Jacksonville Sea and Sky Spectacular

October 20, 2012 Stage Coach RV Park, St. Augustine

We are starting to see some real progress on our house. More to come on the house in a later blog. We've been in this campground 5 months excluding the month we spent on the West coast.  I gotta admit that 5 months in the same location sure makes the rig feel small!  This is the longest we've spent sitting in one spot. Our longest volunteer gig was 4 months. We can't wait for the house to be finished. The snow birds are starting to trickle into the campground and the temps have really cooled. We've had the air conditioner off for several days now and it's been much more enjoyable outside.

Saturday, October 20th, we attended The Jacksonville Sea and Sky Spectacular with our daughter, Ashley. The FREE event featured a dynamic over-the-ocean sky show highlighted by the world-famous United States Navy Blue Angels along with other military and civilian flight teams, live entertainment, a street festival featuring static displays of aircraft and military vehicles, simulators, recruitment booths, a kids area and a Meet The Performers Autograph session. 

We have been to air shows in the past but couldn't pass this one up as they are always a good time. This one was unusual for us as it was held on Jacksonville Beach and the spectators were encouraged to watch the show from the beach. Other shows we had seen were either held off a runway or on a military base.

"Fat Albert" passing over the Jacksonville Beach Pier

It seems we got there late so we missed the earlier shows leading up to the headliner, The Blue Angels.

The show started with "Fat Albert" a C-130 transport for the Blue Angels warming up the crowd with some slow and low manuevers.

As soon as "Fat Albert" lumbered off the Blue Angels F-18s made a dramatic entrance from Mayport Naval Station across the bay!

The sky erupted with the sounds of aircraft and jet engines. Each time the jets disappeared the crowd began searching the sky for the elusive number 5 and 6 jets which often performed their own stunts.

This is how our daughter, Ashley enjoyed the show.  Flat on her back on the beach watching the planes pass overhead!

The show was amazing and we really enjoyed watching it. It made us proud of our soldiers and military aviators and the freedoms we enjoy because of their sacrifice.

Afterwards we wondered about the concessions and the tourist district of Jacksonville Beach.

We had taken a shuttle bus from St. Johns and had paid $20 for parking so we didn't have to fight the traffic and crowds getting to and from. It was a fun time and we will likely be back for this annual event.

Air Conditioning and Good Friends

Stage Coach RV Park, St. Augustine, Fl.

Sandhill Crane

Okay, so we've been here in Florida now for the better part of 3 months. We can only live in Florida under one condition and that's...air condition(ing).  You may recall that in February this year we had our main air conditioner replaced in anticipation of our return to Florida. We replaced the ailing Carrier (for which we could no longer get parts) with a Coleman Mach 3.
Since perhaps June we've run the a/c continuously. However about 4-5 times a month it would trip the 20 amp breaker for the a/c. It wasn't a problem since we were always home when it happened and it was usually in the morning or evening when the unit was repeatedly cycling on and off.
My remedy had been to run the fan on low and set the thermostat to 75 to keep the system running longer and thus not cycling off as much.
That last few days have been exceptionally humid, I'm talking 90+ degrees and 90 percent plus humidity. Lows have been in the mid 70's with high humidity. Under these conditions, the a/c was tripping the breaker 3-4 times a day over the last few days. Not good! Again it was tripping after the system shut off and cycled back on in the evening and early morning.
I had exhausted my diagnostic ability with regard to this issue and had changed the filter, changed the circuit breaker, checked connections and made sure the condenser on the roof was clean, etc. It was time to call a professional. So we called in Tom's Mobile RV repair. 
Tom checked the amperage draw of the air conditioner and checked all the capacitors and everything checked out fine. So he called the Service Tech hotline to Coleman and explained the situation to include how we operate the system (Low Fan in auto setting, set at 75 in 90 plus degrees with 90 percent plus humidity).
The response was basically "operator error" on our part. 
According to Coleman under our current weather conditions and operating mode, the coil is icing up at which time it shuts off the compressor. However, the thermostat tells it to come back on and thus it trips the breaker. In order to operate properly under our humid conditions, we need to run the fan on hi and preferably in the on (not auto) position to keep more air moving through the coils and prevent the coils from icing up. Also we should set the thermostat to a setting that would allow it to cycle on and off on occasion. So, we paid $165 to the mobile tech for that lesson!
It's good to be back in Florida under the right condition...air condition.

