Visiting Family! 2/15/14

Traveled south to Fort Pierce, FL to Treasure Coast Campground.  We are still about a half hour north of my step-mom's house, but this was as close as we could get because it's a holiday weekend.  It was chilly this morning in Titusville but I can feel it's warmer here, just a bit more south.  Got set up, I went for a swim in the heated pool here at the campground, and then we jumped in the car and drove about 30 miles south to Hobe Sound.

Barb and her husband Jerry have an absolutely beautiful home!  We enjoyed a fabulous home-cooked meal with them.  Then home again to our little house on wheels.

Spotty internet here so the blogs may be less predictable while we're at this campground :( !  

Hang-around Day

Pippin took a bad fall off the bed last night, falling thump right onto her back.  She didn't get up immediately and made some sounds I have never heard her make before.  She let me carefully pick her up and put her on my lap.  We gave her a good dose of Rescue Remedy and in a few minutes I began to gently flex her limbs, rub up and down her spine, then her ribs and finally palpated her abdomen.  No yelps or flinches.  She was very sedate after that.

She is fine today.  It there is such a thing as a dog "having the wind knocked out " of them like people do, that is what I think happened to her.  Love our Rescue Remedy!  

I'm staying put at the campground today...so far it's a bit chilly...I won't say the temperature out of deference to our CT folks who are cold, wet and snowy!  Steve has a load of laundry in, making more tuna Mac salad for himself, and we're going to clean and vacuum the car...much too cold to do this before we left home!

Tires in Titusville, FL

Rain last night but a beautiful day today in the 60s.  Dropped the rig off to get new tires.  They said the tires were all about seven years old so Steve decided to have them all replaced--$1250--seemed like a good price from what Jerry Clark said yesterday, which included valve stems, balance and alignment.  Now we are exploring Titusville!

Found a health food store and then a thrift store which benefited the SPCA...doesn't get any better for me at least!  Also lunch and Walmart.

When we picked up the rig from the tire place (a Goodyear dealership) the owner showed Steve the valve stems and said it was a good thing we came in today, because several of them were hanging on only by a thread!  Phew, I think we dodged a real catastrophe!

Manatee Hammock in Titusville. 2/12/14

Slept in a bit because I was so exhausted.  We decided to stay here at Manatee Hammock Campground in Titusville for a few more days just to catch our breathes! We realize we've done nothing but drive, albeit relatively short distances, without any real R&R plus we need to deal with our tires.  Gram, I gathered us some air ferns!

We called the really nice guy who came out yesterday to change our blown out tire for a recommendation for a reliable place to take our rig here in the area to inspect our tires and replace any that need it.  He recommended a guy in Cocoa so we have an appt to drop the rig off tomorrow and we'll take our tow car and explore.  Here is a photo of the blown out tire...pretty scary looking!

      

Then we seriously began working on a place to stay this weekend so we could visit my step-mom and her husband in Hobe Sound.  It turns out this is a holiday weekend, so we had to call a number of places!  We finally found Treasure Coast Campground in Fort Pierce who had a site for us for Sat. and Sun., and we were able to extend our stay here at Manatee for Friday night, so we're set for the weekend.  We have not been able to use Passport America here in Central Florida because this is on-season for them, but Manatee is only $25/night, and frankly I don't know how much Treasure Coast was, I was just relieved that they had a site for us!

We waited for the heat of the day to subside (low 80's) and then took a walk out on a long fishing pier (you can tell from the pictures that a storm is blowing in!). On the way we encountered this bird with only one foot...wonder how he lost the other one?

       

On the way back, we were shocked to see some familiar faces--our friends the Clark's from our camping club back in CT!  They are staying here until the beginning of March, so after we deal with our tire situation, hopefully we can visit with them a bit!

Double excitement! 2/11/14

Woke to a chilly morning but it's going to warm up considerably.  We want to go to the thrift shop and the laundromat so we think we'll break camp early and then park the rig and the car in a central location and use the car to bee-bop around Daytona Beach.  Might even find the beach?  

On a side note, we were disappointed in the free WIFI here...it was extremely spotty at best.  That's why the blog was late yesterday.  We double checked and this is not a Good SAMs Park and I don't think we'd stay here again.  

A little excitement soon after we left the campground...we were on a limited access highway and needed to turn around.  Found a good place where we could do a wide u-turn which Steve needed to take rather fast because of on-coming traffic.   As we completed the turn I heard a car honk it's horn.  Then a pickup pulled up beside us on the left, made the motion for Steve to roll down his window and he told Steve one of our compartment doors had come open and we lost a couple of quarts of oil onto the ground.  Then a another pickup does the same thing on my side and yells that we "lost half our load back there."

