Category: Florida

We spent Spring Break week camping at Alafia River State Park. We were in Site #12 which is just one hundred yards from the restrooms. We arrived to 85 degree weather, but it cooled down the final Tuesday through Friday. Mom & Dad brought the grandchildren out Tuesday and stayed for dinner. The grandchildren stayed the remainder of the time.

Device	Download Mbps	Upload Mbps
Campground Wi-Fi	n/a	n/a
Starlink	171	20
AT&T Hotspot	n/a	n/a
US Mobile – Brian (AT&T)	66	1
US Mobile – Beth (Verizon)	220	2

TV	Quality
Antenna	66 Channels (NBC,FOX,ABC)
Campground Cable	n/a
DISH Satellite	n/a

We departed from the house at 9:30AM EST and headed East on SR-674 (Sun City Center Blvd) until it ended at FL-37 just South of Mullberry. We took a quick hop up FL-37 to CR-630. We took CR-630 East through Fort Meade (where US-98 joined us for a bit) all the way through Frostproof to SR-60 Southeast of Lake Wales. Between Fort Meade and Frostproof we saw where all of the remaining orange tree fields had been running their sprinklers all night to protect the fruit. There were significant piles of ice below the trees on all of the grass and weeds. We joked about how Frostproof didn’t seem to be living up to its name.

We took SR-60 to a Publix in Vero Beach because we realized while we were driving that we forgot to pack sour cream and low carb wraps (we’re planning to make chicken quesadillas this week). From the Publix we moved on to an Avis Car Rental on US-1 to pickup a rental car. We’ve never been in this are of the East coast and decided we wanted a car in order to do some touring. We reserved it through AARP and ended up getting an automatic upgrade to one of the new Ford Broncos. It’s pretty sporty with a removable hardtop. We may “remove” a portion of the hardtop later in the week when it gets warmer and do some “touring”.

We arrived at the Sebastian Inlet State Park campground at 1:30PM. Florida state parks have 1PM check-out times and 3PM check-in times. In 17 years of camping in Florida state parks, we’ve never had any trouble checking in any time after Noon. Not today. We were told to come back at 2:30PM. So we parked in one of their parking lots, put out the slide-out and ate some wraps for lunch while we watched the Iowa St vs Kansas St game (we were unable to pickup CBS on antenna to watch the Purdue vs Maryland game).

At 2:30PM we were allowed to exit “time out” and moved to our camp site which is right along the Sebastian Inlet channel (with a street between us and the water). We have a very nice view. The only other issue we’ve run into is the campground power. They apologize on their web site for issues regarding power. When it’s very hot or, in our case, very cold and power consumption is very high, the campground voltage can drop below 110 volts. When we arrived, our Electrical Management System (EMS) device was showing 117 volts (which is a pretty low starting point for a fairly empty campground). By 7PM, after all the other campers had arrived, it was down to 111 volts. We had several power glitches (not caused by our EMS going into protection mode). Those power glitches cause our Starlink internet connection to power cycle which means it has to reacquire all of its satellite connections, so we’ve been “roughing it”. We finally had to switch to running a hotspot off of my phone for a bit. Other than those minor issues, we have no complaints although we are worried about our EMS shutting our power off because we anticipate the campground voltage going below 111 volts when the temperature goes below freezing tonight. At that point we will be boon-docking, which we are well equipped for. We have a site with a great view and plan to enjoy it outside once the temperature rises a bit (probably Tuesday). Tonight we will experience several hours below freezing, so we did not hook up a water line.

Device	Download Mbps	Upload Mbps
Campground Wi-Fi	n/a	n/a
Starlink	268	29
AT&T Hotspot	n/a	n/a
US Mobile – Brian (AT&T)	33	4
US Mobile – Beth (Verizon)	88	30

TV	Quality
Antenna	8 Channels (Ion)
Campground Cable	n/a
DISH Satellite	n/a

I departed from the house at 12:00PM EST and headed Southeast to Square 1 Shooting Range in Lake Placid, FL. I took US-301 South to SR-675 in Parrish. Then I took SR-64 a couple of miles to the Verna Bethany Rd down to SR-70. The shooting range is off of SR-70 East of Arcadia, about 7 miles prior to US-27 in Lake Placid. I arrived at 1:49PM EST (all of SR-70 in Arcadia is under construction and down to a single 25MPH lane).

Since it was cold (58 degrees) and our solar panels are now working, I parked out in an open field across the main drive from the office.