Some good friends of ours, Joe and Leah from the West coast of Florida drove over to spend a weekend with us. So we spent some time in Historic St. Augustine.

Horse drawn carriage for tourists.

There are many historic sites and museums as well as shopping opportunities in St. Augustine.

Historic Church in St. Augustine

We enjoyed the free tour and wine tasting at the San Sebastian Winery in town. Joe and I didn't drink, but the girls had a good time! Of course, it's hard to leave without making a purchase!

Joyce with Joe and Leah at San Sebastian Winery

We were glad that Joe and Leah could take the time to visit and we hope they return soon. We had a great time!

Brief Return to Where we Started and Tropical Storm Debbie

June 4 thru June 26, 2012 Palm Harbor, Florida.

So, after spending a month in St. Augustine, Fl at Stage Coach RV Park, we made a trip back to Pinellas County and Palm Harbor where we had lived and worked for the past 30 years. It was not a trip I wanted to make as I had no desire to return, at least not with the fifth wheel in tow. But, we had to go back to assist a relative with a medical issue. This was something that we had known about for the past 6 months and it was time to get it done.

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Although our first choice in campgrounds was Dunedin RV Resort, we decided on Sherwood Forest RV Park as the advertised rates were much lower. So after traveling the 200 miles, we got set up on the pond with some modest shade. The weather was cloudy and threatening to rain.

We paid $475 for a month not including electric. Well, we discovered that not only did Sherwood Forest have lower advertised rates but they had lower voltage. After plugging in and cranking up the air-conditioner, it was apparent that the voltage was low! We contacted the office and they sent out the resident electrician who readily advised that, "yea there's a low voltage problem in the park". 

Time to pull the plug!

The electrician checked the voltage at our power pole and read 108 and 112 on the two legs connected to the 50 amp outlet but declared it acceptable and advising that no one else has had a reported problem. Again at the time he checked it was relatively cool and cloudy. Not everyone was running their air-conditioners.
Fortunately the next two days were wet and cloudy and I only ran one air-conditioner.  However after some research and constant concern, I decided that we were going to have to move as my attention was constantly on that voltmeter and I was concerned over the possible damage to appliances including the main air-conditioner from the low voltage. Our Progressive Industries Surge Protector was at the verge of shutting off power to the rig as it is designed to do that when the voltage drops to 102 volts.
I drove over to Dunedin RV Resort to check availability and was prepared to pay the advertised $699 plus electric for a standard back in site. While getting a tour of the campground, I was told they had a special of $299 for the month and was shown the sites available for that rate in the back portion of the park.  I didn't care for those sites as they were backed in back to back with just a slab and crushed shell. I was surprised when they then offered us a premium back-in fully concrete site for the same price. I jumped on it and picked a shady site 24. It appeared that the park wasn't busy and most of the traveling RV'ers chose the premium pull-thru sites so I had my pick of almost any of the back-ins. Because it's a "resort" it had a nice club house and a beautiful pool which would be nice when my nephews came to visit.
After getting settled at Dunedin RV Resort and realizing they had strong voltage we were better prepared to take care of the family business and also enjoy our former stomping grounds to include Clearwater Beach. Sherwood Forest provided us with a refund and charged us $70 for the two nights we stayed.

Clearwater Memorial Causeway

Descending the Sand Key Bridge

Sand Key Bridge

Clearwater Beach

We enjoyed catching up with some friends and going out to dinner at almost all of our favorite restaurants. One of our friends invited us over for dinner several times and I enjoyed it each time as they are both fabulous cooks.

While we were in Pinellas County we got an un-welcomed visit by Tropical Storm Debbie that lingered for several days off the coast.

Slowly drifting North, Tropical Storm Debbie dumped over 10 inches of rain on us over the course of a few days. As the rain continued to fall, I moved our vehicles to higher ground near the club house.

The heavy constant rains resulted in flooding throughout the County and including our park. These shots were taken out our front door. We were on an elevated concrete slab and only had about 4 inches outside our door. However off the slab and into the street it was a solid 14 inches.  You can only imagine how much fun it was to walk two full size Boxers to higher ground and get them in and out of the rig! Of course they enjoyed splashing and getting as wet as possible! After a couple of days of flooding many of the few remaining guests had departed opening up a few sites that were like islands surrounded by the water. I moved our rig to one of those sites until the water finally receded after several days.

