Tag Archives: TerraTrike

Florida, Fulltime RVing, National Parks

Shark Valley – Everglades National Park

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NOTICE: November 2017:  Shark Valley is currently closed, due to high water from Hurricane Irma.  To see a current status, check this link.

Before we came to South Florida, we had the preconceived notion that Everglades National Park was a hot, mosquito infested swamp…somewhere that we would find difficult to visit.  Well, we were pleasantly surprised this last Friday when we visited Shark Valley, the northern portion of Everglades National Park.  As luck would have it, a cold front had swept through the area on Thursday and brought the region low humidity and temperatures in the high 60’s. Insects were few and far between. Perfect weather to go for a 14.7 mile bike ride into the heart of the glades!

The name ‘Shark Valley’ is somewhat deceiving.  There are no sharks in the freshwater of the Everglades; the name comes from the Shark River Slough, the large body of slow moving water coming down out of Lake Okeechobee.  The valley is all of 10 feet deeper than the Atlantic and Gulf ridges to the east and west.  The Everglades are not swampland, but rather a shallow river of clear, fresh water flowing over a limestone base from north to south.  While they were once much larger…extensive portions were drained and developed…they still are massive.  They are also quite diverse in their fauna, ranging from sawgrass to tall pine trees.  Surprisingly, there were very few palm trees.

The National Park Service operates a tram along the Shark Valley Tram Trail….a 15 mile asphalt loop road that runs south from US-41 into the middle of the park.  They also rent bicycles and allow walkers on the trail.  We decided to take advantage of the great weather and check it out with our TerraTrikes!  It is advised to arrive early, as we got there just after noon and were subject to a half hour ‘one car in/one car out’ wait.

Diana took the lead and kept an eye out for alligators.  It’s one thing to be standing up and looking down at them, but we were a lot closer to their level with our recumbents!

It wasn’t long before we saw the first one.  A ranger told us to never pass between their head and the water, as that is their escape.  He didn’t need to tell us twice.  🙂

We quickly started seeing other wildlife, such as this Great Blue Heron.  What appears to be grasslands from ground level is actually mostly water, which can be easily seen from the air.

We spotted this tortoise along the side of the trail.

Yet another gator laying in the grass.  At one point, I stopped to view a turtle, so Diana stopped and began pushing her trike back with her feet.  Her gears made a clicking sound that evidently scared a gator that was hiding in some tall grass, just out of our view.  It jumped into the water with a huge splash. That really got our heart rates going!

Diana spotted this colorful Bull thistle.  We saw several wildflowers in bloom throughout the trip.

Near the southern end of the trail, an observation tower rises above the Everglades.

As we approached, we had to go through a fair amount of water over the path.  This runoff was actually flowing across the road, as this part of Florida has had a lot of rain this year.

While parking the trikes, we noticed this big alligator sizing up all of the tourists.  :). Actually, only one person has been attacked by a gator in Shark Valley since it opened in the 1940’s…a young Brazilian boy who fell off his bike into the canal near the visitor’s center.  His mother jumped in and rescued him by prying the reptile’s mouth open.  While that was an unfortunate accident, we are continually amazed at how some people tempt fate by posing with creatures like this.

As we started up the tower, we noticed this American Crocodile.  Notice the narrower snout.  Alligators have a much wider spread between their nostrils. The Florida Everglades are the only place in the world where crocodiles and alligators co-exist in the same habitat.  We were lucky to see this one, as they are endangered and it is rare to see them in the wild.

Here I am near the base of the tower.

The concrete structure rises above the valley and gives a great view of the surrounding landscape.  The upper portion is closed off, most likely for safety reasons.

Looking back north, you are able to see the road we had just biked on.

 


To the east, south and west, there is wilderness as far as the eye can see!  While most national parks showcase stunning geographical features, Everglades National Park was the first to be established to protect and display the vast ecosystem. It is the third largest park in the Lower 48, behind Yellowstone and Death Valley.

After we were done at the tower, we returned on the curvier eastern side of the loop road.

It wasn’t too long before this Great White Egret flew in front of us.

