2016 Jekyll Island & Outer Banks Exploration

Sep. 8, 2016:  Prepping the trailer today for about a two week trip.  We are leaving tomorrow morning and will spend a couple of nights on Jekyll Island (we hope) and explore it, then head up to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for a few days of relaxation and exploration.  After that we may travel north up to the Blue Ridge area and/or go to Vogel State Park up in the mountains of North Georgia.  We camped there many, many years ago when the kids were little in our pop-up camper and spent a few days in a cabin several years ago.  It's a beautiful area and we hope to spend a couple of days or so.  Stayed tuned for further updates while we are on the road, depending on internet access.

Sep. 9, 2016:  We left home this morning at 10:15 AM for the fairly short 110 mile drive up to Jekyll Island. Not long after leaving we stopped at a Flying J just up I-95 a short way to fill up the truck with gas.  There were two huge motorhomes already at the pumps and wouldn't you know that the one I selected to get behind was also dumping his tanks, so we waited a good while for him to finally move on.  We drove up through Jacksonville, taking I-295 around the east side, then getting back on I-95 north.  It wasn't very far to where we turned off onto highway 17 at exit 29 in Georgia to go to Jekyll Island.  We also stopped at the Georgia welcome center and Jeri collected some information on Georgia.  While we were going through JAX she called the Jekyll Island Campground and made reservations for two nights, but there really was no need because there are lots of empty campsites here.  The mosquitoes were/are rather voracious!

After setting up camp (and fighting off the damn mosquitoes) we headed out in the truck and toured the island a bit, stopping at the museum (very interesting), getting the island tram times for tomorrow and went to the turtle rescue facility (also very interesting).

Our Bullet!

Our campsite (E6)

A Loggerhead turtle rehabilitating at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center

They keep the turtles until they are capable of surviving on their own in the sea.  If they can't be rehabilitated I guess they give them a permanent home.  There were over 3,500 turtle nest found and protected this year alone!  Very interesting place!

On the way back to the campsite we stopped at the store for a few things and Jeri fixed us some tasty nachos for dinner.  Yummy!!

Sep. 10, 2016:  Wow!  We really slept in this morning--did not get up until 9:30 AM.  Have I mentioned how sweet our bed is in the trailer?  Plushness!  After some toast and juice we went off to visit the Driftwood Beach and fishing pier.  Lots of folks catching crabs out of the creek, too. 

After Driftwood Beach we drove to the southern end of the island to go to Glory Beach, but it ended up being beside or behind the big soccer complex and it was quite busy, so we went to the Great Dunes Beach area.

Sea Oat close up

Sea Oats on the dunes

After the dunes we drove to the historic section and had lunch at Latitude '31 which is located on the historic wharf where all the rich tycoons of days long gone by moored their huge yachts.  The Morgans, Astors, Goulds, Rockefellers were just a few of the original 53 share owners who had yachts there.  See the history sign below.

Jeri & Bill at lunch at Latitude '31

Bill's Shrimp Poor Boy & a frozen Margarita! Yum!

Sign telling about the yacht owners and their big yachts at the old wharf.

Latitude '31 restaurant out on the old wharf.  Pretty good.

After a very filling lunch we went back to our trailer for a short rest before our scheduled and book tram tour of the old cottages (mansions) of the rich.

The tram tour was 90 minutes and was very interesting, as part of the tour we got to go inside two of the cottages (we were told we could not photograph inside them).  One can only imagine how life must have been at the Jekyll Island Club during the Club's heydays of 1886-1942, but primarily from the 1890's to the late 1930's.  It must have been something during the Winter months of January through March when the rich were there!  If you ever come to Jekyll Island I urge you to take one of these tours.  Only a few of the rich actually built their own cottages--most stayed in the Clubhouse and sadly, some of the cottages have been destroyed by fire and time.  This was definitely a place owned and run by the elite of the elite for the elite.  It was primarily built has a less formal social conclave and a hunting club.  All game taken was collected from the hunters and served in the dining room of the clubhouse where the members were required to eat.  Most of the cottages had no actual kitchen.  The state of Georgia owns all of Jekyll Island and while there are some 1,500 private homes here with people living in them they only own the home, not the land, which is leased longterm.

Here are some pictures.

Jeri ready for the tram tour

On the tram

The Struthers' cottage.  We got to go inside this one.

We also got to go inside this one, but I don't remember who built it.

This was actually the first condo--six different apartments.

The massive Jekyll Island Clubhouse (now a hotel)

Side and pool of the clubhouse (now hotel).  We may come back here and stay in the hotel one of these days, so we can add it to our list of old, classic, famous hotels we've stayed at (the Hotel Colorado in Glenwood Springs, CO and the El Tovar Hotel on the south rim of the Grand Canyon.

The Crane "cottage".  When the Club saw the plans for it Mr. Crane was told he had to tone it down because it was too ostentatious and did not fit in with the simpler style of the island, so instead of using imported marble floors he changed to wood floors.