But it wasn't over yet! We still had to get back to the Jacksonville/ St. Augustine area and T.S. Debbie also decided to head that way depositing 15 inches of rain in Jacksonville. We stayed a day longer than we had planned as we waited out the storm before traveling back. The campground staff was very helpful and in fact most live in the campground and experienced the same issues. Upon checking out we were not charged for our electric use. We will be back at this campground if and when we return to the area.
Currently we are back in site 7 at Stage Coach RV Park. Prepared to continue working on improvements at our daughter and Son-in-Law's new home (i.e. painting, shelves, dimmers, yard work, etc.)  while he is deployed.

Site 7, Stage Coach RV Park

Stage Coach RV Park, Dodging a couple bullets.

May 5-31, 2012 Stage Coach RV Park, St. Augustine, Florida


We enjoyed our stay at Flamingo Lake RV Resort but we were ready for a more relaxing atmosphere free of the kids and constant turnover of a weekend resort. We packed up and moved on to our long term RV site at Stage Coarch RV Park off I-95 near St. Augustine and about 10 miles from our kids house.

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Site 6

We have now been here almost a month and have enjoyed the quiet and the shade trees. There are no amenities in this park with the exception of the laundry room attached to the bath house. We are paying around $400 for the month including full hook-ups and WiFi. Electricity is metered and paid separately.

View down our row.

We are at the east end of the park which seems to be one of the locations for long term guests. This suits us just fine as we have an empty field out our back window. 

view towards the office and park entrance.

You may recall that we replaced our main air conditioner while in Nevada a few months ago. Well, the first week we were here we experienced problems with the air conditioner tripping it's 20 amp breaker. I had noticed that the analogue volt meter I have indicated fluctuating voltage. I changed the circuit breaker and it still tripped once. However, it has been good for a couple of weeks. But, more on that later. We always turn on both air conditioners now when we leave the dogs alone.

Rico sitting in Maggie's bed

Unfortunately we had to say good-bye to our son-in-law as he was deployed with the Navy to Asia for the next 6 months. We will miss him. Our daughter has been able to connect with him via Skype almost daily, We hope to Skype with him a few times while he's away. 

A few days ago Tropical Storm Beryl roared through the Jacksonville area forcing us to rethink staying in the RV with 60 mile an hour winds expected. Ultimately we spent the worst night of the storm at our daughter's house. Thankfully upon returning we were lucky not to have had any damage or water intrusion from the wind driven rains. 

The next day, Joyce was vacuuming when she called for me to come inside. She smelled an electrical burning smell and I smelled it too. After some searching and sniffing, we determined the smell was coming from the basement. I pulled the furnace vent and looked down into the subbasement and could see the generator transfer switch box and a wisp of smoke coming from it. My Cameo came with a "generator prep" package which included this transfer switch but not the generator. I immediately shut off power to the rig and made sure the transfer switch box was no longer smoking. Because I don't have much electrical experience, I called a Mobile Technician. He wasn't available till the next morning. So, again we packed to spend another night with our daughter.

We are so thankful that we were home and awake when the box began smoking. The potential for the rig catching fire from the transfer switch box is just horrifying to imagine. 

The next day I returned to the rig and emptied the basement and removed the rear basement wall so the RV tech could get to the box. When he arrived he went to work and showed me the burnt wires in the Iota Transfer Switch box. He reported that he had just done the same repair the week before in another fifth wheel. In both cases he was surprised that the rigs hadn't caught fire. The technician re-wired our rig without the Transfer Switch which isn't necessary in our applications since we don't have a hardwired generator.  I explained to him the previously mentioned problem with the air conditioner tripping the 20 amp breaker and he indicated it may have been related to the Transfer Switch box problem which could have been causing a voltage drop and increased amperage draw. So $167 later we shouldn't ever have to worry about the Transfer Switch/ Relay box again.

I recently discovered from some of the RV forums that there are some recalls for Iota Transfer Switches due to the potential for fire. 

