Our Travel Blog

The warmth remains, about 55 when we woke up and went up to around 65. There was nothing on our agenda today, we just did what we do best… very little.

Lyn spent the morning on a new creation she had been thinking about, a kitchen apron with built in hot-pads, which may reduce the incidence of burnt hands. I finally got around to cleaning out my cupboard, so that I stand a slight chance of finding what I need. Next job is to try and catalogue what stuff stays at the trailer, and what goes home. That will stop me bringing extra stuff down, just in case it isn’t at the trailer.

Up until the last couple of days we there had been gusty winds, so the awning kept stowed most of the time. Now that the wind has abated I put the awning out and attached some guys to it which will hold the awning down if the wind gets up a little. Now the awning is out full time we can attach the outdoor decorations!

Back to the work week tomorrow

We’re now into our third week here and the weather is finally behaving. Another sunny day with clear blue skies, and a wake up temperature of 55°F. After breakfast Lyn headed over to the laundry, and I decided to strip down the BBQ and give it all a good clean out. The wind has died right down, so the awning can now be left out (got to show it off after all the cleaning it got last week).

After lunch we headed south to the beach, we dropped into the campsite we had stayed at for the last couple of years to see if last years neighbours from Ohio had arrived yet as we were hoping to meet up with them. There was no sign of them or their trailer, so I guess they are still travelling down.

We continued down to the beach, no too much had changed since last year. The area was busier than we expected, but that might be due to the fact that it is a long weekend down here (Martin Luther King Jr day tomorrow). We took a wander along the beach, which is always more of a workout than walking on a solid surface. Being back on a beach brought back memories of where we were just 3 months ago, wandering the beaches of the Cook Is and NZ.

We took the longer way home and drove to the Gulf Shores State Park. Some friends of ours stayed there before Christmas and suggested we take a look. Normally we avoid State Parks as they don’t always have all the hookups, no WiFi and also many have a limit as to how long you can stay there. This park was ideal, it had all that we would need, was close to the beach and I suspect the price was right as well. It’s in the “to try” list for future years.

We drove along the shore the road almost to the Florida border, then turned back and headed up the toll road to the camp site.

Woke up to a warmer morning, 51F (the new outdoor temperature sensor has arrived) together with blue skies and sunshine. The few empty sites started to fill up, and some of the trailers that had been empty during the week were now occupied. I suspect that some people have trailers rather than cottages, and use them only at weekends.

Being the weekend we decided to take it easy! A couple of small jobs needed doing, coincidentally both involved oil. One was a recurring problem with the TV. If you recall  comments from last year, the TV is installed within a cabinet at the rear of the trailer and is raised into position above the cabinet top as required. Being as we are getting old and decrepit manual activity is kept to a minimum and the TV is raised by an electric motor. The whole mechanism needs periodic lubrication or else the motor stalls. That was this mornings job!

Once that arduous task was completed, it was time for a stroll around the campsite. Old and decrepit as we may be, we still manage the daily stroll on foot, unlike a number of residents who take their daily exercise in a golf cart.

The temperature climbed up to 64F, which was warm enough to have lunch outside once more. After lunch it was the turn of the barbecue to be disassembled. The heat control kept sticking making it impossible to turn the heat down, bringing a whole new meaning to charbroiled. After taking the valve to bits and cleaning it, I managed to put it back together with no bits left over at the end; as a bonus the valve now worked as advertised.

The BBQ was put to use for cooking dinner, although it was a little too cool (and dark) to eat outside. It was a clear night and there wasn’t too much light pollution, so I put my Night Sky app on the phone to use and identified a few planets and constellations. If you’re interested in that sort of thing the app is quite neat, you hold the phone up with the camera lens pointing in the same direction and elevation that you are looking, and the phone screen shows the same view as you are seeing with names of the stars, planets, constellations and satellites on it.

If the weather holds, it’s off to the beach tomorrow.

The furnace was on for a short while just before we got up, bit it didn’t seem as cold as previous days and there was a strange yellow ball in the sky to the South East. Finally a clear and sunny day.

