Four Months and Counting

Camping stops during first four months click this link to open the map

The end of October brought us to 4 months living full time in the motor home. At times, it feels like we like we started an eternity ago but other times it's like we started only yesterday. Since neither is true, maybe that's just old age catching up? Here are the facts about those 4 months:

• We have been in the rig 123 nights.
• We have stayed at 16 campgrounds for multiple nights and had 9 overnight stays at places like Walmart and Cabela's as we travel longer distances between destinations.
• We have done 3744 miles with the motorhome.
• The diesel fuel motor home is costing us $0.25 per mile.
• We are averaging $27 per day in camping fees.
• On the days we drive the motor home, we have averaged 150 miles per day.
• We have put just about 6000 miles on the Jeep doing all our sightseeing trips.

The difference from the two month update to now doesn't show any unexpected differences. We have increased our travelling just a bit the last two months but since the goal after Washington DC was to head to Florida and not take forever doing it, that makes sense.

One interesting thing we have discovered - when the weather is nice out, we feel obligated to go out and explore. Sometimes that means a bike ride, a hike or a game of disc golf. Other times it is visit some nearby town and check out the sights or take a tour of something. When the weather is bad, we are more inclined to stay in and watch a movie, read a book or just play a game on the iPad. For much of this trip so far, we have had some remarkably nice weather. Most of it is likely luck, although some of it is just common sense. When your home has wheels under it, you can avoid driving into the path of a hurricane for instance. With so many back to back days of nice weather, we don't seem to slow down. Maybe the law of averages will come into play and in some future update, I will be dreading the fact that the weather is preventing us from exploring.

There have been many memorable sites (and sights) along the way. It was nice to have an extended stay in Cincinnati to see family. The week in DC was hectic and tiring but very fun and worthwhile. But even though it might look like an extended vacation to most folks, there are plenty of days where our goal is much more mundane. Chris spent a lot of time investigating what is required to become Florida residents. And based on how smoothly the transition went, it would appear to be time well spent.

There are even the occasional days where we need to do some sort of work on the rig. Sometimes trivial things like cleaning windows and screens. It shouldn't be too surprising how dusty things get when you spend so much time in campgrounds. 

Other times, the work is a bit more involved. We had started having water leaking from beneath the refrigerator a couple months ago. The water would pool in the bottom of the freezer and freeze and when the volume got greater than the lip, the water would run out before freezing. Where it would run was highly dependent on how level the rig was. For the longest time, the "fix" was to check the ice level and every week or so, use a spatula to loosen the ice and remove it before the water would leak. Another blogger with a rig similar to our was having the same problem and posted about his fix. I watched the same youtube videos and discovered the fix was not too bad.

All the contents of the freezer were placed in the fridge, the bottom freezer drawer and slides were removed allowing access to the drain hole that had become clogged. Initially the blocked line was just general crud, but once blocked, it was just a mass of ice. A hair dryer, some warm water, a bit of cleaning and about 90 minutes of taking things apart and putting them back together, the blocked drain was fixed. For how long? Who knows, but it has been a couple weeks so far without issue.

Back of Fridge After Clearing Drain!

Once we had dealt with Florida residency, we really had no other travel plans on the table. We had told people we were thinking of heading to Arizona for the winter, but we had done NO planning or even thinking about it. We agreed it would not make sense to only have "head west" as our travel guide. We know of others that let serendipity be their guide - we aren't there yet! So we sat down and at least came up with a bit of a plan.

Every year there is a huge RV show in Quartzsite Arizona in January. Apparently over half a million people show up. It is one of those events that other RVers say you MUST do at least once in your life. Quartzsite is on I-10 just a few miles east of the California state line. It's about 2200 miles from where we are in Florida and just over 11 weeks out. Since we try to keep our travel days to under 200 miles, we come up with the "plan" to head to Quartzsite driving about 200 miles at a time and spending a week at the location.

When I map it out, there are some places that would be nice to explore like Pensacola, Baton Rouge, Houston. But there are a few others stops in western Texas that we might be willing to do an overnight while passing through, but would be hard pressed to want to spend much time there. Maybe we head a bit south of the route there and check out Big Bend National Park since that is a known snow bird destination for many travellers.

Eastern Florida Wrap Up

Map of this blog's locations click this link to open the map

Our trip into historic St Augustine was definitely the highlight of our stop here but we figured there was more to see before we head west. Since we won't be near the ocean again for quite some time, we decided we had to spend one of our remaining days checking out the beach.  Our destination would be south towards Daytona Beach.