So we turn around and try to retrace our steps...we finally found the site of our spill and there is a lot of traffic.  Steve pulled over into the breakdown lane on the right and we tried to see what was on the road.  We saw the quarts of oil and some rags, but no milk crate that the oil and rags were in and no chair that Steve thought might have been in that compartment.  Cars are wizzing past and we both agreed that it was too dangerous for Steve to even get out.  We decided not to pursue any pick-up.  

Lesson learned that it's not enough to just walk around the rig to see if everything is secure; he has to physically touch and check every compartment.

Excitement addendum:  Steve later checked and the latch on that compartment was latched but the latching mechanism had come loose and he was able to just tighten a screw on the inside of it.  Still going to do a better walk-around before departure, though.

We went to two thrift shops, did two loads of laundry and then Walmart to get a new sewer hose, propane tank and two important wrenches that Steve discovered had also flown out the compartment door, and finally got on the road again.  Of course it was too late to get to the original campground we had picked out in Melbourne/Grant so we selected a new one in Titusville.  Then we had our second even bigger excitement of the day!

Yep, we had a blow-out on 95!  (BEFORE YOU READ ANYMORE, WE ARE FINE!). I was trying to nap on the bed in the back and we blew an interior tire that felt like it was right under the bed.  Steve pulled over and said, "What was that?"  I knew immediately what it was from the sonic boom, the flapping and the terrible smell.

After we took a few seconds to get our bearings, Steve called Good SAMs Emergency Roadside Assistance and a tow truck was here in less than thirty minutes.  Our spare tire appears to be brand-new because it still has the stickers on it (thank you George!) so the guy is using that.  I've got the window open and I heard the guy say we have some dry-rot on at least one other tire and tomorrow we're going to want to get all of our tires checked out.  I'm sure someone at the campground can tell us where to go.  

We're going to sleep well tonight, I hope.

Internet problems thus the delay! 2/10/14

Woke to another sunny morning though it's a bit chilly--think is went into the 40's last night.  

Have some great news!  I couldn't find my Kindle when we got to this campground and was in a bit of a fit looking through everything we had packed up from the last Q.  Called the hotel to ask if they had found it by any chance in our room.  Received a call back somewhat later saying they hadn't found it.   😥    Then last night someone else called from the hotel to say they had really torn the room apart and btw what color cover did I have on my Kindle?  They had found it!   ☺️  They are mailing it to my step-mom's house here in FL!  Yippee!  

It warmed up fast so I did my pedaler outside in the sun:

Steve discovered that we lost a bolt and a cotter pin to our tow car light system, so the campground directed us to an RV service center to get replacement parts.  Brake lights still are working on our tow car but we need to secure the wires better.  But no luck there.  We're going to keep it the way it is for now.  Then gas and a few groceries!  Found a Super Walmart, so we all went in...I need more shorts and tops!  Found a few tops and started working on our grocery list until Pippin got too antsy so she and I came back out to the rig for lunch and Steve continued with the list.  There is a Lowes right here so Steve is going to check there for the parts he needs.  He found what he needed but it took quite awhile. Haven't gone five miles and it's 2:00 already...and we both got up at 7:30!  

When we finally got on the road, we made it as far as Daytona and got a site at Daytona RV and Garden for $22 (saved $22).  I noticed there is a thrift shop right next door so we'll go there in the AM.  Somehow we lost our sewer hose and we just realized we don't have any propane tanks for the grill so back to Walmart at some point.

So far we have saved $100 dollars by using Passport America campgrounds and they have been everywhere we wanted to camp.  Very satisfied campers!  😊

Flea market and sunburn! 2/9/14

Woke to a sunny day here in Jacksonville, FL.  We called the front office to see if we could extend our check-out time so we could enjoy the flea market, which we could for an extra $15.  We got the warmer weather clothes out and put on long pants and long sleeves, but as soon as we got outside we changed into this including sunscreen!

Walked over to the flea market and discovered it's all inside...walked in and it's really chilly in there!  So back to the rig, soaked up some rays...(got a little sunburn)...

...and back into long pants!

The flea market was huge, and turns out we only saw about a third of it, so we might want to catch this again on our way north!  We then decided to stay here an extra night because it's going to be even nicer tomorrow!   Plus we have some little projects we'd like to do around the rig. We'll get back on the road tomorrow whenever checkout is!