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(Note: This blog entry represents a combination of writings and pictures already posted about our Cool Change II, Land Yacht Adventures 2021 through Cindy via Facebook and Rick via email. So for some of you, the following posts may be duplicative, but for others, this is the first time you are seeing them. We are repeating them here to centralize the record and share our experiences more broadly.)
RICK’S POST (with additional pictures and captions in italics by Cindy):
We really enjoyed our time in Savannah, Ga. The State Park at Skidaway Island was likely the nicest campground on the entire trip, and we could easily have explored Savannah a few more days. But we were feeling that we needed to stick to a schedule, as we were due to meet Cindy’s sister Kim and her husband Pete in Key West on Nov 7th. We were both looking forward to seeing them so we tried to plan our next few stops carefully to arrive in the Keys on time. That said, our next stop, Katherine Hana Abby City Park in Jacksonville, Florida, was an easy 150 miles, so we did not feel rushed at all getting on the road.
At the time, we had been hearing a lot on the news about the upcoming trial, still in jury selection phase, of the three men accused of murdering Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick Ga. Knowing it was going to be an historic event, we planned our route to pass through Brunswick and to witness for ourselves this place where justice would hopefully prevail for Ahmaud, his family and friends (which it later did). So we took a detour of about 40 miles to drive through the area where the events occurred and to see the courthouse where the historic trial was to take place.
Once we entered Florida, we were a short distance from our next campground. Jacksonville as a city was not very impressive to us as it appears to be poorly planned and very congested. We were concerned that the site we had reserved at the city park was too small, so Cindy used her Jedi mind powers again to convince the staff they needed to give us a bigger space. The park itself is on a beautiful piece of land on the Atlantic and has tent and RV spaces, as well as tiny unfurnished cabins that they rent. The spaces are very close together so there is not a lot of privacy but still it is a nice park. The space they allowed us to upgrade to was a pull through and had plenty of room for all 50 feet of truck & trailer.
If there was a bright spot to our visit to Jacksonville, that must have been the location of our campground. It is bordered by a beautiful Florida white sand beach. As with most ocean locations we had visited along the east coast, the water was calm as a lake and very warm compared to the Pacific. We could walk to the beach from our campsite and have miles of open beautiful beach in either direction to stroll and explore. Well, that is not exactly true, as to the North we could only walk for about a mile before we came to a fence and gate that was attached to pylons with “Do Not Enter” signs and warnings that it was military installation. How rude! Though it was tempting to continue past the fence, just because… There was a manned observation tower just inside the fence perched high off the beach so as to be able to spot any intruders.
The Naval base is called Mayport and apparently there is a port facility and airstrip there, which explains the need for the tight security. Walking south we could have gone on for many miles and we easily managed to get in at least three miles on the beach per day.
There are lots of expensive-looking beach homes set back from the beach, some built on top of pilings to have a better chance of surviving the storms in the area during hurricane season.
Cindy had thought to buy a couple bags of candy in the event that any kids in the park would be trick or treating, as we had arrived on Saturday of Halloween weekend. Sure enough, as we were sitting outside enjoying the evening with a campfire, the kids started coming by. There were princesses, fairies, and cowgirls along with the expected skeletons and grim reapers. As it turned out, we had just enough candy to get through the evening, only because Cindy started handing out one candy per kid rather than letting the little goblins serve themselves!
The second day we were there, a middle age couple pulled in front of one of the little cabins that were right across the road from us and started getting settled in. I was a little concerned because from the way they were acting and their jerky body movements, they looked as though may have been on meth. When arrived, they just stopped their car (which was a ten or so year old Cadillac) right in the middle of the road. They left it there while they took their time unloading the car and getting settled in. Then, finally, the man parked the car in the space that was designated for their cabin but he left the car doors wide open! It seemed intentional because he kept coming in and out of the cabin and walking right by the open doors. Then much later in the day he came outside and had a full size broom he was using to sweep out the floors of the car. As he was doing this, his partner was trying to mount a bicycle they had brought and in the process, fell over and let out a stream of profanities. She then just got back up and put the bike away on the porch. Then the man went back inside leaving another car door open. I mention this because it had been quite a while since we had encountered any quirky people while camping. (Cindy’s note: I don’t think it was a coincidence that we would run into possible tweakers in a city-run campground outside of a major metropolitan area. To their credit, though, they were very nice to us and offered recommendations for places to visit in Florida.)
So, the park we were staying in was fine, and the beach was magnificent. We had a very restful couple of days there where all we did was take walks on the beach and in the evening, have a nice campfire and reminisce about the places we had been on this trip.
