2023 Year End Review

It’s hard to believe another year has come and gone. At the close of 2023, we have been on the road full time for seven and a half years. Having spent the prior year heading from east to west, we ended up using this year to return back east. The first three months of 2023 were spent in the desert southwest of Arizona with the bulk of that time in one of our favorite winter destinations - Tucson. During the winter months, we put together our plans for the upcoming year with western New York as our goal for the summer season. We reserved a seasonal site in the Finger Lakes town of Waterloo that would be available between May 1 thru November 1. Having lived 32 years in the Rochester New York area, we knew not to get there too early in the spring or stay too late in the fall - it can get cold or even snow. We ended up spending almost five and a half months there and enjoyed getting a chance to see friends and locations we hadn’t seen in many years.

The map below shows the route we traveled in 2023 from Arizona to New York to Florida. There is a link just below the map that will open the actual Google Map which permits you to zoom in on spots and pan around the map. Each red pin represents a stop and clicking on any of them will pop up a window with the links to any blog posts related to that specific location.

Click HERE to open Goggle Map

Our route from Arizona to Waterloo was influenced by a few factors. Visiting family in the Dallas and Cincinnati area were a couple of anchor points. A stop in northern Indiana wasn’t originally planned but we finally bit the bullet and decided to have a solar and lithium battery system installed on our motorhome in Nappanee Indiana in late April. Many of the points in between these stops were defined by the location of Elks Lodges along our general route and areas we wanted to explore. We have definitely come to appreciate the hospitality of the lodges to traveling Elks. If the lodge happens to be open during our stay, we get to meet all sorts of locals and find out about the area and maybe even get in a good meal. But if the lodge happens to be closed, we still can have a safe place to spend the night before moving on.

After our extended stay in the Finger Lakes, we headed south for warmer weather with the plans to winter in Florida. Even though we know better, we waited too long to book a site in Florida so we were forced to piece together a hodgepodge of different spots to get us through early April of next year. It isn’t ideal, but will give us the chance to explore other areas of Florida.

One of our stops was at a resort called The Great Outdoors (TGO for short) in Titusville near Cape Canaveral on the east coast of Florida. This is where we celebrated Christmas and finished out the year. For reasons I’ll explain in a future blog post, we booked a month at this rather pricey resort in order to get a feel for the area as well as the resort itself. The thinking was, if we like the place, we might end up buying an RV lot so we have a consistent place to stay in Florida in future years!

Owning a lot might seem like overkill in order to have a place to stay especially if we don’t always come back to Florida over the winter. But TGO has a program whereby lot owners can enter their empty lots into a rental program run by the resort. The site we are currently renting is one such lot. The proceeds from all those in the rental pool is divided up evenly to all the participating lot owners. Based on the past two years of rental data, if we don’t come back to Florida over the winter, the rental income will be enough to cover our HOA fees and the taxes on the lot for a full year. We aren’t buying a lot to make money, but we won’t be loosing money on an empty site. But if we come back for the 6 months over the “high season” in Florida, our site will cost us about $25 per day. At this point we have an accepted offer on a lot with the closing scheduled for mid January so we will have much more to talk about when the lot is officially ours.

Back to our 2023 travels. We only made it to 3 national parks this past year and one national monument that probably deserves to be a national park. All four of these visits were in parks we have been to before. But Saguaro NP and Chiricahua NM in Arizona, Hot Springs NP in Arkansas, and Shenandoah NP in Virginia are all big enough that we were able to find new hikes that we had not completed before in prior visits and given a chance, we will visit them again.

I have generated a couple of “heat maps” that show where we have camped. Darker red colors are an indication of how long we stayed in a given state. The first map is just for the 365 nights in 16 states we camped in 2023. Not surprisingly New York was the winning state this past year. The second map shows all seven and a half years of stops. We did not add any new states to our list so we are still missing 4 of the lower 48 states.

