A Winter in Florida

This has been our third winter in Florida; the last two here in Bushnell and the first winter in Ocala.  We’ve decided wintering in central Florida suits us.  There are various reasons, of course--in the scheme of things it’s not so far from Nashville, there are some trails for hiking, we enjoy the Escapee park, and Bushnell is conveniently located to the bigger cities of Tampa, Orlando, and Ocala.

A sampling of our winter in photos.
Longleaf Pine and blue skies.

There are a lot of other places we like better than Florida, but all of those places are cold in the winter.  We want some place warm and Florida has that.  So does Texas, but Texas is several hundred miles farther from Nashville.  That’s important to us because we want to be able to see family about every three months.  On a few of our trips we’ve been away from family for six months or so.  We found we didn’t like that so much.

Withlacoochee River

Since we love to hike, it’s important to us to have trails in the area.  There are a lot of trails around central Florida.  They’re sandy and flat, which is not our favorite, but the area still offers some decent hiking opportunities.  Summerdale, Alabama would be another option for winter, but besides not being quite warm enough, there are almost no trails in the area.

Walks on the Van Fleet and Withlacoochee State Trails

Speaking of Summerdale, Rainbow Plantation Escapee Park there is wonderful.  The campground is nice and they offer almost nonstop activities at the clubhouse.  As nice as Rainbow Plantation is, we like Sumter Oaks here in Bushnell better.  It’s a much smaller campground and we like that.  The selection of activities is much more limited, but we’re off doing our hiking thing anyway.  It’s a quiet, cozy little park and we’re beginning to think of it as our winter home.

Fellowship with friends. This one at Mike and Peggy's place.

Bushnell, as a city, has very little to offer, but an hours drive will get you to Tampa, Orlando, or Ocala.  An hours drive will also get you to the Gulf coast or the Atlantic.

For all these reasons, we’ll likely be back to Florida for several winters to come.

How about all those trail lunches in Withlacoochee State Forest

As far as this year goes, we’ve really enjoyed our stay.  Because of family issues in Nashville, we didn’t get down here as early as we had hoped, but next year we’re thinking about coming down early in December--really spend the winter here.  Our hiking has been good.  We’ve hiked about 80 miles since arriving in the middle of January and didn’t do the same hike twice.  We didn’t do a lot of sightseeing this time like we did the past two winters, but next year we may slip away for a couple weeks to the Everglades.  The best part of this winter has been the time with friends.  We had a great week with Mike and Peggy, and six weeks with Tony and Diana.  We’ve renewed our friendships with several folks who make this their winter home and we’ve made a few new friends as well.  How can it get any better?

Whether Dairy Queen, Twisty Treats, or Plant City
 we could always find something sweet to eat.

We’ve been busy today preparing to move.  Anytime we sit for very many days in a row I have to go through every cabinet to be sure things are secured for travel.  I also got all the laundry done.  Escapee parks usually have the cheapest laundry facilities around.  Gene washed the dust off the motorhome and the car.  They sure look pretty.

Everything is ready so it looks like we’ll be pulling out in the morning heading up to Valdosta, Georgia for the night then on to Perry Friday.  We’re anxious to be on the road again.  But, we’ll be right back here next winter I’ll betchya.

That’s it for today.  Thanks for tagging along.

Sumter Oaks RV Park

Finally, we’re here.  We arrived at Sumter Oaks Escapees park about noon yesterday.  For the third day in a row we had great driving weather and a nice ride down I-75 to Bushnell, Florida.  We got checked in and mostly set up in our site where we expect to stay until the FMCA rally in early February.

We have a large site on the end of a row at the edge of the park.
No one in front of us or to the right.

We stayed at this park several weeks last winter.  This is the place with the sand hill cranes roaming around between the RVs.  It’s a typical Escapees park with the daily 4 pm social hour to meet and greet new folks coming in and get caught up on all the park news, Saturday morning breakfast, Sunday ice cream social, and numerous craft and activity groups which meet during the week.

We met several folks last year and have seen them from a distance already this year.  Naturally, we’re anxious to get reacquainted with them.  Our friends Tony and Diana are here.  We’ve caught up with them several times this year--twice in Alaska and most recently in Nashville.  Also here are those Maineiacs in Motion, Mike and Peggy.  It was great to see them again and are looking forward to spending some time with them.  We last saw them at their home in Topsham, Maine in 2010.  Ron and Penny, whom we got to know last winter and have stayed in contact with throughout the year, are also here.

Diana and Penny

Ron and Tony

Mike and Peggy

Tony and Diana had a little welcoming party for us at their rig and invited Ron and Penny, and Mike and Peggy.  So the fun and fellowship has already begun.  Diana also prepared a wonderful travel day meal for us last night.

