Category Archives: Florida

Melbourne Beach, Florida

December 23, 2015 exploRVistas 20 Comments

Back in August, Diana’s mom was doing well enough that we thought we could possibly spend the winter in Florida. We put a deposit down on a campground in Malabar, Florida. We also purchased two round trip tickets for Diana to fly back and tend to her mom every few weeks. As time wore on, we realized that Mom’s deteriorating condition would require us to stay, so we planned on spending the winter in Michigan. A special thank you to Southwest Airlines for refunding those non-refundable tickets! When her mom passed December 1, there was no longer a need to remain in Michigan. Our friends from Wild Cherry, Rod and Mary, have a home in Melbourne Beach, just across the Indian River from Malabar. Rod had spotted a place he thought we would like better, right on the beach. Problem was, they didn’t take reservations! Well, knowing we had a place in Malabar definitely helped, so we made a dash to get here, in hopes that they still had a spot for us. They did indeed, and our new home for the next few months is Melbourne Beach Mobile Park!

Our first morning was greeted with a beautiful sunrise. The previous 4 days was all driving, so we were ready to sit still. 🙂

Our site is big enough for both of our vehicles; something that is fairly hard to find in Florida…especially near the beach.

The park spans the entire barrier island, from the Atlantic Ocean…

……to the intercoastal waterway known as the Indian River. There is good fishing to be had off of their dock. A1A, the famous coastal highway, divides the beach side of the park from the main portion of the property.

There are plenty of pelicans, cormorants, egrets and heron that frequent this side of the island. It is also a great place to watch a sunset.

We took a walk to the ocean side of the park this morning and strolled the beach. The gentle slope of the sand reminded me a lot of Daytona.

There was a sea bird convention going on along this portion of the beach.

A good portion of these birds were Royal Terns. Diana also took a video of a group of Sanderlings that you can view here. They were very entertaining to watch!

There were a few Turkey Vultures feeding on dead fish.

This Atlantic Ghost Crab popped out of its hole to pay us a visit.

We saw several Portugese Man o’ War on the beach. Good reason to stay out of the water…and be very careful where you are walking!

,
This Great Blue Heron was fishing in an eddy. We were able to walk within a few yards of it when we passed by.

While Melbourne Beach Mobile Park may not be the newest or fanciest park in the area, it appears to be fairly well maintained. We are looking forward to being able to just relax and enjoy the area, along with visiting friends and relatives. Cape Canaveral is just a little ways north of us. The Keys are just a few hours south of here. It is just perfect for what we need right now. 🙂
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Florida, Fulltime RVing

Musings from our trip back to Michigan

April 9, 2015 exploRVistas 4 Comments

While our trip back to the Mitten State was largely uneventful, there are always things that catch your interest and are worthy of a mention. Here are a few of our observations.

We originally saw this Uhaul and trailer in Gainesville on I-75. He was doing about 60 MPH, and the rear tire on the other side of the trailer was shredded and sparks were flying everywhere. We slowly passed him. Diana informed him he had a flat, and he waved that he knew. 35 miles later, he pulled into the rest area behind us. We are not quite sure how that was even possible!

We saw this rig in Alabama. That is a Ford F-350 single rear wheel truck, just like ours. We are just under the truck’s limit wth our fully loaded 31 foot trailer. I have to believe this Ford is overloaded. Situations like the above two scare us, as they are jeapordizing other people’s safety.

We saw this rig in Nashville near the Grand Ole Opry. It makes us wonder just what country music star it belongs to. 🙂

Another GMC motorhome! We saw it in almost the same location as the last one. Great to see them, as I said before.

We always love to see newly built highways. So new, in fact, the Garmin thinks we are driving across a field. Time to update. Recalculating!