Our 2023 Camping Map

Our 7.5 Camping Map

To help understand what this lifestyle is costing us, I have tabulated some of the more pertinent data for 2023 and the past five years. Our travel pace, represented by both the number of stops and the average nights per stop, has slowed down somewhat. Having a 2 month stay in Tucson and over 5 months in Waterloo tends to help slow the pace down.

Just the Stats

The number of miles we drove the motorhome is up compared the prior 3 years but at least the cost for diesel did not increase. In fact, in 2022 it cost us 62 cents per mile for diesel but this year we are down to 45 cents per mile. Fuel still isn’t cheap, but at least it is heading in the right direction. It’s not clear why we traveled nearly 2000 miles less in the Jeep than we did last year. Maybe by spending so much time in western New York - a place we are quite familiar with - we didn’t need to travel as far to see some of the places we wanted to revisit.

In terms of the type of camping spot we stayed at, we spent more nights at Elks Lodges and private campgrounds this year but dramatically fewer nights at state parks. It’s a bit odd since we really like staying at state parks. But the split between which type of camping spot we stay at has more to do with what areas we want to stay at and for whatever reason, this year, state parks were not as prevalent in those places. Plus most state parks have a 14 day stay limit so when we opt to spend longer times in an area, state parks are not a viable option.

So besides getting our solar and lithium batteries installed on the rig and potentially getting an RV lot in Florida, we did have one other pretty big event during our travels this past year. We got to experience some pretty severe weather on our way thru Missouri this spring. We knew enough to be off the road before the predicted storm came thru. We escaped without experiencing a tornado and we survived the storm unscathed, but the 6 month old Jeep got pelted with a pretty bad hail storm. We spent a great deal of time dealing with the insurance company and the repair facility in order to get things back to new. It’s amazing how much damage a 10 minute storm was able inflict on the poor car.

As we have done in past year end reviews, we looked over all of the 38 stops we had in 2023 and attempt to come up with our favorites. Even though I will list the campground we stayed at for each winning location, the reason we picked the six stops had little to do with the campground and more to do with the area we were situated. For each stop we found worthy of our list, there is a short description of the stop, a link to the first blog post for that stop and a favorite picture or two. In chronological order, here is the list for 2023:

• Grapevine Elks Lodge Grapevine Texas - We aren’t typically big city people, and Grapevine is in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, which is by all measures a BIG city. But we have family living in the area and the Elks Lodge in Grapevine worked out quite well for our nine night stay. The lodge has a handful of RV spots with water and electric. We fit in an amazing amount of family time in the short stay and barely had any time for sightseeing. The kids have grown up a lot since our last visit and it was nice to have some dogs to play with.

Grapevine Blog Post

Shore of Grapevine Lake

Sasha Acts as Foot Warmer

• Seneca River RV Park Waterloo New York - The location of our over five month stop this past summer was pretty ideal. But Seneca River RV Park, where we had our seasonal site, left a lot to be desired. The fairly new campground seemed to be about 80% completed but was functional and I’ll leave it at that. Waterloo is well east of the area we used to live in Rochester, but close enough to easily drive in to visit with the many friends we have in the area. The advantage of this location is you’re in the heart of the Finger Lakes region of New York. There are lots of nearby state parks, waterfalls, wineries, breweries and the list goes on. Even after spending so much time in this spot, we felt there were things we didn’t get to do. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention one very unexpected benefit of the area - a grocery store! People from the area would expect us to be referring to Wegmans, which is great, but the store in question is a Mennonite run store called Sauders. If you happen to be in the area, we recommend you check out this store.

First Waterloo Blog Post

One of Many Visits to the Erie Canal

Lots of Waterfalls to See - This is Taughannock Falls

• Waynesboro Elks Lodge Waynesboro Virginia - In the heart of the Appalachian Mountains, Waynesboro is located at the southern end of Shenandoah National Park and the northern end of the Blue Ridge Parkway. We stayed at the Elks lodge in town with two electric sites and access to water and a dump station, all on a beautiful property. We managed to get in some pretty drives and excellent hikes in the area but we barely scratched the surface so we could easily visit again and not be bored.