There are several things we want to get done while here.  Do you remember Vern, our handy-dandy mobile RV repair guy from last year?  Gene is hoping to have Vern do a couple things for us, primarily find and fix that persistent leak.  Warm, sunny days are also good for cleaning the outside of the rig.  We’re also anxious to get in some hiking.  The Florida trail system is pretty extensive.  Gene ordered maps and has already picked out several hikes.

Today, my plans are to get caught up on routine household chores that didn’t get done while we were traveling.  Gene is planning to contact Vern to set up a schedule with him for the repairs.  We’ll, of course, be visiting with friends while enjoying the nice 70 degree weather.

That’s it for today.  Thanks for tagging along.

Lone Star Corral, Hondo, Texas

We have arrived at our campground from which we will explore the San Antonio area.  Lone Star Corral is an Escapees park.  However, it is different from the Escapee Rainbow Parks, two of which we have stayed in recently—Rainbow’s End in Livingston, TX and Rainbow Plantation in Summerdale, AL.  This is a co-op park in which all sites are owned by Escapee members.  Each site consists of a gravel pad for an RV, a gravel yard (some have been landscaped better than others), and a small building at the back of the site.  The building is more than a storage shed; they are about 8 X 20 maybe and most have a screened in porch area.  If the owner is away, the site may be rented on a nightly basis to other Escapee members traveling in the area.  That is how we happened to be here and are planning to stay a week.  The price is similar to the other Escapee parks--$18. per night plus electricity.  There is also a nice clubhouse where there are activities going on much of the time including crafts, quilting, singing, cards, exercise, and line dancing.  They offer a few meals during the week.  We got here just in time for hamburgers today.  We pulled in the park at 11:20, got registered, drove to our site, parked, leveled, hooked up the electricity, put the slides out, turned on the air conditioner, and threw the cat inside in time to get to the clubhouse for hamburgers at noon.  Of course, there is the afternoon social hour at 4 and ice cream social on Sunday evening.  Very typical of all the Escapee parks.

Our drive this morning was more of the same of South Texas.  I took a few photos out the window so that you might see that it is really nothing special.  At least, not to an old Tennessee gal who loves the mountains and trees.  Notice the blue sky and imagine the warmth.  That is what it is all about for most winter Texans.

Tomorrow we plan to head into San Antonio.  The first thing on my agenda is to put the camera in for cleaning.  Gene called this afternoon and they promise to have it ready by Friday.  That’s much better than I expected.  After the camera shop we will probably go to the Alamo, but it may depend on where the camera shop is located.  We’ll see.

Lone Star Hiking Trail

This has been a beautiful day in eastern Texas.  I especially enjoyed my early morning quiet devotional time with my cat in my lap while sipping my own coffee.  Quite a contrast to yesterday morning.

Me with Joe Patterson, founder of Escapees RV Club

We got the full Escapees Welcome Tour this morning.  It was very informative and we got to see what seemed like every inch of this place.  Gene was taking the pictures and from the number of photos of the mail room that must have been the most impressive to him.  It was quite a production.  Escapees has the largest mail forwarding service in the United States.  They have their own private zip code and the mail comes in a truck from Houston just like the post offices around this area.  As we toured the park, we stopped at Joe and Kay Peterson’s home, the founders of the club.  Joe came out to greet the group and Gene was right there with his camera.

One of several mail rooms at Rainbows End

After lunch we drove a little west of here to Sam Houston National Forest for a hike along the Lone Star Trail, a linier trail which runs form Cold Spring to Richards, Texas, a distance of 128 miles.   Boy, was I impressed.  The trail was very well maintained.  There were several blow downs, probably from Hurricane Ike, but they had been cleared from the trail.  Our hike went past one of the backcountry campsites.  It was clean and well maintained; even had a trash can.  There wasn’t a sleeping shelter, however there were about 4 camping pads large enough for 3, possibly 4, backpacking tents.  It was great.  Appalachian Trail Conference could learn from these folks.

We hiked for about 2 miles, then made the return trip to the truck.  We haven’t been out on a trail for several months and it felt good to stretch and enjoy the great outdoors.  With the tour this morning and the hike this afternoon we have over spent ourselves and tonight we are both pretty tired puppies.

Backcountry campsite

Would have loved a trash can along the AT

Tomorrow we are heading in the opposite direction to see what we can find in the Big Thicket National Preserve.

Rainbow Plantation to Rainbows End

We are finally in Texas and officially in southwest United States.

