Out of Our Rut: Brooksville and Beyond

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

We have just over a week left here at Belle Parc Resort. It’s amazing how much of our stuff gets taken out of its storage location when we stay in one spot for nearly 5 months. I’ll need to start putting things away a few days before we are to leave just to get it all taken care of. That doesn’t mean that we won’t get a chance for some more outdoor recreation. Our go to spot is at the Croom WMA and it’s 50 miles of single track mountain biking trails. We are going to miss Croom and it’s wide variety of trails. In the last 9 days in Brooksville we will make it there 5 times. We hadn’t started to ride here until mid December for fear of running into hunters but in those intervening 100 days, I got in a mountain bike ride at Croom 35 times - pretty impressive if I do say so myself. Towards the end we tried a few different sections of trail that we hadn’t tried since last season when we first arrived.

During one of the rides, Chris asked if we could take a detour over to the paved Withlacoochee State Trail and go the mile or so up to where someone has a large number of sheep in a fenced in area right next to the trail. She was hoping that we would find a few lambs since we last stopped here. Turns out her intuition was right. There were likely a total of 20 sheep and several lambs. They were near the fence line and I just assumed they would run off as we stopped and walked over. Instead, they came over as if saying “feed us!”. Unfortunately we hadn’t brought along any food and after they realized that fact, they headed away from us. One of the lambs did stop at the base of a nearby tree and I was able to get a decent photo of it gnawing at an exposed root.

Got Food?

The Whole Herd Arrives

In the Shade of Shelter

Lamb Licks Root

Heading back down the WST to the car, we saw a sign we had never noticed before. It simply had the word River and a dirt trail that went several hundred feet to the edge of the Withlacoochee River. It’s hard to believe that we likely biked past this side trail dozens of times over the past 2 seasons but never noticed it. We didn’t see any gators or boats and just a few fish but it was a pretty spot.

Approaching Withlacoochee River

Quiet on the River

On another ride in Croom, I brought Chris along to the Smith Prairie Trailhead where the Red Trail starts and will lead us to a section of the trail that is nearly solid lupine in bloom. This trail can be a little more sandy than other sections and the two large rain events we had in the past couple of weeks seems to have washed the sand on all the small hills to the bottom making for even more treacherous biking in the deep sand at either the beginning or end of the hills. I had finally mounted my GoPro on the bike to try to get some photos and video of the ride. I’m including a few of the pictures it took during our 7.5 mile ride.

Entering Lupine Area

Short Sandy Section

Heading Up Small Hill

Deeper Sand

I managed to remember where all the different things belong in the rig so that everything fits. We had reserved our spot thru the end of March, but we were leaving 5 days early in order to go to Independence RV in Winter Garden Florida. As a reminder, shortly after we arrived here in November, I discovered that the motor which drives one of our slide outs had a cracked case and was only being held in place by 3 of the 4 mounting bolts. Even though it hadn’t made any unusual noises when I moved the slide out upon arriving here, it didn’t look like it would have many more cycles before it completely broke.

Close-up of Cracked Mounting Ear

We had scheduled a Newmar mobile service tech to replace it in late January but he arrived to tell us that this style of drive mechanism is prone to breaking during a motor swap and if it did break, he would be unable to fix it in the field. He worked with the service team in Winter Garden to get us schedules for a late March appointment even though they were actually scheduling out thru late April at the time. I had bought the motor from him for $769 just to make sure there was one available when we arrived at the service department.

The day before we left, we crossed our fingers that the motor would last for at least one last retraction and I pushed the button. We normally would close slides the morning we are to leave, but if the motor broke, I would need to find 10 strong men to help push our largest slide in and I wanted to have time to locate that many guys in the park that looked like they could actually help push without hurting themselves! Fortunately the slide came in just like normal and had I not noticed the damaged motor housing back in November, I wouldn’t have realized we were on the verge of slide failure.