When hanging out in Florida near the Everglades, do as your wife does and wear bug spray. Here is one of my chigger-ravaged ankles. I drove all the way back to Michigan in sandals, as socks drove me nuts. 🙂

A couple of other notes we want to pass along: We updated our Harvest Hosts post to include Diana’s candlelit video of the sounds of the ranch. So, if you saw the post before the video was posted, it is worth it to go back and check it out. Also, we added some photos this morning that our niece took to the Al Kaline Delivered post. She took some great family pics that show what a great time we had. 🙂

So, as uneventful as the trip was, there was plenty of interesting things to take in. We love being able to travel, and are thankful for this nomadic life of ours. We hope you enjoy riding along with us!

Florida, Fulltime RVing

Harvest Hosts

April 4, 2015 exploRVistas 24 Comments

Friday morning, we left Naples, Florida with the intention of driving to the state’s panhandle and staying at a Yogi Bear park in Madison. Along the way, we encountered heavy traffic, as the snowbirds moved north. Spring breakers were headed south, resulting in miles of vehicles sitting still on I-75.

A lot of those people on the other side had just driven straight through from Michigan. That is not our idea of fun.

Along the way, Diana looked on the Harvest Hosts website to see if there were any farms or wineries in the area. For those of you not familiar with this, Harvest Hosts is a U.S./Canada-wide network of wineries and farms who allow people to spend the night on their property in their RV’s. In exchange, it is customary to support their business by purchasing their goods. I selected our one year membership (normally $44) as a door prize at the RV-Dreams 2014 Fall Rally, and Diana selected our GoVino wine glasses for her prize, which brought about a few good laughs! Anyway, Diana found Golden Acres Ranch, just about 1/2 hour past Madison in Monticello, Florida. She called to see if they had room, and they did! We pulled in just before dark and got set up for the night.

There was a big ol’ full moon rising above the live oak trees. The ranch was absolutely beautiful, and the sounds of the animals was a welcome change from the highway noise. We were a good 10 miles off of I-10, so we didn’t hear any traffic. What we did hear was guinea fowl, bullfrogs and Great Pyranees barking in the distance. What a welcome change. Before turning in, we purchased some farm fresh eggs, homemade Mayhaw jelly, a bar of locally made lavender soap, and a jar of Tupelo honey. Even with all of the interesting sounds from the livestock and the frogs, we slept extremely well.

Click here to listen to the sounds on Diana’s short YouTube video. Enjoy the candles on our table. 🙂

In the morning, we ate some of the eggs we purchased, then we toured the ranch with Bobbie Golden. She and her husband Fred started the ranch as an encore career, and have quite a lot on their plate!

Here is a photo of Bobbie with one of her Tennessee Fainting goats. These goats stiffen when startled, which makes them appear to faint. They make great pets! This beauty has blue eyes.

They are adorable!

Here is Diana holding one of the baby goats. That made her day!

They also have sheep on the ranch. We learned that sheep tails go down and goat tails stick up.

There were several guinea chickens running about, and they could really move! Bobbie and Fred also have several Great Pyranees dogs to guard the livestock.

They are beautiful dogs, and remind us of our male Golden Retriever, Dakota, who passed in 2004.

These three were born last fall. And they loved Diana. 🙂

What a great place to park for the night! Be sure to check out their website to understand the uniqueness of the Mayhaw trees and pond, and to learn about the upcoming Mayhaw festival being held at the ranch in May.

Part of the Harvest Host experience is boondocking. For those of you not familiar with this concept, boondocking is when you park without hookups…no water, sewer or electric. Some RVers have generators to produce electricity and some have solar panels on their roofs. RV’s have large fresh water holding tanks and sewer tanks. Depending on your set-up and how miserly you are dictates how long you can boondock. We don’t have solar or a generator, so we are limited to how long we can stretch our house battery. Many of our lights are 12 volt, along with two exhaust fans, and our water pump. Our stove runs on propane, as does our water heater, furnace and refrigerator. We lit candles in the evening and used battery powered lanterns, so our battery was still full when we left. Just in case, we unplugged the truck from the trailer, so as to not run down the truck batteries.

Once we left the ranch, we decided to take a different route, in order to avoid the interstate traffic. We took a route that Diana’s dad used to rave about, and one we never had a chance to try. We drove north from Monticello on US-19 to US-84 and west to US-231. On 19 and 84, this is what the road looked like:

Wow. Barely a car in sight, and four lane divided highway the entire way….all posted at 65 mph outside of the few towns we encountered.