After leaving Jacksonville, our next stop was Orlando so that we could visit DisneyWorld. We purchased advance tickets to visit Epcot Center. I had visited Epcot before and so had Cindy, but it was decades ago. Neither of us had any interest in visiting the amusement park side of Disney World because we did not have any kids with us to enjoy it with.☹️. The last time I visited Epcot Center, a person could just walk up and pay for admission and go inside, but nowadays you have to make a reservation and pay ahead online for the day you want to be there. It has also become a bit pricy at $139.00 per person for a one day pass! No matter, we were looking forward to the Epcot experience I remembered, with many individual pavilions, each representing a different country. The pavilions I remembered were staffed by people that were working for Epcot but from the countries the pavilions represented and rotated into the US on some type of seasonal schedule. In my memory, it really felt authentic, but that was not to be the case on this visit. Though it was likely due to covid, it seemed all of the staff at the pavilions were from the US.
The campgrounds that can accommodate RVs and trailers around Orlando are mostly expensive private campgrounds that exist primarily so that people can stay in their RVs there while they visit Disney World. Most of the campgrounds are a hundred or more dollars per night. Cindy managed to find a city park that we could stay in while we were in Orlando that only cost $25.00 per night with full hookups! The park is called Bill Frederick Park at Turkey Lake. I think it is fairly new and it is beautifully maintained. It sits on 183 acres and has a huge day use area and a campground located way at the back of the property. It was a real score for the area we were in and is highly recommended it if you find yourself RV’ing through Orlando. In the day use area, there is a pavilion called “The drone zone” where people can launch and fly drones from, and is advertised as complete with charging stations for equipment. Though I meant to go check out the drone zone, we were only there for two nights and I never made it there. We did take a walk through the picnic area to the lake where we sat at a table and had a glass of wine as the sun was setting. There were several signs with alligator warnings around the lake. Had we finally arrived in alligator country? Though at one time alligators were an endangered species, they are no longer. In Florida, which has the highest concentration of them in the US, there are estimated to be over 1.25 million alligators!
Here are a few fun alligator facts that we learned about them on this trip. An alligator can run in short bursts at 35 mph on land. So you really don’t want to get too close. If that is a little disturbing, consider this. An alligator can jump six feet in the air! Alligators cannot digest salt, so they can only live in fresh water. Crocodiles, like the ones we encountered cruising in Mexico, can live in fresh or salt water. Alligators have poor eyesight but a keen sense of smell. They can detect a single drop of blood in ten gallons of water!
The day after we arrived in Orlando, we visited Epcot Center. The drive from the campground took about thirty minutes but it was easy. When we got to the park, they were very organized as they directed parking in the huge parking lot. We had arrived 30 minutes or so before the park opened so we were able to park very close to the entrance. We went through the security screening and were inside a few minutes after they opened the park.
Early in the day, we found ourselves walking by a food stand that did not have a long line and it had nice tables set out in a grassy area away from the crowds so we decided to stop and have a snack. They were selling sliders, the small hamburgers that are usually sold as an appetizer in pub-style restaurants. The name of the stand was “The Impossible Burger.” I wondered what the name had to do with the product but did not give it much more thought. We each ordered a slider and sat down to eat at one of the tables. It was really tasty, with some interesting seasonings. We really enjoyed it. Then, only by talking with someone else there, we figured out that it was not meat at all, but entirely plant based! I was astonished at how they could make such a product that not only had the texture and flavor of beef but with the seasonings, actually tasted better. I was glad we had tried it because I doubt I would have if I had known before hand that it was not meat. Another treat I had in the park was from the Canadian Pavilion and was Poutine. It is a popular treat in Quebec, and consists of french fries and cheese curds topped with a brown gravy. It is delicious! I was familiar with it as we had originally discovered this dish in Mexico at a restaurant in Puerto Vallarta that had a Canadian chef.
There were a few Disney characters around that reminded me of a magical trip I had taken long ago with our kids to Disneyland in California. At the time, they were very young. Our daughter Sarah was enchanted with her time spent with a princess and getting a photograph with her.
Aside from all the pavilions, there were a few amusement park-type ride attractions. My favorite is called “Mission Space.” It is a ride that simulates what it is like to blast off in a rocket with your mission being to get to Mars. There are two versions of the ride, with one being much more intense than the other. So we threw caution to the wind and chose the E ticket version. It starts with several five-person lines of people standing in the same pre-launch area room. A recording tells about the mission you are going on. Each group of five is assigned to a separate ship. They give each person an assignment such as navigator, commander etc. and then explain a task that will be asked of you, which is to push a button or use a joy stick control to maneuver through an asteroid field. You strap in tight in your seat, and during the simulated takeoff, you feel the G forces on your body and the shaking of the ship as you head into space. Then all goes dark for a few seconds, simulating hyper-sleep, and when you awake you are in the middle of an asteroid field getting bounced around as the pilot tries to avoid the hits. It ends with a touchdown on Mars. It is very well done and if you go there you should not miss it!
Then we went on the classic ride called “Spaceship Earth”; it is the ride that is within the iconic sphere right at the front of the park. You ride through the exhibit on rails in a car as you retrace the history of human communication and how it evolved from the first written words up to the world wide web. The animation and the story line are both excellent. It was the last attraction we went on before the fireworks display.