Waynesboro Blog Post

Shenandoah National Park

A Stop Along the Blue Ridge Parkway

• NC State Fairgrounds Raleigh North Carolina - The state fairgrounds is a big campground with lots of room if you’re not trying to stay during the fair or one of the NC State home football games! Raleigh has a lot of nice parks for hiking, museums and an incredible farmers market. If we hadn’t set a travel schedule, we could have easily spent a couple weeks there. The other benefit, for us at least, is my college roommate lives in the area and we had the chance to get together for dinner.

Raleigh NC Blog Post

Ornately Carved Log at Umstead State Park

Inside the Camera Obscura at NC Museum of Art

• St Augustine Elks Lodge St Augustine Florida - The oldest city in the USA, St Augustine has a lot to see and do. We stayed at the Elks Lodge located on Anastasia Island with 10 full hookup sites. Being right on the Atlantic coast, there are lots of state parks, nature preserves and beaches. There are also a couple of historic forts to visit and plenty to see in downtown. We also had the benefit of our timing. Visiting for 12 nights in late November thru early December, we got to head into downtown to see a very impressive Christmas light display.

St Augustine Blog Post

Castillo de San Marcos

Christmas Lights Downtown St Augustine

• The Great Outdoors Titusville Florida - We spent the last 3 weeks of 2023 (and into the new year) at a resort called The Great Outdoors - TGO for short. I’ll admit, this is one of those rare times where we stayed at a campground for the amenities. Located near Cape Canaveral, we wanted to explore this area of eastern Florida to see what it has to offer. It is by far the most expensive stop we have had and that is with the reduced monthly rate. But we had come here with the thoughts of possibly purchasing an RV lot and we wanted to see if we liked the vibe of the resort and found enough other things to do in the vicinity. Bottom line is we liked it. I especially liked the woodworking shop that is available to join. We probably won’t get into all of the activities and groups that the resort has to offer but we plan on giving it a try.

Blog Post Yet to Be Written

Red-shouldered Hawk

Soon to Be Our Lot

So what will 2024 bring? Well we have through the beginning of April planned out with stops in Florida including a state park and a Habitat for Humanity build in Vero Beach. Beyond that, we really haven’t put any concerted effort in our plans for the summer and fall. Possibly the New England area - Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts? Who knows but we should probably get our plans started.

Xmas at The Great Outdoors

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

I mentioned in the last blog post that we are spending a month in Titusville at a resort called The Great Outdoors (TGO). This place is big - 2800 acres with 1,625 RV properties. It is has an 18 hole golf course, big clubhouse, exercise center, tennis courts, pools, hot tubs, pickle ball courts, restaurant, stocked ponds, a large off leash dog play area, a golf cart sales and service center, an RV sales and service center, post office, church, activity center, hair salon, nature center and miles of hiking trails. There are numerous clubs and groups that cover just about any interest from books, to quilting, to photography and more. Each site includes cable TV and high speed internet, water, sewer, lawn maintenance and trash pickup. One big selling point for me was the impressive woodworking shop that one of the residents showed us around. If you’ve been following us on our travels, this type of place is about as far from our norm as we could find.

You Have Arrived at TGO

The TGO Sawdust Club - Woodworking Shop

Pond and Fountain

So what prompted us to pick a place like this to explore the Space Coast area of Florida? Well, we are debating about purchasing an RV lot somewhere and we have heard good things about TGO. Does buying a lot mean we are nearing the end of our full time travels? Not at all but there are a few factors that are causing us to lean towards owning a RV lot.

We have split our winter travel destinations between the southwestern US (southern Arizona and California) and Florida. During the warmer summer months, we have traveled north to cooler areas from Pacific Northwest to Maine. Having a flexible travel schedule with no set pattern to our journeys has worked well for over seven years. The downside of a lifestyle with variable travel destinations was highlighted this past summer when we decided to visit our former doctors in western New York for a wellness checkup. When we tried to schedule doctor visits, we were told that since we hadn’t been there in more than 3 years, we would be considered new patients and there was a 5 month wait to get in. That got us thinking that if we had some set location we could come back to every year or two, we could establish doctors and dentists to help with regular health visits.

