Our Travel Blog

This years weather, like just about everywhere, is not the best. Overcast but still warm this morning. After breakfast the sewing machine came out for Lyn’s work, and I started playing around with the rear camera radio setup. I managed to get all the connectors soldered, and put power to the system using an old camera. Amazingly, it worked. All that is left to do now is to order a weatherproof camera for the trailer. That will finish the trailer install, then I’ll have to do some work on the truck to install the monitor

After lunch the drizzle started, but then let up so we decided to go for a drive and do some geocaching, unfortunately about 5 minutes into the drive the rain got heavier, so we decided to head back to the trailer.

I had to return a purchase from eBay, so I needed to do some research on how to send a parcel down here. It turns out to be simple, and cheap. You go to the post office and pick up a box of the size that you need, in my case it was a small box and the cost was $5.80. For this price I could send anything that would fit in the box, as long as it weighed less than 70lbs, to anywhere in the continental US. This price included internet tracking. Take note Canada Post.

We have the possibility of severe thunderstorms tonight and tomorrow, so I don’t see us doing much travel for a couple of days.

Clear blue skies and warm this morning. We decided to spend the day at the resort, can’t be going out every day!

Lyn was doing her sewing stuff, and I started on a project that will eventually see a few modifications to the rear of the trailer. I want to put a rear view camera on the trailer, as starting next year we plan on driving a lot more, and I just feel happier if I can see stuff directly behind me. Also I’d like to put a couple of weatherproof connection boxes on the back so that I can connect antennas to them rather than poke the wires through little gaps in the sliders.

Today I started on running power to the area where the camera will be mounted. The plan is to use a wireless connection from the camera to a receiver in the truck. I tried it a while ago, but used an el-cheapo radio setup. It worked intermittently, but wasn’t usable. With better equipment now, I am hoping it will work better. The wiring went well, so that is stage one completed.

After lunch it was time to drain the septic tank, unfortunately when I was back-flushing it with fresh water I decided to make a phone call,  the call went on longer than expected. Do you know what happens if you leave the back-flush running too long? Well unless your favourite colour is brown, you probably don’t really want to know.

We walked around the park for a mile to get our daily exercise, and then this evening we headed over to the clubhouse for the Friday evening jam session. It was better attended than previous years with about 9 people playing. Good entertainment!

After a cool night we woke up to clear blue skies, with the forecast of 18°C.

After breakfast we did our usual stuff for a while, then I headed out for some fresh air and cleaned up some more chrome on the truck, unfortunately the wind was a little cool so I didn’t last too long out there.

For the last few days I seem to have developed an allergy to something , probably pollen or the like. I haven’t had this problem before, and don’t really like it! I have been using non drowsy antihistamines but although they seem to improve things, I am not sure about the non-drowsy bit.

After lunch we headed out to the village of Magnolia Springs for a walk and some geocaching. On the way there we went to a geocache that was located in someones front yard. The front yard was Wizard of Oz themed, and the cache was inside Tin Man.

We parked in the middle of the village and went looking for caches. Magnolia springs is named after the fresh water springs that feed into the Magnolia River. Below is the River.

If you look carefully at the picture above you may see something that makes this village unique.

Zoomed in, you will see a mail box on the dock, this is the only place in the continental US that has mail delivered by boat!

In total we found 4 caches and got 2 miles of walking in.

Warm and overcast at wake-up time, the forecast didn’t call for rain but it did look a little threatening. After breakfast we got ready to leave as we were heading off to the Dolphin Cruise today.

We have done this cruise 3 out of the 4 trips down here and have enjoyed it each time. We misjudged the timing a little and got there about 10 minutes before departure (should have been 15-20 minutes before). The cruise was arranged through the resort and we had one boat to ourselves. There was a second boat for the rest of the passengers, which was good news, as two boats are better than one in this case. As I have mentioned before, with two boats they form up in parallel and as they pick up speed their two wakes interact making the perfect dolphin playground. Sure enough after a couple of minutes mum and kid come out to play, swimming in the wake and jumping. A third dolphin joined them after a few minutes. During the 1½ hour trip we did this three times. Evidently there are three reasons the dolphins enjoy this:

1.They like to play

2. The wake gives them extra speed to get from A to B

3.  It’s a way of washing! The dolphins often come out of the water and land sideways rather than the more elegant nose first entry. By landing sideways any build up on their skin is “scraped” off.