We got up this morning to find two other RVers boon docked at the Wal-Mart.  It was a pretty good night, but a little too cold to boon dock without a generator.  Since we had not done that in cold weather before, we had no idea what a drain on the house batteries the furnace blower was cause.  We turned the heat down very low and crawled into bed.  Even though the furnace ran often in the 33 degree temps, the battery indicator registered at two-thirds full this morning.  We were pleased with that, but felt that in cold weather, we would be more comfortable in a campground with electricity.

I-10 tunnel in Mobile

Since we hadn’t unhitched last night, our get away this morning came in record time.  Within 30 miles we had crossed the Texas State Line.  Of course, we stopped at the Welcome Center.  I made a few pictures and Gene went in to gather as many brochures as he could.  They even gave him a bag to put them in.  I thought he had been to a gift shop when he got back to the truck.  Several folks had mentioned the very bad condition of I-10.  There was one stretch of about 10 miles over which I thought I would be jerked to pieces. The highway is a concrete surface in that area and it was the typical jerk (or lurch) we experience on many concrete surfaces only about 10 times worse. I can’t remember if that was today or yesterday.  Today, from the state line westward for about 10 miles, was construction.  Traffic moved along without delays, but the lanes were narrow and that is always nerve wracking to me.

About noon, three days after we left Rainbow Plantation we arrived at the National Headquarters for the Escapees RV Club at Rainbow’s End Campground.  We got our site, which Gene backed into almost like a pro and with an audience to boot.  We got ourselves set up and organized, met the neighbors, and went over to the Activities Center for the 4 PM social hour.  There are two large campgrounds here—one in the sun; one in the trees.  We chose the one in the sun.  There are the sites which are leased for 5 year periods, and there are the deeded lots with small homes with RV ports or garages.  This is no different from Rainbow Plantation except it is much larger here.  Well, we’re in Texas, after all.  They have two large buildings. One is the activity center and the other is the club house.  These buildings are used for the meals, social hour, entertainment (they are showing a movie tonight), and crafters.  There is certainly plenty to do.  Additionally, there is a small area which they call the care center.  There are about 20 campsites in this area, as well as a larger building.  These sites are reserved for folks who need assistance.  There are several volunteers who tend to the needs of these folks by cooking meals, cleaning, running errands, or whatever is needed.

There are also the Escapees RV Club administrative buildings which house the mail forwarding service, insurance offices, publication office, Head Out Programs and Caravan Travel offices.  This is the mother ship and it is huge.  Tomorrow we are going on the trolley tour.  Check out their website to learn all about Escapees RV Club.

On RV Toilet Paper

I think I promised another social hour story.

There are a few things which RVers don’t talk about much in public.  One of those topics is toilet paper.  It is difficult for the nonRVer to get their mind around black tanks, gray tanks, sewer hoses, sewer donuts, and toilet paper.  Among RVers, however, this is a hot topic of discussion, especially if you have just purchased your very first RV.  The host of our 4 o’clock social hour not only brought up the subject of toilet paper, he also had a demonstration and hands-on activity.  Now just hold on a minute before you get too grossed out (or excited); it was not whatever you are thinking.

New RVers always have the question of what type toilet tissue is safe for the black tank.  This information is readily available for the seeking.  Our owner’s manual even provides a lengthy list of what can and cannot be deposited in the black tank.  For example, under no circumstances are wet wipes or even Kleenex to go down that hole.  Our manufacturer suggests the use of nothing except toilet tissue clearly marked as “safe for RVs”.  The goal here is to use a product which will disintegrate in the tank as much and as quickly as possible.  There is a test which can be done to determine if the tissue you want to use meets the RV standard for disintegration.  It was this test which our social hour host conducted with the help of his audience.

We use the brand in the second jar from the left.

He had several of the popular brands of toilet tissue which he enclosed in a quart canning jar filled with water—one brand per jar.  These jars were then passed to the attendees to be shaken for a few seconds.  It is obvious which brands of tissue will be safe for your black tank.  There were two tissue types which were included in the test which are rarely found on your grocery shelves these days, but were very familiar to this audience “of a certain age”—a page from a catalogue and a corn cob.

There was a substantial rain this morning which began in the predawn hours and continued until mid-morning.  We were glad of our decision yesterday not to try to travel today.  Instead, we enjoyed coffee, bagels, and fellowship with other RVers at the clubhouse this morning.  We had a relaxed day of internet surfing, reading, sudoku, and phone conversations with various family members.  A good day all round.

We are rested and, with clear skies in the forecast for tomorrow, we will hitch ‘em up and move ‘em out toward Texas in the morning.