It’s less than a 60 mile drive from Belle Parc to Independence RV but it would mean leaving awfully early on Monday morning to be there for 8 AM. We knew there was an Elks Lodge within a mile of the RV dealer. They don’t list allowing overnight RV parking, but we called a week in advance and asked if we could dry camp in their parking lot Sunday night. They were fine with that but suggested we don’t show up until about 6:30 PM since the lodge closes at 7 on Sunday nights. We pulled into the small parking lot and there were still 10 cars there. We just barely fit but figured we could reposition after the others had left for the night.

We went into let them know who we were and what our plans were. It turned out one of the members had recently gotten a fifth wheel trailer and was hoping to do some extended traveling in the near future. She had all sort of questions and we were more than willing to help her out. We ended up each having 3 beers in the process and sat at the bar talking until nearly 8:30. It turned out they actually did have a 30 amp electric outlet that is normally inside the small shed next to the parking lot. They pulled the connection out and we were able to move the motorhome up to it and plug in for the night so we wouldn’t need to run our generator.

This place worked out wonderfully for us. The next morning, Chris drove the Jeep to the service center to confirm the gates were open and called when she saw it was all clear for me. I pulled in a few minutes later and the service advisor came out to check me in. We were told that if the motor removal didn’t break the drive mechanism, the replacement would take several hours and we would be out by early afternoon. If things did break, it likely wouldn’t get done in one day and they don’t allow owners to stay in their lot after they close for the day. We were hoping it would go well and we wouldn’t need to find a motel for the evening. Several other rigs pulled in over the next hour or so. I’m glad staying at the Elks Lodge got us in first.

While we were sitting on the nice covered porch area out front, we met the couple that was just behind us during check-in. They were snow birds from Ohio - living only an hour away from where I was born and raised. They were in for slide problems as well. I told them my story of trying to use the Newmar mobile service for our repair but not having luck other than to buy the motor that had been in short supply at the time. An hour later his service advisor came out to tell him the problem he had was with the motor but his slide has 2 of them - at $1140 a piece plus labor to do the work! They hadn’t realized it would be a big job so they hadn’t brought along their car. At lunch time, Chris offered to take the wife to go find lunch for us and a short time later we were all enjoying our meals.

I would occasionally walk past our rig to try to determine how things were going. I was able to see the old motor sitting on the ground so I knew it was removed and the technician was still working on it. I finally caught him when his head wasn’t buried inside our basement storage bay and found out he had succeeded in not breaking the drive mechanism in the process! He asked if I needed the old motor. I could see that the second mounting ear had broken off in the process and there wasn’t any real value in hanging onto a damaged motor. By mid afternoon we were all set and pulling out.

Our Rig in Service Bay

Original Motor Removed

Brand New Slide Motor Installed

Mounting Side of Motor

We had made a couple of reservations for camping as we headed up towards Charleston SC but hadn’t booked a spot for this evening figuring we might be stuck in a Winter Garden motel room for that night. Our contingency plan if all went well was the Elks Lodge in Eustis FL less than 30 miles away. They have six 30 amp with water sites in a lot next to the lodge. A small travel trailer and larger motorhome were already there when we arrived. It isn’t a very level lot and the other motorhome had its front tire at least 8 inches off the ground - a real no-no in my book. We managed to back into an open spot and use some of our pads to get level. It was a fairly quiet place and it felt good to have our main living room slide working again. The travel trailer next to us seems to have been there for some time but I didn’t get a chance to meet the owners to know the details.

View at Eustis Elks Lodge

Long Term Campers at Elks Lodge

The next day, we only had a 90 mile drive to our reserved campground in Waldo Florida so we were able to be lazy in the morning in order to not get there too early before check-in. We had picked Gainesville RV Park because it was close to another mobile RV service guy. I know, we just had service done, why do we need a mobile service guy? Well this guy has a rather specialized service - pressure washing black and grey holding tanks. Let’s just say he knows his shit! Anybody that has an RV of any kind, knows that the tank sensors on these holding tanks are prone to misreading the tank level. Ours has three sensors which gives us the following readings on the display: empty, 1/3, 2/3, full. Our rig is 10 years old and we have been full time for nearly 6 of those years. I cannot recall the last time we have seen the “empty” reading on our black tank even after dumping and using the tank rinse several times. Our hope is this guy will be able to remedy our problem.