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Crane cottage 

And here is a short video of the campground.

This evening we drove over to St. Simons Island, then on the way back stopped at a grocery store in Brunswick for a few supplies.

The bridge over the Brunswick River

St. Simons Lighthouse

Sep 11, 2016:  We broke camp on Jekyll Island and left at 9:50 AM, heading back to I-95 where we gassed up at a Flying J and north toward North Carolina.  The drive was uneventful and after a couple more Flying J gas/potty stops and lunch at a KFC we stopped for the night at a very famous location on I-95, literally right on the border of SC and NC, but in SC.  Can any of you maybe guess where we stopped for the night?  If you said, "Pedro's famous South of the Border," you would be correct.  We must have seen 100 billboards advertising it along I-95!  I think we were both surprised at the size of the entire complex, with all it's shops, restaurants, viewing tower, carnival rides, motel, campground, etc., etc., etc..  The campground is pretty nice and as I type this at 9:25 PM, it is very quiet.  

We asked one of the people working in a shop about the restaurants and he recommended The Peddler Steakhouse.  It is the only independently run restaurant in the complex.  We checked out reviews of the place on Trip Advisor and virtually all them them gave excellent reviews of the place, so we went there for dinner.  In a word, EXCELLENT!  It's a bit pricey, to be sure, but well worth it and when we are on our RV trips I like to treat Jeri (okay, me, too) to a nice restaurant dinner once in a while.  We both had the prime rib and it was superb.  The service was outstanding, too.  The only negative and it's only because we were in South Carolina, where the Bible Belt still rules on Sunday drinking, they could not serve any alcoholic beverages--but the sweet tea was very good.  LOL  This restaurant and the quality of their food and service seemed somewhat out of place for the touristy stuff at South of the Border.  Anyway, if you pass through here--check out The Peddler Steakhouse-I've already gave it a five star review on Trip Advisor.

Some pictures of the day.

We are the blue dot on the right side

Stopped at KFC for lunch--we eat in the trailer.

Our stop for the night.

We ran across this 27' big boy Great White--supposed to be real--HUGE!

The gorilla was NOT real. LOL

Our campsite last night at South of the Border campground

My prime rib at The Peddler Steakhouse.  Yummy!

Sep. 12, 2016:  We broke camp this morning and got on the road around 10:00 AM.  Part of the drive was kind of windy--not real fun when you are pulling the big 26' sail behind you called a travel trailer, but the truck handled it well and no big deal.  We got off I-95 onto US64 at Rocky Mount, NC and headed mostly east.  we drove over some long bridges that spanned the Alligator River, then the Crotan Sound into Roanoke Island (where the early colonists disappeared several centuries ago, the another bridge over the Roanoke Sound to the actual Outer Banks at Nagshead.  From there we took highway 12 south around 25 miles down to Rodanthe and the KOA Campground.

Here are some pictures.

Our campsite at the KOA is the blue dot.  That's the Atlantic Ocean on the right.

Some videos of our drive out to the Outer Banks (from Jeri)

Our campsite at KOA (#313)

Jeri's sea shell collection after her first walk on the beautiful beach.

Sep. 13, 2016:

Today we did some exploring of the island.  We drove up to the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kitty Hawk. One nice thing is that our Interagency Senior Pass got us in free! This place memorializes the historic first manned airplane flights by Orville and Wilbur Wright and has an excellent museum inside with many pictures and artifacts of their times at Kitty Hawk.  It even has an exact-sized replica of their first flight plane inside, along with portraits of people who committed "firsts" in aviation history around the walls.  Outside they have the flight line intact with large boulders marking where the take offs occurred and the distances of the first four manned flights.  Seemed the brothers alternated who flew the plane each flight.  Very interesting. They picked a lovely spot for their flights.  Some pictures.

The very large memorial on top of the hill.  There were paved trails up to and around the memorial, but we did not make the hike.

The memorial has both brothers' names on it.  In this close up the names can just barely be made out.

Me standing in front of the outdoor sculpture of the plane.  Very interesting.

Life-size replica of the plane inside the museum.

A park ranger was giving a talk to a crowd of tourists about the flights.  They are standing in front of the large boulder commemorating the take off point of the flights.  On the far right you can see a smaller boulder marking the end of the first flight, 120 feet.  On the far left is one of the buildings restored where the brothers built and serviced their planes.

The write boulder just left of center indicates where the fourth and longest flight landed.  800 feet and around one minute.  They flew at something like 30-35 miles per hour.

The two restored buildings.  The one of the left is where the brothers lived and the one on the right was their workshop.  On the right is the crowd in front of the take off boulder and rail.  Honestly, I did not mean to get the young lady on the left into the picture.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it. LOL

Markers for the four flights.  The closest being the 120' shortest and way toward the back is the longest of 800'.  One could only ponder the brothers' thoughts about the magnitude of what they had finally accomplished--manned flight!!  It was awesome just standing there thinking about it.

