to keep my eyes open for a country café, but today we had lunch on crackers and cheese in a shopping center parking lot. Then just a mile down the road we passed a barbecue joint that is apparently the local favorite, with room for big-rig parking, too. Darn!
From our Trailer Life campground guide, we picked a campground in Pinehurst, NC, only about two hours from our Cary destination, which is the Jordan Lake state recreation area west of Raleigh. Well, in spite of our GPS’s best efforts, we missed the fairly obscure turn-in to the campground. The Plan B entrance required a “sharp right turn” and that was too sharp and steep to negotiate with low-hanging trees to boot. Also, there were no signs, commercial or official (the little blue RV symbols) indicating there really was a campground down these uninviting roads, so we kept on going. This part of NC has many golf resorts, but I guess golfers don’t drive RVs (though some pro golfers do, I know), so there was nothing else in the area. It was late afternoon, but we decided we could get to Jordan Lake before dark.
We just did, but by the time we had selected a camp site (out of a couple hundred available – the Ranger who collected our payment said we were probably the only persons camping, what with a forecast low of 19 degrees) it was dark. I knew ahead of time that the Parker’s Creek campground was the only one open, so that’s where we were headed. Been there before, but not absolutely sure where the turn-off was and whether it was north or south of the highway and couldn’t program the campground into the GPS. I was going to do this sort of just-in-time planning (find a campground map) in the wi-fi-equipped campground in Pinehurst. Saw a brown state park sort of sign that mentioned Parker Creek, but not campground. I turned off, not wanting to risk overshooting our destination. Sun is sinking lower. No applause tonight. It was soon apparent that this was not the road. So, we’re winding down a narrow, wooded country road, not knowing when, if ever, we could turn around. Susie says we need a circular driveway and, like a miracle, a church appeared with such a driveway. One low branch swiped us, but we got turned around. Back on the highway it wasn’t long until we saw a sign alerting us to campgrounds and telling us which lane to get in for Parker’s Creek. It doesn’t take a GPS to find a campground here. Backing in to our site in the dark was an adventure, but with great deliberation and patient discussion we did fine. Managed to keep warm enough on a very cold night. Here's a picture of ice sculptures on the lake shore the next morning - formed by waves splashing onshore.
Thursday, we proceeded north, avoiding I-95 and its brethren. Took us forever to get out of the Charleston environs, but we have a day and a half to get to Raleigh, so no sweat. To the extent possible, we struck out generally straight north, ending up on US 1 in northern SC (didn’t see any wayward Key West trolleys). Along the way the terrain changed from coastal low, flat country to rolling farmland and woods. Also, some very charming (to our eyes) small towns in both SC and NC – stately, well-maintained homes, wrap-around porches, nicely landscaped, … . Wanted to stop in a couple towns, but convenient parking places didn’t pop up when we needed them. I generally try to keep my eyes open for a country café, but today we had lunch on crackers and cheese in a shopping center parking lot. Then just a mile down the road we passed a barbecue joint that is apparently the local favorite, with room for big-rig parking, too. Darn!
From our Trailer Life campground guide, we picked a campground in Pinehurst, NC, only about two hours from our Cary destination, which is the Jordan Lake state recreation area west of Raleigh. Well, in spite of our GPS’s best efforts, we missed the fairly obscure turn-in to the campground. The Plan B entrance required a “sharp right turn” and that was too sharp and steep to negotiate with low-hanging trees to boot. Also, there were no signs, commercial or official (the little blue RV symbols) indicating there really was a campground down these uninviting roads, so we kept on going. This part of NC has many golf resorts, but I guess golfers don’t drive RVs (though some pro golfers do, I know), so there was nothing else in the area. It was late afternoon, but we decided we could get to Jordan Lake before dark.
We just did, but by the time we had selected a camp site (out of a couple hundred available – the Ranger who collected our payment said we were probably the only persons camping, what with a forecast low of 19 degrees) it was dark. I knew ahead of time that the Parker’s Creek campground was the only one open, so that’s where we were headed. Been there before, but not absolutely sure where the turn-off was and whether it was north or south of the highway and couldn’t program the campground into the GPS. I was going to do this sort of just-in-time planning (find a campground map) in the wi-fi-equipped campground in Pinehurst. Saw a brown state park sort of sign that mentioned Parker Creek, but not campground. I turned off, not wanting to risk overshooting our destination. Sun is sinking lower. No applause tonight. It was soon apparent that this was not the road. So, we’re winding down a narrow, wooded country road, not knowing when, if ever, we could turn around. Susie says we need a circular driveway and, like a miracle, a church appeared with such a driveway. One low branch swiped us, but we got turned around. Back on the highway it wasn’t long until we saw a sign alerting us to campgrounds and telling us which lane to get in for Parker’s Creek. It doesn’t take a GPS to find a campground here. Backing in to our site in the dark was an adventure, but with great deliberation and patient discussion we did fine. Managed to keep warm enough on a very cold night. Here's a picture of ice sculptures on the lake shore the next morning - formed by waves splashing onshore.
There was a major drawback with Parker's Creek: the campground gate is locked at 6 pm. No exceptions. Kind of hard to have dinners and a birthday party in town with Mike, Karen, and Jason with that curfew. (In the summer, the curfew is 9 pm.) So, we packed some clothes and spent Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights at Mike's. Locked up Tuzi and set the thermostats down and stored her for the duration. If the weather had been warmer, Jason might have come out and stayed a night and day with us, but that didn't make sense now.
Friday was Jason's ninth birthday. The party was a pizza party at home with guests of both sets of grandparents and one of Jason's soccer buddies and his family. Here's the traditional cakeandcandles picture.
Mike had started assembling his and other cruisers' pictures into an album using the versatile Blurb software - free on the internet and Saturday, he, Susie, and I worked on selecting photos and formatting the album. Karen and Jason worked on assembling a large Star Wars Lego space ship and Karen continued helping on the album, also. Going to be a great memory book for all the Susie-cruisers.
Sunday we attended Mike and Karen's church (thought-provoking service that connected baptism and communion) then watched football (put in your own clever parallel construction here: ____________________). Mike and Jason both had Monday holidays so our initial plan had been to spend the day with them. Also had planned to stay over Tuesday so we could watch the Obama inauguration. But, starting to feel the need to get home, we thought we'd drive a half-day Tuesday, then stop for TV. (Of course, we could keep up with the preliminaries via our in-motion tracking satellite dish.) Also wanted to squeeze in a visit to our friends, the Dietzels (former Albuquerqueans and St. John's members), in nearby Sanford.
We were nearing completion of the cruise album Monday morning when Karen called and said, Have you heard the weather forecast - 2-4 inches of snow tonight? Her company was starting to make emergency plans. The local TV stations were running breathless bulletins. We decided to leave forthwith. Left at noon, visited the Dietzels, went back to campground, hooked up Tuzi, and left Parker's Creek at 3 pm. Our goal was a KOA near Statesville, NC, about 130 (mostly non-interstate highway) miles west. Got there about 6 pm and are now comfortably settled in.
Cheers,
Susie and Rob
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