Our Travel Blog

A little disappointed to hear the furnace going at times during the night and when we woke up. Combined with the fact that it was overcast I figured we were in for another not so good day. However as the morning wore on the clouds gave way to blue skies and the temperature started to climb. After lunch we headed out to a State Park down on the coast, this park is probably 5 or 6 miles long by 1 or 2  miles wide. It contains an RV site which has full services and pretty good rates. Also on the north side of the park is a new walk / cycle path. We “discovered” this path as a result of seeing a number of caches in the area on the geocache map. It was obvious that this path was where we were going to get our exercise today.

We finished up walking just under 2 miles and getting 7 out of 8 caches. The one we didn’t find was in a lightly wooded area with a couple of small decomposing trees on the ground. The only clue given was “Acts 7:59” Even after reading the reference in the hint I still had no idea what to look for.

After the walk we headed down to a store further down the beach to get some more (can you guess) craft stuff.

Back at the resort it was still warm enough to sit outside and drink our coffee. Tomorrow is forecast to be even warmer.

Cooler overnight and a few lingering showers. After breakfast we headed out to the stores as Lyn needed some stuff for her crafts this afternoon and I needed to get a parcel mailed. Unfortunately, when we got to the post office I found out that I had left the address at home. Before anyone asks why the parcel wasn’t already addressed, it was because I hadn’t got the mailing box yet. All was not lost as I picked up a (free) box from the post office.

I now withdraw some of my praise for the US postal service from a couple of days ago, when we got back to the RV I went on line to pay for and print a label for the parcel. All went well until it came time to pay. It appears that the US post office (and many other institutions) will only accept US credit cards! Not to worry, the post office will also accept payment from PayPal. Guess what, even though PayPal is an internationally recognised form of payment (like credit cards), the US post office will only accept payment from a US PayPal account. Looks like another trip to the post office is needed.

After lunch Lyn headed over to crafts and I headed back to the post office. I didn’t take the direct route, instead I did some geocaching on the way. I managed to get 5 out of 5 today and at the post office I finally managed to get the parcel on its way.

Once Lyn returned we headed off around the resort for our exercise. The forecast is promising for the next few days, so hopefully we will get out and about.

It was 18°C when we went to bed and 21.5°C when we woke up. As we prepared breakfast the first few drops of rain fell, then some more, then some more heavy ones, then a lot more etc, etc. Finally we got some nice thunder and lightning activity and a tornado warning thrown in for good measure.

In between the really heavy bouts of rain Lyn walked back and forth to the laundry. Problem was the rain had let up when she left the trailer, but inevitable intensified when she was on her way back. There was a bright side though, no one else was using the laundry!

By lunch time over 1.5 inches of rain had fallen and the concrete pad that we are parked on had a couple of inches of water on it. After lunch the rain let up for a while and we took an abbreviated walk around the resort, there is a large fish pond at the back of the resort; it had overflowed its banks onto the road. There was a large pump there that was losing the battle to lower the ponds level.

Just after we got back the rain started up and is is forecast to hang around until sometime tomorrow.

A couple of weeks ago I asked the Canadians to keep the cold weather up north where it belongs, this appeal goes out to the Brits, please keep your rain to yourselves.

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”!