We spent a full day there right up until they closed at 10pm. We were both pretty exhausted by about 6pm but I really wanted to see the closing fireworks display that they put on each night for the guests. What was a disappointing to me was that instead of having workers in each of the pavilions from the countries they represent, they mostly were all obviously from the USA. They were having a food and wine festival in the park so there were more food and wine options than normal.
We went to the Mexico Pavilion to a restaurant and managed to find a table overlooking the lake in the center of Epcot where the fireworks display is launched from. We ordered a couple of Margaritas and some nachos and hung out for almost two hours till the show began. It was a great place to watch the pyrotechnics display. There are both permanent structures in the center of the lake and strategically located barges where the rockets are launched. The structure at the center has huge curved steel arms that move about firing illuminated water cannons while the fireworks and laser light show is happening. It went on for about 20 minutes and was quite spectacular. Cindy, as tired as she was by the end of the night, admitted she was glad we had stayed for the finale.
We were fortunate that we had purchased tickets to Epcot for the day we did, as the next couple of days it was expected to rain, but that turned out to be a huge understatement! We intended to get an early start in the morning, headed for Miami. In anticipation of the rain, we had done most all of the things the night before that we would normally have saved for the morning. That turned out to be a good choice as the thunderstorms began rolling in during the night. We woke up to the rain on the roof and the cracks of thunder. I was reminded once again of how much easier this RV thing is compared to cruising in our boat, as we did not have to worry about fetch, lee shores or dragging anchor.
Regardless, this was the weather report for our travel day of 250 miles to Miami. As my brother Andrew observed, worse than a possibility of a tornado is the possibility of a few tornadoes! Luckily, we did not encounter any tornadoes, which is surprising as we fully expected that the trailer would attract them. But man did it rain! It was coming down in buckets, and at times I was doing 40mph on the freeway. Any faster and the windshield wipers could not keep up and we could not see the road. I was very happy that we had put on the new tires in Virginia. The drive took much longer than expected; there were flooded areas of road and several wrecks along the way. By the time we got to our campground in Miami, it was dusk and we were both exhausted.
In the morning we were off to Miami Beach! (Note from Cindy: Miami Beach is not just the beach of Miami – it is a separate town, separated by a bridge from the City of Miami). This was a place neither of us had been before so we were not sure what to expect. The good thing was that the weather had cleared up overnight and it was sunny and warm. The roads going through the City of Miami were challenging for the truck: narrow one-lane overpasses and roads. Cindy was navigating as usual, and when we were a few blocks away from the beach, we found a parking space we could actually fit into in front of the Flamingo City Park. We took a photo of the street sign to find our way back.
One of the places that is definitely worth a visit in Miami Beach is Española Way. It starts in a residential area where all the homes are of an old Spanish elegance style. There are lots of bricks, red tile roofs, ornate fences and gateways. The homes are beautifully well kept. A street or two to either side of Espańola are the working class homes and apartments that are a stark contrast by comparison. Walking east towards the ocean, the road eventually becomes a pedestrian-only road lined by Art Deco, Spanish, French, and Mediterranean looking buildings with lots of awnings and umbrellas over the numerous sidewalk cafes.
At the end of the street we crossed a busy boulevard and continued walking towards the beach. The last street before you get to the beach was called Beach Drive and runs parallel to the beach. It is also only open to pedestrian traffic. Most of the buildings along the road were built during the Art Deco period and are well maintained. Most all of the restaurants have large outdoor seating areas that spill over the sidewalk into the street in true pandemic restaurant style.
We went out to the beach and strolled along the shoreline. The sand was soft and white and lots of people were out enjoying the day, renting umbrella and sun enclosures from numerous vendors. There were lifeguard stations along the beach every 100 yards or so and lifeguards were on duty ready to rescue tourists from the rip currents. We could see how it would be easy to get in trouble in the water. It looks so calm, warm and inviting, but the currents and riptide hazards lurk beneath the surface and keep the lifeguards busy.
Miami is of course mostly Cuban. We wanted to go somewhere nice for an authentic Cuban meal. We decided on Havana Viejo, which was the best rated restaurant in the area for authentic Cuban food. It really was great and the decor was awesome! It was roofed but open air to the outside. Being there had the feel of what I imagine a sidewalk cafe in Havana to be like. Cindy had Grilled Octopus, and I had Lechón Asado, a very traditional pulled pork plate. We of course had to order Mojitos and they were excellent. They served their Mojito with a piece of sugar cane as a stir stick. After we ate, we walked around town some more until our feet were getting tired and we headed back to where we had parked.
Cigar lady!
That evening we decided to continue the Cuban experience by going to a small cuban family restaurant near our campground. We ordered takeout and brought it back to the trailer. Compared to what we had experienced in Miami, it was definitely a little bland but this was a small family run place in a working class neighborhood and I would describe the food as Cuban comfort food. Our waiter at the restaurant in Miami told us that Cuban food is never spicy and we found this to be true.
I was getting excited because in the morning we would be heading out to the Florida Keys. It is a place I have always wanted to visit and it was sure to be a highlight of the voyage.