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. 

Travel Update 10

Even though we don't spend a lot of time in cities, we started this week of with a trip to Charleston, South Carolina. We felt like it had been a long time since Aiden really got to run around and interact with other dogs so we looked up dog parks in the area and found a perfect one downtown. While there we also got a chance to talk to other owners, one of whom recommended walking along the water front nearby. It was a great recommendation, complete with a beautiful park.

 

Confederate statues seem to be alive and well in Charleston, which as we talked about in our Gettysburg post, is a phenomenon we don't understand.

We were planning on taking off and heading south that night but had a very strange noise coming from our back tires as we drove. After getting to a parking lot and having Andreas watch as Kathleen slowly drove around we discovered that the lug nuts were loose on the back passenger wheels. We tightened them by hand and went to a shop in the morning which tightened them properly. We're still not sure what caused them to loosen. They haven't been touched since Fairbanks. We'll be keeping a close eye on the for the time being.

The next morning we did finally move on from Charleston and headed South in Georgia. We once again struck out on our free camping, when google tried to send us down a road that didn't exist. We found a camp site in the area that we thought might have been where it was trying to send us, but that one was $30 a night. We decided to pass it up, and keep moving on to a Walmart. At recommendation from Andreas's step father, who went to school at Georgia Tech, we did want to see Vidalia and see if we could get any onions. Unfortunately the onions that the Vidalia Walmart was selling were imported from Washington...

From Vidalia, we headed down to Big Mike's RV park. A wonderful experience that justifies it's own post. 

We left Big Mike's on Saturday, in large part because we needed to find a place to watch the football game. We went to our fall back: Buffalo Wild Wings. As heart breaking as it was to watch our team completely self implode, at least the other people at the bar were rooting for us. There was even another duck there that we were talking to. The bartender was totally pulling for the come back with us. Overall it was a crushing defeat, but a good reminder that a successful season is one in which we beat the Huskies and the Beavers. We already got one, and get our shot at the second next weekend. 

Big Mike's Horse Ranch and RV Park

After finishing up in Columbia, SC, we decided it was time to start heading south. It had been below freezing at night for a few nights in a row. We were ready for some t-shirt weather.

After a stop in Charleston and Vidalia (see Travel Update 10), we stumbled upon Big Mike's Horse Ranch and RV Park on Allstays. It was listed as a private campground that was free, which was an oddity, but it did have highly positive reviews on Allstays as well as Google. So, we decided to go check it out!

Mike is a retired veteran who owns a ranch, with his wife Alice, just outside of Homerville, GA. He keeps all sorts of animals including horses, donkeys, goats and chickens. He decided to open up an RV park in his grazing field. He pays for any upkeep by renting out a few spots with full hookups for $20 / night and has the rest of the field open, for free, to boondockers like us. We got there on Tuesday and liked it so much that we stayed until Saturday!

 

The horses and donkeys would come graze on the field where we were staying from early morning to late afternoon. During that time we had to keep a close eye on the kids because the donkeys did not like unfamiliar dogs on their turf. So, a lot of the times, we had to keep the kids inside until the afternoon.

  

On Thursday, we decided finally use our bikes and head into the small town of Homerville to do some internet related things at the library. We made it back just in time for sunset.

It was warm enough in southern Georgia that we even decided to set up our solar shower on Friday. We had been looking for an opportunity to use it but it had been too cold. The water was a nice comfortable temperature after a few hours in the sunshine.

On Friday we also decided to get out of our comfort zone and make some friends. We decided to make a big fire in a fire pit that Big Mike had made in the middle of all of the camp sites. We were inspired when a new guest, Christopher arrived in the morning and came to start conversation. We chatted with him for a while and he asked about the other guests. We realized that we had only met one of them, a lady with three german shepherds but whose name we didn't know.

We were a little nervous initiating the fire, but it was nice because since it was in a neutral zone in the middle, other guest could choose whether to attend or not. Most people did end up coming out and we met some cool people living the RV life style.

Dog Lady came, but we still don't know her name. She is in her late 50s or early 60s, Originally from the New York. She is divorced and has two kids, 28 and 31. She travels in a midsize class A motorhome with three dogs and three cats. She had some ideas that we thought were a little crazy (she starting telling us about chem-trails) but she was nice enough. She had been staying there for two weeks and was still there when we left.

Ross had been stay with Big Mike for three weeks, and was also still there when we left. He had been on the road for several years in a trailer that he built and was closer to our age, maybe in his 30s? He was also very quite, listening to the conversation, but not adding much.

Glen pulled in his large class A motorhome earlier in the day with his wife, who didn't come to the fire. They are snowbirds from Ontario who live up there in the Summer but are staying with family in Florida all winter. Glen is a retired truck driver in his 70s and he had all sorts of stories.

We got to know Christopher the best, he is in his late 50s, early 60s. He told us he decided to live this life style because people in his family die young and everyone in his family was dead, which was depressing. He lives in the back of his pick up truck, which is quite small. But the perk is that he blends in perfectly and can park almost anywhere. He loves kids and was telling us all about several kids that he watches when their parents are in trouble. He is also hoping to write a book some day about all the people he has met on his travels, which is definitely a book we would love to read.

We got some great recommendations from all of these people, since we they had all been living this life style longer than we have. It was fun swapping stories and hearing about their lives, both currently and before their trips. In the end we were very glad that we had broken out of our shells and had the fire. The next morning Christopher thanked us for it as well.

Before leaving on Saturday, we went with Christopher over to see the goats and chickens. Alice was kind enough to show us around and introduce us to Daisy, a kid that she had to take care of personally because her mother did not want her.