Device	Download Mbps	Upload Mbps
Campground Wi-Fi	n/a	n/a
Starlink	347	9
AT&T Hotspot	n/a	n/a
US Mobile – Brian (AT&T)	159	4
US Mobile – Beth (Verizon)	n/a	n/a

TV	Quality
Antenna	14 Channels (ABC,CBS)
Campground Cable	n/a
DISH Satellite	n/a

We spent New Year’s Eve week camping at Alafia River State Park. We were in Site #27 which was just a couple hundred yards from the restrooms. We arrived to 80 degree weather, but a front passed through that evening and temperatures dropped dramatically by Florida standards. We experienced a high of 61 degrees on Tuesday with an overnight low that night of 33 degrees. New Year’s Eve, Wednesday, was very close to the same. It was nothing that we couldn’t stand with some of Beth’s massive campfires.

Mom and Dad delivered the grand-kids to the campground on New Year’s Eve. They road their new bikes like crazy and played some laser tag. The cold weather sucked the life out of them.

Device	Download Mbps	Upload Mbps
Campground Wi-Fi	n/a	n/a
Starlink	278	7
AT&T Hotspot	n/a	n/a
US Mobile – Brian (AT&T)	20	1
US Mobile – Beth (Verizon)	143	2

TV	Quality
Antenna	76 Channels (NBC,CBS,FOX,ABC)
Campground Cable	n/a
DISH Satellite	n/a

I departed from the house at 10:28AM EST and headed Southeast to Square 1 Shooting Range in Lake Placid, FL. I took US-301 South to SR-675 in Parrish. Then I took SR-64 a couple of miles to the Verna Bethany Rd down to SR-70. The shooting range is off of SR-70 East of Arcadia, about 7 miles prior to US-27 in Lake Placid. I arrived at 12:15PM EST (all of SR-70 in Arcadia is under construction and down to a single 25MPH lane).

The camping area is East of the shooting range near the beginning of the Sporting Clays path/loop in the middle of an oak hammock. Since my solar panels weren’t working, I parked in the center of the oak hammock near the restrooms (and across from the pavilion). They have a small travel trailer behind the restrooms that can be rented, but it was vacant and I had the entire area to myself. This is a “dark skies” area and it was definitely very dark at night.

Thursday – After arriving and checking in I setup the camper and then loaded my .308 (Casper) into my golf cart and headed back to the shooting range. There was only one other customer shooting on the rifle range (all other ranges were empty). He switched the range to “cold” so that I could setup a target and shortly after that the Range Safety Office (RSO) arrived. The RSO walked me through the rules, allowed me to setup my target, and by the time I was getting ready to send one down range, he headed off to do maintenance on the handgun range. By the time I got three shots off the other customer/shooter wanted to go “cold range” in order to leave (because it had started raining). By the time he got packed up and left, the rain had stopped and I had the range entirely to myself until closing at 4PM (heaven). I shot seven more shots at 100yds to verify I was dialed in and gather plenty of velocity data on my new Doppler Radar Chronograph (it’s so sweet). Due to the lack of any wind, Casper was dialed in perfectly and I started working my way downrange by shooting at the numerous gongs they had setup (a coyote at 200yds, a razorback hog at 300yds, and then various sized gongs at 500yds). I didn’t have any trouble consistently hitting any of them. It was a glorious day, all alone on a 500yd range.

Friday – I took the Bushmaster V-Max to the range to test 69gr and 77gr loads for the its new 20″ barrel. When I arrived around 10AM there just two other shooters. When they departed two others arrived, but by 1PM I once again had the range to myself. I was able to work my way out to 500yds with all loads tested. I finished up around 3PM, went back to the camper, and fired up the generator and enjoyed some air conditioning until dark.

Saturday – At 8:30AM I heard the first shots of the day. I managed to wonder over to the range with my long AR (Boo!) by 9:30AM. At that point there were six total shooters (including me). Unfortunately all the benchrests on the left side of the range were taken, forcing me to the right side where there is no way to see the targets at 500yds due to a berm blocking the path. I still managed to have fun by shooting the heck out of a single paddle reactive shooting target at 300yds. The temperature climbed to a very humid 88, so at noon I was happy to return to the camper, fire up the generator and air conditioner, and watch Purdue get destroyed by Penn State in football.

Device	Download Mbps	Upload Mbps
Campground Wi-Fi	n/a	n/a
Starlink	n/a	n/a
AT&T Hotspot	64	7
US Mobile – Brian (AT&T)	50	1
US Mobile – Beth (Verizon)	n/a	n/a

TV	Quality
Antenna	16 Channels (ABC,CBS)
Campground Cable	n/a
DISH Satellite	n/a