Cape Coral & Hobe Sound, FL

Tuesday - Wow! Fast internet here in Cape Coral at our friends home. There was some issues so we are here watching their dog. Not much, just letting him outside every couple of hours. The RV is approximately 9 miles away. 

Tomorrow, we are planning to travel across the state to Hobe Sound to visit some other friends from Alaska. 

Tuesday - We left around 11am. There was a lot of traffic leaving Fort Myers and no real highways until we were over an hour into our trip. Too many people in FL!

We are visiting Harvey & Nancy. I hadn’t seen them in years since they were still living in Fairbanks. I’ve known Harvey almost as long as I’ve been in Alaska. 

Fort Myers, FL - TT

Saturday - The morning test session ended up being a no-show, but it was nice to sit outside. Only 71°F, though it did start to slowly warm up. By the time of the mid-day session, it was over 80°F. Too hot to sit outside.

We spent the afternoon with friends. I didn’t try the pool yet though it was tempting on this hot, muggy afternoon. 

A brief storm rolled through around dinner time which made for a decent sunset. 

Sunday - °F 

Edison - Ford Winter Estate

Friday - We spent the morning touring the Edison & Ford Winter Estates. This is a banyan tree planted as an experiment in the search for locally grown latex sources. Two thousand plants were tried to see which ones prospered in North America. Rubbers produced from petroleum soon took over the market. 

The model T Ford came with all of the tools needed to maintain and repair the car. It sounds like Ural adopted the same model though the model T came with a much larger toolbox.

The estate had the winter homes/cottages for both Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. The Edison’s would spend the winter and the Fords only about three weeks. 

Edison did have a lab set up to study the plants. Very different from his other labs. But there is still a surprising number of machine tools. He did set up a DC generator to provide power but later connected to the AC system set up by the city. 

Fort Myers, FL - TT

Tuesday - Yesterday was a travel day into Fort Myers to an Encore park. More “into” the city than I prefer. We are here partly to visit friends from Fairbanks that have moved here. Temperatures are more moderate than even Orlando probably because we are near the gulf. 

Wednesday - We visited with several friends from Alaska today. One couple from Eagle River and the other from Fort Wayne, IN. We had delicious moose chili.

Thursday - Friends, Steve & Cheryl, took us out on their pontoon boat today. It was a long ride through the waterways to get to the gulf.

We saw some dolphins on the way out and stopped on Sanibel Island for lunch. 

It was a beautiful day to be out on the water. The temperature was a perfect 72°F with a light breeze. I didn’t know that a pontoon boat was usable in the ocean. 

Wauchula, FL - HH

Sunday - We left TTO around 10:30am and headed south. After filling up with diesel once we got out of the Orlando area, we continued to our Harvest Host stop south of Wauchula, FL. I guess we could've stopped at the Peace River TT, but that was one of the worst ones we've been to. Another option is the SKP park just a short drive away. 

Charlotte's Web is the Harvest Host stop and is a bar with a food truck. The po' boy sandwich I had here was wonderful. The parking area is a small field next to the building that they use for event parking. No events are going on while we are here, so it has been pretty quiet. 

Monday - The temperature this morning has been wonderful. I'm sitting outside getting ready for a test session, and it is 76°F. We will need to run the generator this afternoon to charge up the batteries, and we'll run the A/C at the same time. I think it's supposed to be 83°F this afternoon.

Our next reservation doesn't start until tomorrow at an Encore park in Fort Myers. It looks like a nice place. We'll be there for a couple of weeks before heading back to TX.

I'm using the outdoor area of the bar for the test session. I am running the generator as the battery SoC is down to 31%. We do seem to run through quite a bit of power at 430aH over the last 12 hours. We are charging at 70 amps so that is still around 6 hours. The solar contribution is minimal compared to how much power we use. I won't bother to charge the batteries up all the way as we only need enough for another night.

I had the blackened grouper sandwich from the food truck along with the fried pickles. I don’t think I’ve had grouper before and it was pretty tasty. I’m not sure whether the grouper or the shrimp sandwich is better. I’d rather not be forced to pick. 

Four Corners, FL - TT

Tuesday - The calendar says that it’s St Patrick’s Day. I had made the traditional corned beef and cabbage dinner a couple of weeks ago. Not in the sous vide but in the Instant Pot. It didn’t turn out anywhere near as tasty. 

The low temperature this morning was 47°F. Quite a change from the past week. The forecast is calling for 44°F tonight. Things should start warming up again after this cold front passes through. 

I took advantage of the cooler temperatures to take a walk. I had an Amazon package come in to a locker about 1¼ mile away. I ordered a gadget that disables the auto start/stop function on the Jeep. There is a button that disables it but you have to press it every time you start the engine. This gadget just automates that. For the last couple of years, I had it disabled by unplugging the hood switch. Now, the hood switch is in place again so the alarm function is working again.

Wednesday - Today’s field trip was to Bok Tower. It is around 40 miles south on Hwy 27. That’s over an hour of Florida driving time without toll roads. Bok Tower is a nature preserve with a bell tower with 60 bells. A keyboard is mechanically linked to the clappers allowing someone to play the bells. 

Today was the opening day of the International Carillon Festival. Carillonist is the term for the musicians playing the bells. 

At 1pm, they started to play but it wasn’t a recognizable tune (to me). There is a very short YouTube video of it playing at the end of this post. I must admit that I was disappointed in the sound. Maybe the performer was playing a complex piece and it was lost on me. 

We also went on a house tour but the house was built by a someone named Bach and not the Bok that built the tower and surrounding garden. This tree was “behind” the house but actually in front of the main entrance. We entered through the pantry and kitchen. 