I was so excited about it I had to shake hands with one of the helpers!

Yea!!!!  They did it!  I got caught up in the their moment of accomplishment and greatness!

If you ever get to the Outer Banks, make sure you go visit this national monument in Kitty Hawk.  Well worth exploring!!

On the way back to Rodanthe and our KOA campground we stopped by the pier in Nagshead for a while to browse around then stopped again further south at the Bodie Island Light Station.

Jeri at the lighthouse.

Lighthouse keeper's living quarters.

Bodie Island lighthouse

After getting back to the KOA campground Jeri decided we should go to the beach for awhile.  It was only a couple of minutes walk from our campsite.

Jeri at the beach.  By the way, the Atlantic Ocean beaches here are very huge and very nice.

I took this selfie just to prove that I was at the beach--note cocktail! LOL

Sep. 14, 2016:  This morning we drove way down south as far as we could go on the island  and that was to the ferry going to Ocracoke Island in Hatteras. We might have taken the ferry over, but there were huge lines of vehicles waiting for the ferry, so we decided not to try it.  We did stop at the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.  It had a gift shop and was quite crowded with tourists.  I bought a cap.  At most really neat places we go I tend to buy either a cap or a T-shirt.  My favorite cap is the one I got at Devil's Tower in Wyoming and it's beginning to show how much I wear it.  :-)  We stopped at a Food Lion grocery store in Avon, the closest one to the KOA campground (17 miles away) and picked up a few grocery items. 

The Cape Hatteras lighthouse.  The large boulders in the front serve as seats and each one of them has the names of the lighthouse keepers and the years they served here.  This was the most crowded of all the lighthouses we visited.

That evening we drove all the way up north to Duck to go on an adventure tour Jeri had booked us on to find the famous wild horses of the Outer Banks.  It was fun. We rode in the back seat of a Humvee that was all open on the sides and back.

Here we are in the backseat of the Humvee.  These have been specially modified with three sets of seats, each holding four people.  I've ridden in Hummers before out West and it is amazing what these things can do!  They turn on a dime!  I'm not sure but it seemed like the back wheels also assisted in the sharp turns.

Our driver was a young woman named "KC" and she did a great job of driving and explaining about the wild horses.  For example, there are 81 of them and the mares (females) are given birth control so that only a few colts are born each year.  We were stopped on the beach and she was telling all about them, when I looked beyond her and spotted the wild horses coming down from the dunes toward the ocean.  Wow!!

Wow!  There they are!  They were really quite beautiful and healthy looking.

They walked right down the beach, mostly just ignoring all the people. There are regulations that call for people to remain at least 50' from the horses at all times so as not to bother the horses, but a lot of people ignored it.  Our guide did her best to keep us, her charges, in line with the regulation (the guide company can get $500 if any of their tourists get too close).  Jeri got out of the Hummer with her good camera to get better pictures, but I stayed in the vehicle.  (BTW, the lady in the edge of my pictures is not Jeri.)

 We spent quite a bit of time watching them, then KC rounded everyone up and back into the Hummer and we continued on the exploration of this part of the island looking for another family group of horses, although we never found them.  She was slicing and dicing around the bushes and sand as we went over the dunes into the interior of the island.  It is very narrow through here.  We ended up at a lovely high spot overlooking the Sound to the west.  The sun was setting gloriously as we headed back to where we had departed on the tour.

This is Jeri.

I somehow managed to mess up the focus on my iPhone's camera and didn't realize it until later. So this picture is quite blurred, but at least gives an idea of how beautiful the sunset was.  

It was some 40-50 miles back to our campsite and it took around an hour and a half.  We had planned to stop for dinner at this really nice restaurant, but it was getting pretty late, so we didn't stop.  While from Duck down to Nagshead is practically wall to wall commercial stuff, from Nagshead down to our KOA in Rodanthe there is virtually nothing but road and sand and it was pretty neat driving it after dark.  Almost kind of spooky.  Sorry, but we failed to take a picture.

Sep. 15, 2016:  We loaded up and said goodbye to the Outer Banks late this morning and headed west across North Carolina toward Asheville and the North Georgia mountains, hoping to get a campsite this weekend for Vogel State Park in the North GA mountains.  We camped there many years ago when the kids were little in our little Starcraft pop-up trailer and we spend a couple of nights in one of the cabins there several years ago.  I visited it a couple of years ago when up there on a motorcycle trip, but didn't camp there.  It's my favorite state park anywhere.  It sits at the base of Blood Mountain and the Appalachian Trail passes nearby.  Many years ago, I spent a lot of time in the North GA mountains with friends and family and backpacked, over multiple trips much of the AT in Georgia.  It runs from Springer Mountain in north GA all the way up to Mount Katahdin in Maine, over 2,000 miles away.

Stopped for a lunch break at a rest area not too far west of the Outer Banks.