For the 60 mile trip, we headed down the famous A1A. We were taken by the amount of debris piled along the road. Lots of it was tree and brush piled high but when the piles were household items stacked ten feet high, it felt a bit more somber.  Hurricane Matthew certainly made a mess along the Florida coast. So many homes had tarps for roofs while waiting for repairs. There was even a mile of A1A closed while heavy equipment moved out truckloads of sand pushed up onto the road.

Small Beach Area Along the Way

Cactus in Foreground

We also weren't having great luck with our stops along the way to check out a small park or find a geocache. Most of the parks were closed due to damage and so many of the caches were missing - likely washed away. By the time we got to Daytona Beach, we had better luck. We found a few caches and even a couple that were very creative hides.

Waves Crashing at Daytona Beach

The wind was whipping up the waves so not many people were out in the water but the beach was open. We even spotted a lifeguard watching those that did venture in to the surf.

Lonely Life Guard Bundled Up

Nice Little Park in Daytona Beach

On another day we headed north towards Jacksonville, with our first stop being at Ed Austin Park for a round of disc golf. This is a BIG park, apparently a former golf course. Lots of soccer fields, baseball diamonds, skateboard park, and even a pee-wee football game with a real scoreboard. It took us quite a long time to even determine where the first hole of the disc course was. This was a very good course. However, there were 2 holes that were adjacent to a big pond. We think the intent was to throw over the water on the way to the pin, however, we were not willing to either lose a disc or go swimming so we took the long way around the water and needed a handful more throws over par to get those holes in. But we ended our round with the same discs as when we started.

After the park, we headed to Fort George Island Cultural State Park home to the Kingsley Plantation State Historical Site. On our way there, we called to see if we could get into the ranger led tour that afternoon, but were told it was already full. We still enjoyed our visit and explored the various building on our own, reading about the history of this place. 

Old Plantation House

View From the Dock

Front View

Side View

Greeted by an Armadillo

Welcome Home

Map of this blog's locations click this link to open the map

From Savannah we had a simple drive to our next camping spot. Stagecoach RV Park is situated just west of St Augustine and only about a 19 mile drive to Green Cove Springs which is our home base. Originally we thought about staying for a full month just to take it easy, but the campground could only get us in for a week. This should still be plenty of time to do what we need to become Florida residents.

We got in early enough on Monday so we were able to get setup and then drive into our mailing service. We had started using St Brendan's Isle in Green Cove Springs Florida a few months before we had even moved out of our home in NY. The service has been working out quite well for us. We had purposely not forwarded our last batch of mail so we could go in to pick it up in person and ask them some questions about the process of setting up our domicile in Florida.

The woman we spoke to was very helpful in confirming a few things we thought we knew and answering some of the things we were still unsure of. In order to register a vehicle, you either must bring the vehicle with you to the DMV so the clerk can go out and check the VIN or get a document signed by a police officer verifying your vehicle's VIN. The woman at the mail service said it's a lot easier to just drive both the motorhome and car to DMV.

On our way back to the campgrounds, we stopped at DMV to check out the parking situation. Being late afternoon by the time we stopped, the parking situation was not great for a 38 foot motorhome. Since it was likely to be much more crowded the next morning, we decided it might make more sense to go with the alternative method.  On Tuesday morning, Chris called the local sheriff's office and reported a burglary figuring they should show up in no time. JUST KIDDING! She had a whole speech ready to describe what we needed but the person on the other end knew exactly what was required and an officer would be there in awhile.

Less than an hour later, we see a sheriff's car pull up in front of our site and she comes in to fill out the paperwork. We had the wrong form printed, but she just went back to her car and printed the one required. This turned out to much easier and quicker than we were expecting. We easily would have spent over an hour packing up the rig and setting back up when we returned. With this new form in hand and all the other paperwork we believed we needed, we drove to Green Cove Springs DMV. It wasn't very busy and we managed to get through all the paperwork in just under an hour. Next we walked the block to the county office building to turn in our form form stating we intend to make Florida our domicile. For anybody that plans on going through a similar process, we have the list of abbreviated steps we went through at the end of this post. 

