We spent the New Year’s Eve weekend camping at Alafia River State Park. We were in Site #1 which was barely 100 yards from the restrooms. Our friends Mick & Heidi camped there as well in Site #3 which was next to us.
Alafia River SP – Site #1Alafia River SP – Site #1Alafia River SP – Site #1
We were able to pickup all of the over the air channels on antenna and were achieving 171/25Mbps download/upload speeds on our AT&T MiFi which allowed us to stream our newly subscribed YouTubeTV, although we could have used our DISH satellite system from this site if we had needed to.
Mom & Dad brought the grandchildren over on Saturday (12/30/2023) and we took them home on Monday (1/1/2024). We made pudgy pies on Saturday and cooked Italian sausage on the grill Sunday along with some reheated pulled pork.
Beth, Dad, Mom, & PennyPerfect Pizza Pudgy PieFirst Encouter with an ArmadilloIce Cream & Christmas Cakes TimeChuckie & Evie Sleeping on the FloorPhoebe in Grooming Heaven
The kids tried their hardest to stay up until midnight to celebrate the New Year, but after all of their activities Chuckie didn’t last long. Evie came close but didn’t quite make it. Penny survived and enjoyed the celebration. She went to bed immediately afterward and I think she was sound asleep by 12:10AM.
ExhaustionEvie Trying to Stay Awake for New YearsHappy New Year!!!
After thoroughly flushing our black tank this morning we departed from Southern Retreat RV Park in Brunswick, GA around 9:30AM EDT. We stopped for fuel at a RaceTrac gas station in Ocala, FL. The drive was uneventful and we arrived home at 3PM EDT and commenced unpacking. Our final tally was 3,474 miles on our 2 month and 4 day trip.
We left the KOA in Fort Mill, SC this morning at 9:20AM EDT. We’re getting back into the land of good gas prices. We stopped at the Flying J in St George, SC for $3.14/gal gas and ate our lunch in the parking lot. We fueled up again at the Flying J at tonight’s campground exit for $2.92/gal. This was our first (and probably only) fuel purchase under $3/gal on this trip. On our last trip in 2021 we averaged less than $3/gal for diesel fuel (not gas).
We arrived at Southern Retreat RV Park in Brunswick, GA at 3PM EDT. We stayed in this same park in April and August of 2021 (the August stay was our last night in the motorhome). We didn’t make any reservations (which was very difficult for us). We got a pull thru 50Amp site which is very level, so we didn’t have to unhook the truck. We’re all setup to thoroughly flush our tanks in the morning and head home. The campground has a good selection of HD cable channels, so we didn’t bother setting up the DISH satellite. We will stream tonight’s Ray’s game on the ROKU. Our AT&T hotspot connection is receiving excellent connectivity at 172/55 Mbps download/upload speeds
Southern Retreat – Site #14Southern Retreat – Site #14Southern Retreat – Site #14Southern Retreat – Site #14
This is a very convenient campground. It’s about 1/2 mile off I-77, although we do seem to be in the Charlotte airport’s landing pattern, but that doesn’t bother us. We can walk to the nearby Publix (we have Pub Subs for the Bucs Monday Night Football game tonight). We chose a back-in site to save $12/night. Had we known that meant that we’d be backing up to a camper behind us (we’re about 3′ apart), we probably would have splurged for the pull thru, but it’s only two nights. We have full hookups, but quite a few trees limiting our Dish antenna to satellites 61.5 and 110. However, we seem to be receiving all of the channels that we care about. Our AT&T hotspot connection is receiving excellent connectivity at 242/20 Mbps download/upload speeds. Our TV antenna is picking up all local channels out of Charlotte, NC.
