Our Travel Blog

Typical, the day we leave and have to do a lot of outside stuff, the heavens open!!

Anyway, we got everything packed and pulled out of the campsite safely, if a little wet. The rear view camera didn’t work as advertised, the distance from the back of the trailer to the front of the truck was a little too much. Some re-wiring is needed!

After about 45 minutes I noticed the brake controller had failed (no brake controller  no working brakes on a 10000 pound trailer…. not good). We pulled into a Wal-Mart parking lot, and luckily it was a simple fix, some water had got into the plug at the back of the truck that the trailer connects to.

Other than that it was pretty uneventful, we drove out of the rain, and the temperature dropped about 6 degrees as we move north. The grass also changed from a straggly brown to a lush green.

Yet another hot sunny day in the mid 80’s. I think we’re both looking forward to slightly cooler temperatures in Alabama!!

Today the antennas were dismantled and packed and all the outside stuff packed away ready for our departure tomorrow.

The distance to go to the new site is 525 miles which is right on the limit for a days travel when towing as we don’t want to arrive at a new site in the dark. When we found out we would have to go into a temporary site for the first night and then move the next day to our permanent site, we decided to over night in a motel. That will give us two 6 hour days including breaks.

Hot, Sunny and dry!

Had a couple of odd jobs to do this morning. Lyn bought a quilt rack the other day which is a little large for travelling. Luckily it was screwed together, and came apart easily to pack flat.

Having done that it was time to change the igniter on the BBQ. When the original one died I replaced it with an el-cheapo ebay one. This one still sparked but the rubber push button had cracked. The warranty replacement one I received was the wrong type, but I figured I could make it work. While sorting through the parts I put a battery in the old igniter, pushed the button and was greeted with 22,000 volts across my finger! Reinstalled the old one and tried to fire up the BBQ. Now the gas wouldn’t turn on. The valve had been stiff the last few evenings, now it had seized! Off with the valve, unscrew every screw I could find, put it back together, check there were no parts left over and check it out, we now have a spark and we have gas, put them both together and we now have a working BBQ

After lunch we headed north a few miles to a place we had been planning to visit since we arrived, Bok Garden. It is situated atop Iron Mountain, one of the highest points in Florida and THE highest point between Washington DC and the Rio Grande! The garden is just that, a garden spread over one square km, built in the 1920’s by Edward Bok – a publishing guy with way too much money!

The flower gardens were amazing, and by keep putting off the trip we arrived at what appeared to be peak bloom time.

The other item of interest in the garden is the”Singing Tower” This is a 205ft tall tower with a 60 bell carillon at the top. While we were there, there was a live concert of the bells. Each week-end an expert carillonist (a new word meaning one who plays the carillon) plays for an hour or so. On one side of the tower was a huge sun dial, nothing too unusual in that other than it was the first one I had seen with graphs underneath to convert the sundial time to standard time, i.e. accounting for the fact that each revolution of the earth is not exactly 24 hours.

After wandering around the gardens we headed back down the road to the base of the mountain and headed home via the gas station. Thanks to Col G in Libya diesel has gone from 3.36 to 3.66 a gallon over the last 3 weeks…… not impressed.

For those interested Iron Mountain is a staggering 291ft (two hundred and ninety one) above sea level !!!!!!

Do I need to say it? Another hot sunny day in Florida!

Time to do some work on the truck. It has got a little insubordinate recently in that it will occasionally answers back when I use the remote to lock the doors; about 30 seconds after they have locked there may be 5 beeps of the horn. Finally manage to track down the user manual and it means that the hood (bonnet for those across the pond) is open. Well, knowing full well that the hood is NOT open, I tracked down the open close switch. After removing it, cleaning it and reinstalling it the beast no longer answered back.

Next job on the truck was to install the mini TV screen for the rear view camera. Trouble is I am running out of places to put toys and not affect vision. Finally opted to put it just below the radio, the job itself was simple enough, but with the high temperature and sun streaming into the truck it was pretty uncomfortable.

Tonight was Mardi Gras night at the campsite. A motley crew of the more permanent residents dressed up (or down) and paraded shamelessly around the campground throwing beads to those who stood on the sidelines, thankfully we were on the sidelines!

I am (obviously) running out of titles!

The weather here is way too predictable, another hot sunny 80F day …… yawn!!

It was laundry / crafts morning for Lyn. While she was doing that I tried to tweak the satellite antenna a little as there had been some interference recently. I figured with the satellite tuning meter I had this would be a simple task. Got everything connected up, and lo and behold the antenna was slightly off so I spent quite a while getting the best signal I could on the meter. These satellite dishes have to be aligned in three dimensions left / right, up/down and twist left / right and the difference between no signal and full signal is only a couple of mm. When I was satisfied I had the best possible signal I went inside to check the picture —– blank!!!!

Went back out, played around some more, same result. Now what…. waited for Lyn to come back and then went through the standard procedure of me moving the antenna, and Lyn shouting of the numbers from the TV screen. All the time I checked the tuning meter, as the signal on it was going down, so the signal on  the TV was going up. Finally got it tuned in, but still confused as to what the signal meter was doing.

Wasn’t sure which title to use, so both can do the job.

Had my Wednesday morning game of bowls, it was actually an interesting and close game, now that we are close to leaving I seem to have got the hang of the game.

This afternoon Lyn decided that it was time to do some clothes shopping. In fairness it was suggested that I stay at the trailer if I wasn’t interested, but as there was a Lowes right next door; I headed out with her. Lyn went to the girlie stores, I went to the man cave!

At the appointed hour we met up and headed back. As I mentioned before this is the heart of orange country around here and there are a number of OJ processing plants in the area. One of these had a visitors centre where you could see how the process worked. Unfortunately visits to the facility itself were not allowed, so we had to be content with the video. Oranges seem be trucked non stop in the area, given that this plant processes 13,000,000 pounds in 24 hours, I can see why!

As we left Lyn suggested that as we were in the area, there was an indoor flea market in the vicinity 🙁

When we got there it appeared that the flea market has set up shop in a disused superstore, the place was enormous, my heart dropped. However, once inside things started to look better, at least 80% of the tables were empty! As it turned out even I managed to buy a couple of things.

Continued working on the rearview camera set up this morning. Like most gadgets the concept is simple, implementation is more difficult. The camera came in a housing the mounts to the licence plate This gave a couple of problems as the licence plate is on the drivers side, and the bikes on the back platform would block the view across to the passenger side; also the transmitter is not waterproof and there would be nowhere to put it to keep it dry. Finally there was no power source readily available back there. Finally decided that the best place for the camera would be inside the back window of the trailer! Now to figure out where to  put the display in the truck, decisions, decisions, decisions …..

After lunch it was off to the clubhouse for the free cherry pie I mentioned yesterday. I got the wrong free, it should have been three (as in dollars!), well they threw in a dollop of ice-cream as well so we were happy!! The pie event was linked to a fashion show, which I had no intention of watching, so I picked the chair nearest the door so I could make a quick getaway 🙂 As it turned out the fashion show was in fact a number of short skits based on nursery rhymes, I wont try to describe it ………..you had to be there to appreciate it!!

Need my rest now as it’s an early breakfast in the clubhouse.