Time to settle down for a few weeks and recover from the cold I got in Big Cypress. I headed for the Wauchula SKP Resort owned by my Escapees camping club. The rates are cheap, amenities great, and people are always very friendly in Escapee parks. I love staying in them. It is also in the heart of Florida’s orange grove country.

The sites are level and provide cement patios as well as full utilities and wide paved roads. The entrance is easy to spot, very wide, and the 2 lane 60 MPH road opens up with a very long left turn lane to make it easy to slow down with a large RV to turn. The pool is heated and well used as is the clubhouse and the bike racks. The laundry room is very clean and inexpensive. WIFI is excellent all  through the park! They have local brochures available.  Super Walmart is nearby as well as plenty of restaurants. It was great to get back to a clubhouse with puzzles again. I have gotten my jollies with several puzzles since arriving.

Since I planned to be staying a while, I had some fun putting out some of my trailer decorations. I even had time to wash the Maine mud off the front and I washed the windows with my new collapsible bucket. The collapsible buckets are great! They do work and store neatly out of the way in their own pouch. Did some other annual maintenance too.

The Christmas and New Year’s Eve parties were lots of fun. For Christmas Eve, we had a cute little show in the clubhouse along with punch and cookies. For Christmas we signed up for tables, planned menus, and everyone brought something. I was in charge of olives and green salad. I think I put out a pretty decent salad bar for my table. The turkey and ham, stuffing, potato salad, shrimp, pies, etc. were all delicious and I was stuffed. The next night we had Christmas Dinner Part II – Leftovers which was just as good though fewer attended. Stuffed again and we still had enough left to take some home. For New Year’s Eve, we brought snacks up to the clubhouse to listen to a singer they hired with a karaoke machine. A few brave souls besides the singer serenaded us. There was lots of dancing including line dancing and a little Macarena. Near midnight, they turned on the big screen TV to watch the ball drop in NYC. I got plenty of hugs.

The park is near the winter headquarters for the Royal Lipizzaner Stallions in Myakka, FL. They are just starting their 2009 tour and I managed to catch the show one night in Lakeland, FL. It is an amazing fusion of classical music and precise dressage skill. The horses and the uniforms of the riders are beautiful. Horse and rider act as one. I have wanted to see them since I saw Disney’s “Miracle of the White Stallions” as a kid. It was worth the wait. Even the young children attending were well behaved and in awe.

A got an invite from another single lady camper to go see Solomon’s Castle nearby with her. Solomon’s Castle is the home of an artist he built to look like a genuine castle from junk and it shows off his sculptures made from junk. He is very talented with a  great sense of humor. When we got there, a bus tour of senior citizens had already arrived. The tour was very interesting and the castle magnificent. The aluminum outside skin is made from printing plates he gets from the local newspaper after they are done with them. They have a special suite in a tower that you can stay in if you have $100 to spare. Lunch is served up onboard a ship in the moat in a restaurant run by Solomon’s daughter and husband. The menu is very lean but the portions of what they do have sure are not. Wow! I enjoyed the meatloaf very much and my friend had their famous apple crisp with cinnamon ice cream. Naturally before we went there, I checked on geocaches and found there is one there out on their nature trail. I found it very easily thanks to the clue.

Another day I checked out a little park on the Peace River where many people go to pan for shark’s teeth. I kid you not. It is all rocky there and covered with tiny shells and sharks teeth of all sizes. I saw men wading in wet suits while panning. Of course, I was really there to find a geocache. Mission accomplished.

That same day, I went to the Cracker Trail Museum to learn about local pioneer life and….. you guessed it… find a virtual geocache. Virtual caches are not actual containers with items but rather some interesting sign or object you must see and get some information off of to claim the find. In this case, I had to get a pioneer’s full name. The museum was worth the dollar to see and I liked where the virtual was.

While here, the park did get robbed one night. The thieves stole items left outside unlocked including 1 bicycle and invaded RVs that were left unlocked while inhabitants slept to steal wallets and other valuables. No one woke up or was confronted. The bike was later found in a field. I post this only as a reminder that whether you are in a house or an RV, don’t forget security. Lock things up and don’t get too complacent no matter how nice the neighborhood is.