Repairs - TT

Saturday - Not much went on today. A mid-day test session followed by restringing one of the blinds. The restringing part was simple but reattaching the blind to the hangers buried behind a cabinet was a pain. I have a couple more minor repairs and one semi-major one to do. Maybe I’ll knock out the minor one today or tomorrow. 

Sunday - Fixed a drawer slide. The minor repair of the day. There was heavy rain with lightning in the late afternoon and evening.

Monday - Today’s minor maintenance is regenerating the water softener. It is a manual process that takes two cartons of salt (52oz) and about 35 minutes. A slow stream of water is run through the salt and resin for about 25minutes followed by a 6 minute flush. It needs to be done about once per month. There is another method that I’m still researching 

It’s around 80°F right now (noon) with more rain and lightning in the forecast for this evening. 

Disney Springs

Wednesday - We went to Disney Springs, the retail area for WDW, to meet up with Tim and Sue from Fairbanks. It was in the 80s (°F) for most of the afternoon and, apparently, not very windy as the helium balloon was flying.

We walked through most of Disney Springs, had lunch at Chicken Guy (good Korean chicken sandwich!), and wandered through the shops. 

We then went to the Pop Century resort and took the Disney Skyliner to the Boardwalk. The Skyliner is free as it is just another transportation option around Disney World, like the monorail and buses. Here, we are crossing a small lake heading towards other resorts, where we will switch to another Skyliner towards Epcot.

We had dinner at Blue Ribbon Corndogs, where they had something that I had to try. A dill pickle corndog. The large pickle is hollowed out, and a hot dog is inserted. Then the whole thing is covered with the corn dog batter and deep-fried. It is served with peanut butter, but I don't think it adds much more. The combination works, though I did end up using a knife and fork. The addition of the pickle made it quite heavy.

We hadn't visited the Boardwalk on prior visits, so this was new. We ended up walking over 18k steps. Definitely got in some exercise. It was wonderful to visit with Tim and Sue.

Orlando, FL - TT

Sunday - Today was a very short travel day to TTO. Like usual, it was a long wait at the front gate, but they are pre-assigning sites now, like many other TT parks. It’s not as nice as their old system, but better than driving around hunting for something. 

It took quite a while to set things up, but since we are here for a couple of weeks, it made sense to me to make myself at home. It’s an older part of the park, but it has 50-amp power and is reasonably level. And the refrigerator is not facing south. StarLink isn’t as fast as other locations, probably because we are in a populated area. But we are still getting 114 down and 15 up. Fast enough. 

Monday - It's 79°F at noon. But since I have the awning and the sunscreen set up, it is pretty nice sitting outside at least for the mid-day test session. 

Tonight, grilled vegetables on the Blackstone. Finished off with a balsamic glaze. One of our favorites sides. And I’m trying to make garlic butter shrimp also on the Blackstone. 

We still haven’t decided whether or not to venture into any of the theme parks. Since this is the beginning of Spring Break season, it’ll be crowded. 

Tuesday - First thing this morning, I washed the Jeep. This is the first time I’ve been “allowed” to wash a vehicle in a long time. Everywhere has had water restrictions due to drought. Even northern Florida. We have run it through a couple of touch less car washes but they aren’t as common as the ones with brushes. Since the Jeep is a soft top, car washes are strongly discouraged according to the manufacturer. 

It’s pretty warm today and it feels humid though the Rh is only 50%. The pool was crowded earlier but once evening arrived, it slowed down a lot. There are two pools. This used to be the adult pool but they were sued by a full time family RV group. Now, no more age restrictions at any TT park. 

Ocoee, FL - HH

Saturday - A short travel day to a Harvest Host just east of Winter Garden. It is a restored car dealership with about 150 cars. Some are completely restored and some have some modern components.

It was a hot afternoon so we had the generator running with both A/C units on. Having the generator is nice. By 6:30, it was around 80°F and a light breeze. We had dinner at a place called Sizzling Greens. A light-ish dinner on this warm evening. 

Tomorrow, it’s about 25 miles to Thousand Trails Orlando aka TTO. Google says 38 minutes. 

Back in Florida

Sunday - After a week of 79°F temperature, the 69°F of Fort Lauderdale felt “chilly”. Welcome back to the real world. At least we aren’t headed back to snow.

From the parking lot to the RV park was 357 miles and took around 7 hours including a stop at KFC for lunch. This time, we took the Florida Turnpike from Fort Lauderdale to just east of Tampa. The toll was around $18 but after our trip down to the port, well worth it. The only slowdown was when we were near Orlando. So much less stress.

We arrived back around 4:30pm. If we took the non-toll roads, we probably would’ve stopped for the night along the way. So the toll roads were a net savings. 

Monday - It felt cold this morning. The low was 48°F. But by early afternoon, it was up to 80°F so time for a dip in the pool. The pool here was about the same as the ocean so pretty nice. And, the sun felt just as hot!

I got some tasks done. NSA sent some new parts to try and resolve the tow bar not locking into the extended position. The new part looks just like the old one. But I went ahead and installed it. We move next Sunday.

Tuesday - A quiet day but it did get a bit warm and humid. Another good day for the pool. Someone asked me where “home” is. The phrase “home is where we park it” came to mind. It’s kind of accurate, for now, but I think Bridget would like to have some sort of sticks-and-bricks home base. The big question is where. 

Wednesday - This morning, we visited Manatee Springs State Park. It is just across the Suwannee River but to drive there, we head all the way back to Old Town to cross the river. Day use was only $6/vehicle and there was a nice boardwalk to the Suwannee River. 

No manatees in the river or spring. But did see an otter and a lot of turtles. The park was pretty empty probably because there weren’t any manatees. 

This is the Suwannee River from the end of the boardwalk and where saw the otter. 

Afterwards, we picked up more groceries before heading back to the rv park.