We passed this partially submerged gator.

Here is a White Ibis in flight.

We also saw plenty of hammocks, which appeared to be islands in the glades.  What we found out was that they are actually deeper water than the surrounding landscape.  When the Everglades dry up in the hot summer, these deeper areas are able to support tree growth.  A change of mere inches can cut short the life of a tree, as has happened to the trees in the foreground.

As we neared the end of the trail, this Anhinga stood by the side of the road, drying its wings.  He didn’t move at all as we slowly passed by.

If you ever get a chance to visit Shark Valley, be sure to do so.  It’s a great way to spend a day!

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Fulltime RVing, TerraTrike

Hauling Our New Trikes

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One thing is for certain: we love our new TerraTrikes!  We knew they would be a challenge to transport though.  This post will show you what we came up with to solve this issue.

 
When we purchased Diana’s TerraTrike, it didn’t take us long to figure out how to haul it.  With the fifth wheel, we needed to get it out of the way of the hitch.  Mounted in the position above, it is safely in front of the trailer.  We’ve since purchased a TerraTrike rooftop kit from Suttons Bay Bikes, which consists of three foam blocks for the tires, and two straps.  I use the straps in place of the orange bungees.  We also remove the seat fabric, which easily snaps on and off.  Trike #1…issue solved!

When I decided to also purchase a trike (as Pam from Oh, the Places They Go kidded with me, “I had a feeling this was coming”), Diana and I had to come up with a solution…and fast.  Our time at Wild Cherry is winding down for this year, and we now owned two trikes, two bikes and a two bike receiver-mounted rack.  We quickly sold the bikes on Craigslist…as in hours after I posted the ad.  That was a relief.  🙂   The rack is a very sturdy Yakima, and it has served us well on the back of the fifth wheel.  I took a long look at it, hoping to come up with a way to modify it for my trike…without losing the ability to change it back to a two-bike rack, if we needed to sell it.  Here is what I came up with:

  
Here is the rack after I flipped the outer rail end to end.  It originally had one bike facing left and one bike facing right.  My goal here was to have both of the wheel supports on the right side in this photo to be aligned with each other.  The single rear wheel is going to ride in the left wheel support, furthest from the truck in this image. This rack also mounts to the back of the trailer, when the truck and RV are hooked up.

With the wheelbase of the two front wheels being 29-1/2″, the current 11″ spread between the wheel supports on the right wouldn’t work to support the front wheels. This is where the modification was needed.

  

I disassembled the supports from the rack and set them aside to use later.

  
This is the piece of 1-1/2″ square steel tube I picked up yesterday at a Traverse City steel supply company.

  
I cut and drilled four small pieces from some scrap steel that Jim (Wild Cherry’s owner) had on hand.  It helps that he is also a cherry farmer, as he has all sorts of equipment that he let me use.  🙂 Thanks Jim!

P  
Here are the four pieces.  The steel was from an old garage door track, hence the extra hole in the one on the right.  That won’t affect anything.

  
I then dusted off my welding skills that I hadn’t used in 35 years and fired up the arc welder….yes, Jim has one of those also!  I welded two of the flanges I had made on one side of the bar, the same distance apart as the wheelbase of the trike.

  
I then marked the center of the bar on the opposite side of the flanges.  I lined that up with the outer arm of the rack, as that is where the center of the trike was going to be.  I then marked the bar where it was going to attach to the inner arm…the mark seen here on the right.

  
I then welded the two remaining flanges into position.  I cleaned up the assembly a little with a hand grinder…my welds were strong, but none too pretty.  :). Once I was done with that, I gave it a couple of coats of black satin Rustoleum.

  
I mounted the bar to the rack with stainless steel bolts and lock nuts. I used stainless steel washers as spacers to fill the void between the flange on the rack. 

  
I then remounted the wheel supports in their new position on the bar.  All that was left now was to head back up to our campsite and try it with a trike!

  
 
It worked!  Here is how the trike fits in the rack.

  
The wheels strap down, just as they did before.

