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March 16 -18th - Happy St. Patrick's Day! We haven't been doing much, but hanging out around the park here. The nights have been cool but it always warms up nice through the day. This area of Alabama reminds me of the area where I grew up in Ontario. There are small hills here and lots of what we called bush. Here it would probably be called forest. The country roads here are like how the main highways through Haliburton Highlands used to be. Highway 35 has and is going through many upgrades in my home county. I probably would not recognize the highway anymore. The charm it once had, has been bulldozed away as the Department of Highways flattens and straightens the road. Here the charm and character remains. We drove to Robertsdale on the 16th and 17th to the new Camper's World. We purchased a new florescent light for our ceiling on the 16th. It was the wrong size so we took it back on the 17th and purchased another one. We also purchased a new Flex Vision Video Control Center for our TV's and recorder. For some reason we are getting a lot of feed back on our TV. It only happens at this park (Styx River RV) so we thought that it might help solve our problem. The Video Control Center helped, but we are still getting interference through our satellite TV signal. Somehow we will get it all cleared up, we hope. Otherwise we will have another week of wavy pictures. Sunday we had our usual bacon and egg breakfast. Doug installed the new light and it works great. He also completed two other small repairs inside. It is just like a sticks and stone house. Repairs become necessary and must be fixed. For the present, the "Honey Do" list is empty. Doug likes that and so do I. There are worse things to do then just hanging around in the sunshine. We could be shoveling snow some or walking through the slush of the northern climate. We will enjoy the cool nights and warm days here another week, then hopefully we are able to take it with us as we continue our trip home for the summer. March 15 - Today started out overcast and drizzly. Soon it had cleared enough for Doug to tackle his TV Satellite. He went up on the roof and I was inside after he got safely to the TV satellite area of the roof. Between me turning the crank and him working on loosening it, on the roof, we were able to get it working. We still had a problem. The highest signal was only 67. We would have to move the coach to get around some trees. Doug pulled ahead and the signal was even lower. He backed up and the signal went up to the high 80's. We can live with that. Next, it was my turn with my Internet Satellite. The best location for it would be at the back of the coach. Before long I had it set up and was online on my own system. Several more units came in today. The Snowbirds are slowly returning to their summer locations. A couple of weeks here, a couple there and soon we will all be where we want to be for the summer. March 14 - Moving day! We are leaving Florida for this winter 8( . Our next stop is at Styx River Resort near Robertsdale, Alabama. We left at our usual time- around 8 a.m. We went south on US-129 and then west on I-10. This is a freeway day, the whole way, so 300+ miles will roll by rather quickly. We drive the coach at 58 mph to save fuel and the car. We are not supposed to pull the car over 60 mph, according to the owners manual for our Chev Cobalt. The work on the new bridges on I-10 at Pensacola didn't look much different then when we crossed them last fall. There were numerous cranes, barges, cement trucks with booms on barges, and every other type of large construction equipment you can imagine. I took photos and will have to post them later. I haven't looked at them yet to see if they are work putting here, because I took them all through the windows of the coach, as we drove across the bridge. There was no place to stop, and there was enough traffic to make crossing the bridge interesting. We arrived just before 2 p.m. We had stopped at a rest area for lunch. Doug did not want to park on the east side of the park. I didn't either. The sites are terraced and we have to walk up or down a small knoll to get in and out of the coach. The knoll has grass, twigs, pine cones, and all kinds of other stuff on it. If is rains it becomes a slippery slope. I broke my ankle a few years ago and walking on this type of ground irritates it to no end. I did not want to have two weeks of unnecessary pain, so I requested to be on the west side of the park. The sites are very small on the west side, but at least they are level. The TV satellite dish on top of the coach decided not to rotate, so we wasted the rest of the afternoon trying to get it to work. We finally gave up and will fix it tomorrow. The antenna will have to do for tonight. There is free wifi here so I won't put up my 3i Communications Anywhere Satellite Internet dish until tomorrow. I could use the free wifi all week, but I prefer my own connection, much faster. We had a bit of rain, just enough to dampen the ground and cool the air, making it nice for a good nights sleep. March 13 - We took the coach to a empty site back in the loop and emptied the holding tanks. We like being out on the main road of this park so we stay there without a sewer connection. After we dumped our holding tanks we took the coach to the truck stop about 4 miles away. We filled it with fuel and returned to our site. Fuel is $2.52.9 per gal. Quite a jump in price since Christmas. We haven't filled the coach since then and at that time fuel was $2.29.9 a gal. It is still a much better price here then at home. Gas at home is over $1.00 CDN a liter. There is 3.72 liters per US gallon. We returned to the park and settled in for the night. We hung the bikes back on the bicycle rack. Put the lawn chairs away. Pulled the car in-behind the coach. Hooked the car up to the coach. Put the stone guard and windshield cover on the car. Put the Break Buddy in the car and connected it to the brake peddle. We will connect the Break Buddy to the power pack in the morning, along with setting the car to be pulled, by going through the routine to pull it. It just takes a few moments, no big deal. There is one more thing we have to do. We have to take the satellite internet dish down and put it in the trunk of the car. It only takes a couple of minutes, so I will do that in the morning, while Doug is watching his morning news. We are ready to roll west.
March 12 -This week is going very quickly. We have enjoyed watching all the horses and mules this past few days. We miss owning and enjoying horses, but not the work associated with them. Numerous trucks and trailers along with the horses and riders left yesterday afternoon. There is also several still here, enjoying the riding trails, without all the crowds. The van which pulls canoes and carries people to the put in site on the Suwannee, has been very busy. The van passes our site with people inside and up to 6 canoes on the trailer. Within 30-60 minutes the van returns minus some people and canoes. This happens several times a day. The canoe outfitter in at the end of the main paved road through the park. They have canoe and tube rides for the adventures. Either would be lots of fun. Here is a photo of Doug at the Suwannee River, when we were here back in 2004
He is standing in the silica sand which makes up the beach part of this section of the river. The sand is so whilte and fine. It is like standing in white sugar. We took a ride on our bicycles, towards the Suwannee River. We didn't get that far, but enjoyed the distance we rode. Tomorrow is the last day we can take our bikes for a ride here, as we leave on Wednesday. Where has the week gone?
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