Fort Mill, SC KOA – Site #73Fort Mill, SC KOA – Site #73
Today’s travel was more interesting than usual thanks to Tropical Storm Ophelia. Last night we knew we would be packing up to leave Twin Grove RV Resort in the rain today, so we decided to get as close to traveling mode as we could. We showered and dumped our tanks so that we could put the water and sewer hoses away and also disconnected from the campground power (technically we were Boondocking at that point). We were also able to hook the truck to the camper and install the Weight Distribution Bars while keeping the camper level. We watched last night’s Ray’s loss (whah!) on ROKU powering the TV with our new little inverter that Dad helped us run 12V power to from our breaker panel (successful test). We used our gas furnace over night and it ran a few times. We woke up this morning with 70% battery remaining (which pleases me). So today all we had to do was lift our front jack and stabilizer jacks, and roll the camper off the leveling blocks we had to place under the driver side wheels. We got the cats loaded in the truck and all was going well until Beth got sick and tossed her cookies (she woke up with a scratchy throat not feeling well). We don’t know if it was food poisoning or a stomach virus, but we nearly ate the exact same foods yesterday (except for her having green beans for dinner) and I feel fine (fingers crossed). She felt better afterwards and seems to be fine now. We were on the road just before 10AM EDT.
It rained our entire drive. It was never very heavy rain, but I never turned the wipers off. We had planned to stop for fuel at a Walmart in Winchester, VA, but Beth didn’t want to eat anything but soup after her incident so we stopped at a Flying J that had a Denny’s restaurant. She went in to Denny’s and purchased some potato soup which she successfully kept down. Meanwhile, thanks to Murphy’s Law I was outside fighting the gas pump in the “RV Lane” in the heaviest rain of the day. For some reason, they chose not to put a cover over the RV pumps. I would have pulled up to a covered auto pump, but the lanes were all full and it was only sprinkling when we arrived. I kept putting my credit card in and the pump would say “processing” and never released it. It was raining so hard I kept getting back in the truck and waiting several minutes for it to finally fail and release my card. After two tries I went inside to be told, “oh, no, you can’t use your credit card at those pumps”. I bit my tongue and just let myself drip water all over their counter while they processed my credit card. Once I was done pumping I went into the camper and changed into dry clothes. We had a nice lunch in the parking lot while listening to college football on Sirius Radio.
We arrived at Shenandoah Valley Campground in Verona, VA just after 2PM EDT. This is a huge campground but the sites are fairly close together. We splurged for a full hookup, 50Amp, pull thru site which seem to be slightly larger. The site is long enough that we had room for truck and camper if we had chosen to keep the truck hooked up, but we felt we were sticking out too far, so we unhooked the truck and parked it diagonally.
We have full hookups and a fairly decent selection of cable channels. Our AT&T hotspot connection is so weak that I broke out an antenna which, for the first time ever, actually seems to be helping. After connecting the antenna we went from less than 1/1 Mbps download/upload speeds to just over 2/2 Mbps which allowed us to stream the Rays walk-off victory against Toronto once the 4PM football games got boring.
Today we started our migration South. We left Albany just after 10AM EDT and arrived at Twin Grove RV Resort in Pine Grove, PA at 4:15PM EDT. We took I-90 West out of Albany and caught I-88 West to Binghamton where we picked up I-81 South. This route is longer by about 20 miles, but avoids going through New Jersey and then paying the $16 toll to cross back into Pennsylvania on I-78. We didn’t find I-88 to be as smooth as it used to be, but it was only bad in sections. When we got South of Scranton, I-81 got very rough. It wasn’t visually obvious, but something about the distance between the bumps in the road seemed to catch a resonant frequency on the trailer and it was shaking the heck out of the back of the truck. The rough ride ended about 50 miles South of Scranton, but there were votes in our vehicle to never take this route again. The problem is that my recollection of I-78 is pretty bad too, but that was several years ago.
This is a nice campground albeit hilly, which can result in leveling issues in some sites. We stayed here in August of 2021 and had some tires off the ground when the motorhome was leveled. The site we’re in on this trip is fairly level and only required that we raise our driver side about 2″. Our neighbors, on the other hand, have a massive 5th Wheel and both passenger side tires are completely off the ground.
We have full hookups and very few trees allowing our Dish antenna to pickup satellites 61.5, 110, & 119. Our AT&T hotspot connection is receiving excellent connectivity at 123/49 Mbps download/upload speeds. Our TV antenna is picking up NBC, CBS, and Fox out of Harrisburg, PA.