My laptop died while working one night here. I had to scramble very fast to get a new one since I do work a normal 40 hour a week job over the Internet. The nearest large city with choices is Lakeland 47 miles away so I drove up to the Circuit City, Office Depot, Staples, and Best Buy there. I found 2 I liked and could afford but of course they were out of the 1 I finally chose. They checked stock for me and I ended up making a second trip 80 miles away to Kissimmee, FL. When I got there, I spoke to 3 different computer sales associates to get their opinions on my two choices considering my needs. I lucked out and also got the store expert as one of them. I am very happy with the one I finally bought, an Acer Aspire 6930. I am not too crazy about all the ridiculous security in the Windows Vista that came on it but am learning to deal with it as I move my files and programs over from my old hard drive. I love the new built-in wifi card which is very strong. I am getting great signal on it even in my aluminum skin trailer. Having a DVD writer again is certainly nice. My old laptop did not have that. Intel Centrino CPU, 3 gigs ram, 320 gig hardrive, surround sound with subwoofer, built-in webcam, and 16″ screen are also very nice. Vista performance analyzer is giving most of the components scores in the high 4s. Only gaming graphics scored 3.4 but since I don’t game much, I don’t care.

I also lost my aircard service here. Apparently Sprint changed their contract quite significantly. It now has a cap of 5 gigs per month instead of unlimited and they capped roaming at only 300 megs. Now I only use 1.5 gigs a month even with working fulltime over the Internet but I do roam a lot as I travel. 300 megs is just enough to do email. Whoopee! They called me to tell me I was violating the new contract and offered me a chance to get out of the 2 year contract free. I took the out. Without roaming, their coverage is pretty pitiful compared to others like Verizon. They could not have found a better way to kill their company. A little checking on the Internet shows they are losing customers in droves over this. They didn’t even bother to come up with a new plan and charge for roamers. So now I am wirelessless (is that a word? ).

At the end of my stay I had to move into one of the overflow sites to make room for other members wanting to enjoy the facilities. Even the overflow area is nice with flat wide slots, water, and 20 amp electric near the clubhouse. Certainly no worse than a state campground but with great wifi. Hint: to use an air conditioner on 20 amps, kick the refrigerator over to gas. The fridge does use a lot of electricity. It really isn’t that hard on the gas either.

Despite my bad luck with the cold and broken computer while I was here, I also had some good luck. I stumbled across a long term resident with a woodshop stocked with tools and the talent to go with them. I explained to him the problem I have had for 2 years with the front board of my couch which comes off to use the storage space underneath. I have had it taking up space in my bedroom because if I put it on the couch, my dang cat will drop down behind the couch and get stuck which I can’t have happen while I’m asleep or away. I had an idea of what to do but no tools and the nice gentleman came up with an even better idea. After I pulled the staples and peeled back the upholstery, he cut an 8 inch circle in the end of the board. I replaced the upholstery and fit it over the edges of the hole then stapled it back down. The Dang Cat now has her very own private condo under the couch completely furnished with her large cushioned pet pad. She loves it! I am considering adding a name plate over it or a mailbox. LOL And like any wife who gets one thing new, she had to have more furniture. To replace her pet pad in the living room, I bought her a very well cushioned new cat bed. The older we get, the more padding we need.

While in the Ace hardware store nearby, I discovered they carry RV parts including the ones I have been looking for in RV stores. I was able to fix the maddening drip of the bathroom faucet and kitchen faucet as well as replace the electrical receptacle in the kitchen where only one outlet had been working. We are a 2 holer now! What was funny was I had asked a couple of men how to get the wires to push down into the connectors because I have always used the screw type receptacles. It became clear that I would have to hover the wires over the connectors and then push the back plate into the faceplate and this would set the wires properly. Unfortunately, I have zero upper body strength. One of the men tried to do it for me but that sucker just wasn’t having it. He finally gave up and provided me with a large C clamp and block of wood I had requested. I fit the pieces together, placed the wood over the back, then clamped them together and snapped it right in. Moved the clamp a little and snapped the rest in. Heh heh who needs brawn when they have brains. Aar aar aar!