  
Here is a photo from the back.  The one trike actually weighs less than the two bikes combined that used to ride there, so this setup should be very stable.

  
And when the trike is off, I am able to still fold the rack into its upright position.  If for any reason we ever want to sell the rack, all we have to do is bolt it back into its old position, discard the bar I manufactured, and it is good to go.

Trike #2…issue solved!

Fulltime RVing, Michigan

A Perfect Autumn Day at Sleeping Bear Dunes

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Today was just about as perfect as a day could possibly get.  October in Michigan can be a mixed bag, weather wise, but today was begging us to come outside and play!  72 degrees, not a cloud in the sky, and a strong, warm breeze coming out of the south. So…play, we did!

  
We loaded up our TerraTrikes and headed to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.  The portion of the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail that we planned on triking was from the Dune Climb back east to D. H. Day Campground.  This is the portion of the trail that suffered the largest damage from the storm on August 2nd.  It’s also one of the flattest portions of the trail.  :). We pulled into the parking lot of the Dune Climb to see that we weren’t the only ones enjoying the beautiful weather!

  
Out on the trail, the fall colors were evident in a few places.  With Leelanau County being surrounded by the waters of Lake Michigan and Grand Traverse Bay, the weather is moderated by their warmer temperatures in the fall.  So while the rest of lower Michigan is at peak color, we still have a lot of green leaves here.  In fact, a lot of those green leaves are drying up and falling to the ground before changing color!

  
The trail heads east through low dunes towards historic Glen Haven.

  
There are several restored buildings in this former lumbering and fishing town.  The red cannery building in the photo now houses a maritime museum.  There also is a beach here.

  
Farther to the east of Glen Haven is D. H. Day Campground.  This is one of the old log buildings back from when this was a Michigan state park.  This campground was closed for weeks following the August 2 storm, as there were hundreds of trees down.  How no one was hurt, let alone killed, is beyond belief.  The National Park Service did an amazing job of cleaning up the campground, as there isn’t much storm evidence left here.

  
That’s not the case on other portions of the trail.  Many of these fallen trees will be here for years to come.

The portion of the trail we rode wasn’t too long, so we decided to go for a hike!  Last week, Howard and Linda from RV-Dreams hiked the Empire Bluffs Trail and wrote a blog post about it.  The trail is about 45 minutes from Wild Cherry Resort, and tucked away on the south end of the village of Empire.  We’ve been coming to this area for years and never knew it existed.  Proof that you learn something new every day!

  
At 1.5 miles round trip, this was slightly longer than the Pyramid Point trail we have been doing.  

  
The sunlight was streaming through the trees, creating a surreal scene.

  
There were deep ravines and towering hills, typical of the back dunes that dot the shore of Lake Michigan in the state.

A clearing appeared to our right, and we were greeted with this view.

  
Here is Sleeping Bear Dunes in all its splendor.  Lake Michigan to the left, North Bar Lake to the right.

  
The trail continues on towards Lake Michigan, and becomes a boardwalk as it crosses onto the fragile dune above the shoreline.

  
Once out on the dune, we were treated to this spectacular vista.  The large waves that are breaking on the shore looked tiny from up here.  To the left, out over the lake, South Manitou Island can be seen in the distance.

  
There was a steady stream of people coming out to enjoy the view.

  
To the south, across the shimmering water, is Point Betsie.

  
After soaking in the view for awhile, we headed back down the trail.

  
Near the parking lot, I took a photo of these trees.  We aren’t quite sure if they are going to end up being colorful this next week, but we are hoping they are.  A lot of the maples closer to our campground are turning quickly, and they are beautiful…so here’s hoping for some pretty colors!

On the way back home, we stopped at Cherry Republic in Glen Arbor and got Diana a piece of cherry pie.  I opted for a cherry ginger ale.  Yum on both counts!

So today was about as good as we could ever hope a day could be.  We are certainly glad we made the decision to come back north for October!

Fulltime RVing, Michigan

Return to Leelanau

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On October 1, we decided to head back to Leelanau County and Wild Cherry Resort.  Diana’s mom has stabilized from her recent pneumonia, so we felt safe in finishing out the season.  Wild Cherry closes October 31.