Doug of D & D Tank Cleaning Solutions shows up right on time the next morning. He lives near this RV park so he didn’t have a long commute. He’s been doing holding tank cleaning for the past few years. He has a territory around this part of Florida where he will travel to plus he attends several rallies around the country where there are a large number of rigs to work on. The concept is rather simple. He attaches his sewer hose and dumps the tanks like normal. Then he adds in a clear section of pipe between the rig and the hose that had a hole in the top. He uses a small pressure washer with a rather stiff hose which has a head on the end that sprays out several high pressure streams in various directions. The head also has a small weight on it so the end of the hose doesn’t flop all over the place. Since there is a limited amount of water exiting, the hole in the pipe doesn’t experience any leaking. Initially, the water exiting the tank is quite dirty.

Tank Cleaning Setup

He can control the location of the head by feeding the hose in and out and also twisting it to make it move left or right. He doing this mostly blindly but he can tell by the cleanliness of the exiting water whether he has thoroughly cleaned all parts of the tank. In the process, he switches to a couple different hoses that have different nozzle head designs. At one point, larger flakes of something called struvite start to come out. He stops the process and actually takes a small amount of it out of his connection pipe in a small pan. It appeared to be less than a 1/16 of an inch thick. It is formed more from minerals in the water supply rather than human waste. The minerals form thin sheets on the bottom and sides of the tank. Once this portion was cleaned, the water started to exit perfectly clear. Doug continues until the exiting water looks “clean enough to drink”. I’ll admit the water was perfectly clear coming out but I will pass on the offer to drink it!

Struvite

Next he switches gear to the grey water holding tank. This one is a bit more difficult to start since the pipe out of this tank is half the size of the black tank. Once he gets the pressure nozzle in, it doesn’t take long for the water coming out to also look clean enough to drink. He was there just under two hours and it cost $250 for both tanks to be cleaned. Best of all, the sensors appear to be functioning properly again.

Cleaning Grey Tank

Rain was expected for the following day, so we decided to spend the nice afternoon we were having for a bike ride. The Palatka to Lake Butler State Trail is a planned 47 mile paved trail just to the north and east of Waldo. The key word here is “planned”. The section that hasn’t been completed apparently can be traveled by mountain bike but the conditions sounded terrible. We decided to do a completed section and start at the Twin Lakes Trailhead. There is a large park with tennis courts, soccer fields and a large parking lot. Only a few cars were there when we arrived - probably others out for a bike ride or walk. We make a quick detour for a geocache hidden in the woods next to the park.

We head east out of the parking area to start our ride and stay on what we believe to be completed trail. It is a nice trail with one major drawback. Much of this portion of the route follows along FL-100 which is quite a busy road. Not that trail is a bike lane along the road. Often it is a hundred feet or more from the road and separated by trees, but the noise seems quite persistent. The are some ponds along the way and a few spots where the cattle were out grazing. We stop at a small park in the town of Florahome for another geocache before continuing east. At about the 11 mile mark we decided to turn around and head back. Since the wind had been mainly out of the east we had a slight tailwind to help us back to the car.

Palatka to Lake Butler Trail

Small Pond Along Trail

Water Lilies

Grazing Cattle

Small Stream

The next day did turn out to be a rainy one so it was good we explored when we did. Our next stop would be a one night stay in Georgia on our way north. That would put us at 153 nights in Florida this season. With our plans for Colorado this summer and fall, we will be staying out west next winter so who knows when we will make it back to our home state. We have stayed in the Brunswick Georgia area twice before. Once for a week on Jekyll Island and another time for just a night last year heading north. We would have picked the same campground as last year but we were coming in on a Friday and our Passport America discount doesn’t work there on weekends. So we decided to head to Coastal GA RV Resort. It is a bit higher-end place than we typically stay but works fine for the one night we are here. The place is a bit more hands off than most resorts like this. We got here early afternoon but they just had a self check-in packet for us and nobody in a golf cart to escort us to our site.