Another factor is the increasing difficulty in getting camping spots in Florida during the winter months. If we wanted to come back to the same campground every winter, we could likely come up with a spot that works for us and allows us to have a consistent landing spot. But these typically would require us to be in Florida EVERY winter. If we decided to head west to Arizona one winter, we would lose our place at that campground and need to cross our fingers and hope we can get in the following winter. This exact situation happened to us this past year. We had a nice resort we stayed at in Brooksville Florida for two winters in a row, but when we headed west last year and stayed in southern Arizona, when we attempted to get a spot back in the same resort, we were told they were full but we could be placed on a waiting list - we’d be number 42!

The upfront cost of buying a lot in an RV resort is not inconsequential but if we chose a location that has lots of turnover, we would likely be able to sell it in the future for nearly the same price if it turns out our lifestyle changes and we no longer want or need the lot. Most private resorts will have some sort of Home Owners Association (HOA) fees and by owing real estate, there will be some property tax owed. It was these ongoing expenses that made me reluctant to go for buying a lot at first because those costs (approximately $5000 or more per year) would be there whether we are staying on our lot or not.

We knew we had no intention of staying in Florida year round - the heat and humidity of Florida summers does not appeal to us. So we could potentially spend 5 to 7 months there each winter and spreading those costs over half a year would be a rather reasonable price for a nice camping site in Florida during the high season. But there would likely be some years where we end up out west for the winter and I didn’t like the idea of spending several thousand dollars each year for something we aren’t using. During those years when we aren’t here, we could rent out our site but the thought of being a landlord didn’t really appeal to us.

TGO offers the ability to place your RV lot into a rental pool that is managed by staff at the resort. They deal with booking the sites, collecting the money, paying the electric bill and paying the various taxes required by Florida for rental property. We got the data from the rental office with the average income lot owners received over the past few years. If we are here for 6 months over the high season and gone during the summertime, we will end up paying under $23 per day during those 6 months. During those years we happen to be gone for the full year, the rental income is adequate to cover all our HOA fees and property taxes for the full year. From an economic standpoint, owning a lot at TGO seems to make sense.

The other aspect of TGO that is somewhat unusual is the wide variety of lots that are available - from simple RV pads with the basic utility connections to million dollar homes with multiple bedrooms and baths and a garage big enough to fit the motorhome. As we spoke with a great number of residents during our stay, it seems like a large number of them had been at TGO for many years and have moved from one style of lot to another as their lifestyle changed. I grabbed a few pictures from the TGO sales website of the few different lot classifications so you can get a better feel for the types of lots available. I’ll also include an aerial image of TGO from Google Earth to get a sense of the scale of the place. For reference, it is a little over a 3 mile drive from the State Route 50 entrance to the lots on the far southern end of the resort.

Basic Lot with Pad and Utilities

Executive Suite: Pad, Utilities and Small Building

Park Home: Small House without RV Pad

RV Port: Home with Large Covered RV Pad

Resort Home: Large Home with RV Garage

Aerial View of TGO

We spent a great deal of time exploring TGO and the various lots that were currently on the market. We knew at this stage of our life, we were looking for a basic RV lot possibly with some sort of shed. Having a place to keep the bikes out of the rain without needing to constantly lock them to a picnic table at a campsite and cover them up would be a nice perk. Some of the executive suites were nice and would offer additional room to relax with both interior rooms and screened in porches. But the more we thought about it, having a lot with a decent concrete driveway and a simple shed would give us all we need without the worry about owning a substantial structure that could be blown away during hurricane season.

During one of our walks along the perimeter hiking trail around the resort (a 4.4 mile loop), we met a resident that has lived at TGO for just over a year. We got a lot of useful insight from her and a recommendation for Paul in the real estate office. We spend a hour or so with Paul wandering around the resort, looking at properties for sale and asking lots of questions about ownership at TGO. After discussing our thoughts with Paul, he suggested that what we are looking for is a place to put down some “shallow roots”. We liked that term since it concisely states our goal for lot ownership. Paul’s wife, Wendy, runs the rental pool so we were able to get all our questions answered about how the rental pool works at TGO.