Frog Hollow Ct. St. Augustine, Fla

April 23-27, 2012.

On Monday April 23, we left the Silver Star Ranch home of our good friends, George and Bonnie, a full 7 days after arriving. We had mixed feelings about leaving as we enjoyed the ranch and their good company. However, we were also anxious to get to the Jacksonville area and reunite with our daughter and son-in-law.

Frog Hollow Court had called us and told us that they had a site prepared for us. As you may recall the previous tenant of the site we were to have, got his motorhome stuck while trying to pull out! The owner assured us that it was fine now as they had filled and leveled the site with “coquina rock”.

We got going around 10:00 realizing we only had a couple hours to travel. The trip was uneventful as we traveled some back county roads to avoid traveling through the often congested city of Gainesville. 

We pulled of U.S. Hwy. 1 into the shadowy mobile home and RV park set beneath a very tall canopy of oaks and pines. The roads were “coquina” rock a mix of sand, shell and gravel. We immediately noticed a lot of permanent looking RV residents and a mix of mobile homes. After stopping at the entrance, we eventually found the owner who directed us to our site.

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Our site was very shady but also messy with all the debris that fell from the oak trees. I got backed in but put deep ruts in the site as the weight of our rig sank into the fresh coquina rock. I put boards underneath our BigFoot jacks for fear they would sink into the sand. Our friendly neighbor in the green mold covered motorhome came out to meet Maggie and Rico and warn us of the flea problem due to the abundance of stray cats roaming around. Great! After getting set up, but before paying, Joyce decided that there was no way we were going to stay there for a month or more. So she talked to Joan, the very personable manager and told her that we would only be staying for a week and thus we paid $150.

Our site

The hook-up for the sewer was ...let’s just say not very good as the pipe was below ground level making it difficult to get a secure connection, I had been traveling with a week's worth of black water so I was anxious to get that emptied, but enough about that! The water and electric were good. We ended up staying for 5 nights and although it looked like a rough crowd in the park, actually it was very quiet and the folks were friendly. Just a group of hard working folks and families making the most of their situations. However, we really stuck out with our comparatively new rig. 

View down the street

Now to be honest we weren’t expecting much. We knew there would be a lot of long term residents in the park. However, our site was right next to a single wide mobile home in very poor condition with the insulation visibly falling out of the bottom of it. I never got comfortable enough to want to sit outside. In fact, I never unpacked our chairs. I tried in vain to block the view of the mobile home with my truck. All around us were RVs and mobile homes in various states of disrepair, most of which I'm sure would never see the open road again. 

View out our front door!

I had noticed on the last few trips that the truck was pulling to the right. I had discounted it as just the crown of the road and the heavy trailer. However, one day we took the truck out for a long ride to north Jacksonville to check out Flamingo RV Resort. I noticed then that the truck was definitely pulling to the right and it seemed to get worse with some occasional minor shaking. I made an appointment for the next day at a local tire shop to have the front-end aligned. That evening I was looking at the front tires trying to notice any abnormal wear. I didn't notice any abnormal wear, but the left front tire seemed to look deformed. I blew it off thinking it was because of the uneven ground that it was parked on.

The next morning we took the truck to the tire shop for the alignment. I mentioned to the shop that the truck had a recall completed on the left front linkage less than 2K miles ago. With that we left it at the shop and went across the street to Target when I received a call from the shop claiming that all four ball joints were bad. The truck only has 26K miles on it, but it was out of it's 3 year warranty! After much discussion, I took it to Atlantic Dodge about 2 miles down the road and they reported that the ball joints were fine but that the left front tire was out of round as it had apparently experienced internal belt separation giving it an oblong diameter. The dealership reported they have never seen a heavy duty Dodge truck with low miles have ball joint problems. So, I bought one new tire, had the spare put on the front to match the new tire and placed the good but used front tire in the back as a spare.  It is all good now.  Not sure what was going on with the tire shop.... The tire shop manager called me the next day to find out what I learned from the Dodge Dealer. After I told him, he was defensive insisting that his tech knew what he was talking about and that Dodge was scamming me...whatever!

So anyway, during our stay we called and visited Stage Coach RV Park and this time spoke with the owner, who advised that we could make a reservation at her park for the month of May or until December and that our Boxers were not a problem! So, we made the reservation but our site wouldn’t be available till May 5th. So we visited and made arrangements to spend a week in North Jacksonville at Flamingo Lake RV Resort.