Alice with Daisy

Kathleen with Daisy and Christopher 

To top it all off, Alice offered us some farm fresh eggs that her hens had laid!

It was an amazing place to stay. We all had a ton of fun. We would definitely recommend checking this place out if you're passing through Southern Georgia. Just be prepared to be self sufficient. Big Mike is super friendly expects a certain level of competence and common sense from his guests. He is a special ops vet after all.

Travel Update 9

We started the week by heading down to see more coastline, this time in southern North Carolina. We found some free camping that we wanted to check out in the Croatan National Forest, but wanted to find a reasonably sized population center first to watch the Sounders win the MLS cup. We settled on Morehead city and asked around there for good activities to do in the morning.

Fort Macon State Park was recommended to us at the visitor center, and we're really glad we found it. We spent three hours there, but definitely could have spent more time if we had it. We started by doing a really nice walk around the park.

  

After that we had about an hour to check out the visitor center and the actual fort. They had a video, which is usually one of our favorite things but we didn't get a chance to watch it. Instead we attended a live demonstration of some WWII weapons that they were doing as park of their Veteran's Day weekend. Even though the fort was primarily a civil war fort, it was also used during WWII. They also like to say that the lost shot of the civil war happened here in 1942, when a cold soldier rolled a cannon ball into the fire where it exploded.

After leaving the park, we headed to Buffalo Wild Wings, to watch the Sounders game. Which they did indeed win. It may have been a bye for Duck Football, but we did get to get our sports on.

Unfortunately we didn't have as good of luck with our free camping that night. The first place we tried to go was full. We thought we found a spot but then someone came back, telling us that they had in fact been there and just left to go to the store. It was a bummer. On the road up to the other free campsite in the area we ran into a big truck warning us he had gotten stuck in a huge mud pit in the road and had to have his buddy pull him out. He said we could probably make it around if we stuck to the side. Given our vehicle we were skeptical, but we thought we would check it out.

The mud pit that we found was indeed massive. There was no way we were going to make it past. In fact we passed a ranger on the way out who told us that the road was supposed to be closed because of the pit, but someone had taken down the barricade. We asked him for other places, and other than the full campground we tried first he didn't have any ideas. In the end we ended up at our default. Walmart.

The next night we had more luck in the Waccamaw National Wildlife Refuge. We found a really pretty spot, next to a fascinating marsh. 

 

Our big event during this time period was our trip to Congaree National Park, which absolutely beautiful. We spent a lot of time in Columbia, South Carolina because we were waiting for a new tire.  We finally decided it was time to replace the spare that fell off in West Virginia. Unfortunately, the wheel that we ordered didn't work out so this saga isn't over. We'll have to tell you the full story after we get it all worked out.

We spent a lot of time in the Columbia library, in part because the weather was wet and cold. In part because we had a lot of internet work to do. We've been looking into figuring out insurance and Kathleen is starting to work on fellowship applications for next year. And of course this blog. By the time Saturday rolled around we were very ready to get back on the road and try to move south out of the nights with below freezing temperatures.

Saturday night we ended up getting a room at the Travelodge in Walterboro. Partially because the football game was another late game that didn't start until 10:30 PM, and we didn't want to relay on the kindness of the local Applebees to stay open until the game ended. But we also calculated that we would actually be saving money on a $40 motel room compared to the food/drink costs of a game, plus showers for both of us. We also did some hand washing of laundry in the bathtub, and got to spend some time on the internet. Including watching a women's basketball game, in which Sabrina got her 19th triple double. Throw in the breakfast and it was a great deal.

The breakfast however was not quite up to Kathleen's "hotel breakfast" standards. The drink options were passable with coffee, black tea, water, lemonade, cranberry juice and a funny tasting orange juice. The food was a little strange though. They had Fruit Loops and Rice Krispies but no milk. They also had a yogurt machine. We made cereal parfaits and were satisfied, but it was definitely an odd breakfast.

Given that football season is almost over, we probably won't have another super late game, but maybe there will be a basketball game that will justify another motel.

Congaree National Park

Congaree National Park sits in the heart of South Carolina, within 30 minutes of the state's capital. It was protected because it is was one of the last places in the country to have a large hardwood forest on a flood plane.

The flood plane, which floods an average of 10 times a year, provides the trees with fresh nutrients from upstream allowing them to grow incredibly tall. The park features 25 "champion trees" - trees that are the tallest of their species in the country.

The most interesting of the trees to us was the Bald Cyprus, which features "knees" - roots that grow back up out of the ground. Scientist's best guess as to why they grow these is to provide stability during high wind, but that remains just a guess.

Because the park is on a flood plane, water sits around making the perfect spawning ground for mosquitoes. Luckily for us, the temperatures have been close to or below freezing, so we had the "All Clear".

 

In the park, we went on a 7-mile loop hike. There are only a few hikes in the forest, most of them loops that expand on each other, a 2-mile boardwalk trail, a 4-mile loop follows the boardwalk then branches out. The hike we did  branched out from that 4-mile loop, all of them ending on the boardwalk again. The boardwalk is nice because there are 20 sign posts referencing you to the boardwalk tour where they tell you facts about the history and biology of the park.  Pets are also allowed in this park, so Aiden was able to join us again!

 
  

All-in-all it was a  unique park that we're super glad we visited. There just wasn't too much to do to warrant more than a day or two without going fully into their designated wilderness.

For our science nerds out there - good news! The amphibians of Congaree have not been hit very hard by Chytrid. We asked the ranger and the front desk who had no idea what we were talking about. But he kindly called their wildlife biologist who said that they have not been hit very hard. We were pleasantly surprised. 

Here's a bonus picture of Declan contemplating a beverage.