April 5, 2015 by Lee and Tracy

First Time on Augustine Island

Last week I traveled back to Nashua, New Hampshire for work which is about an hour from where we used to live and the office was my home office. First I walked off the plane into snow flurries. Not unexpected unfortunately for late March in New Hampshire, but compared to the mid 70’s I left not so great. The weather was better as the week went on, but there was still patches of snow on the ground and everything was so brown…lol. Jacksonville is lush and green in March and New Hampshire definitely suffered by comparison. I did get to see my oldest daughter Kyrston Monday night though for dinner, which was great. She drove over an hour each way to come and see me and we had a great time talking and eating at Texas Roadhouse. One cool thing about traveling is being on an expense report, so eating out is not only expected but largely necessary, and Kyrston paid her own way so great steak dinner with $0 budget impact 🙂

Kyrston is such a good daughter to humor me with this pic

The week was very good work wise. I had the opportunity to facilitate a Kaizen event (fancy name for a brainstorming session) with a terrific group of people. I was a little rusty because I hadn’t done it in a while, but the group was great and we came up with about 20 practical ideas to improve the project we are all working on. I love these events when the group dynamic is good and then one was very productive. I also drove to Boston and Hartford while I was there, which made for some long days but again got quite a bit accomplished. So I was pretty tired when I drove to the airport, Friday noon to get on my returning flight. Something really interesting happened at the airport. When I went through security I pulled out my brand new Florida drivers license and a young TSA agent asked me if I was going home. I had to stop and think for a second, is Florida my home, well not really but my fifth wheel is my home and I am going there flashed through my head pretty quickly, but since this is not really a conversation you want to have with a TSA agent I smiled and said, “Yes.” Then she glanced at my driver’s license again, looked envious, and said “Lucky.” That was the surreal moment. I have traveled extensively over the last 15 years and no one ever looked at my New Hampshire drivers license and said “Lucky.” Pretty cool moment actually but like I said….weird.

While I was gone last week, Lee was working on finalizing the name, insurance, signage etc for his Mobile Tech business (we will talk about that when it’s all done) and also decided to try to move us. We were staying at St. John’s RV Park Campground in St. Augustine. The price was terrific at $17 a night unlimited Passport America price for full hookups, but it isn’t the kind of place we would want to stay long-term. I will say the people were incredibly nice and helpful, the grounds were well cared for, but unfortunately there are numerous permanent trailers that give the place a run down look. We did feel completely safe there and the campground itself was very quiet. It’s a shame really because if they could just get some of the permanent dwellings to clean themselves up it would be much nicer. Anyways, our friend Deb mentioned St. Augustine State Park and when we went to visit it complete home run. Water and electric, reasonably priced with ocean access inside the park and deep well wooded sites. Unfortunately at our size there were only a few walk in sites we could fit into and all the reserve able sites were booked for weeks. The campgrounds policy on the walk in sites is first come/first serve when they vacate so whoever shows up at the office first got the site. We went and looked and only Sites 72, 69, or 41 would actually work for us. At that point, since I was traveling for two weeks, I kind of gave up on it, but Lee decided he wanted to stay there and became a man on a mission.

First he went to the best campsite for us and asked when the people were leaving. When he explained the situation (the folks who were Canadian) were happy to give him the date of March 31st. Then he hooked up the camper and drove to the campground at 8am. HE knew what their car looked like so he watched cars for 4-1/2 hours until they left and then popped into the camp office and nabbed the site. Now this sounds extreme ( and it is), but he said at least 10 people stopped by in those 4 hours so he doesn’t think it would have worked any other way. So I was driving back to a strange campsite from the airport that I had only been in once with just the site number to guide me. Luckily, the signage was good and even though it was very dark, I found our new site. Wow what can I say…he had it all lit up with our tiki torches and it was deep and completely wooded and so beautiful and peaceful. Plus a big fat raccoon sauntered out of the bushes and walked through our campsite as plain as you please. Absolutely amazing and the type of site we always pictured when we thought about this lifestyle. I was so happy to be home and especially happy to be here and incredibly impressed by my very special husband.