Being “veterans” of this trip we have learnt that the best seats in the boat are at the stern, most people instinctively head for the bow, so yet again we got our favourite spot. This time, at Lyn’s suggestion, I didn’t take any photos as we had a number from previous trips. This way I got to see the “whole picture” rather than spending my time trying to get the “perfect shot”.

Some previous shots.

After the cruise we had a shrimp lunch at the waterside restaurant.

As we drove back to the resort we stopped at a couple of geocache sites. One was a cache that we didn’t find a couple of days ago, but after a little research Lyn figured their was something out of place at the site; a cable TV connection. The cache log was actually installed inside the cable TV connector! The other cache was not found, all though there were signs that it had been removed.

Back at the resort we walked around the sites for about a mile. After that we had a call from Catriona, who wasn’t too amused with the fact that there was yet another snow storm outside. We mentioned that it was warm here, but the grass was still brown. Catriona said she couldn’t remember what grass looked like, well for you guys up north here is a reminder.

Got Diesel

Got Shopping

Got Wet

Tomorrow should be a little more interesting

Woke up to blue skies and sunshine. This weather remained throughout the day with the temperature climbing to 24°C.

After breakfast Lyn settled down to some quilting, and I settled down to get the last of my e-Bay shopping done, after yesterdays deep thinking about tidying up the electronic wiring in the trailer, I ordered a few things to achieve that. I also ordered some new headlight parts for the car. One more set of ordering to do, and that is for some geocaching stuff. Once we get home I want to put together a few caches of my own in the local area.

Once that was done I went outside to enjoy the warmth and sun, as usual I get bored doing nothing so I decided to clean some of the chrome up on the truck.

After lunch we headed out to do some walking and geocaching. We went about 5 miles East of here towards Graham Creek Nature Reserve. We picked up a few geocaches on the way, and in the end we were 7 for 7.

As we walked around the reserve we saw some signs that said things like Par 3 290ft, which suggested a (very) small golf course. However there were no greens and holes, just these:

Turns out there is a game called disk golf, where the “ball” is a Frisbee like disk that is thrown with the intent of getting into the basket above.

Back at the resort we picked up the mail then sat outside for a while enjoying the warmth. One of the items in the mail was a new air filter for the truck so I spent a few minutes installing that.

Hopefully the warm weather continues, but I think the forecast has liquid snow as the featured item.

An even warmer wake-up call at 18°C, and partly cloudy. After breakfast we were sitting around when I looked at my watch. Somehow we had lost an hour, then the light went on (figuratively). We had forgotten to spring forward, we only found out because my new super-duper eBay watch had automagically changed to DST. This put the pressure on Lyn as she had planned to head over to the laundry first thing (our definition). She was now an hour late! Anyway she found the place empty when she got there, so maybe there were a few more forgetful people around. While Lyn was away I put together our home made drying device that hangs from the ladder at the back of the trailer. Once that was done I finally got around to debugging the trailer. Debugging in this case is not a software term, it refers to removing all the flying things that were inconsiderate enough to kill themselves by flying into the trailer while it was traveling down the interstate.

Once lunch was finished I started tidying up “my corner” of the trailer. I’ve done pretty well in the tidyness department, but occasionally it gets away from me. As usual I start on one thing and finish up doing many other things instead. This time as I was tidying I started thinking how I could reduce the clutter of electronics and their associated wires. I now have a plan! This should reduce the gizmos on the counter top down to the PVR, the box that hosts our movies / TV programmes from the web and the telephone. All the rest of the stuff, including all the power supplies will shortly take up residence in a cupboard, and hopefully the satellite cables will connect to newly installed connectors outside rather than being poked through a small gap by the slider and run across the floor.

We decide to stay here today, so we just walked around the resort. We still managed just over a mile. Once back from the walk we sat outside and enjoyed the warmth for a while, before trying to Skype with Paul, Amanda and Noah. Unfortunately the internet here is not as good as it was in Georgia, and the connection was not really good enough to continue. We did manage to connect a couple of hours later though. Evidently Noah has discovered the word “why”!

We woke up to a cloudy day and about 10°C. After breakfast Lyn headed up to Johnny’s, the campground we stayed at last year, as there was a crafts sale up there. While she was away I decided to tackle an electrical project that I had been putting off for a while.