We took mostly non-interstate highways (US64 and US264 west to I-40 west near Raleigh, then I-40 west toward Greensboro, NC. Fairly heavy traffic as we went around Raleigh/Durham, but for the most part a fairly nice drive today.  We stopped for the night at a KOA just east of Greensboro. (If I haven't explained it before, we have a KOA Value Card and get a discount at all KOAs.  Some are really nice and some aren't quite as nice, but on the whole they usually have everything like full hookups, etc..)

The Greensboro KOA

The view out of our back window at the Greensboro KOA

Spaghetti, Italian sausage and a salad for dinner.  Jeri is awesome in the galley!

Interesting fire!  We bought this block of wood at the KOA store.  It had a large hole drilled down from the center vertically, then another coming in from the side.  A piece of fat wood was inside it.  You light the fat wood and stick it in the vertical hole and wah-la, instant fire.  I had my doubts, but it worked great, although not a very pretty fire.  It burned for almost four hours!

Jeri finally getting her groove on with marshmallows. 

We had a peaceful, quiet night here.  This KOA is very close to I-40 though and it's pretty heavily travelled at all times, so we did get some traffic noise all night.  Really didn't hear it much except when the trailer's air conditioner would cycle off.  

Sep. 16, 2016:  We got a fairly early start out this morning, but I checked our propane and found one tank had finally run out and when we stopped at the KOA office to get it filled (they about always fill propane tanks at KOAs) there was a sign on the store saying it would not open until 10:00 AM!!  Not a big deal, since there are lots of places on the road to get propane.  As we were about to leave a KOA worker noticed we were there at the propane tank and came to our rescue and filled our tank.  After putting the tank back on and paying him we got back on I-40 and headed west toward Asheville.

This was a fairly pretty drive today.  We thought about stopping and touring the famous Biltmore estate, but finally decided it would take too long and continued on.  After Winston-Salem I-40 took us more southwest toward Asheville. A few miles west of Asheville we got off I-40 and just before I-40 swung back to the north we got off onto US74 and US23 and headed more southwest down toward Franklin, NC.  We stopped at Waynesville, NC for our only Walmart visit of the trip (a rarity) and Jeri picked up a few things we needed.  Then it was onto US64.  We stopped at an RV park kind of out in the middle of the mountains a few miles north of Franklin, NC called the Great Outdoors RV Resort for the night.  Nice place.  It rained a bit, but we did some laundry and had a quiet night.

We drove over some really steep up and down grades through the mountains today, a couple of times, as this picture shows we were in the clouds and visibility was not very good.  Most of the time on these we would just stay behind a semi and let them lead the way.

The blue dot is our campsite (#38)

View out our rear trailer window.

View out our dining window.  This was actually a pretty place and the staff was very friendly.

One of the reasons we stopped here was because we could not get a campsite at Vogel State Park in Georgia until the next day (Saturday).  We are not very far from Vogel at this point so tomorrow should be a short travel day.

Sep. 17, 2016:  Before breaking camp this morning I used the full hookups at our campsite to dump both our gray and black tanks.  We re-prepped them, then got back on the road, heading south toward Georgia and Vogel State Park.

Some pretty flowers along the highway--we were moving so they're blurred.

More pretty wildflowers along the road.

Pretty drive, but with lots of fairly steep grades up and down.  Our rig handled it all easily.

We pulled into Vogel State Park around 1:00 PM.

Pulling into Vogel.  Nice!

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2016 Land of Lincoln & the Centennial State Tour

June 16, 2016:  Yep, we are about to be on the road again on a major RV trip.

Trip preview:  Our plan for this trip is to travel north to Illinois to meet our Great-Granddaughter for the first time, as well as visiting our oldest son and family, Bill's sister and visit our farm to see how things are going.  After a few days there we will head West to Colorado to visit two more sons and our Granddaughter out there.  We have no other set plan, no camping reservations made or even determined for sure how long the trip will be or where else we may go, although possibilities include UT and AZ.  

Yep, we will be free spirits--wandering where the road takes us. I hope you will come along.  We are planning to do something new that we recently learned about--we plan to do some Facebook Live events.  They may or may not be planned/announced ahead of time, so keep watching for us.  I also plan to do more videos for this blog than we normally do, too.

Our plan is to bring the new trailer home from storage Saturday, June 18, and get it ready for the trip, stocked, etc., and leave for IL Tuesday, June 21.  We plan a leisurely three day trip up to IL.  

I do need to mount a new power outlet in the trailer.  This one has three functions: 1) a 12vdc power socket (like the old cigarette lighter sockets), 2) a double USB charging port, and 3) a digital voltmeter to keep track of our onboard 12 volt batteries charge level.  I have decided to mount this into a piece of paneling to the right of the onboard entertainment center.  It will require cutting four one inch holes in the panel to mount it and a power switch properly, then running wires down to the 12 volt fuse panel located about three feet down.  Here's a couple of pictures of the new outlet set.

The new power panel and switch I need to mount in the trailer.