The woods go back very deep and although we can hear others cannot see anyone

Lee loves the twisty trees here

I woke up really early Saturday morning because I was excited about possibly catching a bit of the lunar eclipse. And since I was already up we decided to go down and watch the sunrise on the beach. I did get to see some of the lunar eclipse before it clouded over (no pictures unfortunately) and we watched an absolutely beautiful sunrise. Most sunrises I have seen don’t have much color but this one was like a sunset in reverse and absolutely gorgeous.

The moon starting it’s lunar eclipse

Loved the colors

Sunrise on Anastasia Island

Beautiful

After sunrise Lee made me breakfast (with my favorite Bob Evans sausage links) and we took Steve’s advice and went around the corner to the local farmers market. I think this was the best farmers market I have ever been to with a mix of crafts, fresh grown produce, flowers, and food stands. Lots of booths gave out free samples and we munched our way happily down the aisle. I got some pineapple oranges, local radishes, homemade meat rub, and a turtle carved out of a coconut. Yes I didn’t really need that but for $6 how could you go wrong and the guy that makes them was awesome. I also wanted to mention here that when you get produce at farmer’s markets you should really look and see where the food is coming from. Many markets are now selling wholesale fruits and veggies and passing them off as local grown. They’ve actually enacted some laws against this in California and a lot of what you see in farmer’s markets is really grocery store quality food repackaged. I always look for signs stating what farm it is from and usually won’t buy if there is nothing listed unless the price beats a local grocery store and the quality is good. There were several stands that fit this bill for me and I absolutely recommend a visit if you ever get to stay here…it was phenomenal.

The farmer’s market was a long two down

Absolutely gorgeous orchids for sale so pretty

See the sign on locally grown. If it’s local they will NOT have everything that’s in your grocery store, but what they do have will be bigger and better

All of this for under $20

Since it was still early and wasn’t super hot yet we decided to take a drive around St. Augustine a bit and see if there was anything we wanted to do. Whenever we go to a new area I create a word document with possible things to see gleaned from Trip Advisor, Roadside Attractions, and the areas community website. Have to say for St. Augustine nothing really jumped out at me. Many of the places are pretty touristy and the prices are on the high side. We did drive by the lighthouse and take a couple of pictures but didn’t want to pay the $9.95 each to walk up it. I would have liked to see the Fountain of Youth area but that’s $15 each also and really didn’t look that great. We talked about getting a trolley pass since people recommend it but $24.95 for a three-day pass (no single day passes offered). Are you seeing a theme here 🙂

The best picture we could get outside of the gated area

Really the main town related thing I wanted to do was walk along and see a couple of the shops I found when researching. So we were on our way there when my sister Wendy texted me that a friend of hers was from St. Augustine and told me about this little hole in the wall shrimp place called O’Steens. We were only a mile away so we stopped in and found at least 8 people waiting in line at 10:35 and the place didn’t even open until 11am. I stopped and checked the menu ($12.95 for 9 shrimp basket) and we wandered back across the bridge. May want to try it later. We headed for St. George Street which is in the heart of old town St. Augustine and despite the crazy traffic had no trouble finding parking in a lot. We walked around and saw the couple of shops I was interested in and took a picture of the main building in old downtown. The two shops were really cool and I recommend them. Sea Spirits Gallery and Gifts was all sea related art. It was super pricey, but I just enjoyed walking through and looking at everything. If you go in, go all the way through to the back and get to walk into this cool little courtyard between two buildings which was a bonus surprise. But we spent all of an hour walking around before we decided to go back to the campground. There was also a cool shop around the corner called Filthy Rich. It was run by this very nice couple and they specialize in jewelry made by local artists that matches the jewelry of celebrities. I got lost in the Audrey Hepburn section and spent quite a bit of time looking at the Jackie Kennedy line (was thinking about you Mom). Didn’t buy anything but it was really neat to look around and Lee though largely bored did like the Jack Kennedy style sunglasses they have.