After breakfast we got into the truck and headed East to Pensacola Florida. Last night I programmed the GPS with 5 destinations, 3 craft stores (one of which was also a pharmacy), one hardware store and a donut shop. The latter are hard to find down here, and we are both suffering from TWS  (Timmie withdrawal symptoms). The trip was about 35 miles, and was a pleasant drive through small towns and countryside. First stop in Pensacola was the Donut store! followed by 3 craft shops and finally the hardware store. Having finally decided to splurge out out and get some metalworking gear it was time to get some tools for it. Lyn was able to replace her small tape measure that Noah had successfully hidden before Christmas, and she also got managed to buy a couple of small things that got left back in Ottawa as well as some fabric.

As the day wore on the temperature rose into the high 50’s and we returned back to the campsite in the late afternoon via a different route.

In celebration of the return of the sun and warmer temperatures the BBQ was brought back into use for the evening meal.

Woke up at 3AM to the sound of the furnace and again at 8AM, this is not supposed to happen; the furnace should not be required.The outside air was around 3C with a fairly strong wind. The only good news was that, with the new stabilizer on the trailer, there was practically no noticeable movement inside due to the blustery wind.

We had planned to head out to the beach today as we had spent enough time at the campsite, but one step outside ruled out that idea.

Instead I stayed in the warm and set up the printer so that Lyn could print out some discount coupons for the craft stores. Much to my amazement the printer worked, I was expecting it to be gummed up with dry ink after 8 months of no use. Obviously these $1.95 el cheapo ink cartridges from e-bay work well.

After lunch we headed out to do the weekly shopping, it was warming up slightly, but still not beach weather.

On the way back from shopping I stopped off at the campground office to pick up a parcel. I managed to kill an HDMI cable on the TV last week. A 6ft cable from BestBuy will cost around $20, I ordered 2 from eBay for $2.97 including shipping!(and they work). I don’t know how they make any money.

As we were getting out of the truck I noticed a glasses case in the door pocket, I opened it up expecting to find a forgotten pair of sunglasses, what I found was a pair of reading glasses that I lost back in April. They were in my pocket when I got in the truck in April, but had disappeared by the time I got home. I retraced my steps to the two places I had stopped en-route, but no glasses. I checked out the floor of the truck with no luck. All I can think of is that they fell from my pants pocket into the door pocket, and sat their ever since. Glad to have them back, as I replaced them with a cheap pair from the local pharmacy, these seem to work a little better!

We decided to treat ourselves tonight and went out to a local seafood house for dinner.  The surroundings were basic, but the food was good.

Tomorrow the sun is scheduled to make an appearance, and the temperature should be climbing back towards 60 so we are heading off to Pensacola, Florida for the day so that Lyn can use those discount coupons!

Title says it all really

Another cooler wake up, so much so that the heating came on. Finally got around to ordering a new outdoor sensor for the weather station, so will have some numbers soon.

Tuesday is craft day for Lyn, so as she headed over to the crafts I did what I do best and hung around doing nothing. Not quite true, I did spend some time organising the wiring for the TV, stereo, movie box, telephone and PVR so that when the TV is moved up and down in its hiding place the cables don’t get chewed up.

Before lunch we went on our daily walk-about, trying to lengthen the walk each day. By now it was hot and humid again. After we had lunch, Lyn headed down to last years campsite for their craft afternoon.

Having put it off as long as I could, I made a start on cleaning the outside of the trailer. Previously this had involved clambouring a round on a ladder to clean the high spots. After last weeks purchase of a cleaning brush with an extendable handle that allowed me to reach up to 13′ the cleaning went much faster. In fact I got the whole outside done in just under 3 hours. I seem to recall the first time took me a similar number of days!

As is typical, once the trailer had been washed the heavens opened. I think we have one more day of heat and humidity, then it drops down to the high 50’s / low 60’s for a while.