Lastly, rather than than jump into another 2 year contract for wireless, I have just purchased a used aircard from a reputable dealer on Ebay. The key to buying them on Ebay is to make sure they don’t require a contract and that they either provide the ESN number off the back of the aircard so you can call the service the card is for and verify it can be activated (not stolen or with an existing balance owed), or they guarantee they have checked it and it can be activated and they have excellent very high feedback. It was fun getting back into the auctions since it has been awhile for me. I enjoyed kicking some butts back to their mommas when I sniped the item out from under them in the last 7 seconds. Muwahaha! I still got it very cheap too. When I get the card, I only have to call the service and activate it on a month to month contract. I will have to pay a setup fee but that is still better than a 2 year contract with an out clause that requires $175 to get out of it. This is also a great way to upgrade to one of the newer cards if you need to since you can activate them on your current plan. I chose a card that is identical to my fairly current Sprint aircard so my external antenna will fit it. I wasn’t in the mood to buy another antenna or adapter. I suppose I could go ahead and sell off my Sprint card now to recoup some of my costs.

For more pics click:
Wauchula
Royal Lipizzaner Stallions
Solomon’s Castle

I got a hankering to see the Adirondack Mountains, Lake George, and Lake Champlain so up to the northern tip of New York I went. Again, despite calling twice to verify my aircard would work near Lake George, it didn’t work though there is a tiny signal there in some spots. Calls to all the nearby campgrounds that purported to have wifi yielded more “yes we have it if you sit by our office” nonsense. The C2C campground, Adirondack Adventure Resort,  was very very nice with wonderful helpful staff but with no Internet I had to leave. Bummer. I was looking forward to seeing Lake George and the Great Escape Six Flags amusement park. It was not to be.

Rather than abandon that leg of the trip, I made some more calls farther north until I located Ausable River Campsites, a Passport America park in Keeseville, very close to Ausable Chasm, Lake Champlain, and Lake Placid. Woohoo! Solid gold strike! While they do have wifi throughout the park, after half an hour on it it turns to crap every time. I swear the 3rd party providers of it are throttling it to discourage any long use. Happily, my Sprint aircard worked there so I was in business. The park has a wonderful heated pool and lots of planned activities. I managed to get on the hayride and grab some ice cream at the social.

I hit Ausable Chasm first thing. It is a beautiful stretch of the Ausable River with fascinating rock wall formations and waterfalls. You can go on a raft trip or go tubing all day in it. They have a long path all along the top and down into it if you are up for it. A trolley ferries tubers and rafters back.

On my day off later in the week, I drove through the mountains to Lake Placid where Olympians have trained for years and two winter olympics have been held. High Falls Gorge seems to be very popular with hikers and families. The road to the top of Whiteface Mountain is a very popular drive too. They charge you to drive on it. There is a gondola ride up Little Whiteface mountain for viewing and skiing.

In Lake Placid, part of the olympic complex still exists and the day I was there I got to watch future olympic skaters practice. Parents drive their kids from far away to train there with the best trainers. There is a museum there in the complex and the tour was great. I got to see the rink where the Miracle Team beat the Russians in hockey at a time when the country desperately needed a morale boost. If you want to bobsled and feel what it is like on the ski jump, get in the virtual reality simulator there. Outside is the speed skating rink where one American won 5 gold medals, the first time it had ever been done. You can see the ski jumps over a mile away from the complex.

The lake there can also be fun with sailboat and kayak rentals nearby. I had a very nice steak smothered in mushrooms and onions on the lakeside patio of the Sports Bar restaurant there.

I purposely left some time in the evening to sneak over to another GTG (Get ToGether) of my RVing Singles group that was going on nearby. Because they were boondocking in someone’s yard, I couldn’t stay with them but I got to spend the evening conversing, eating fresh baked blueberries, and 4x4ing around the huge property. Wow! They have their own pond and summer cottages besides their lovely house there. The view is fantastic!

The next day I took my first car ferry ride across Lake Champlain to Burlington, Vermont. It takes an hour and was soooooo cool! It is great having your comfortable car there to sit in but also be able to roam around the deck. This time I got smart and finally moved my binoculars into my car so I would have them when I wanted them such as on the ferry. There is a snack bar, restrooms, and a gift shop on that particular ship too.