Saw this shop online and had to go

Beautiful wood sculpture of turtles was done from one piece (except for the flippers)

The building the shops were in is made from seashells

This courtyard was the neatest suprise, felt like I was in Morocco. The shop was in one of the oldest buildings in town

This courtyard was the neatest surprise, felt like I was in Morocco. The shop was in one of the oldest buildings in town

My mom would have really liked this store

Lee loves Bogie and humored me with the photo

Statue sent from Spain as a present to the city of the original Spanish Governor of St. Augustine.

Lightner Museum

Truly the best part of the day were the things we just stumbled upon. We took a couple wrong turns on side streets and saw some cool residential houses. The side roads are very narrow because the town is so old and there were some neat houses tucked into them. Also we stopped on our way back into the park (which costs $4 for one or $8 for two or more for a day pass btw) and took a walk along a path to see the remains of a quarry that the Spanish used to build houses on the island. The pit itself was more a study of how nature will take anything back over but we kept walking and at the end there was a pond with about 20 wild turtles in it. Someone must be feeding them because they all came up to the dock when we walked on it, and I have never seen that many turtles in the wild before. Then on the way back to the campsite Lee saw a big turtle on the side of the road and we stopped and looked at him for a while. He was not impressed 🙂

Gingerbread house on a side road

Very cool dinosaur log bench

The walk to the quarry

Here’s all that’s left of the quarry

The little guy on the right had so much algae on him he looked like a Chia pet

Big Turtle walking on the side of the road in the park

Love these little flowers

The rest of the day we just chilled. I tried to catch up on some media stuff and really needed some down time. One thing that happened while I was gone is we received a letter from the voting board about our address being a mailing address. Someone on the forums mentioned we just need to send in proof of our domicile to fix this, but it is one more extra thing that you have to deal with when your trying to color outside the lines. On the one hand I am not bothered so much because this life is so great and a little extra work is worth it. On the other hand I can get extremely annoyed because it feels like I am pushing a boulder uphill with the paperwork to get state residency established. Will let you know how it all works out.

Sunday we woke up and decided to go kayaking. We were due for some rain but not until later in the day and Lee doesn’t do so well on the water in full sun anyways so we headed out around 9am. It was a great day to go. Empty because of Easter Sunday and although we had sun wasn’t extremely hot. I have been wanting to try our Sea Eagle on the ocean and I will say that it is a lot more work to paddle with the stronger currents. We had fun though paddling along the marsh inlets and even though we didn’t see any manatees got some good shots of the birds. So it was a good weekend, but now I’m headed out for a week in Princeton, New Jersey at a change management training class. Lee’s going to finish getting our license plates (hopefully) and maybe visit the Pirate Museum and Spanish fort here.

Wood Stork hanging out where we put in ..looking fro some fish

Wood Stork hanging out where we put in ..looking for some fish

Easy to get into the water from the shore

You can paddle pretty close to the sand dunes and hear the ocean behind them

Nice view of the lighthouse

A vendor rents sailboats, kayaks etc right in the park

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December 27, 2014 by Lee and Tracy

First Time on Jekyll Island

The day after Christmas we were excited to get on the road and hopefully into some warmer weather, but it took us a little longer than expected to finish packing in the morning. I guess we were out of practice being in one place for so long. (For someone with a master’s degree, she’s not very good at spelling “slept in and then lay around all morning like a slacker”. – Lee) We left around 9:50am but thought it would be fine since it was only a 5 hour travel day. Also we made Cori’s Traveling Day Shredded Pork (which is yummy and convenient as an “on the road lunch item”…see below for the recipe) so we were all set. Unfortunately I guess it was a travel day for a lot of other people because the traffic was terrible. I was really really surprised, because it was a Friday I thought for sure the roads would be light, but every time we got near a major city…Columbia, Charleston, and Savannah traffic really slowed down. We also saw several accidents…not due to weather as it was a gorgeous sunny day, just folks not paying attention I suppose. They were not minor accidents either as we saw two people put on stretchers. Anyway it took much much longer than expected to get to our campground in Brunswick, GA so we rolled in around 5pm. Yikes!! Long travel day but at least we had just enough time to get into the site before it got dark.