We are leaving the trailer at the resort this year, and the staff here will move the trailer into storage and then put it back on the site when we return in October. To allow them to do this the battery needs to remain connected so that the legs at the front of the trailer can be raised and lowered. The problem is that there are a number of things in the trailer that will slowly drain the battery if it is left connected. I installed a disconnect switch on the battery that would allow me to disconnect all circuits except for the motor that drives the legs.

Lyn came back from the crafts sales, after making a few stops on the way at charity stores / thrift stores. Let’s just say that she didn’t come back empty handed.

After lunch we headed out to…….. an Arts (and crafts) Fair down at Orange Beach. We had been there a couple of years ago and decided it warranted another visit. Again we didn’t come back empty handed.

We headed back to the resort along the edge of a canal, the canal forms part of the intra-coastal waterway. This waterway stretches from New Jersey down the east coast and across the Gulf of Mexico to Texas. It runs through canals, small bays and behind barrier islands to provide  safe passage for smaller boats, and as we saw today, barges. In this case it was a boat pushing 4 barges of coal.

We also looked for two caches on the way home, unfortunately we only found one. We must be losing our touch. At least the temperature is on the up, we hit 19°C.

The rain finally cleared out, and the sun made a desperate attempt to break through this morning. The temperature was also climbing higher than it has done for the last few days.

The usual morning activities after breakfast followed by a visit to the office to pick up the mail. It was just like Christmas, there were 5 packages for us. Really need to get back home and kick this eBay habit!

After we had lunch we decided it was warm enough to head down to the beach for the first time. March break / Spring break is kicking off down here so the student population is building. At the beach there were a few people around but it wasn’t the warmest of the days with a stiff breeze. There were groups of students who were determined to be on the beach in swimsuits because that is what they do at spring break regardless of the temperature. Not more than a hundred metres away was a group of people sitting on beach chairs wrapped in sleeping bags!

But I am sure all the people on the beach felt safe as the US military were patrolling the area.

We managed just under 1.5 miles walk on the beach and even picked up a geocache in the process. On the way back to the resort we managed to find a couple more caches. Unfortunately we are in more of a built up area here and the caches seem to be hidden in very easy and mundane spots. We need to head off into the country.

A warmer wake-up temperature of 12°C. We appeared to have had a fair bit of rain overnight judging by the ponds, but I guess we slept right through it. For the eagle eyed among you, this opening sentence is almost a copy of yesterday’s with the exception of the temperature and the size of water deposits on the ground! We had a thunder storm round about bed time last night, and rain throughout the night.

Lyn decided that it was window cleaning (inside) day, so I took all the screens out and Lyn did the cleaning. I went over to the office to leave one of our empty propane tanks to be filled, and also pick up the mail. After that was done we did our usual morning stuff. The rain continued on and off for most of the day, so it was not an outdoor day.

By mid afternoon we both decided it was time to get out, so we headed out to Sears. There was a reason for this destination; in the mail this morning I received 2 batteries from Sears for my electric drill. As the correct size wasn’t known when I ordered the battery, two different ones were sent and then the incorrect one could be returned “Hassle Free” to the local Sears store. At the Sears store I gave them the battery and asked for a refund, no problem, can we have your drivers licence number? Gave it to them, computer wouldn’t accept it, computer only accepts american drivers licence, sorry can’t give you a refund. I explained I didn’t need a drivers licence to buy a battery, so why would I need one to return it? Essentially the answer was “Because the computer says so”, we went round and round with this until one of the girls in the store said “Use my driving licence”, this got us to the next step. “What gift card would you like the money refunded to?” I didn’t want a gift card, I don’t shop at Sears USA that often, I wanted the money back on my  credit card, as per their “Hassle Free Return Policy”. “No can do” was the response, “Why not” was the retort, “Because the computer says so”. “Forget it” say I, and I gathered up the battery and my receipt and headed to the door. The look on the clerks face was saying “but you can’t do that, I’ve got all this stuff in the computer”, tough! Time for an e-mail to Sears Hassle Free Returns department methinks.

When we got back from the adventure the rain had let up, so headed out for a walk around the resort, guess what happened when we got to the furthest point from the trailer….. answers on a postcard please.