Show and Tell at the Quilting Circle

Among the many craft groups that meet regularly at the clubhouse, is a small group of ladies who enjoy quilting.  Yesterday afternoon at the social hour, one of the quilters announced that this morning would be “Show and Tell”.  If you had a quilt, or a piece of a quilt, or even a quilting idea, yours or anyone else’s, bring it along and share with the group.  I decided I’d take the quilt off my bed, which was a gift to me from my Aunt Betty.

Aunt Betty's quilt

As a child, I spent a great deal of time at my grandparents’ home.  I do not remember a time when there was not a quilt in progress and most of the time there were several.  My grandmother taught me, as well as all her daughters and most of her granddaughters, to quilt.  I spent countless hours at the quilting frame.

My Aunt Betty is the only one of the many females who continued (I should say continues) to make quilts.  Betty is quite an accomplished quilter and has been asked over the years to teach quilting classes for various groups.  One of her favorite patterns to make is the “log cabin”.  The log cabin is a very versatile pattern and quilts can look totally different simply by varying the arrangement of pieces.

The quilt she gave me several years ago is one of her variations on the log cabin pattern and it is hand quilted—not such a common thing these days.  I took that quit to the quilting meeting today to share as a tribute to Aunt Betty, as well as to my grandmother, who taught us to quilt.

A Throwed Roll Experience

The rains came as predicted overnight.  But it hasn’t been a steady rain all day; there have been dry times.  Gene took advantage of one of those times to continue rubbing on the Montana.  It is a never ending process to keep the outside clean and polished.  We had so much rain during our stay in Nashville that he didn’t get as much done as he had hoped.  It is long overdue now and is taking some real elbow grease.

This is only the second time we have stayed at an Escapee park.  They have many activities and camping options which we are interested in learning about.  This morning we went over to the clubhouse to meet a few people and ask a few questions.  They were just finishing up breakfast.  We had eaten at home because we thought you had to sign up for meals in advance.  That is only true for the Tuesday and Thursday evening meal.  Now we know.  There were several folks still there from breakfast and a craft fair/garage sale was also getting started when we arrived.  We were able to meet several new couples, whom we hope to see again in our travels.  We finally got to meet Norm and Linda Payne.  Gene has used the information on their website for several years to learn about the RVing lifestyle.  Hopefully, we’ll have the opportunity to visit with them again before we leave.

Photo of a journal page

While Gene rubbed on the Montana, I started work on my next major project.  Once again it has to do with digitizing photographs.  For several years, I kept handwritten journals of our activities.  Living in such a small space prohibits carrying around all that paper.  This past December I finally got the last of those journals transcribed to word documents and copied to CDs.  All I have left now are 4 spiral bound journals which are a combination of the handwritten account and the photos, postcards, and patches that go along with the written text.  I guess the best way to describe it is an elementary form of scrapbooking.  It certainly isn’t as elaborate as the scrapbooks we think of today.  I have struggled with what to do with these journals.  While we were in Nashville, a friend mentioned that her husband was preserving old photos by taking a digital photo of the paper picture.  That sounded like a solution to my journal problem.  The main problem I have is light.  Inside it is too dark not to use a flash, however, the flash creates a glare on the glossy finish photo.  Outside on a sunny day, the sunlight is too harsh and also causes a glare.  Today is perfect.  With the overcast skies I can photograph my photograph in front of a window and get enough light without using the flash.  I have included a couple pictures of our trip the Mt. Whitney in California, the highest point in the lower 48 at just under 14,500 feet.

For lunch we went to Lambert’s.  They are famous for their throwed rolls and before we could even tell them how many was in our party we had been thrown hot rolls right out of the pan.  All during our meal, rolls were flying around the dining room.  Also making they way around the dining room (thankfully not in the air) were the “pass arounds”—fried okra, macaroni and tomatoes, pinto beans, potatoes and onions, and apple butter and molasses for the rolls. The food was good, not outstanding, but it was all about the experience.

On our way home we stopped by the seafood market for our first pound of fresh shrimp which we are having over pasta for dinner.

We plan to go to the 4 o’clock social hour this afternoon the meet a few more people and the rest of the afternoon and evening we will kick back and relax.

Escapees Park, Summerdale, Alabama

We made the run from De Funiak Springs, Florida to Summerdale, Alabama this morning.  It was a pleasant ride, but not uneventful.  Most often Gene will fill up the truck when he doesn’t have the Montana attached to the back.  It is just so much easier and less stressful that way.  Today, however, the plan was to stop at a truck stop just 25 miles from the campground.  We had a half tank of fuel, so no problem.  The rationale for not fueling up yesterday was because it was a 20 mile round trip drive into town.