We are staying at the Golden Isles RV Park for a couple of nights because I wanted to see Jekyll Island. It’s not a great park, but it’s Passport America and only cost $17 a night plus it is close to everything we wanted to see. It’s not awful or anything, but it doesn’t have much in the way of redeeming qualities and the entire campground has this funky marsh smell. (This entire area has a funky marsh smell. Somewhere between rotten eggs and sewage. It’s really gross. – Lee) I thought it was the entire area, but once we get a little closer to the water the smell dissipates. (Her nose just got used to it.-Lee) Anyway, like I said, not a place I would stay for a week or anything but fine for a couple of cheap nights. (Fine for a couple of cheap nights. That’s how she ended up with me. Thank you, I’m here all weekend. Try the veal. – Lee)

We got up in the morning and went over to Jekyll Island. The Island is a State Park and survives mainly on self funding. It cost $6 per car for a day pass to get into the park which took us back a little, but it was absolutely worth it. There were minimal crowds and I really loved the island. Beautiful marsh areas and amazing huge beaches that we spent some time walking on. There are also some nice neighborhoods with normal houses in them (as opposed to mini-mansions) and there are beautiful bike paths absolutely everywhere. The first stop was the beach and we found a nice little access spot down near the soccer camp on the east side of the island. Posted signs reminded you it was a nesting area and asked to stay off the dunes which of course we did. It was absolutely beautiful and we took a lovely walk with some great pictures.

Entrance to Jekyll Island

Trees were growing out of the beach very cool

My sweetie pie. (Day 39, the seagulls still think I’m a seagull. They suspect nothing. – Lee)

After the beach we drove around the island a bit and stopped the Georgia Sea Turtle Research Center. I have loved sea turtles ever since getting to swim with one while scuba diving in Honduras and was thrilled to stumble across the research center. It was $7 per person, a very reasonable price, and had educational areas and the hospice area where the recuperating turtles live. (This is Georgia math, mind you. The sign said $7 per person, and they charged me $13.98. – Lee) Each turtle has an information sheet that says in detail what happened to it,and the plan for either its release into the wild or its permanent placement with an aquarium. They also have baby turtles and they watch nests and breeding areas closely in the summer months. I was happy to pay my $7 ($6.99 – Lee) to such a worthy cause and more than felt I got my money’s worth. The gift shop is evil though, with waaaay too many cute turtle things to buy. (If she had read all the little information plaques, she would have learned that sea turtles are rabid capitalists. – Lee)

Me at the sign

Skeleton of a prehistoric turtle very cool

Skeleton of a giant turtle very cool

The research assistants were very serious about their turtles

The babies were marked and were being weighed when we were there

This one was called the Pumpkin King which cracked me up. He’s almost ready to be released.

This poor little girl had her flipper caught in wire and had to have it amputated. She swims pretty good with three though. She was brought from Florida. (I had some funny stuff to say about a three-flippered sea turtle, but it seemed cruel, so I’m keeping it to myself. – Lee)