When we landed in Vermont, I took off for Waterbury, the home of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. You can tour their factory there and hear their story. Yep, there is plenty of ice cream to eat there too and that seemed to be the most popular activity there. I was surprised that the factory is not all that big for a company that sells all over the world now. Ice cream does not seem to take that much space. You probably won’t see Ben or Jerry there as they are retired from the company. You will see the graveyard of the discontinued flavors though. Oh and tie dye. They seem to really be into tie dye in that area. You can dye  a shirt right there at the factory.

Heading back, I needed to go to the Super Walmart in Plattsburgh so I took the shorter ferry ride over from Grand Isle which also gave me more time to see the lovely Vermont countryside. I definitely LOVE ferries!

I didn’t have time to get to the Adirondacks Museum but it does sound pretty interesting so keep that in mind if you ever get to the area.

For more pics, click here.

Finally time to bid adieu to Florida and head for the Coast to Coast/Good Sam Club RV Rally in Perry, Georgia. I hit up a Geocache I had already found first to pick up a new travel bug to move and started my “Amuse Me” travel bug on its journey by dropping it into the cache.

The day was beautiful and drive not too bad though I had to stop at a rest area to adjust my sways bars. There is so much traffic on the I75 north that they kept drafting me pretty bad so I had to tighten things up a bit.

Since I had decided rather late in the game to go to the Rally, I could not get reservations for a close campground and I can’t dry boondock at the Rally due to my work. I found a convenient campground about 25 miles away in Cochran, GA with wifi and it is a Passport America park as well. I love paying only $11 a night for full hookups! Finding the Hillside Bluegrass RV Park was pretty easy off a wide open highway outside of town. Their bath house while unheated is still of an excellent design with separate rooms which contain shower, toilet and sink in each. It is on a hillside so level it is not and the dirt road could use some smoothing out. No laundry room. Still, the wifi worked well for me in a space on top of the hill, the owners are very friendly, the location was close enough to see everything I wanted to see. Propane there is high so I filled up at Davis propane in town.

The biggest surprise to me there was that my aircard worked there. It wasn’t EVDO speeds but rather 1xRTT but even that was fast enough for my work the night the storms knocked out the wifi. It was a very pleasant surprise indeed. So glad I got the aircard!

I got a chance to try out my external WaveII wireless antenna outside too. I finally realized I have a small window I never use near my work table and was able to pull the screen out intact. I ran the 15 foot antenna cord in through it after I mounted the antenna to my front window flap strut. Eventually I will be mounting it on a pole by itself that I can raise and lower. I’m thinking of using a tent pole for that. It worked even better outside and the signal gain it adds is fantastic.

While staying in Cochran, I managed to hit one Geocache in Macon to drop off a travel bug and found a gold serpentine chain in it. Mine all mine! Lovely walk on the jogging path through a park along the river and easy find just off of it. I also started my “Beat Me Home” travel tag on its journey by dropping it in the cache. Crossing my fingers.

I also managed to have lunch in Macon with one of my coworkers who happens to live nearby. We have been working together for 3 years over the internet and have never met before. That was great! She’s a very nice and interesting person. She loves Nascar. Don’t worry, Dawn. I’m not going to post the name of your county here and make you the butt of a lot of jokes though I am sorely tempted too.

I tried the boiled peanuts I’m always hearing about in the South. Supposedly boiling gets the salt deep into the peanut and makes them soft to eat. Must be an acquired taste. I much prefer my peanuts hard and salty on the outside. Damn Yankee.

Had to head farther south to get warm so I went to Bushnell, Florida off I75 to the Sumter Oaks RV Park which is an Escapees owned rv park. Escapees is a camping group I belong to out of Texas for those who don’t know. They own some of their own parks where they offer inexpensive camping and they are partnered with numerous other RV parks to save 15% on their regular nightly camping fees.

First thing you notice here is there are no reservations accepted. You have to go for it and hope there is an open spot when you get here. Smart Escapees call before they head out to see if they have any chance at all of getting in as they are always pretty close to capacity. If they don’t have an opening, not to worry as they do have very cheap overnight dry-camping available and there are bunches of campgrounds in the area including one just down the road.

After signing in, you don’t pay up front like other parks. You pay when you leave or the end of the month, whichever comes first. There is an extra charge for electricity which keeps everyone conservation conscious. Before you leave the office, they may offer a hug. Hugging is an old tradition among Escapees.