I've already made up the wiring harness for the new panel.

Further updates, soon.

Mount Dora Visit

May 25, 2016:  On this RV outing we are visiting Mount Dora, FL and will be taking my wife's sister, Claudia, along with us.  We also plan to visit their cousins up in The Villages because Claudia has never been there.

Yesterday evening Jeri and I took a load of things we will need on the trip to the camper at our storage facility.  We also turned the reefer on to run on LPG so it would be cooled down by morning, after asking the young lady working at the storage facility if it was okay.  She said it was okay.

This morning Claudia got over to the house pretty early and we finished loading up reefer items and the rest of the clothes, etc., we will need. We drove up to storage and Jeri and Claudia loaded the trailer and prepared the inside for travel while I hooked up and got the outside ready to tow.

We got on the road several minutes before 10:00 AM, taking the back roads down to Tavares, FL where Jeri had tentatively booked a campsite at Fisherman's Cove RV Resort.  Upon arriving there we checked in and Jeri paid for the site using our Passport America 50% discount as this campground is affiliated with PA-AM.  

[Rant] We drove to our assigned spot and to say it was crappy is an understatement.  It was in the older, more residential-type and rundown section of the campground.   We went back to the office and were reassigned to another campsite we did not like.  We went back to the office again and this time the woman working there got kind of nasty with Jeri and when Jeri told her we were not going to stay, she refused to give any refund at all (and keep in mind that we had not even pulled into any of the sites!).  There were lots of really nice sites open, too, and the woman offered to put us in one of those for THREE TIMES THE PRICE!  We left and found another campground in Mount Dora.

Fisherman's Cove has a really slick web site and bills themselves as a "luxury RV resort" and they did have a lot of sites up on the hill that were really nice, but kept assigning us to the older, more rundown section--most probably because we were getting the PA-AM discount, but still very bad business ethics on their part.  It seems to me like this place is using PA-AM discounts to lure people in, then trying to up sell (or in my opinion, the old bait and switch routine).  [End Rant]

Here is where we ended up staying.  Very much a residential RV park, but very quiet, peaceful and shady.

After settling into another campground I wrote scathing reviews on Trip Advisor and Allstays and sent Passport America an email complaining about it (I heard back from them the same day, saying they would look into it.).

The girls went for a swim in the pool while I was doing all of this and after evening cocktails we grilled steak and baked potatoes for dinner.  Then watched a movie before going to bed.

Site #62

May 26, 2016:  We had a nice breakfast this morning, then around 1:00 PM we drove around 45 minutes or so up to The Villages to hook up with Jeri's and Claudia's cousin, Paul Cuyler and his wife Jan.  The have a beautiful full-time home there and were great hosts.  They took us on a tour, by golf cart, of The Villages, then we all went to the Sumter Landing square for a cocktail and live entertainment (pretty good, too).

We arrived back at the trailer around 7:00 PM and the girls went to the pool for a while, then we grilled pork chops for dinner and a spent a quiet evening at our campsite.

Jeri (left) & Claudia enjoying coffee

 May 27, 2016:  After knocking around our site enjoying coffee and conversation this morning we drove over to downtown Mount Dora and had a great lunch at the Lost Parrot. The girls stayed to explore and I came back to the RV to work on this blog.  Mount Dora's downtown was a neat place--hopefully the pictures below will convey that.  It was full of artsy stores and restaurants and there was a lot of activity going on with people walking around, eating, shopping, etc.  Cool place!

Jeri (right) & Claudia in downtown Mount Dora, FL

Cool street corner signs showing where things are located--very handy, too.

Lunch at the Lost Parrot -- thank you Claudia!  It was really good!

I will let Jeri and Claudia explain the place a bit, as only they can do. ;-)

Video in Mount Dora downtown

I went back to the trailer and left the girls in downtown Mount Dora to shop, look for artsy stuff and have a good time together.  (I understand they bought some really nice formal dresses , etc., to wear on the upcoming "Cousins Cruise" in November.)  It was only 10 minutes each way.  When they called I went and picked them up.  Since we had all had a large lunch we did not cook a real dinner, but Jeri made nachos and we ate those and watched a movie before going to bed.

May 28, 2016:  We got up this morning and enjoyed coffee and English Muffins as we slowly began breaking camp to head home, leaving around 11:30 AM for the short drive back.  We stopped at the Essex House in Astor and while I did my normal walk around to check the trailer, hitch, etc., Jeri and Claudia went in and bought lunch for us.  I had my usual fried clam strips and a few fried shrimp.  Jeri and Claudia had fried scallops.  Everything was delicious!  We got back to the storage facility around 2:00 PM, unloaded the reefer and went home.  (Jeri and I went back the next day to finish wiping out the reefer and getting the rest of the stuff that we do not normally leave in the trailer.