A much cooler wake up this morning, probably mid 50’s. The installation of the stabiliser yesterday was well worthwhile, as no one gets motion sickness now when the other person rolls over in the bed.

After breakfast I headed outside to gather stuff for cleaning the roof. The roofing on the trailer is plywood covered with a thick white rubber matting, replacement of which is somewhat expensive so keeping it in good shape is a good idea. I had put off the cleaning over the last few days as the wind had been rather strong, and walking around on a wet and slippery roof was not my idea of a fun sport.

The rain down here has obviously not heard about clean air acts as the roof was pretty filthy, it took a couple of hours to clean it up. Now all the dirty water has run down the sides of the trailer adding to the already dirty condition. An RV owners work is never done.

While I was doing the roof, Lyn was busy with the vacuum cleaning the inside of the trailer,   so we have a nice clean place to do nothing in!

After lunch we took our usual stroll around the place, this time we were on a mission. Friends of ours had put their trailer in storage here, but when we looked for it yesterday we couldn’t find it. Today we checked all the stored trailers, but there was still no Ontario registered ones in the main area. We walked a little further and their was an overflow storage area. Vicki, we found the trailer, it’s still in one piece!

Lyn spent some time sewing after the walk, and I continued working on the purchase of a new toy! This time I have move away from computing ( slightly) ans am in the market for a small milling machine. I had always wanted to do some metal working, in particular working model engines. I had found just what I had wanted, but some research showed that the dealer was a little “suspect”, so after a few chats on a forum I was put in contact with a known reliable dealer. Together we worked on putting a package together that suited my needs, at a price similar to the previous deal I had found. The reason I put slightly in brackets earlier is that the mill will be controlled by the computer!!

We’ve just had a cold front go through with some heavy rain and a 15-20 degree drop in temperature, let’s see what tomorrow holds.

Another warm morning when we woke up, but a quick look at the forecast sent shivers down the spine. Daytime high was 75F night time low was to be 34F with SNOW. Not sure if I believe it or not!

We headed out to the RV store later in the morning to get a tripod stabiliser to try and reduce the movement in the trailer when people are moving about. We also bought a longer handled brush for cleaning the outside of the trailer, now I can reach up to the roof line (about 12ft) without using the step ladder.

After a coffee and a trip to the local dollar store we headed back to the camp site. The box containing the tripod made lots of clinking noises when it was moved so I figures that there was some assembly required. I was wrong, the noise was the safety chain rattling. All I had to do was open up  the tripod, place it under the kingpin (the hitch connection at the front of the trailer) and adjust a screw device until the king pin was very snug against the tripod.

End result was the sideways movement of the trailer has been greatly reduced.

Checked the weather forecast in the afternoon, still no change for tonight!

With the demise of the satellite system, I am trying to find out how up to date we are on some of the TV series that we watch. Once that was done the poor old internet took a beating as I started to download new episodes.

It’s now 1115 PM and the outside air is still over 70F, another check of the forecast shows a low tonight of 64F and rain. Obviously the US forecasters are just as incompetent (or more so) than their Canadian counterparts

Another warm wake-up with the outside air already over 70F. After breakfast the plan was to make a start on cleaning the outside of the trailer, having been left in a dusty environment over the summer is was pretty dirty.

The starting point was to be the awning, both the top and underside needed doing, so I knew it would be  a wet job. Initially I  was wrong, I wouldn’t be getting wet as the campground water supply had failed.

We took our morning stroll around the camp-ground and Lyn popped into the annual craft sale held at the site; I headed back to the trailer. The water outage was short lived and I was able to start on the awning. That kept me busy for the rest of the morning and half the afternoon. Next job is to clean the roof, oh joy!

Since we have had the trailer, there has always been some “sway” inside when someone is moving around. We have just lived with it, but this time there seems to be more movement so we set about tracking it down. The culprit seems to be some play in the front “legs” that support the trailer, there is some sideways movement when the trailer is pushed. Having discovered the weak point, we should be able to fix it. Tomorrow we’ll head off to the local camping store to see if we can find the solution.