We ended up for the night at one of our favorite stopover campgrounds on the Michigan/Florida route: Deer Run RV Park just north of Troy, Alabama.

It is a beautiful setting, and the campsites are spacious.

We ended up with a very nice pull through site that allowed us to stay hooked up to the truck.

So, what started out being a hectic drive up I-75 ended up being one of the most relaxing experiences we have ever had. Many thanks to Bobbie and Fred Golden, two of the most delightful people we have ever met. And thanks to Don and Kim Greene of Harvest Hosts for donating the membership to RV-Dreams! We will definitely be renewing it!

Florida, Fulltime RVing

Last full day in Naples

April 2, 2015 exploRVistas 7 Comments

Today was our last day before heading back north. While we would love to stay longer, we are so glad we made the effort to push this far south. We love this area.

I didn’t post yesterday, because it was an errand day. We upgraded our phones at Verizon, went to Whole Foods and Publix, came home and made barbeque chicken and mashed taters and veggies. Mmmmm……

Here is my first picture with my iPhone 6. 🙂

Today was another beach day. We went to Delnor-Wiggins State Park.

Nice beach with plenty of parking and restrooms.

Even the dolphins were having fun!

We had our beach setup going, and we did not get burned. It is just not worth it to us to do that. I have to tell you, that beach cart earned it’s place in our trunk, for sure.

After the beach, we headed over to Pincher’s in Tin City. The latter was built as an area of commerce in the 1920’s along the waterfront. Today, it is an assortment of eclectic shops and restaurants. Pincher’s is a local seafood place with a lively atmosphere. We both had grouper. My gluten-free version came broiled with cole slaw and apple sauce, and Diana’s was a traditional deep fried sandwich with a mountain of fries. We laughed how no one could possibly eat all those fries…except possibly me in my old gluten days. 🙂

After dinner, we had a chance to walk the park at Club Naples RV Resort tonight and get some photos.

Here is an example of how the rigs back up to each other.

This is an empty lot that someone recently pulled out from. The rig goes on the sand next to the patio.

And here is one where the entire lot is paved.

So while the park is close quarters, it is very, very nice. Everybody loves it here, which is a great sign. Their community areas are first rate and well maintained. The staff is extremely friendly. I am sure we will be back someday.

Tomorrow, we start back north. We will be taking our time on the way back, as the trip down was a bit of a push. We will do our best to post on our travels!

Florida

Just a dandy day…

March 31, 2015 exploRVistas 10 Comments

We are in Naples, Florida enjoying our first full day here in two years. We’ve always loved this part of Florida, as it is ‘far enough south’ to escape winter. We are staying at Club Naples RV Resort. We still need to check out the entire park before giving a full review, but I will say that it is tight.

They pack ’em in here. I’m not sure how they even got those rigs turned into those spaces!

As you can see, we are sort of wedged in.

But the pool and hot tub are amazing! The laundry is beautiful, and the community room is very nice. All of the landscaping is well done, and the park is clean. We really want to look farther back into the park at some of the other sites, but we remember them to be tight from our last visit here when we toured the place. First time visitors receive a 10% discount.

Late this morning, we headed to the beach! This has always been one of our favorite activities. When we were deciding what we were going to carry in our rig for full time RVing, our beach gear was right up their with our kayaks and bikes.

Tommy Bahama beach chairs, cart and umbrellas, and this nifty sun canopy we found at Costco.

I bought this beach cart online. It hauls everything…coolers, umbrellas, chairs, towels…everything but the canopy. If you get one, get the wide beach wheels. They really make a difference in the sand.

I noticed that our Tommy chairs are perfect for the west coast of Florida, as the water bottle pouch ends up on the north side of the chair, and is out of the sun. 🙂

Because of the cart, we were able to park three blocks from the beach and walk with all of our stuff…no problem whatsoever.