Somewhere in that time we managed to get over to our daughter and son-in-law’s home. What a beautiful two story home they bought!

I still have a lot of catching up to do so stay tuned!

Making it back to Florida

I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. My fellow bloggers know how it is, the further behind you get on the blog the harder it is to sit down and catch up!

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Okay so let’s catch up. We left Sulphur Lousiana on April 10th and traveled with Paul and Paula to Mandeville, Lousiana and Fontainebleau State Park . We weren’t able to get two sites together as we arrived without reservations. In fact, we were separated by about 4-5 sites. Supposedly there were only four sites available when we arrived. However, on-line there were over 30 sites available the day before! We paid $20 a night for three nights with 50 amp. electric, water and WiFi. However, there wasn’t a sewer hook-up.

Fontainebleau State Park site 50

We spent three nights in Mandeville which gave us a chance to visit with my brother, his wife, niece and nephews. We also spent a day wandering the streets of the New Orleans French Quarter with Paul and Paula.

New Orleans French Quarter

Cafe Du Monde

Moving along, we traveled to Milton Fla. and Avalon Landing RV Park for another 3 nights. We paid about $39 per night minus a 10% GoodSam discount for waterfront sites with full hook-ups and WiFi. The park is small but beautiful and we’ve been here twice before. We had reservations so we were able to get two sites together. While there, we were able to visit with our dear friends, Rocky and Gloria and Paul got to catch up with an old Coast Guard buddy.  

Rocky and Gloria enjoying the afternoon with us.

Maggie

Unfortunately the weather wasn’t fully cooperating as we had a lot of wind but, we were still able to enjoy the beautiful beaches. The bugs were biting in the evening and were a fitting welcome, back to the State of Florida.

Paula and Paul on the windy Pensacola Beach

Our next move was to the Silver Star Ranch, home of our dear friends, George and Bonnie. Paul and Paula traveled with us for the last time on April 16th (more on that later). Just two miles from the ranch, my TST Tire Pressure Monitor System went off alerting me that the right rear tire on the fifth wheel was loosing air and down to 89 PSI. (cold PSI should be 110). I continued traveling slowly on the county road to the ranch as Paul and Paula kept an eye on my leaking tire. Once on the ranch we got Paul and Paula parked and then moved my rig over to the equipment barn where George removed the tire after loosening the lugs with his air impact wrench.  We discovered a large metal object stuck in the middle of the tread.

Paul and Paula's rig at the Silver Star Ranch.

Paul and I loaded up the Goodyear RST G-rated tire into his truck along with the spare and headed to a local tire shop in Bronson, Fl. The shop repaired the tire and I had them swap the wheels between the spare and the repaired tire thus, making the repaired tire the spare. This was at a cost of $45.

Back at the ranch, we replaced the tires and got parked alongside George and Bonnie’s home. The timing couldn’t have been better with regard to the tire issue and arriving at the ranch.

Sunrise at the Silver Star Ranch.  Our rig next to the house.

The horses, Prince, Ruger and Doc.

We spent two beautiful days on the ranch with Paul and Paula before they had to leave us and head north. We had been traveling companions off and on since July of last year and we already miss them. We've become great friends and we plan to see them again down the road. It’s a lot more comforting traveling with others as opposed to being out on the road alone. However, we were doing it alone before we met and we’ll get used to doing it alone once again.

Paul and Paula ready to leave us.

After Paul and Paula left, we spent a few more days on the ranch and called around the Jacksonville/ St. Augustine area looking for a campground that could take us for a month or more. Our plan was to spend some time with our daughter and son-in-law. Our first choice was Stage Coach RV Park. So, Joyce called but was told that our Boxers would not be welcomed as they are on “the aggressive dog list”. We were shocked to hear that knowing that our boxers could only lick someone to death! So after several more calls we found a campground, Frog Hollow Court Mobile/ RV Park that would take us for a month with our Boxers. However, there was a problem with the site as the previous occupant got his motorhome stuck in the sand trying to pull out. After a few days, the park called us and told us the site was ready as they had brought in coquina rock and limestone to fill in the site.