A Balance Beam Crossing on Our Walk at TGO

We ended up picking a site that was just down the road from our rental spot on Sunset Drive. This site has a 10’ by 12’ shed with a concrete driveway that is in very good condition. It is about 2 miles to get out of the park. This might seem like a long distance but even the very closest lot is 1.4 miles. The mile we save over some of the lots further back in the resort is even more important when we need to deal with the 15 MPH speed limit in the park which apparently is strictly enforced. The other good aspect of this lot is how far it is from Interstate 95. Some of the lots are less than 400 feet from the expressway, our lot is 1.2 miles away which should help immensely with how much road noise we hear. Chris had been researching lot sales data at TGO for the past couple years, so we had a good idea what to offer on the lot and after a couple of days we had an accepted purchase agreement with plans to close on the property in mid January remotely from our next planned stop this winter.

Our Future Lot

Paul and Wendy were unable to make attend a play in Titusville a few days before Christmas so they offered us their tickets. I’m not big into plays. Years ago we had season tickets to the theater house in Rochester and was turned off to them by a showing of Jane Eyre The Musical. But we decided to give this one a shot since they had seen it in prior years and felt it was a funny (non-musical) play. We don’t do this type of thing frequently but we the theater was rather small and intimate and we had almost the best seats in the house. “A Tuna Christmas” was a two man play based in a small Texas town. There were a lot of jokes about the south but the most impressive aspect of the play was the multitude of costume changes the two performers had to do in order to play the various characters.

The Stage is Set

A Tuna Christmas

We headed out of TGO to explore the surrounding area a bit more. The East Central Regional Rail Trail is about 54 miles long but is shaped like a Y with the cities of Titusville, Enterprise and Edgewater being the three terminus points and Maytown being at the central junction. We weren’t positive the best parking area in Titusville proper, so we started at Chain of Lakes Park just north of downtown to park for our ride to the north. The trail is a dedicated bike path in good condition. The first couple miles are along the rather busy Route 1 but other than several road crossings, it is okay. Once we get north of the town of Mims, the trail is much more rural and we aren’t hearing any traffic. An occasional gopher tortoise might be out along the side of the path but there weren’t very many people out.

Tortoise in the Sun

We hadn’t decided how far we would ride. We knew going all the way to Maytown would make the round trip about 30 miles but we suspected our legs would tell us to turn back sooner. It was a pretty ride but there was very little shade. Fortunately the temperature was such that riding in full sun wasn’t a real issue, on hotter days that might be an issue. There is a power trail of geocaches along this path but we knew if we stopped every tenth of a mile, we wouldn’t get much of a bike ride in. At the county line between Brevard and Volusia counties, we decided to turn back. We had gone 13 miles and still had 1.5 miles to the parking area in Maytown. We grabbed the nearby cache so that we had record of where we left off on the trail. There are some unusual traffic circles along the bike path that occur at spots where there is no cross road. All we can surmise is that they are used as the turnaround points for various distances of races that might be run on this trail. The ride back was fine but the legs were complaining about the 26 miles.

Unexpected Roundabout

Nice Flat Trail

The next day we had a rather special event to attend. For the past 15 years, the city of Cocoa Beach has hosted the “Surfing Santa” event. We had watched a few YouTube videos from past years and decided it looked like a fun, albeit unusual, time. The event takes place every Christmas Eve morning just after sunrise. We had read that parking can be problematic so we set the alarm clock pretty early to start the 45 minute drive that morning. We headed to Lori Wilson Park about 1.5 miles north of where the event would be held down the beach. I won’t say we were the first people parking here but we were close to it. It was a rather cloudy and windy morning and there was the chance of rain. It was nearly an hour before sunrise, so it was pitch black. It wasn’t clear where the path to the beach was so we opted to simply walk south along Highway A1A. By the time we made it to the event, there were hundreds of people already on the beach as we watched the sun attempt to rise thru the clouds.

