Month: March 2020

As we write this update, we are camped north of Atlanta thru the end of March. This was a planned stop but nothing else has gone according to plan. The good news is that we, and all our family, are doing well. Dan’s 88 year old mother is fine, our kids and grand kids are healthy (and growing in the case of the babies!). Things have really changed since the last update so follow along as we update you on our trip out of Florida and into the unknown.

On March 11th, we turned Lola north. We’d had a great winter in the Sunshine State but it was time to start moving north and follow the cooler weather. Our next stop was a campground outside of St. Augustine. This was intended as only a short layover. At the time, news of the Coronavirus was spreading but nothing really had changed. Shopping was normal, everything was open and life seemed to be going on as normal.

In St. Augustine we took a day to do a hop on-hop off tour to see the highlights of the town. The place was packed and the only real sign of any concerns was the fact that the local college was closed (Flagler). We were packed on the tram and at the fort we saw many school groups visiting (a ranger indicated that by 2 PM they had had over 40 groups visit already!). We had a great late afternoon meal on the water and even got some shopping done at local grocery and liquor stores.

Below are some scenes from our short stay including our campground, view of Flagler College, former Hotel Alcazar, Jill at the entrance to Castillo de San Marcos, and a view from the same.

After this quick stop, it was up the coast to Hilton Head Island and our favorite campground, Hilton Head Motorcoach Resort. This is the first place we ever stayed when we rented our first RV and was the first long trip we took with Lola. We love the wooded, large, well furnished sites as well as the fact that you can bike to so many great places on the island. We had a huge site in the back of the resort and if it wasn’t for the price, we probably never would have left!

Things started getting more real with regards to the virus as we attempted to do some shopping and fill our fridge and pantry. We visited the local grocery store and started to see the impacts of hoarding and panic buying. Toilet paper was nowhere to be found as expected but some things were just down right odd.

Everything was still open at this point and we enjoyed several days of catching up with friends. We visited Pool Bar Jim’s with Rich and Michelle Vano, fellow RVer’s and friends we met at Hilton Head a few years ago. We drove over to Beaufort to see that cute little town and spend time with Jenn and Randy Stanley. Dan worked with Jenn for many years at IHG and it was great to catch up on old times and news. And finally, we had a great lunch with Garry Anderson, someone Jill had known from Lithonia way back when Garry was the president of the local bank where her mother, Iris, worked.

And then the world changed. The governor of South Carolina closed all restaurants, bars, beaches, etc. and put the state on notice to lock down and shelter in place. Living in an RV, we are naturally separated from people and are pretty self-sufficient. Our biggest challenge is maintaining supplies (food, toilet paper, etc.) since we do not have large storage spaces. We supplied up as best we could the rest of the week, spent a quiet 2nd half of the week in Hilton Head, mostly inside the campground, and then headed north to Atlanta as planned on March 20th

By this point, plans had unravelled completely. Our original expectation was to spend a little more than a week in Atlanta, catching up with friends and family, getting some doctor visits done, and getting ready for our trip north to Maryland and Pennsylvania with Dan’s mother along for the ride. When we left Florida, we were still thinking this plan could work, just have to adjust where we visited, etc. By the time we arrived in Atlanta, all those plans were cancelled and we were pretty much sheltered in place north of Atlanta at our usual campground on Lake Allatoona. No visits with friends, all doctor appointments cancelled and even cancelled our hair appointments. Needless to say, we are seeing more hair and more gray than we have ever seen before!

We’ve switched to mostly order ahead and pick up for most supplies to limit risking exposure. We have managed a few visits with the grand babies, including our first opportunity to baby sit!!!

We also managed to visit Dan’s mom, Jean, although it was done with great care given her age and risks to the virus. We ran several supply trips to her home where she would take everything from our trunk into her home and then clean off completely before putting away. We talked at a picnic table in her apartment complex, being sure to keep our 6 foot distance. Not optimal but the best way to visit and still keep her safe.

There is lots of news about campgrounds closing but so far those have tended to be government run campgrounds (federal, state, local, Corp of Engineers, etc.). Private campgrounds are attempting to stay open unless local governments require them to close. Many of these are family owned business and they are doing everything possible to keep things safe during these times (closing many of their facilities such as playgrounds, pools, etc.) but staying open for folks like us who have to park somewhere.

Our plan now is to move out of Atlanta on April 1st (no joke) and head to the northeast corner of Georgia to the town of Dillard. There is a nice campground there and we will stay there for a month. Some counties are now limiting entrance of folks from out of town and/or asking them to shelter in place for 14 days after arrival. This should not be a big problem for us as we will be supplied up pretty well and not planning to visit anyone.

The month of May we will move slightly north into North Carolina outside the town of Franklin. This area has specifically forbidden short term transient stays but as we are staying for a month, we should be OK (of course, rules could change).

For both April and May, this will keep us within a short driving distance to Atlanta to help with resupplying Dan’s mom and also for a visit from time to time with our grand babies.

And here we thought we had seen the worst when Jill broke her leg in 2019!!! 2020 is looking even stranger!

Stay safe

Dan & Jill

On February 11th, we traded the crazy traffic and busy tourism of the Orlando area for the laid back (ie: out in the middle of nowhere) of the area around the town of Okeechobee, on the north shore of the lake by the same name. But before we could arrive at our next stop, we had to endure a long day for maintenance, driving, and confusion.