    
On Friday, we met Diana’s cousin Reed and his wife Emily in Traverse City for lunch at Northern Natural Cider House.  The two of them had come up from Kentucky to close up the family homestead in Luzerne, MI.  When they arrived early Thursday, they received a huge shock, as Ma Deeter’s had just burned to the ground.

  
A classic example of an ‘up north’ bar, Deeter’s was known far and wide…probably more so than the town it resided in.  It was thought to have been the largest log structure east of the Mississippi. The building had been there since 1940, and the building before it (also destroyed by fire) had been there since 1920.

   
Emily posted this photo on Facebook that morning of their iconic sign and the smoldering ruins.  So sad.

On Saturday, we worked at Wild Cherry.  I grabbed the chainsaw and decided to take down a few dead ash trees, as they were near the roadway.  I was concerned that they could fall on someone.  As I went back to the barn, I came upon this:

 
This was a very much alive top half of an Aspen tree that snapped off in the wind.  Granted, it was very windy on Saturday, but I have to believe that this tree was weakend in the August 2nd storm.

  
It had snapped off a good 40 feet up the trunk.  The pieces in the roadway were fairly thick, so I’m glad no one was under it when it fell!

On Saturday night, we went out to eat with Howard and Linda from RV-Dreams.  

  
They are in town conducting their fall educational rally at Lake Leelanau RV Park.  While we always knew we were most likely going to fulltime RV when we retired, these two were the ones that provided the ‘nudge’ when we attended a couple of their seminars at an RV show in Grand Rapids in January, 2014.  We attended their rally last fall in Goshen, Indiana, and we were very excited to get the chance to see them again.  They have a six week trip to Costa Rica planned (without their rig), so it was fun to hear about the preparations they were making for that adventure.  They have been fulltime RVing since 2005, and they are extremely knowledgable about what it takes to live the lifestyle.  We highly recommend attending one of their rallies, even if you are just an RV owner and aren’t going to full time in it.  They provide a plethora of information on anything conceivable to do with an RV and the lifestyle.

On Sunday, we went to Suttons Bay Bikes and rented a TerraTrike for Diana to try out. We were dressed for a chilly ride, as the temperatures were in the low 50’s. We were just fine with a few layers.

  
We rode 7 miles on the 17 mile long Leelanau Trail.  She liked it so much, she went back to the bike shop and bought it!

  
We then rode the trail 9 more miles.  :). She is a very happy camper (biker)!

On our first ride, we saw this picnic table.

  
We stopped and had lunch there.  They had water, a trash can, a log book, and a pot of flowers…which was a nice touch.  I believe it was maintained by the people who lived adjacent to it.  The Leelanau Trail is a rail trail between Suttons Bay and Traverse City, and is part of the TART trail system that covers the Traverse Bay Area.

When we got to Revold Road, we were just west of Black Star Farms and we saw this sign.

  
You know you are in Leelanau County when the rest stops are wineries instead of ice cream shops.  🙂

Diana had been thinking (dreaming, actually) about getting a TerraTrike for quite awhile.  One thing I was concerned about was how we would haul it.  Fellow full timers, Bill and Jodee from On The Road Abode have two TerraTrikes, and Jodee was kind enough to send me photos of their setup.

   
If we get a second trike, this would work well for us.  Great rack from Hitch Rider.  Thanks, Jodee!

When we brought Diana’s trike home, I came up with this:

  
The disc brakes lock, so there isn’t any movement.  It won’t interfere with the trailer in this position. I’m going to get nylon straps to secure it, instead of the bungees. The seat fabric easily detaches for longer trips.  My bike will continue to ride on our Yakima receiver mounted rack, which can be mounted on the trailer when we are moving, or on the truck when we are stationary at a campground.

So as you can see, we are excited to be able to spend October on the Leelanau Peninsula.  Amazingly, the leaves have yet to change color, so we are hoping for some beautiful vistas fairly soon!  Stay tuned!