Sunrise at Cocoa Beach

Even though the weather was iffy with lots of wind and rough surf, that didn’t keep the visitors away. There were loads of activities throughout the morning. As the number of people increased, the party vibe ratcheted up a few notches. It didn’t take long for us to realize that by not wearing a holiday costume, we were in the minority. If we make it back in the future, a Santa hat is the minimum requirement to not feel out of place.

A Crowd Slowly Arrives

Surfboard Selection

He's a Believable Old St Nick

One of the more popular events was the costume contest. There were five different categories: babies, kids, groups, adult men and women. From the looks of things, there were many dozens of contestants. A pre-judging took place in an area away from the stage and then the top 5 for each category came up to the stage to try to win over the audience. There was a wide assortment of costumes from Santa and the grinch and even Jesus made an appearance. When asked if he was going to partake in the surfing event, he replied “I can do better than surf, I can walk on water”. Audience noise level helped to pick the winners and the grand prize went to a woman dressed in a robe with hoof marks all over it - Grandma got run over by a reindeer. There was also an auction for a surfboard signed by famous surfers but we didn’t really see the need for us to have it.

The Group Competition

Adult Men Contestants

Kids All Dressed Up

Autographed Surfboard

We're in There Somewhere

We eventually got tired of feeling like a sardine trying to watch the various things happening on the stage so we started to just wander around. The bulk of the estimated 10,000 people were in a quarter mile stretch of beach so even getting away from the stage didn’t get us away from all the other action.

Parrot Attends Event

Some Surfers Out

Crowded Beach

There were over 200 surfers that registered for the surfing competition  it it looked like there were many more than that out in the water. The surf was really rough and it was red flag conditions so novice surfers were being asked to not go into the water.

Santas Surveying the Situation

Santa Arrive Via Surfboard

Santa Teamwork

Challenging Surf

There were a few other modes of transportation that were out taking advantage of the wind. One Santa flew by overhead without the use of reindeer and a few other wind powered skateboard contraptions were attempting to run along the beach without running over people.

This Santa Uses Ultralight

Kite Surfer

Getting a Quick Lesson

We did feel sorry for the lifeguards on duty this morning. The winds had setup a rip current pretty close to the event and the dozens of lifeguards seemed to be in a constant state of heading out to check on possible problems. We finally tired of all the noise and crowds and started the long walk back up the beach to the car. This was one of the more unusual and fun events we have ever attended. Below is a link to a YouTube video of some of the event.

Merry Xmas or Scary Xmas?

Lifeguards on the Move

Until 2024

Surfing Santas Cocoa Beach 2023 Video

Since we were at Cocoa Beach, we felt obligated to visit Ron Jon Surf Shop. Their flagship store is just up the road from where we parked. Most of the time I think of a surf shop as some small, hole in the wall place. Ron Jon is about as far from that as you can imagine. We wander around the outside of the building since there are numerous displays and vehicle all decked out for a surfing adventure.

At Ron Jon in Cocoa Beach

Modern Day Woody

My favorite feature of the outdoor displays was the actual walkway constructed of typical concrete pavers. So why would the walkway pique my interest? The layout created wasn’t the typical running bond or herringbone pattern but was more like a wave which was fitting for the location. But beyond the layout to look like waves, the pavers looked like they were placed on an undulating surface with peaks and valleys like an ocean with waves would have. However, the surface only looked to be rippled, in reality the walkway was perfectly flat and even. As I walked along surface, my brain was attempting to warn me about the uneven surface while my body was having no issues with tripping. My picture sort of shows the effect, but seeing it in person is even better.

Optical Illusion Pavers

We head into the store and are amazed by how big it is. There are hundreds of surfboards and skateboards and many thousands of Ron Jon t-shirts. We didn’t find any shirts we needed and were impressed with how expensive some of the boards are.

Surfboards Galore

View of Store from 2nd Floor

We had a rather rainy morning on Christmas Day but by mid afternoon, the sun peaked out and we were able to get a walk in at TGO before enjoying our Christmas dinner.