By getting done with this in a day, we now had time to see what else there is in the area. The one place high on our list was St Augustine - the oldest permanent European settlement in the US. We stopped at a Howard Johnson on the way to downtown to see a huge live oak tree that is estimated to be over 600 years old! It is a fascinating tree and I learned that Howard Johnson still exists. Next we drove to the visitor center parking lot. At $12, it wasn't cheap but it was convenient. After a quick look around the visitor center, we headed across the street to Castillo de San Marcos. This is run by the National Park Service and as such we were able to use our annual pass to get in for free. 

The Old Senator - Over 600 Years Old

Not only Old but BIG!

Fountain at Visitor Center

Being built in the late 1600's, this place was quite impressive. We spent a couple hours wandering around checking out displays and catching one ranger talk. There were multiple bus loads of children touring the fort so we needed to come back to some displays after the group cleared out. If you get the chance, the fort is a must see location. Had we been there on a weekend, they actually shoot off the cannons as part of the activities. 

Main Entrance to Castillo de San Marcos

Inner Grounds of Fort

The Moat Sans Water

Cannons Over Wall

Besides offering a great view of the surrounding area, there were many interesting things to see. Maybe the most surprising thing was how ornate many of the cannons were. Hopefully the pictures will do them justice. Each corner of the fort had a bit of a lookout turret. Only one of them was not blocked off. It offered an interesting view that a sentry might have seen over three centuries ago.

Through the Peep Hole

After the fort, we walked down St George Street. With only pedestrians, and every building being some sort of shop or restaurant, there is lot to check out. There were no things we found we needed other than being lunchtime, we were in search of food. There were almost too many choices, but we eventually settled on a place with reasonable food and we planned the rest of the afternoon. 

Ponce de Leon

Guardian of Bridge

There are numerous old churches in town, several of them being quite beautiful. Perhaps the most beautiful building was on the campus of Flagler College. What used to be the Ponce de Leon Hotel built in 1888, it is now a dormitory! This place is just a little fancier than the concrete block wall building I stayed in my first 2 years in college. The lobby of the building is open to the public and many people were milling about. I suppose the students living here have gotten used to the crowds. 

Entrance to Flagler College

Ornate Carved Lion

Not Your Typical College Dormitory!

Entry into Lobby of Dorm

Lobby Ceiling

Abbreviated steps for becoming Floridians. We started steps 1-3 several months in advance of move date:

1. Establish mail service - we chose St Brendan's Isle in Green Cove Springs, FL
2. Change addresses to your mail service, turn "paper statements" on for bank and financial companies as each person needs official snail mail when applying with FL DMV.
3. We had passports as secondary ID beyond NYS driver's license, but you also need your hard copy of SS card, so Chris had to get that issued in advance.
4. At least a week before planned "move" date, we called around for insurance quotes with the constraint of company covering "full timer" liability coverage and both motor home and tow car with same company.  We ended up with Progressive.  We picked an effective date for early in work week as offices not open weekends.
5. The timing of our move was late October and I called our health insurance provider to verify that we could retain our NY health insurance thru end of year and start the following year with FL Blue Cross
6. Physical arrival in Florida
7. We stopped at our mail service for an "in person" pick up of mail and ask questions about FL residency process - they were very helpful.
8. Florida DMV requires "witness" of vehicle VIN by either DMV or law enforcement officer.  We drove past DMV and decided that it was unlikely that we would be parking motor home there.  So we called the local sheriff's office to request verification of VIN and within an hour there was officer in our campsite with all the paperwork the witness VIN step.  Motor home can stay parked at campground - yeah!
9. Next stop was to DMV, with a ton of documentation in tow.   In less than an hour we had new driver's licenses, consecutively numbered FL plates for motor home and Jeep, temporary vehicle titles and voter registration.
10. We then walked across the street to courthouse to submit declaration of domicile.
11. NY state won't let you cancel car insurance until they send you a receipt for returned plates.   Last stop of the day is to post office to mail NY the plates, and in the meantime we have insurance in both FL and NY

Off to Florida

Map of this blog's locations click this link to open the map

Now that our week long stay in Washington DC is over, it's time to start heading to Florida to become residents of that state. The original plan was to just head down I-95 stopping at a few places along the way. Those plans were messed up by hurricane Matthew. It no longer made sense to try to stay in Fayetteville NC. Especially since I-95 was closed in that area.

The detour around the closed sections would bring us a little bit west but we were concerned about finding a campground that hadn't suffered flooding issues. So we decided to head well west and go towards Greensboro. Leaving DC on a Sunday morning worked out very well from a traffic standpoint so it wasn't a problem.