The problem, which we did not anticipate, was that the truck stop was closed—as in gone out of business.  Lucky for us, the road was 5 lanes across and had virtually no traffic.  It was easy to make a U-turn, even with the behemoth in tow.  I sat with the Next Exit Guide in my lap until we got to the closest RV friendly diesel pump.  The Next Exit Guide is a fantastic resource.  It lists all the interstate exits and includes what services are available at each exit, such as food, fuel, and lodging.  It indicates where hospitals are and Wal-Marts.  For fuel, it states whether or not they sell diesel and places which will accommodate RVs are listed in red. We use it a lot and it certainly did come in handy today.  The next fuel was only 50 miles down the road, but by the time we got there we had worked ourselves up into a nervous state with visions of it too being out of business.

An unusual rig we saw at the Welcome Center

Peanut and I waited in the truck at the Alabama Welcome Center as Gene went in to gather up brochures for places and/or attractions we might like to visit while near Mobile and Gulf Shores.  Like most RVers, we pay attention to other RVs we see along the road. I have included a picture of a class B and its unusual tow which pulled into the Welcome Center while we were there.

We finally made it to our destination about noon.  We will be staying here at the Escapee campground in Summerdale for at least a week and I suspect we will add another week.  There are several things we want to see in Mobile and Gulf Shores.  This is a large park comprised of two areas.  There are 75 sites which are used for folks like us who are here for 1 night or even for the winter.  Then there is what they call “the village” area where RVers have bought the lot and built a small dwelling.  Tomorrow I will try to get a few pictures of that area.  As you can see from the picture of our campsite, it is huge.  All sites are back-ins and they are all as wide as ours.  We have neighbors on both sides, but you can hardly see them in the photo.  All sites are grass and most have a tree.  This is a popular winter park for many snowbirds.  And no wonder; for Escapee members the price is only about $11/night.  The calendar they gave us was full of all kinds of activities from computer classes to line dancing.  They also prepare a couple meals each week.  We didn’t go tonight, but they were having pork tenderloin with vegetables for just $6 per person.  Like all Escapee parks, they have a daily 4 PM social hour.

After we got settled and had a bite of lunch, we made a grocery run.  The nearest supermarket is Wal-Mart which is about 10 miles from here.  I wish it were a little more convenient, but it was a very nice store and brand new.

We are still working on what we will do tomorrow, but whatever it is will probably be in the Gulf Shores area.

The Great Escape(e)

The deal was set. The boss would allow Gene to travel provided he make himself available for work via cell phone and internet air card.

A giddy sense of freedom washed over us as we contemplated finally being on the road. Sure, working would cut into sightseeing time. That just meant we’d need to linger longer to see an area. Objective One: South Carolina.

We’d never toured SC and our “See all of America the Beautiful” map of the US did not have South Carolina colored in. That map is an RVer’s bragging map. Much like a Scout’s Merit badge Sash the map proudly displays your travel accomplishments and invites conversation. We only have about 13 states colored in. (We choose not to color just by driving through. We color only if we have spent at least a few days and done some sightseeing. But there are no rules or Map Police. It’s your map after all.)

Being giddy with the freedom of our escape from the routine it was quite appropriate to land our first night from our home town at the Raccoon Valley RV Park in Heiskell, TN (Knoxville area). Operated by the Escapees RV Club the park was our first Escapee (abbreviated SKP) campground. Hugs and hand shakes are common in the Club. Gene got his first SKP hug when he registered.

The Park is clean inside and out. A giant lending library of books, videos, DVDs, jigsaw puzzles and travel info is available in the loft above the Rec Hall.

Every day a Social Hour is held in the Rec Hall. It is a chance to meet and greet, ask advice about the area or RVing, and visit with others of like lifestyle. Some folks vacation in their RV, others use theirs for multi-month adventures, and others live in the “rig” as their only home. Most are mobile but frequency of travel can very widely.

At our first Social Hour we provided the entertainment as we were the only new folks on display. We enjoyed the chatting. Then it happened. One in the group was a fellow we had previously met at the Timberline Campground (not an SKP park) in Lebanon, TN. It is said to be startling how often one bumps into the same folks again and again all over the nation. Like flotsam on the wave or “dust in the wind” we drift N-S or E-W with the seasons and our own whim. Gathering at Escapee Club campgrounds (there are 19) would help explain repeat meetings.

We off-loaded a couple DVDs and books for the library and took 1 book with us in return.

We left after only 2 nights fleeing the freeze in TN for a warmer SC. We hope to try as many Club campgrounds as our travels permit. But we certainly will return to Raccoon Valley for its friendliness and great facilities. Perhaps that combination of quality facilities and quality folks explains how we keep running into each other at Escapee campgrounds and events all over the country.