Epilogue:  While where we camped was more like setting the trailer up in a mobile home park than a campground, the primary purposes of this trip were to get Claudia out and diverted a little bit from her husband's recent passing, go to The Villages to see Paul and Jan, and so we could see what Mount Dora was like.  Jeri also noticed that Fisherman's Cove RV Resort had, in fact, put a charge on our credit card for $67, so she called the credit card company and disputed the charge--we will have to wait and see what the outcome of this is, I guess.

Forgotten Coast Getaway

Saturday, 4/30/2016:  Whew! I spent most of the day installing a new Blue Ox Sway Pro hitch on the F150 and the Bullet.  Was it ever hot doing that out in the sun on a huge concrete pad at the new storage place in 90 degree weather!  I think I spent more time sitting the cab of the truck enjoying the A/C, but I got it done, then did several miles on I-95 to test it.  Worked great!  Hallelujah, 'cause it cost a bunch!  And on top of that I had to order a 3/4" drive 2' breaker bar and a couple of 3/4" drive sockets--boy those things are massive, but I got the ball nut TIGHT; well, not to the 450 lb ft they call for, but it ain't going anywhere anytime soon!

Then after getting home and taking the hitch back off the truck we decided to go RV'ing for a few days.  Jeri found us three nights at the Coast Line RV Resort (5 Star) over on the Forgotten Coast of Florida.  Now if you are wondering where the Forgotten Coast is I'll tell you--it is the Gulf Coast on the Florida Panhandle, kind of centered around Apalachicola and Carrabelle, FL.  We really like this area and have been there a couple of times with the Coleman, but this trip will be the first time with the new Bullet.  Coast Line RV Resort is just east of East Point, FL.

We are also doing something different this time in preparing.  Normally we bring the trailer home and prep it here, but this time we are doing it at the storage facility, so we took some food and clothes to the Bullet this evening and powered up the reefer on propane so it will be cold by morning.  We will stock it then and hook up and head out.  When we got back home I re-installed the Blue Ox hitch on the truck.  Busy day!  This is going to be a nice break.

Sunday, 5/1/2016:  We loaded up the truck with cold stuff for the reefer and other last minute odds and ends, drove to our trailer at the storage place, loaded it up and hitched the trailer to the truck.  I think we got on the road right around 10:00 AM.

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The new Blue Ox Sway Pro hitch hooked up--Easy & Fast!!

We had an uneventful drive up I-95 to Jacksonville, then headed west on I-10.  We topped up the gas tank in the truck at a Pilot station west of JAX, getting the $0.07 per gallon discount and later stopped at a rest area on I-10 to take a break.  We had a couple from Tennessee pulling a smaller Bullet Premier travel trailer pull in near us and they came over for a chat and Jeri showed them through our trailer and we took a look into theirs.  Nice folks.

We got to the RV resort on highway 98 around 3:30-4:00 PM and set up the trailer without any problem.  I really like the new Blue Ox Sway Pro hitch and believe I have it set up pretty much perfect.  The rig (truck, hitch and trailer) seem to have been made for each other and we drove with total confidence.  That's a great feeling!  We looked around the campground a bit, then drove a mile or so west on 98 into East Point to pick up a couple of things, then went to dinner at a place a local had suggested when I asked.  It was called the Red Pirate and is on the south side of 98 just west of the road (highway 300) that crosses the bay over to St. George.  We had some very good raw oysters on the half-shell, then shared a fried seafood platter of grouper, shrimp, scallops and oysters.  Very good!

View from our campsite

After dinner we went back to camp and chilled for the rest of the evening until time to go to bed.  We are really enjoying the trailer so far.

Monday, 5/2/2016:  After coffee and a toasted bagel we drove over to St. George Island, purchased a new beach umbrella, since we had forgot to bring ours, then went to the beach for a couple of hours.  Jeri had packed us a light lunch and we enjoyed that.  There were a lot of people at the beach.  It was enjoyable.  After we got back to the trailer Jeri went to enjoy the resort pool for awhile while I hooked up the "stinky slinky" and walked the dog.

Ah--life is good!

Monday evening we grilled pork chops and chicken for a very good dinner and mostly just relaxed watching some TV, etc., before going to bed.

Our Bullet from the dock across highway 98.

Tuesday, 5/3/2016:  This morning we kicked around spending either another night here or finding someplace between here and home instead of just going straight home tomorrow.  For a couple of reasons we decided we needed to get home as planned.

We installed our RV camping states map on the outside of the trailer just below the kitchen window and put decals of all the states we have camped in our RVs on it.

RV camping states map--we will add more states as we RV camp in them.