This evening, we went to Collier Seminole State Park to see my cousin John and his wife Karen. They are camping there with Karen’s sister Gail and heading back to Michigan tomorrow. It was good to see them again!

I was invited by Rob at Rockiesoutdoors to take part in a five day black and white photo challenge. Today is the final day of the challenge!

For my photo today, I chose a picture I took in 2012 on our way out to Yellowstone. This photo is at Mount Rushmore National Memorial, and was taken on the Presidential Trail at the base of the mountain. I liked how the trees framed the sculpture of George Washington.

The challenge is simple:

For five consecutive days, you need to post a different black and white photo you have taken.

On each post, you need to challenge another blogger to carry on the fun!

Today I nominate Peter at Life Unscripted. Peter writes a daily blog that takes the readers on his and his wife’s journey through their lives. I start my day with his blog each morning and have come to love it. He also takes great photos! I hope he accepts the challenge!

Florida, Throwback Thursday

Dunedin to St. Pete – Throwback Thursday

January 22, 2015 exploRVistas 12 Comments

“Our memories of the ocean will linger on, long after our footprints in the sand are gone.”
Anonymous

Back in our working days, we would grab a week (or two or three) and head to some very fun places. We are going to feature those in a Throwback Thursday post every now and then. Today, we head to Florida for spring break!

One of our favorite spots to head was Dunedin, which is located south of Tarpon Springs and north of Clearwater. We had discovered the Dunedin RV Resort, and stayed there a few times with our Sunline travel trailer.

They had a great pool (no hot tub) that they shared with the Blue Moon Inn that was out by the road. Both facilities were owned by the same family, and have since been purchased by Carefree Resorts.

After using the inn one year for Diana’s family, we decided trying to haul the trailer from Michigan to Florida for 10 days was too much. The ice and snow we ran into on our way back the last trip confirmed that decision. We started flying to Tampa after that and staying at the inn.

The deluxe rooms were a treat, as they had these jetted tubs…

…and walk in showers. They also had a nice breakfast every morning, especially when the family owned it.

The resort was very close to the Fred Marquis Pinellas Bike Trail, and also Honeymoon Island State Park. The causeway to the island was a great place for a stroll, and the island itself offered decent access to the Gulf.

A favorite restaurant of ours in Dunedin was Kelly’s For Just About Anything.

The atmosphere can best be described as ‘eclectic’, and the food is outstanding. We have eaten there more times than we can count, and we have yet to be disappointed. We recommend eating on the back patio. It is a great experience. They are open from breakfast through dinner (and beyond). They have a full bar.

Another spot that was recommended to us was La Trattoria da Gaetano.

This place is in a non-descript strip mall in Dunedin. When we ate there, we were the only ones for the entire evening. When we came in, the owner greeted Diana by saying “Señora, where have you been? I’ve been waiting for you!” He then brought out a cart of raw meat…

…and proceeded to tell us what he could make for us. No menu, so we were unsure what it would cost. It was outstanding. I had Veal Marsala, and I could hear him in the kitchen, pounding away at the veal to tenderize it. If you go, look for the peephole in the painting on the wall. It goes through to the kitchen, so he can see who is coming in the door, or when you are ready for your next course. We got out of there, with wine and a healthy tip, for around $100. That was a good 10 years ago.

Our favorite beach spot in that area is Caddy’s On The Beach.

This little gem is located in Treasure Island/Sunset Beach, immediately north of St Pete Beach. It is a 25 mile drive from Dunedin, but well worth it. Parking is $5, and you get a $5 coupon for food or drink. The chair attendants work for tips only. Quite often, we would get there at 10 AM and stay until 6 PM. You are allowed to bring buckets of beer from the bar to your chairs. As long as you kept your towels on your chairs, you could leave them unattended and not worry about losing them.

We could walk quite a ways south…

…or quite a ways north.

The food was always decent for a beach bar, and there was usually a musician playing island tunes. Definitely a great place to lose yourself for an afternoon.

And it was tough to beat the view!