All sites are full hookup and a few sites are actually leased yearly so they may appear open when they are not if the lessees are traveling.

The park is covered with oak trees and grass. Squirrels, owls, woodpeckers, etc. share the park with you. There is an indoor pool and a clubhouse with lots of planned activities, dinners, and outings. They have regular water aerobics, bingo, movie night, Friday night jam session with a great band and dancing, and Sunday night ice-cream socials. I enjoy working the jigsaw puzzles in the clubhouse with others. The pool table looks awfully inviting too. There is also a table of items people are getting rid of which you can take and either leave a donation of your choice or trade another item for. I left out my 2006 TrailerLife book and software on the table. They vanished quickly. I noticed my spare small heater was gone from the table today.

The park does not have wireless internet but they do have a hookup to get email. I had to run out and finally get a Sprint EVDO aircard in order to work online here. The reception and speed are great here at true broadband speed. My satellite TV is also working great here.

The other campers have been very friendly and helpful here. One of them let me see how his aircard was working before I bought one and gave me a lot of good info. Everyone trades tips on the local tourist sites. Look around any morning or evening and you will see lots of campers out walking for their health which leads to lots of hellos and chatting.

I managed to go snag 6 geocaches while here. It really is nice when there are a bunch of them very close to each other. Geocaching is alive and doing very well in Florida. I dropped off two travel bugs in a nearby cache after taking them to Disneyworld for pictures and picked up a new one to take down to the Everglades soon.

Due to issues with Internet access at the Rush No More Campground, I had to move nearby to the No Name City RV Park. The issues are unique to me and my work over the internet so don’t let that put you off Rush No More by any means. They use satellite internet which blocks a port I need for communication. VPN would also not work well with it. Most folks would not have an issue with it and they were very nice and understanding about me needing to leave early. They tried to make it work for me.

I looked all around for Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin at No Name City but couldn’t find them. (Paint Your Wagons movie). Nice park with wireless internet powered by a T1 line. It has a pool and both outdoor and indoor hot tubs. Level sites with all the amenities and great private bathrooms and showers. Cabins are available to rent. It is quite close to the freeway though if that bothers you.

I went to Deadwood Saturday for Wild Bill Hickok Days. The drive there from Sturgis is lovely and easy through the hills. Riding the trolley all around town was fun and worth the buck for the tour. The street music was excellent with a nice mix for everyone. The stores were interesting and I even saw hats to buy for the Flinstones’ Loyal Order of the Water Buffalo. I think the store that catered to movie memorabilia was my favorite.

For dinner, I hit up the Four Aces buffet for prime rib. If you like crab, there was plenty of that too.

Gambling is everywhere there. I have never seen so many slot machines and poker machines in all my life. There are around 80 saloons there and all are full of them. What is really cool is a lot of them only require 1 cent or 5 cents to play!

I have to go back another day because there was just too much to see and do there. They have tours out to Mt. Moriah Cemetary to see the graves of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane. There is a tour of the chinese underground. Bullock hotel has a ghost tour. There is the Adam’s Museum and the Adam’s House to see (wealthy former resident and mayor). As you enter town you pass the Days of 76 Museum. Several hotels have museums of famous cars such as Herbie the Love Bug, John Wayne’s truck, Smokey and the Bandit car, 007′s car, etc. I did see the museum at the railroad depot. The town has burned down so many times that a lot of the buildings have been rebuilt several times.

It is odd that Wild Bill is such a big part of this town considering he actually only lived there for about 2 months before he was shot in the back of the head by Jack McCall for killing Jack’s brother. Bill wasn’t the same after accidently shooting his deputy in Abilene, Kansas. He joined Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show for a time but when his eyesight started to fade, he got himself fired by shooting blanks into the orchestra. He ended up in Deadwood while his wife stayed in Cincinnati. He might have been looking for another lawman position or maybe looking for gold. They are not sure. He did spend a lot of time in the saloons.

Calamity Jane came in on the same wagon train as Wild Bill but he actually barely knew her. They say any hint of a love affair was strictly in Calamity’s mind and the movies. They say she tried being a prostitute besides all the other things she did but she failed at that. Hmmm. She definitely did not look like Doris Day.

If you go to Deadwood, bring lots of quarters. Most of their parking is metered.