Our First Workhorse Rally

Sunday, October 22:  Travel day, we drove to Kissimmee, FL and arrived at Tropical Palms RV Resort.  This is an Encore Resort and very nice. It is a large park on the edge of Old Town, a pedestrian friendly town with amusement parks, shopping and many places to eat.  After getting set up we drove around to get the lay of the land.  Had lunch at a Perkins.

Monday, October 23:  As wonderful as it is to be on the road traveling, you still have to deal with everyday occurrences.  Today I woke up sick.  Fortunately it was short term and we will be back to normal tomorrow.

Tuesday, October 24:  We drove over to Titusville on the east side of Florida to visit The Great Outdoors.  Thank goodness we got that Sunpass because there sure were a lot of toll roads.  In a perfect world this is where we would like to buy a lot.  It is not an inexpensive place to live, but you can't find a more RV friendly place to live.  We didn't have an appointment, but they tried to squeeze us in between and we had an abbreviated tour.

Crisis in the RV.  When we returned I kept smelling burn't wires.  We were in the middle of an electrical system fail.  The transfer switch the transfers power from shore power to generator power was overheating and the shore power wires were burning.  If we had not noticed this a potential fire could have occurred.  the switch is located under the bedroom closet, so Bruce had to dismantle this to check things out.  Checked with a few local supply stores but the part was not available.

Bruce had determined that we could still safely use  lights and receptacles but not microwave and no air conditioning.  It had been really hot this whole trip, but thank goodness the weather broke literately today and A/C was not an issue.

October 25 - 26:  The Workhorse Rally

This was a really small rally.  It is unfortunate that it will most likely stay small since Workhorse is no longer providing chassis for Motor homes.  We hope they will get back into the market.

There was 15 rigs and a little over 30 people here.  A really great group of people.  We started out Wednesday with Happy Hour and hors d'oeuvers.  Afterward we had a "flameless" campfire get together at one of the rigs.  It was really nice to get to know new like-minded people.

Thursday morning was coffee and a great catered breakfast.  Now to get down to business.  Camping World presented with two people.  One tech and a sales person.  We were pleasantly surprise with the conversation with these individuals.  The tech was very knowledgeable and quite candid about working on rigs.  The sales person was a local manager and Camping World cheerleader, but still very interesting.  We personally have had no difficulties with Camping World and he only asked us all to keep an open mind.

Next we had a Workhorse Q&A with the president of the Club.  He was extremely knowledgeable and may have been involved with them in another life.  The afternoon was a visit to Old Town and free root beer floats at A&W.  Another Happy Hour in the evening and the rest of the evening was ours.

Bruce was fascinated with this booth. For $1 you can electrocute this obnoxious guy.

Friday coffee and pastries and more interesting conversation.  We got some information on Florida Grand RV Resort in Webster from The Happe's who have a place there.  This will be somewhere we need to check out for a lot.

The afternoon was spent at The Barn Antiques in Lake Alfred.  We had lunch at The Back Porch.  This was the neatest little cafe.  You chose what you want to eat on a paper menu and pay the cashier.  Then they bring your order in a picnic basket. We sat out on the literal back porch.  This was such a fun lunch and the food was great.  We had soup, sandwich, salad and desert.  Afterward we visited the turtles in the lake and cruised around the antique shops.

On our way back to the campground we found a roadside attraction.  A 24 foot tall Potty Chair.  Have to continue our collection of Roadside America sites.

In the evening we again met for Happy Hour and then went to Capone's Dinner and Show.  This was a fun comedy and good Italian food.  A lot of fun with the group.

Saturday, coffee and pastries (love those pastries) and business meeting.  The afternoon was free.  We walked back over to Old Town again.  We went to the Chocolate Kingdom and did the tour.  It was a walk through chocolate making in the Kingdom of Chocolate where our traveling companion was trying to win the heart of the Princess with the best chocolate gift.  Very cute.  Catapulted marshmallows, tasted chocolate at each stage and designed our own chocolate bar.  Dark chocolate, pecans, salted camel and bacon.  Yum!

Back to the campground to a catered dinner and then to the RV to prepare for morning departure.

Sunday morning brought more coffee, pastries and goodbyes to the new friends we made.  Looking forward to next year.  the rally will be beach-side in Myrtle Beach, SC.


Note:  Do you think Cali likes the RV?

Oldest City, St. Augustine

October 15 - 21, 2017

Welcome to Florida.