Twin Grove RV Resort – Site #A19Twin Grove RV Resort – Site #A19
Today we made our final migration East in the rain to Albany to stay at Beth’s sister Kathy’s house. The rain was very light most of the two hour trip, but on the way we stopped at the Albany County Water Purification facility to dump our tanks (for free) and unfortunately it poured after we got started dumping. On the bright side, our “you know what” is no longer full!
Kathy has a beautiful brand new driveway so we were extremely careful not to do anything that might damage it (2″ x 12″ boards under the stabilizer jacks, etc). Kathy provides 50Amp service, good clean city water, and we are able to sponge off her Spectrum Wi-Fi using our range extender. We were also able to pickup enough Dish satellites (61.5 & 110) to get all our channels in HD after moving R2D2 (our satellite antenna) far enough back behind the garage to clear her two small trees. The weather here is just what we ordered (predicted upper 60’s and low 70’s during our stay).
Today we continued East 141 miles to Beth’s childhood home in Speculator, NY. We departed Rivers Crossing Campground & Marina at 10:15AM EDT and arrived in Speculator at 1:50PM EDT. Beth’s brother Dick and his two sons were all home for supper, so Dick went to Charlie Johns Store and bought us some excellent filet mignons which we all enjoyed.
Today we continued East 263 miles to Rivers Crossing Campground & Marina on the Erie Canal in Savannah, NY just North of the finger lakes. We departed Geneva State Park Campground at 9:15AM EDT and arrived at the campground at 2:15PM EDT. We decided to pay the tolls and drive I-90 the entire way and stopped for fuel at a TA Travel Center in Corfu, NY where we also ate the sandwiches that Beth had prepared for lunch.
Interestingly, Mom & Dad stayed in this campground over a decade ago on a trip to Maine. At that time the campground had a different name and owners. There are a lot of seasonal campers here, but the campground is well maintained. The new owners purchased the campground four years ago. When we arrived at our site, there was no power at our electrical post and Beth walked back to the office to report the issue. While she was gone, a neighbor arrived home and I asked her if she was aware of any breakers for the electrical post. She pointed out that our power post was previously on the other side of our camper shared by our other neighbor and that I needed to turn on a breaker over there. Once we got the power going and the air conditioners fired up, I noticed that our voltage was very low (110v). It was very hot (91 degrees) and I noticed that the air conditioners on all the campers surrounding us were running. By the time we got setup and moved inside to cool off, our Electrical Management System (EMS) had shutdown our power due to low voltage. This is a built-in fail-safe to prevent us from burning up our AC compressors by running at too low a voltage. This is a difficult scenario to explain to a campground owner/manager. They tend to believe it’s our issue because all of our neighbor’s are up and running and blissfully ignorant of the damage they are doing to their systems. So, rather than waste time reporting it to the campground owners, we limped along on one air conditioner until I figured out how to stop our DC Converter from charging our batteries. At that point we were able to fire up the second air conditioner and just barely get by (our voltage was still very low (108v). Once the sun set, everyone’s power consumption dropped and the voltage climbed back up to 115v. They probably don’t have this problem very often since the temperatures here don’t often get this high.
We have full hookups and very few trees allowing our Dish antenna to pickup satellites 61.5, 110, & 119. Our AT&T hotspot connection is receiving excellent connectivity at 181/25 Mbps download/upload speeds. We didn’t try our TV antenna, but we are close enough to Rochester that I imagine we would pickup a lot of channels.
Today we continued East 150 miles to Geneva State Park on Lake Erie in Geneva, OH. We waited until noon to leave the Toledo East/Stony Ridge KOA since check-in here was at 3PM. We made a couple of stops along the way and arrived around 4PM EDT.
We splurged for a site along the shore with full hookups. Tonight’s sunset was well worth every cent. We have full hookups and very few trees allowing our Dish antenna to pickup satellites 61.5, 110, & 119. Our AT&T hotspot connection is receiving decent connectivity at 25/5 Mbps download/upload speeds. We didn’t try our TV antenna, but we are close enough to Cleveland that I imagine we would pickup a lot of channels.
Geneva State Park – Site #109Post Sunset from our Living RoomPhoebe Enjoying a Cocktail Hour Sunset