I bought this shirt because it made me think of DeDe, my mother-in-law

After the institute we went to the campground to check it out. Jekyll Island campground is in a terrific location, but unfortunately the sites are right on top of each other. It’s in a terrific location with bike paths that lead to absolutely everywhere on the island. The campsites cost $38 a night plus a $6 daily fee for parking which goes to the State Park. The monthly rates were much better at $550 a month off-season and $650 a month high season. I would definitely recommend the larger pull throughs D5, D6, and G21, G22, G23. I say larger but they are still very close to your neighbor. The campground has its own fenced in bird watching area though that I absolutely loved and again the location cannot be beat. (We cannot stress enough how close together these sites are. There were several places where the awning of one RV was within a few inches of the neighbor’s RV. For that kind of money, there should be some more separation. It’s a campground, not an airline.- Lee)

The bird watching area at the Jekyll Island campground. More campgrounds should have these…VERY cool. Then we went over to the historic part of the island and saw the Jekyll Island Club Hotel. From the late 1800’s to 1950 it was a private island owned by the club and you could only enter through one set of docks. There are lots of old “cottages” and a grand hotel and it was still decorated for Christmas. The Hotel was beautiful from the outside and we took more great pictures.

Jekyll Island Club Hotel

One of the many “cottages”

Waterfront

We talked about having lunch at the pier, but were good (Another typo. She misspelled broke and over-budget. – Lee) and drove back to the camper and had lunch there. After a quick break we went to St. Simons island which was MUCH more crowded and touristy. I preferred Jekyll’s Island but we did find two things from my Roadside America App . We found a bulldog covered with pennies promoting the local ASPCA and these wonderful carvings in trees which are supposed to be the spirits of dead sailors. The carvings were tough to find, but led us into a lovely little neighborhood tucked back in a corner.

Bull Dog covered with pennies for the Humane Society

Carvings in trees are throughout St. Simons island but hard to find

Sailor’s spirit carving in tree

Sailor’s spirit …this one was a bit creepy

One of the “cottages” tucked back in this neighborhood we found

Finally we went and saw the St. Simon’s Lighthouse and spent a few quiet moments on a side street pier.

Saint Simon’s Lighthouse

Taking a few quiet moments by the ocean

(I felt compelled to add this picture of the stairs that Trace is sitting at the top of. These stairs literally go down into the water. That seems odd to me. Georgia is a weird place that smells weird. I don’t like it. I’m going to Florida tomorrow. – Lee)

It was an absolutely beautiful day…sunny and 73 degrees, but I was a bit tired so we decided to come back to the camper. I would definitely like to come back to Jekyll Isle sometime later in our travels, but am looking forward to getting to Clearwater tomorrow and seeing our friends Kelly and Bill. Kelly is making dinner for us and she is an outstanding cook…so I can’t wait!!! (Also, we’ll be in Clearwater for like, 10 weeks, so if you are in the area, and aren’t weird, and don’t smell weird, send us a message. We’ll do a quick background check and see if we want you to take us to dinner or something in a very well lit, public place with lots of witnesses. – Lee)

P.S. Here’s Lee’s great egret pic. He got a little pouty that it didn’t make the blog and was only on the bird page 🙂

Great Egret

Cori’s Traveling Day Shredded Pork

3-4 lbs of pork
1-2 bottles BBQ sauce
Water

1. Put pork in a crock pot with some water and 1/3 bottle BBQ sauce for 4-5 hours

2. Drain grease

3. Shred pork and add remainder of one bottle of sauce. Add additional to consistency desired

4. Cook additional time as needed to soften pork

5. Serve on buns. Freezes well and heats very well in microwave.

y003

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November 20, 2014 by Lee and Tracy

First Time Freezing Up the Water Hose

We had a wonderful visit with our friends Cori and Greg and their awesome dog Hobie (cavachon). They have a really nice Class A and since our rig was frankly a god awful mess (filled with last-minute stuff), they were kind enough to let us hang at their place. They had my favorite bottle of wine, Honey Jack Daniels for Lee, and champagne on hand to celebrate our new life. We had so much fun, especially playing Cards Against Humanity, at which Lee totally demolished us all. To thank them for being so awesome we took them to lunch and ended up eating at this little diner where the movie the Blob was filmed many years ago. I guess the local movie theater recreates the scene from the movie every year where everyone comes running out screaming. The food was good, dessert was delicious, and the company beyond compare. We were so happy that we got to share our launch with such great friends..it made a wonderful experience even better.

