Travel Update 11

Our plan after leaving Big Mike's was to hang out in northern Florida for a while, catching a rocket launch at the Kennedy Space Center on December 5th before heading down the South Florida parks. We would then take our time heading back north to the two parks we skipped near Atlanta and ending up in Atlanta in time to fly to the Dominican Republic on January 15th. Over the course of Thanksgiving our plans changed and we decided to meet up with Kathleen's family in Austin for Christmas, meaning that we ended up hurrying south faster to have time for those three parks before we needed to move fairly quickly West.

On recommendation from our new friend Christopher, whom we met at Big Mike's, we started the week by going to check out the  Hare Krisha Temple in Alachua, which is the biggest in the US. We were also told that they do free lunches everyday.

It is a beautiful property and they invite people to come walk around. Because cows are sacred in the Hindu religion they have many cows around the property. Some are "rescues" that are bulls they got from other places. They also have a milking herd. Food is also a very important part of their religious beliefs so the property also had an organic garden where they do gardening demonstrations and grow the food they use in their meals.

After wandering around the property for a while we were shown around the temple by a Chaplain who answered some of our questions about their beliefs. We didn't end up staying for food but it was very interesting to talk to the people around the temple. Even if we didn't really understand their beliefs.

Through football season, we were able to catch every duck game by going out to eat at a sports bar once a week. Unfortunately with games as often as four times a week during basketball season we won't be able to keep that trend up. Especially since many of them won't be televised. Hopefully we'll be able to catch a fair number of them online. 

However this week we were lucky to get to catch the top ranked ducks play 17th ranked Syracuse in women's basketball on ACC network since we were in ACC territory. We found a Red Robin that was more than happy to play the game for us at the bar since it was a during a lull in business on a Sunday afternoon. The women's team is so much fun to watch this year and this game was no exception. The Syracuse newspaper wrote a great article about it after the game. 

For the early part of the week, before Thanksgiving, we decided to hang out in Ocala. We found a nice cracker barrel, a dog park at a very nice park to go to in the morning and then a nice library to catch up on internet things in the afternoon. A great little rhythm for three days.

The dog park had cement tunnels where she picked up a new trick: "go through." After which she was rewarded by being allowed to lay in the kiddie pool.

 

After Thanksgiving we went off in search of showers, which we had a bit of a hard time finding. We thought the national forest had showers in their day use swimming area, but it turned out that they were only for camper. We decided to return to our favorite Ocala library to watch some sports before staying at one of the camp sites further south in the forest to shower and spend the night before heading to Southern Florida. 

Expense Report: November

November was an incredibly cheap month, aside from purchasing plane tickets to go see Kathleen's cousin Anna in the Dominican Republic. We didn't drive too much and stayed well under our $10/person/day food budget.

Maintenance: We bought a spare tire at Discount Tire. Unfortunately, they did not have the right wheel, so we still need to look for one of those. We also had to replace the car battery and a fuse.

Spare Tire: $193.86
Battery and Fuse: $99.62
RV running total: $19,412.54

Service: $83.25 another oil change! We drove over 5,000 miles since Kansas City so we decided to swap oil out again in New Bern, NC.

Fuel - We're still keeping up on our Fuel log. November was a light driving month.

This month, we drove 2,443 miles on 200 gallons of gas, averaging 12.2 MPG (a bit lower than previous months)

Gas: $479.19

Propane: $9 - We only needed to get propane once this month.

Food: $443 - We did a much better job not eating out as much and when eating out, not getting drinks or sharing plates.

RV Stickers / Postcards: $8

Lodging: $59 - We spent one night at a hotel and payed for camping twice.

Phone and Internet: $106

Plane Tickets: $664.50
Pet sitter: $262

We're planning a trip to the Dominican Republic to see Kathleen's cousin Anna for a week in January! We had to buy tickets and set up a pet sitter.

Total Travel Expenses for November: ~$2,412
Cost / person / day in November: $40.20

Total cost of the trip so far: ~$28,567 - This includes the RV and all of it's repairs, insurance and maintenance
Days Traveling: 111
Cost / person / day : 128.68

Thanksgiving at Davenport Landing

We spent a few days before Thanksgiving hanging out in Ocala, Fl. We were trying to find a place that we might be able to volunteer with people who were in need or didn't have family during. Unfortunately for us, but not for those we were hoping to serve, every place we called said that they were completely booked up with volunteers and couldn't take us. So, we decided to drive into Ocala National Forest and try to find a place to camp and have our own Thanksgiving celebration.

Ocala National Forest has a ton of places to camp and do things throughout the day, but very few of them are free. The only place we could stay for free was the Davenport Landing campsite which only had primitive camping available 2 miles down a dirt road. We ended up staying there for three nights. At the campsite we met two men who were camping there as well, both of whom were very friendly.

Ben seemed to be in his mid 30s. He seemed to be using the forest as a way to escape recent troubles in his life. He drank heavily and was not shy about making crass jokes, but he was never rude or disorderly. He even apologized about the fact that he would make offensive jokes when we first got there, saying something along the lines of "I don't mean to offend people, but I laugh to avoid crying." It was rather sad actually.

Dale was an older gentleman who made his money mining gold in Alaska. He's been traveling all around the country since he retired. His favorite places being Maine in the summer and Arizona in the winter. He recently bought a small Toyota motorhome quite similar to ours and does all of his own mechanical work on it. He didn't drink or curse, but seemed to enjoy Ben's company.

For Thanksgiving itself, Kathleen drove out to Walmart and got a rotisserie chicken, a few instant fixings and mini-pies (apple for herself and pecan for Andreas). Boiling some water for the mashed potatoes and stuffing, we had ourselves a full Thanksgiving feast for two with plenty of leftovers for the next few days. Adding in the bottle of wine we purchased in Alaska and it was quite the feast.

 

For the most part we just hung out at this campsite, playing games and relaxing. On Friday we went on a short hike at the trailhead near the camp though, which was lovely. There was an old Native American burial mound and information about some of the settlers that lived here in the 1800s. It was also just a lovely walk through an ecosystem very different from what we have at home.

 

We've started using Aiden's love of sticks to put her to work. A lot of the firewood we use is medium sized sticks which are easier to break than cut. Some of them are pretty quick to snap over a knee, but some of the larger ones we've been using Aiden to play tug-of-war and break them around a tree. She loves it and we get manageable firewood so it's a win-win.