A one night stop at a Walmart in Colonial Heights Virginia got us halfway from DC to Greensboro. It was right next to the Appomattox River which had a nice paved walking path. If we had realized the path went right to the Virginia State University campus, we may have walked a little further.

The destination near Greensboro was Hagan Stone Campground in nearby Pleasant Garden NC. It's a nice little county park that had room for us midweek but not thru the weekend. The other reason that brought us here were the thirty or so geocaches along the trails in the park. The leaves were just starting to get their fall colors and the weather was very nice.

Little Chapel at Hagan Stone

One of Several Ponds at Hagan Stone

Old Log Building

Old School House

One End of Campground

Butterfly Scuplture

Turns out the park is a cross country race destination for local schools. Each night we were there, several buses would bring dozens of kids and they would be racing while we were searching for geocaches. We managed to find a disc golf course in nearby Barber Park. They were doing some major construction so 4 of the holes were off limits. Not sure we should brag about having our best scores if we only did 14 of 18 holes! Just down the street from Barber Park is an place called Gateway Gardens. It is a smaller park that has all sorts of interesting artwork with much of it being in a children's garden. Here are some of the pictures from this place.

Another Butterfly

Fountain

Entrance to Children's Garden

An Apple a Day...

Frog Fountain

Big Carrot

As we tried to arrange the rest of the trip to Florida, we ran into problems finding campgrounds for the time we wanted. We made a reservation near Savannah Georgia for the following Saturday and Sunday, only to have the guy call us back on Thursday afternoon and apologize but he would have to refund us our deposit since he overbooked! Fortunately Chris made some calls and found Whispering Pines Campground in Rincon Georgia just outside Savannah had availability.

We stopped in Florence South Carolina at a Walmart. The truck parking here was rather busy. A refrigerator truck was nearby so the unit was running all night long. The drive into Georgia went well with a few stops along the way to break up the day.  The damage from the hurricane was evident all along the interstate. Many of the trees that had fallen onto I-95, were only cut back to the edge of the road and were still covering the shoulder.

Whispering Pines would probably be a nice enough place, but the site we were put in was barely wide enough to put all our slides out. Once the travel trailers pulled in on either side of us, there was really no room to enjoy the outdoors. Plus the wi-fi that was available was completely worthless. Good thing we weren't staying here for the campground and it was only for 2 nights.

We spent our first afternoon here going into downtown Savannah and just walking around seeing the interesting sights. There are lots of old and elaborate buildings and many little squares with statues or fountains commemorating all sorts of people.Quite a few building and signs in the area used the term "SCAD" but we weren't sure what it was. With a quick search we discovered it to be Savannah College of Art and Design. While Chris was checking out the Juliet Low birthplace (founder of the Girl Scouts), I noticed several dogs walking by wearing all sorts of costumes. After we continued to see more and more dogs in costumes, we finally asked one owner and were told it was the Wag-O-Ween event.

Church

William Washington Gordon Monument

One of Many SCAD Buildings

Former Savannah Cotton Exchange

Winged Lion Fountain

City Hall with Gold Dome

Cobblestone Streets

Savannah River

Fancy River Boat

Wag-O-Ween Contestant

Another SCAD Building

With only one full day in town, we decided to head to the coast just east of Savannah. We first tried to check out Bonaventure Cemetery. A big old cemetery that was made even more famous by the book (and movie) "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil". Neither of us had read the book but it still seemed like a great place to stop at. The only problem was that the place was closed because of all the damage from the hurricane. As we drove around the perimeter, you could see just how many of the trees were either uprooted or had huge limbs snapped off and resting on many of the gravestones. I suspect it will be a long time before the cleanup will be complete and it will not be the same even when it is opened up again.

The next stop was to Tybee Island which is east of Savannah on the Atlantic. There were similar issues here. Lots of debris lining most of the streets waiting to be picked up. Much of it was tree debris but there were also all sorts of households contents that must have been damaged from the rain water and storm surge. The Tybee Lighthouse was still open but we didn't feel like paying $9 each to check it out close up. We headed over to the beach to have out lunch and then walk the beach for a few miles. On our way back from the beach, we stopped to do a walk along the Savannah River on a walking path. Unfortunately the hurricane had nearly obliterated it. We made it about 1/2 mile but decided to just head back. 

Tybee Island Lighthouse

Beach Closed and Filled with Debris

Lighthouse in Background

Butterflies

Which Country Uses a Pirate Flag?

Closed Pier at Beach

Trail Washed Away