Fort Wilderness

I am off to Norfolk, VA next week to do a two year tour at sea and I will be leaving the family behind in the Tampa area.  We decided to get one more family camping trip in before I left so we went off to Disney's Fort Wilderness with tickets for Blizzard Beach in hand.  Tropical Storm Fay did (and is continuing to do) its best to give us a wet weekend.  We couldn't cook out last night because we had too much rain.  Woke up this morning to sun so we were pretty excited to get to Blizzard Beach.  We got in about 5 hours before the rain rolled in.  It was a good day and frankly I had had enough water time.  The parking lot was about 1/2 full but that was enough people for me.  

St. Augustine

What a great town.  We got up yesterday and went for a run on the beach.  Hard to believe how long it has been since I have done that.  After that Karen and Erik went to the beach while Jason and I went windsurfing.  Being the confident type that I am I declined any refresher lessons and asked for the biggest sail they had (bigger takes more strength and skill to control).  It was amazing how fast it all came back to me.  Jason's one and only windsurfing experience was in Saipan and the breeze that day was not very strong (read: it was a lot of standing on your board waiting for something).  We had a pretty good breeze yesterday and Jason got the hang of it rather quickly.    The fun really started when we found ourselves surfing through a pod of dolphins.  Pretty neat to have dolphins swimming a couple feet from you while you are windsurfing.  Jason was still at the stage where he was relying on his muscles instead of his balance so he was tired after 45'.  We still had 15' left so the owner let us trade in our windsurfers for the Hobie Cat.

Later in the afternoon we went shopping to get Erik some school clothes (he has a uniform code this year) and then we got some dinner at a local restaurant.  We finished up the night with a ghost tour of St. Augustine.  It was a good tour of the old city but not very scary.  I always wanted to do one of the Gettysburg ghost tours but now not so much.

Tomorrow we are planning on leaving early so Jason can get to his high school orientation.  That means everything except electricity and water will be packed up tonight and we will sleep with the slides in so we can get going right when we wake up.

We saved the best for last

Well, we have arrived at Anastasia State Park in St. Augustine, FL.  We have always been very pleased with the FL state parks and this one already tops our list.  We got here about 5:00 p.m. and after we set up the RV we headed to the beach (about a half mile bike ride).  We spent the next hour playing in the surf.  Hard to believe that it has been 3 years since I have been to the Atlantic ocean.  Tomorrow Jason and I are going to rent windsurfing boards and get in some wind surfing and then we are going to do a ghost tour in St. Augustine.

I should have listened to my gut!

Well, we were getting off of I-85 at exit 4, the exit for Fair Play, SC.  Only about 2 miles to go to Thousand Trails Carolina Landing.  The exit was a bit confusing and I ended up going the wrong way towing the Element.  We needed to do a U-Turn.  It didn’t look like any good spots to do it so my gut reaction was to stop the RV, unhook the Element (because you can’t back up when you are towing a vehicle with all 4 wheels down) and then do a 3 point turn.  I spied a small parking lot and against my better judgment I decided to go for the U-turn.  A couple of seconds later I found myself perpendicular in the road blocking both lanes of traffic and facing a 3 foot deep dish.  Needless to say several expletives came to mind (and were probably verbalized) while Karen and I were scrambling out of the RV to attempt to unhook the Element.  If the toad (the towed vehicle remember) is directly behind you it is a fairly easy process to unhook it.  Needless to say we were in the middle of the turn so the toad was nowhere near directly behind the RV.  Thanks to Karen’s persistence on pulling out the connecting pins and me flagging traffic around us, while offering apologies to everyone as they came by, we got the Element disconnected.  Yes, that one aged me a bit :-O

 

The campground looks excellent and I am kind of wishing we had more time to enjoy it but since we have 400 miles to drive tomorrow I don’t think it will be happening too much.  Oh well, time to go get laundry out of the Laundromat (the next RV will have a washer and dryer).

Today we went to Appomattox Court House where the Army of Northern Virginia surrendered to the Army of the Potomac.  It was only 26 miles from our TT Lynchburg park.  This is more of what I consider a "local" attraction.  The park was very enjoyable.  When compared to Gettysburg and Antietam it isn't much but when you think about it as the "Reuniting of the Country" then it seems appropriate.  We listened to a re-enactor who portrayed Cpl Henry Coleman whose company was formed in Appomattox Court House in March of 1862 and was disbanded in April of 1865.  He gave an hour long presentation that was really impressive.  He stayed totally in character the entire time and by the end of his presentation he had Karen in tears. A very impressive event.  I am trying to upload a picture of Karen, Jason and Erik in front of the the Mclean house where the actual surrender took place.  We will see if I can get it to upload.  Oh well, I have been trying for 10' so I will call it quits since it is dinner time.

I almost forgot

I almost forgot to show our latest States Visited map.

Let me get you caught up

Sorry that I haven't written for awhile.  The last week has been very hectic!  Karen and I ran the 5 miler and Jason and Erik ran the two miler last Sunday for the Hall of Fame race.  On Monday morning we left Ohio for Thousand Trails Hershey to visit Karen's family and go to Hershey Park.

At our last fuel stop (about 80 miles from Hershey) I tried to start the toad (RV lingo for Towed vehicle) and it would not start.  So, when we got to Hershey we had to unhook the Element and then maneuver the RV to jump the Element since the RV batteries are under the entrance steps.  We got our campsite set up and went to visit Karen's mom and dad about 20' down the road.  When we went to leave their house we had to get the Element jump started again.  Not a good trend.  Fortunately when the Element died we were about 2500' from TT Hershey (the distance detail is due to the fact that the car came to a dead stop right next to a sign telling us the distance :-))  Between multiple jump starts and a 2500' tow assist we got the vehicle back to the campsite.  Needless to say my next day of "just hanging around" got turned into replace the battery and take the car to the Honda dealer to get it checked out.

We spent the next day at Hershey park with Karen's family and our friends the Mitchells.  Hershey park is always a fun time.

Thursday turned into the "just hanging around" day we needed.  All of the kids slept at the RV and then we spent the day just having fun at TT Hershey.

On Friday we headed to Thousand Trails Lynchburg.  Like all of the other TT parks we are very impressed with Lynchburg.  Hershey seemed to have a younger cliental and more families.  Here at Lynchburg we have seen one other family.  We went to the pool last night and an old lady came up to the gate on her rascal (electric scooter) and started giving me a lecture about why the gate was locked.  Being the nice guy I am I helped her maneuver her rascal through the men's locker room out to the pool (it was the only route that didn't involve steps).  She promptly became my best friend and wouldn't stop talking to me.  Karen proceeded to engross herself in checking her email to leave me to deal with my new friend.  Karen will pay for this :-O

Today we are planning on going to Natural Bridge, VA since it is listed as one of the "local attractions" for TT Lynchburg.  It is 50 miles away and it is one of the closer "local attractions".  The family doesn't seem too excited to do an extra 100 miles of driving so it remains to be seen what we will do today.