We drove east to Carrabelle, FL to Millander's Seafood market and bought some fresh seafood, some to grill here tonight and most to take home.  On the way we stopped at the Carrabelle Beach and let Sugar Belle play a bit.  Getting back to the trailer we had a bit of lunch then went to the pool.  Big mistake on my part!  I was waste deep in the pool when I realized my iPhone 6 was still in my pocket!!!  I swear it was not submerged more than about 30 seconds, but it was dead as a doornail.  I pulled it out of the minimal case I use on it and dried it off, but no luck.  It got very hot, then starting vibrating like crazy before croaking totally.  Fortunately, we have Applecare+, so after getting on the phone with Apple I have a replacement iPhone 6 arriving at my home on Thursday for a a very reasonable amount of $79.95, plus $29.95 for the overnight shipping.  Unfortunately, it looks like I've lost all the pictures I had taken of this trip, but will get some from Jeri for this blog post.

This evening after sundowners we grilled Cobia, rock lobster tails, a small steak and some shrimp.  Yum!!  It rained a bit, lightly, this evening.  Relaxing evening, with Jeri reading a book and me working on this blog.  Tomorrow morning we dump and flush tanks, break down, hitch up and head home in the morning.  Busy day ahead.

I love cooking on my little Weber!

Steak, Shrimp, Cobia & Rock Lobster Tails on the Weber--Yum!!

Wednesday, 5/4/2016:  Got up early this morning, had some breakfast, then dumped and flushed the tanks before hooking up and getting back on the road for home around 10:10 AM, arriving home around 4:00 PM.  Good drive back.  Love the new hitch!  Good weather until we got just south of Jacksonville where we ran into rain.  No worries, but arriving home and backing the trailer into the driveway turned out to be a fiasco.  We were totally blocking our street for several minutes and had a few cars backed up (probably enjoying the show).  And to make matters worse, Jeri and I had a miscommunication and I backed the trailer into the gutter on the front of the house, denting it and putting a very small crease in the corner moulding of the trailer--nothing serious, though.  But we did finally get it where we wanted it.  Due to pouring rain and a thunderstorm we held off cleaning our stuff out of the trailer until Thursday.

Note:  There are no pictures of Jeri in this post because while I took several, they were all lost when I killed my iPhone it seems.

Epilogue/Final Thoughts:  We really like the Coast Line RV Resort and will probably stay there again, but only if we can get into the tier 1 sites (sites 1-5), since they are back in and would put our huge rear living window facing the gulf.  We are really liking our new Bullet.  The F150 and Bullet, coupled by the new Blue Ox Sway Pro hitch seem to be a perfect match for each other and us.  

We covered around 600 miles this trip.

Fed Ex came at 12:05 PM (wouldn't you know it--every other time they come after 5:00 PM) with my new iPhone, but didn't leave it because a signature was required.  Supposed to retry the delivery on Thursday.  Hope so.

We are now looking to get a topper for our slide out to prevent water, leaves, limbs and other debris from collecting on the roof of the slide out and damaging the seals or being brought inside the trailer.

Another RV trip is in the books and Jeri and I both agree we had a great time!  Now, I need to clean the Love Bugs off the front of the trailer--yep, it's May in Florida and that means it is Love Bug season!  Drat!

Our new Bullet Shakedown Trip

We needed to take a shakedown trip in our brand new, unproven Keystone Bullet Ultra-lite 269RLS (the RLS stands for Rear Living area and Slide) travel trailer (previously described in the last post). So, three days after getting it home and loaded up, we headed out for the Wilderness RV Park a few miles east of Silver Springs, FL and around 60 miles from home. It's always wise to take a short trip not too far from home with a new trailer to test all the systems, see how it handles loaded behind the tow vehicle and generally if there are initial problems you don't want them to occur far from home.  (For example, on our maiden trip with the new Coleman last year we went 12 miles up the road from home, of course that was our first trip ever with a travel trailer.)

We got everything ready to go, reefer loaded and quickly hooked the truck to the trailer.  Since the new trailer takes up a lot more of our driveway, when the truck and trailer are joined the truck takes up half the road in front of our house, so we cannot dilly dally when doing this.

We got on the road around 11:00 AM and headed south on highway 11, then west on 40 toward Silver Springs.  We stopped at the Essex seafood restaurant between Barberville and Astor Park for lunch.  I stayed in the truck with Sugar Belle while Jeri went inside for "to-go" lunches.  While waiting (and every time we ever stop for any reason) I always walk around the rig and check everything out.  Always a good idea to do this.

Stopped at Essex Seafood

The food was delicious.  Jeri got three different "boats" (seafood and a side): Shrimp, Scallops and Clam Strips (all fried, of course), along with onion rings, cole slaw and french fries.  Everything was really, really good!  After eating we got back on the road.

We arrived at the campground in the early afternoon and Jeri got us checked in and a worker led us to our campsite in a golf cart.  We had to make a really sharp left turn, but got it done after the lady in the trailer on the corner came out and moved her chain post.  I think I did manage to sort of cut through her grass, but hey, that's the way they led me, so not much I could do about it.  We had made this same left turn in this same RV park last year in with our Coleman without any problem at all, but the axles on the trailer are further back on the bigger trailer so my turning radius is a bit longer.

We ended up being assigned to campsite #35, the exact same campsite we were in last year.  What a coincidence!  It's a good site, though.