Lola was up for her annual maintenance work (lube, oil, filters for both engine and generator plus overall inspection of chassis to make sure all is good after a year plus of travel). We decided it would be best to take Lola to a certified Freightliner Service Center that specialized in RV work and the closest one to us was in Tampa. We got an early start (but had to spend time to fuel up first and when you are filling a 100 gallon tank, that takes time!). Then we were slowed by multiple wrecks on I-4 heading to Tampa (FYI – Orlando’s traffic almost has Atlanta’s beat and I-4 is just one big disaster between all the road construction and accidents that seem to occur at all times of the day and night). We arrived at the service center late but they said they would do what they could to get it all done by end of day…

Next stop was to drop the dogs off at a local groomer so they too could get freshened up! After that, we found a restaurant on the harbor and enjoyed a nice long meal. Eventually, we got the call to pick up the dogs but Lola was still not finished! We stopped back at the groomers and were able to get them to hold the dogs a bit longer while Dan got a haircut at a barbershop next door. After that, we had no choice but to head back to the service center and wait. They had a waiting room where we sat for a couple of hours (while Brandy found a table to hide under). Finally, at about 5:30 Lola was finished, no issues or repairs needed, and we were ready to leave. But now we were dealing with Tampa area rush hour and still had to drive to Okeechobee.

At this point, we were relying on two different GPS systems. One is RV specific and allows us to put in details on dimensions for Lola (hight, weight, width, etc.). This system should route us in the most efficient manner but avoid taking us down roads where we shouldn’t go (low bridges, skinny bridges or tunnels, etc.). We also run Waze at the same time so we can get real time traffic info in case we need to divert (the RV GPS does not take into account live traffic). Usually, the two systems are somewhat in agreement. This time, they were way off. The RV GPS was taking us a route that would require about 5 hours of driving while Waze was saying it could get us to our destination in 3 1/2 hours??!! Now, you might say, “go ahead and follow Waze”. But what if that takes us on a route we can’t get thru (bridge can’t handle our weight or we get to a bridge we can’t get under)? The idea that we wouldn’t arrive at our campsite until after 10 PM and in the dark was really stressing us. However, after reviewing some maps and what each app was indicating, we went with Waze and arrived at camp around 8:45 that evening. To this day, we still don’t know what the RV GPS was doing??!!

So, now we arrive at the campground and the office is still open! That’s great because we aren’t sure the campsite they have assigned to us is going to work. According to their map, the site looks short and also won’t handle our electrical needs (we require 50 amps while some sites only provide 30 amps). At first, they assured us it would work and provided directions to the site. While unhooking our car from the tow set up, however, one of the staff came out waving their hands. Turns out, our concerns were right. It only had 30 amps and we wouldn’t even fit in the site. Really not sure how the reservation system or review process let this slip but grateful they double checked before we tried to set up. We were assigned to a temporary site while they figured things out and two days later, we moved to our assigned (and long enough) site for our stay.

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Now, there really isn’t much to do in Okeechobee. It does have a Publix and a Walmart and a few restaurants and if you are into fishing, they have a really big lake nearby. But otherwise, pretty quiet. The campground is HUGE – like around 1,000 sites in total. And they are FULL! It appears a lot of snowbirds come down for the winter including a lot of folks from Canada (mainly from around Quebec, Montreal and Toronto). Kind of odd to be in the middle of Florida and hear so much French being spoken.

The campground has a lot of activities planned. They have both a “family” and “adult” pool and let us tell you, the adult pool is packed every afternoon! It doesn’t hurt that they have a bar attached to the pool with very cheap drinks! They also had live entertainment from time to time at the pool and elsewhere in the campground (they have their own convention center). In fact, they made a big deal about a Senior Expo being held one day at the convention center. We figured we’d check it out, see exactly what we might find out. This is when we realized, we might not fit the demographic for this campground. Most venders fell into three categories:

1. Funeral home or death planning or life insurance
2. Hospice care, long term medical care, etc.
3. Dentures and related

Guess it’s good we didn’t really need anything from that expo!

They also celebrated Mardi Gras with a golf cart parade around the park and music at the pool.

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There actually is one or two interesting things to do around Okeechobee (OK, so we weren’t totally truthful earlier). Just a few miles north of town is the Arnold’s Wildlife Rehab Center. This rather small operation lives off of donations and rescues wildlife, sometimes releasing them back to the wild and at other times keeping them if they are unable to return (became too accustomed to humans, have injuries that won’t allow them to survive, etc.). They have at least 50 animals from monkeys to camels, from Florida panthers, to birds of all kinds. We enjoyed the visit and particularly the opportunity to meet the newest member of the center, a young otter that was found abandoned.

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While walking around camp, we noticed several people who had nice outside shelters, sort of like outside living rooms. They were screened in and had a roof which helped block the sun while also keeping out the bugs. Staying in central Florida, we realized that dealing with biting insects as well as the warmer sun down here was becoming a challenge so we decided to dive in and get our own outside “living room”!

We made a couple of trips over to the east coast of the state (about 50 minute drive). One day we visited Stuart, Fl which which had a pleasant old downtown area of shops. Another day, we drove over to Ft Pierce to visit some Botanical Gardens which were mainly focused on bonsai trees.

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We saved our biggest adventure for our last week in the area. We joined an airboat tour of the marshes around the north end of the lake and it was really unique. In addition to flying over grass and other marshland, we found ourselves wandering thru paths cut in groves of cattails looking for alligators and seeing a wide variety of birds. We learned a lot about the lake and those that inhabit the area around it.

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As we write this, we have packed up most of our equipment with plans to depart on March 11th, and start our journey north. A short stop in St. Augustine and then a week in Hilton Head Island. Time to say goodbye to Florida until next winter!