And it’s time to go.

It’s March 14 and we pull out of Topsail Hill Preserve State Park. We have been here for two weeks. We are slotted to spend the next two weeks up on the Georgia border, but even Gerard, who wanted to put down some roots is thinking it’s too long to stay. There are so many places to see and explore. 

Topsail camp site

We certainly took advantage of our full hook-ups at Topsail. For the non-rver readers… that means we can hook to electricity, city water and we have a sewer connection. At this park there is also cable and a swimming pool. Pretty plush. For us, full hook-up means it is time to do a little maintenance. We have yet to sanitize our fresh water tank since this trip has all had water hook up. One morning I woke up and thought, wow, we have our own sewer here… let’s take advantage of the convenience. We fill the tank with 30 gallons of water, adding 3/4 cup bleach and let it sit overnight.  I filled the gray and black tanks with this water the next morning and then emptied it all. So everything got a good rinse out. Then we filled the fresh water again rinsing it out one more time and voila! Any residual food particles in the grey tanks gone and I bet the sensors in the black tank are free and clear now also.

We enjoyed the time here, grateful for a site with internet, but I will be looking forward to more serenity in our next landing spot. It is spring break season and there are just a LOT of people here on the coast.

We drove northwest and quite noticeably we lost the palm trees. The drive felt an awful lot like Highway 2 in Wisconsin. We are now in Three Rivers State Park in Sneads, Florida on Lake Seminole and on the Georgia border. We are right on the line between central and eastern time zones. Officially, it is central time, but our phones say eastern. We are a couple miles off the road, so just  a  few trolling motors on some boats and birdsong…. ahhhhh so quiet.

Georgia on the other side. View from our bed at Three Rivers State Park

My first hike this morning had us winding between majestic pines. Spring and wildflowers are in abundance. All along the trail are trillium and white lilies. The trillium makes me think of Minnesota, but as I write this, Duluth is having a blizzard. No Trillium blooming there yet and I have to admit I am enjoying sundresses over parkas.  The pine forests differ significantly here as there is Spanish moss dripping everywhere and magnolia trees are interspersed through the woods. The magnolia tree is oldest recorded flowering tree dating back some 70 million years. This tree was used to set the classification system for all other trees…. oh the things you learn on these ventures.

 

Today will be toasty.. 87º. Finally, warm enough to be in the water and there is no going in the water here….gators reside! 

Gator swimming

If the forecast holds true, this will be our first time having 3 days of steady rain. I am glad we have the car at least we won’t be cooped up. We would like to go to Florida Caverns where we can tour the underground rooms of stalactites and stalagmites, soda straws, flowstone and draperies. Mammoth Caves it probably isn’t, but it will be a diversion from the thunderstorms.

How wrong can I be! Florida Caverns gives Mammoth Caves a run for its money. It was spectacular. The formations in the cave are every bit as spectacular as its Kentucky rival. 

inside the cavern

The tour is half the price of Mammoth and the trails above are a fairy wonderland, winding through landscape like no other. Margaret O’Neal, our new wanderer friend, and her dog Max met Sitka and me at the state park. We had just come off a night of heavy rain and thunder and lightening and storms threatened throughout the day so what better than to plan an underground excursion instead of sitting inside the campers. Rain stayed at bay and we meandered along the Bluffs Trails passing several cave entrances and clinging to crevice-filled limestone, Easter lilies and columbine were in bloom and we just missed the trillium. Lichen and moss and the rock formations had us believing we would surely see wee fairy folk.

 The day before Margaret, Gerard and I discovered an amazing local café in the town of Chattahoochee. Rutabaga Café is a tiny cottage tucked in a two house street. I was simply not  prepared for how incredible the good is here... to die for…creative menu, enormous portions and reasonable prices. Oh, and to hear the locals give this place praise is something. A few people stopped by our table and shared a number of stories about this town. We were told that people can order 7 nights of dinner to go! Well, we loved it so much we are having dinner there tonight. We may be eating at this wonderful establishment a few more times before we leave the area because our RV woes are not done yet.

Margaret and Gerard

Karma, karma, karma chameleon

same guy, different color

Yes, we have another problem. The morning after the thunderstorms, I rolled out the awning to dry it out and clean off the debris, we quick rolled it in when the storms started.  Knowing it was going to rain all day again, I went to roll it in and NADA, zippo, zilch… no power to the awning. What makes this a big deal is that if we get winds we have no way to get the awning stored. And I suspect we will fill the gray water tank and black before the weekend is over and we will need to move the van to go and dump and we can’t drive it with awning out! I am grateful, this time, we didn’t need to be on the road because we are here for the next 7 nights. Roadtrek has authorized us to get yet another mobile RV repair service, but in these dem, der woods, no one works on the weekends. When we go into town for dinner, we will pick up some paper plates and start using the campground bathrooms….argh! And that is not the only thing. The cO2 detector goes off randomly. I truly don’t get why this is happening to us and always on the weekend. I am not ready to give up yet. I love being on the road…. I just want it all to work.

No one ever did come to help us get the awning in. We, finally, got through to Roadtrek and they walked us through a manual awning retraction…whew…I was just imagining it being ripped off by the winds and what a mess we would have been in. The upside to many of these issues is we are learning how things work and will be more intimately knowledgeable about our systems and components of this home on wheels.