Our campsite (#35) at Wilderness RV Park

As you can see this is not a woodsy, roomy, very private campsite, but we knew it would be that way because we had been here last year.  The idea of this trip, as previously stated, is to check out towing and all the systems on the trailer under actual use.

I earned a beer after setting up the trailer in the campsite.

This RV park has a small restaurant and it was pretty good when we had breakfast there  one morning last year, but we did not eat there this trip.  They also have a small store where they make and sell "world-famous" Whoopie Pies.  We got some last year and they are pretty good, but we did not buy any this trip.  The park also has a very nice, large dog run where dogs can run freely off the leash.  Our Sugar Belle loved it!

Oh, yeah!!  Running free...

Thank you, Mommy, I love this!

After a pleasant Friday night, we got up to a beautiful, clear morning Saturday.  Vicki and the boys came over to spend the day and night and Jeri and they went to the Silver Springs State Park to have a glass bottom boat ride and see the springs while Sugar and I hung around camp and went for a walk.

Walking the dog--watch out for gators!

Don't worry, Daddy, I'm watching for cars...

We grilled chicken, a cheeseburger for Jack and shrimp for dinner.  Yummy!

Grillmeister hard at work with the Weber.

Vicki and the boys headed back home Sunday because Jack had school Monday.  The trailer slept the five us us pretty good.  I'm very happy with the separate master bedroom! ;-)

A beautiful Florida sunset at the campground

Jeri and I broke camp Sunday morning after a quiet evening and headed home, stopping at Essex Seafood again for lunch.  One of Jeri's cousin's husbands, Bill, had come to Florida while were camping and was staying at our house.  

We made three different trips to the Walmart in Silver Springs over the course of the three days of our trip.  LOL  We bought various things we needed for the trailer, like another new curtain rod and curtain that I put up while we were there, as well as additional stick-on hooks to hang stuff on.  The truck and trailer both worked great--the new trailer proving itself as a great new addition that we are going to really like traveling with and camping in.

Epilogue:  After arriving home we pretty quickly unloaded the reefer and other stuff we don't leave in the trailer all the time and cleaned it at bit.  The next morning I checked the torque on the trailer wheels (all good) put some air in the tires and we took it to the storage place.  Since then I have ordered a new battery disconnect switch and wiring so I can add that to the trailer and am close to making a final decision on which new hitch to get.

Our New 2016 Keystone Bullet 269RLS Travel Trailer

On Wednesday, 4/6/16 we towed our wonderful little Coleman 192RDS, 19' box, 23' overall, up to the Jacksonville, FL Camping World.  We had spent the previous day and a half, with the trailer at home, stripping many of the additions we had made to it off, so we could use them on the new trailer.  Some things we left on the Coleman, of course.

Last time towing our great, but little Coleman 192RDS trailer.

A couple of hours or so later, we pulled our brand new Keystone Bullet Ultra-Lite 269RLS, a 26' box and 31' overall home.  The dealer had to switch some weight distribution hitch stuff from the Coleman to the Bullet and we had them switch the really nice new bed we had bought in Texas from the Coleman to the Bullet.  They also gave us a complete walk-thru inside and out, showing us that everything worked and how to work everything.  Very thorough job by Chris.  And of course, we had to sign a raft of paperwork and pay them for the new trailer.

Hooked up to the new trailer at Camping World in JAX

Good looking rig!

Pulled out into their parking lot just before heading home for our first pull of the new Bullet.

After pulling several miles we stopped at a rest area to check things out--the rig was pulling pretty well in spite of some pretty strong wind gusts.

In our driveway so we can start loading it up with stuff. 

Believe it or not, but we backed the new, longer trailer into just where we wanted it in our driveway on the first try!

The Super Slide has the dinette and try-fold sofa--this really adds to the space inside!

Sugar Belle checking out her new home-away-from-home.  She approved after a while...  The super slide is open in this picture (on the left).

We had a couple of trim pieces pop loose during the pull home, but I fixed the issues the next day with some good glue and paneling nails.  We also found a couple of minor scratches we had not seen before and Jeri fixed those pretty easily (and quickly).  

We immediately started moving stuff we had taken out of the Coleman into the new trailer to get it ready for a "shakedown" camping trip (next post).  I also did some mechanical checking, i.e., tire air pressures.  The trailer came with a mount on the back bumper for the included "Aussie" grill.  I removed the mount since Jeri bought me a wonderful little Weber Q1200 for my birthday and it's a better grill and I plan to sell the Aussie.  BTW, if you are in the market for a smaller-type grill I highly recommend the Q1200.

We decided to leave Friday, 4/8/16, for a three-night shakedown trip to the Wilderness RV Park located just a few miles east of Silver Springs, FL and about 60 miles or so from home.  This would give us a good idea how the loaded trailer was going to handle behind our F150 Ecoboost Platinum 4x4 and how well the trailer systems were going to work in actual use.