Since we got in fairly early and it was a very nice day, we decided to explore the area. During our weeklong stay back in the fall of 2018, we were stuck on Jekyll Island without a car while it was in the shop for service so we really didn’t get a chance to explore the Brunswick area. The first thing that caught our eye was Fort Frederica National Monument on nearby St Simons Island just north of Jekyll Island. It wasn’t clear what was there was to see and do at the fort, but figured it was worth a visit to find out. Fort Frederica is only about a 20 mile drive from camp. There is just one road from the mainland to the southern end of the island. The drive onto the island was fine, but once on the island, we ran into a massive traffic jam. Fortunately it was worse heading the opposite direction but it did slow us down quite a bit.

Entering Fort Frederica NM

There is a nice visitor center that has a large number of indoor displays as well as a video that runs every half hour. The fort and town were built by the British military in the mid 1730’s to early 1740’s. It was one of several forts built to help defend the area from advances by the Spanish, north out of present day Florida. Next to the fort were 84 lots that homes or businesses were built. With this basic info in mind, we head outside to walk around the vast grounds.

Display in Visitor Center

The town had been placed on a grid and with old documentation and some excavation, there are street signs to indicate where the old streets were. Some of the old lots have been studied by archeologists and have had their foundations exposed - often with remnants of a chimney or steps. Each lot that was studied, has an information sign explaining who lived there or what business resided there. Given the age of this community, much of what is presented are the conclusions of the investigation at each site.

Primitive Shelter

Broad Street

Old Home Foundation

Another Foundation

Several “streets” south of Broad Street was a large tent-like canopy covering a hole in the ground. We saw a couple of people working there so we headed over to check it out. The two young women, likely archeology students or recently graduated, we “playing in the dirt”. One of them stopped her activities and came over to explain what was going on and what they had uncovered so far. Apparently the town grounds had been mapped with ground penetrating radar to better identify where there might be old foundations. This particular site was the current spot to be analyzed. She showed us some of the artifacts that had recently been unearthed. The canopy while providing shade for the workers, was actually there to protect the site from rain so it didn’t need to be covered each night. Excavation started on this site in early 2020 but did get disrupted by COVID early on in the work. Interesting but it looks like rather tedious work.

Dig Site

Next we head over towards the Frederica River and the remnants of the old fort. Given the building is well over 250 years old, it is in remarkable condition. It is built of a material called “tabby”. A combination of lime (from burned oyster shells), sand, more oyster shells and water, it forms a masonry building material that is quite durable. We have seen several other tabby remains in Georgia and Florida over our years of travels. The fort was strategically built on a bend in the river that would permit for better defensive posture from water based attacks. A few old cannons are positioned around the perimeter.

Large Tree Near Fort

Fort Frederica

Overlooking Frederica River

Cannon by Fort

One other large building was visible to the north of the fort. This was the remains of the tower portion of the barracks constructed on the grounds. At over 2 stories tall, it too had stood the test of time. Fort Frederica NM was an interesting stop. We likely spent 90 minutes exploring and pretty much saw it all.

Remnants of Barracks

It was still well before dinnertime so we looked to see what else there was to see or do on St Simons Island. We saw there was a highly favorited geocache on the south end of the island at a lighthouse. The traffic jam had subsided by then so the several mile drive wasn’t too bad. Turns out the geocache was inside the lighthouse which has a $12 entrance fee and was closing soon. So the best we could do was explore the outside grounds.

Lighthouse on St Simons Island

Beautiful Home by Lighthouse

There was a rather large beach area starting near the lighthouse so we decided to do a bit of a walk along the Atlantic. It must have been near low tide and the sand was quite firm, so the walking was easy. We likely only walked half a mile or so up the beach. It wasn’t very crowded although it was getting to be late in the day by then, so we turned back to head home for some food. I’m sure there is lots more to see in the area but be only had an afternoon to explore before we head out.