So, we were able to pull away from Three Rivers and make our way back down to the Gulf for one night in the pouring rain. As luck would have it, the rains let up enough to drive through St. Mark’s National Wildlife Refuge–one of the prettiest drives on this trip. It looks much like the Everglades and at the end of the road is Florida’s second oldest operating lighthouse. Sitka and I did a short hike before a torrential downpour drove us back to the car and the rains never let up. The rest of the day had us confined to the ZiOs mobile.  Tomorrow, we head inland and into our last week of the trip. We will land at O’Leno State Park not far from Gainesville. I have not thought much of spending time in the center of the state. I always think coast, coast, coast. However, the Old Florida has certainly surprised me with its beauty and serenity. The contrast of the extreme poverty and the enormous wealth always astounds me. Sometimes, I wonder whether or not I can truly make this place called Florida my forever home.

“Traveling- It leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.”- Ibn Batutta

Hot Time Summer in the City... I Mean Camper

Sunrise St. George Island

The furnace is fixed!!!!!! Nights are still in the low 40s and dang it is nice to have the furnace working. The control board went belly up. So not a Roadtrek issue. The furnace manufacturer covered it under warranty and Roadtrek paid for the mobile RV service to come out and replace it. We are so grateful! Last night should be it for chilly overnights. Lows will now be in the 50s and eeking up into the 60s. Highs, however, will only be in the low 70s, but I will take it!

St. George Island Lighthouse

Our travels continued along Highway 98 hugging the coast. We landed first at St. George Island, a 22-mile  barrier island with some of the most beautiful, serene and uninhabited beaches on the Gulf Coast. The island is pet-friendly and outside of the State Park dogs are welcome on the beaches! We stayed for 2 nights at the park so we could go and explore Apalachicola and those uninhabited beaches!

I so enjoyed driving between the sand dunes for 8 miles to get to the campground.  This park has an entirely different feel than anywhere we have been so far. Towering dunes and lovely seaside cottages make up the entire island.

St. George Island

Meeting new people because of the ZiOs mobile is becoming a more common experience. People stop and visit wanting to know more about this Roadtrek model. They often get an earful from me. But truth be told as the kinks get worked out, we are really enjoying our home on wheels. We met a couple from Michigan who wanted a tour and we chatted for quite some time. We later hooked up for dinner in Apalachicola.

Up the Creek our dinner establishment

Jerry and Johanne from Michigan

overlooking the Apalachicola River; controlled burn in the background

Apalachicola is the oyster capital of the world. It is one of the most historic towns in Florida. Native cultures inhabited this area as far as 2000 BCE. First Europeans explored here in the early 1500s It was a hub for timber and seafood. The seafood industry is as important today as it was 175 years ago. 

Gerard doesn't often like wandering the shops and streets of these little towns, but this time he made a day of it with me. We had breakfast at a sweet Venezuelan cafe that made arepas to die for. We ended the day with Johanne and Jerry at a fun, seafood restaurant overlooking the Apalachicola River.

Wandering around Apalachicola

Wandering around Apalachicola

Wandering around Apalachicola

day tripping partners

Michael Monroe at St. Joe's State Park Beach stole the pic from Deb

The day we pulled out of St. George, we made a breakfast stop at St. Joseph Peninsula State Park, where friends Deb Mueller and Michael Monroe were camped. It happened that Margaret O'Neal, who we met at Manatee Springs was camped there also. Deb and Michael so graciously invited us all for chocolate croissants and coffee. A great treat and wonderful to see Margaret and her pup Max. Wish I had snapped a pic of all of us together. Great conversation a lot of it focused around Abraham and Esther Hicks, whose teachings we are all intimately familiar. I am glad that we made the stop on to this barrier island. I am not sure when or if we will ever get a chance to scope it out in the future.

Topsail Reserve State Park

The final stop for the day is Topsail Hill Reserve State Park. We will be stationary for 2 weeks. Gerard made me promise that we wouldn't be pulling up stakes every couple days. He wanted a couple of the places where we would make camp for two weeks, the total time allowed in state parks. This park is the cushiest of all the ones we will be at. It has 3.2 miles of secluded beach with majestic sand dunes towering over 25 feet tall. The sites here are full hook-up including cable. Our site is in the middle of everything, so not the seclusion I would have wanted. But when I booked this in October, it was the last site to be had for 2 weeks. What I do get in this spot is the internet and none of the other sites have it.

Since arriving on the March 1st, we have taken the time to regroup... laundry, grocery shopping and drive through neighboring communities of Grayton Beach, Seaside, Watercolor, Watersound and Rosemary Beach... each so idyllic.

Row of Airstream food vendors  in Seaside, Florida

Row of Airstream food vendors  in Seaside, Florida

an establishment worthy of Gerard getting a burger!

perfect afternoon

in Seaside

A stroll through Watercolor, a master planned community where the Southern wood homes feature large wraparound or screened porches, wood columns and siding and a metal roof with deep overhangs, made me wonder what it's like to live here year round. Here I could have fireplace. 

Gulf Islands National Seashore

There are many places to explore along the South Walton beaches. We took a drive west through Destin.  I wasn't liking the tourist attraction venues or much of the feel of this community, but as you drive along the coast you can exit onto Florida 399 taking you on to Santa Rosa Island where there is a nine mile drive through Gulf Island National Seashore.  The Florida District of the seashore is accessible by car and well worth the drive and an afternoon experience of walking the sparkling white quartz sand and playing in the emerald waters

Gulf Islands National Seashore

Then I hear a voice from my soul's core sayin'
"Freedom's just a metaphor
You got nowhere to go"

And the rain pours down
Like a holy waterfall
Over the gulf of Mexico
Over the gulf of Mexico, mmm
Over the gulf of Mexico, mmm

~Shawn Mullins