The diner where the movie The Blob was filmed. Yummy desert!!

Because the drive was so crazy on Friday we decided to take our time with the remaining nine hours. We split it into two 5 hour trips..leaving very early in the morning and getting to our destination by 11:30. This was MUCH better. We used the walkie talkies, Lee mapped the route (including Flying J stops) in advance, and despite some heavy rain, it was much better. Plus getting at a campground and setting up in the daytime is of course way better than rolling in late at night and trying to set up in the dark. Our first stop was a Passport America Park called Stoney Creek RV Resort. For the low Passport America price of $19 we got a pull through site with water and 50 amp electric for the night. We had heard quite a bit about Passport America and since it’s pretty cheap, decided to give it a try. I was VERY happy with how easy it was to use. They have an app to look up the participating campgrounds and we had no issue at all getting the price. Definitely recommend it for those short stays..will let you know how it works down the road for longer ones. If you do decide to sign up please use our number C-650771 as a reference number and I think we will get some time added to our membership.

The campground was nice and had a nice man-made pond with a beach. It was well wooded, and had one of the best laundry rooms I’ve seen so far. The wifi was strong and I would definitely recommend it for a quick stay. They also had a really cool event room and it looks like this place would be a lot of fun in season, but this time of year it was pretty empty.

Stoney Creek RV Resort

I also took this picture of a tree trunk in the park, because I love nature sculptures and thought this was pretty neat. Please excuse the Dallas Cowboys trailer in the background. I was so excited by the tree I didn’t even notice that. Sorry my Texan friends but I am NOT a Dallas fan.

It was cold and rainy so we didn’t venture out much but Lee took advantage of the time to start with the organizing. Most of that will come when we get settled in South Carolina, but he had to do some of it so we could walk from one end of the coach to another 🙂 We knew it was going to be cold that night, but since it rained all day we didn’t think it would get that cold. So first thing in the morning we discovered our water hose was frozen and since we were traveling we didn’t put any water in the tank. So let me say we know better. We had talked this particular issue to death prior to going on the road and it was just stupid. Thankfully all it cost us was showers in the morning. Nothing burst and we had bottled water in the rig for brushing our teeth. I also had purchase some adult wipes which work ok for cleaning up in a pinch. Funny story, I have been carrying around these soap pads for over a year, don’t ask me why, in case we were in a situation with no water. So I am all proud of myself and I go pull them out and right on the package it says need water. Geez those are going in the trash.

So despite the chaos we got on the road and finally made it to Ebenezer Park in Rock Hill, South Carolina. The park ranger was so nice and it took awhile, but we backed into our site which has a beautiful view of the lake. Lots of pics in my next entry I promise. We deployed and then went to see my sister who lives about 15 minutes away. She is in the process of adopting a new baby, and although I can’t show you pics of him yet because the adoption isn’t finalized he is the most beautiful happy and fat baby on the planet!! Of course I am little biased, but he was amazing and I loved seeing my niece and nephews. Deb and Steve are due in tomorrow and are staying in the same campground so this should be a great week!

Lessons Learned

Disconnect your water hose from the faucet if you even think it might freeze overnight
Put some water in your fresh water tank if you think it will freeze so you can take a shower in the morning
Adult wipes work for cleaning up in a pinch
Passport America is a good deal

Stoney Creek RV Resort – Greenville, VA 3 out of 5 pine cones

Man made pond with beach, well wooded. Passport America location electric and water hookup only cost us $19 per night. Many pull through’s. Wifi. Small camp store and friendly staff. Multiple kids play areas and a terrific laundry facility. The bathrooms were clean, I didn’t see the showers. Definitely fine for an overnight stay and looks like it would be good for longer.

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