Florida, Lighthouses

Daytona Beach

October 13, 2014 exploRVistas 9 Comments

Daytona Beach was a dream of many a baby boomer, at one time or another. Driving on the beach itself is a pastime that dates back to the infancy of the automobile itself.

After visiting with family in the center of the state, we decided to loop out to Daytona for a few days. Jim was happy to see that the sand was firm enough to support our 8000 pound truck.

Having lived for so long in West Michigan and also frequenting the Gulf coast of Florida, it was a special treat to see a sunrise over the ocean. It even made the coffee sweeter.

While we were there, the USAF Thunderbirds were practicing for an air show. Talk about a front row seat! We were on the southern turn of their practice route.

At the southern end of the strand is Ponce Inlet, with a beautiful lighthouse. This area had a laid back feel to it.

Daytona is considered by many to be past its’ prime, but there do seem to be some strong attempts to bring it back. Many major hotel chains are opening new places along here, including Hyatt Place, Residence Inn, Hampton Inn and others. A new Joe’s Crab Shack recently opened on the pier. We enjoyed our time here, even though we prefer the Gulf side. After all, it is hard to resist reliving a teenager’s dream of cruising the beach with your sweetheart!

Family, Florida

Visiting Family / The Villages

October 11, 2014 exploRVistas 2 Comments

While we were in Florida, we were able to visit with Diana’s brother, our niece, her husband, and their family.

When purging our home, we came across many photos that we were able to pass on to them. As seen above, all were interested! It was a great benefit of all of our efforts over the last few months.

It’s always great to see family, that’s for sure!

Our niece lives just outside The Villages, which is quite the place. If you have never seen this community, it is fun to look at.

The Villages is a utopian set of “villages” interspersed between many golf courses. Everything that a retiree could ever want is there, including Walmart, Panera and even a hospice center.

Golf carts zipping to and fro. And everyone seems to be happy and having fun. While this is not something we want at this time in our lives, it is definitely worth driving through.

If you ever are in the area, you must check it out.

Safe motoring!

Alabama, Family, Florida, Fulltime RVing, RV Maintenance and Upgrades

South to Florida

October 8, 2014 exploRVistas 4 Comments

After leaving Kentucky, we headed south to see family in Florida. We took the familiar route of I-65 towards Montgomery, Alabama.

A favorite stop has always been the Welcome Center in Alabama. Not many rest areas in the US can boast having a full scale Saturn IB rocket. This is the type of rocket that the crew of Apollo 7 took into Earth orbit. It is the smaller cousin of the Saturn V that took the US to the moon.

Once we got to Montgomery, we took a different route, as we wanted to stop in Crestview, Florida to check out a mail forwarding service we are considering using during our travels. On the way there, we came upon this little gem:

This is the day use area at Blue Pond in the Conecuh National Forest in southern Alabama. Too bad there wasn’t any camping, as it was ideal!

We arrived in Crestview and met with the folks at My RV Mail. They were very friendly and extremely helpful. Once we finished in Crestwood, we continued on to Ft Walton Beach. When we arrived, we discovered a huge benefit to shoulder season travel: no huge crowds! We drove into a large public lot at the beach and had no trouble at all finding a parking spot. We had a wonderful grouper meal overlooking the gulf and then we walked the beach.

This is some of the best sand in Florida, and we were happy to see that there were no visible after effects from the BP spill.

Once we left the beach, we headed east towards Leesburg to see family. Diana’s brother lives there, and our niece and her family live in Fruitland Park. Along the way, we discovered the importance of doing a rig walk around. Jim thought he heard a noise on the road, and he noticed the fuel mileage decreasing. We pulled into a rest area and noticed the right front wheel was considerably warmer than the others. Turns out that we had a “stuck” caliper. This happened to us one other time on a different truck, and is a result of the right front wheel catching so much curb slush and salt in the Michigan winters. We found a garage in Tallahassee that got us in and out in a flash. A special shout out to Al Bass and Bass Automotive for the prompt service. This event really drove home the fact that we need to be aware of our rig. A simple walk around at each stop can save a lot of headaches down the road.

Safe travels!

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