Sunday, October 15:  Travel Day.  Stopped at the visitors center and decided that we like this Florida thing so much, plus we will be in the Orlando area later which has a lot of toll roads, we might as well buy a SunPass.  We are now ready for Florida's toll roads.

It was a really hot day and by the time we reached Stagecoach RV Park and set up we were to tired to do anything.  We did eventually take a walk around the RV Park.  This is a no frills RV park.  You have just what you need.  A level space with full hookups.

Got an early start today.  Breakfast at Denny's and off to St. Augustine.  We spent the morning touring the Castillo de San Marcos.  First time we got to use our Old Fart's Pass (otherwise know as the National Park Senior Pass) and it didn't cost us an entrance fee.  Started out with a great ranger program.  Once we had all that information we were ready to start exploring.  This is the oldest masonry fort in the US.  The self-guided walking tour took us around the fort into many rooms, each with it's own exhibit. Checked out the visitor's center and a little of the downtown streets.

Gates to the City

The afternoon was spent at the Alligator Farm.  This was a well laid out and entertaining zoological park.  We saw many kinds of alligators, crocodiles, birds, komodo dragons and a feeding at the main alligator pool.

He was sharing our table when we were taking a break.

Tuesday, October 17:  Today was a visit to the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park.  The first thing we did was take a big drink from the fountain.  (Need all the help we can get.)  The water tasted like it came from a hot garden hose and we are still waiting for results. Next we watched a demonstration of canon fire, climbed the tower, toured the buildings and watched the Discovery Globe.  Hurricane Irma caused a lot of damage.  We were impressed with how much they were able to have opened for us.  The chulupa (a 16th century work boat, not a taco) had been floating before Irma.  She picked it up and laid it down some distance inland.  They told us they were planning on doing some maintenance anyway, now they can do it on land and then put her back in the water.

In the afternoon we visited the St. Augustine Distillery.  It was a great tour.  After the typical tour of how things are made we had the "Tasting."  The first tasting was in a bar setting.  They made from scratch a Florida Mule with their vodka, A Tiki with their rum.  Then we went into the main store where we bellied up to the bar for Gin and Tonic and Old Fashioned.  All were good but expensive, especially when you buy their custom mixers.  We bought gin and strong tonic.  Super good.

 

Wednesday, October 18:  Bought a Red Train Trolley tour package.  Three days of hop on, hop off riding around the city, admittance to the Ripley's Believe It or Not Odditorium, Ghost Train Adventure, mini golf and a book.  Plus senior discount.  We really road the trolley all around.  Had lunch at Meehan's Irish Pub.  (Note to self, chips in an Irish pub was french fries.)

Tonight was the ghost tour.   This one was so much fun.  First of all, the weather was much better.  It was so hot and humid in Savannah.  This tour includes ghost hunting equipment.  I had a dot matrix laser pen to shine at places.  The object is to look for disruptions in the pattern of dots.  Bruce had a meter that was suppose to detect excess electrical energy.  Once on the train we had three stops.  At each stop we got off to explore the area.  We were encouraged to take a lot of pictures and then later look for any abnormalities.

The first stop was an old Sugar Mill.  During the day this is a trolley stop location, but at night is was a place for us to explore.  Once we were inside and told about the mill, we were led outside in the back where we could use our devices to ghost hunt. The second stop was the Castillo de San Marcos.  It is pretty creepy in the dark.  The fort is closed but we could wonder the grounds.  Of course the grounds were an old burial ground from hundred's of years ago.  The third stop was the jackpot.  We got to go into the Ripley's building after hours.  Being in a semi dark Ripley's with all that weird stuff was really cool.  We were told the mystery/murders that occurred there and again tried to find ghosts.  Didn't find any but it sure was fun looking for them.

October 19:   Back to St. Augustine.  Took the trolley to the Lightner Museum.  This was originally the Alcazar Hotel.  Didn't know, but they were having a special exhibit called "Dressing Downton,"  period clothing used in the PBS series. Bruce was not thrilled with looking at clothes, but even he was surprised how neat an exhibit this was.

Afterwards we had lunch in the Cafe Alcazar.  The cafe is located in what was the largest indoor swimming pool when this was a hotel.  Lunch was very elegant.  There was a piano player playing all through dinner.

Friday, October 20:  Last day for our trolley tickets.   Went to the old jail.

We spent time walking along St. Georges street.  Had lunch at A1A Ale St. Augustine wore us out.  Can't wait to go back again.

Another really neat bar. This one made from hammered copper.

Saturday, October 21:  Chill day.  Getting ready to leave tomorrow morning.