Incubus - Stellar

We pulled out of the RV park in Georgia on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, headed down to Florida, the state which would be our home for the next four months or so. Our first stop was for just a single night, near Flagler Beach on the Atlantic coast.

Being it was our first night in Florida as a family, we decided we needed to immediately find an alligator.

As easy as that was, we figured we’d be seeing these guys everywhere, but they actually proved to be fairly elusive.

The next day, we made the short drive to Clermont, which is just west of Orlando. We checked into the Orlando RV Resort, which is better known as Thousand Trails Orlando or just TTO. This is a massive park, with good sized, full hookup spots for over 1,000 RVs, and plenty of amenities. TTO’s size, great weather, and free stays for members, make it very attractive for fulltime RV families. As seen in this video, there’s actually a section of the park where families congregate and kids just run around and play all day. However, we decided we would park in the brand new section they had just opened the day before.

We found a great spot that backed up to a pond and got to work setting up.

We were just about done when a guy came over and claimed that we had parked in his spot! He had a class C motorhome, and apparently had driven it out the park to go run some errands. He had left his power cable plugged in, which he thought should have tipped us off that the site was occupied. Now we’re new to RVing, but not brand new. We’ve seen sites before with no rig in them, but are still occupied. People usually leave a few things out. Power cords, water and sewer hoses, maybe a few camp chairs. Some parks even give you an “occupied” sign to make things crystal clear. I had assumed that the power cord was left by the park itself, perhaps from testing the new outlets. There was actually something hooked up to the water in the site as well, but it was a sprinkler from the park so they could water the new sod. Anyway, I still think this guy did a terrible job of marking his spot as occupied and only temporarily vacant, but I decided not to push back too hard. So, thanks to this guy’s poor planning, I had to undo all my setup work and then do it all over again.

Luckily, there were still plenty of spots available in the new section (although none backing up to the water), so we found a new site without any trouble. Given all the extra work and frustration, we didn’t feel like cooking dinner. Luckily for us, there was a food truck at the park!

One of Izzy’s favorite things about the brand new RV sites was the fresh asphalt. A lot of roads in RV parks aren’t paved, and ones that are tend to not be in good condition. Izzy loved the smooth pavement for riding her bikes.

Thursday was Thanksgiving. We were sad to not be able to spend the day with family, but we made the most of it by watching the National Dog Show on TV while preparing Thanksgiving dinner. When the food was ready, we ate it outside to enjoy the warm weather and sunshine. Can’t do that in Nebraska!

The following weekend, we made plans to head to the Atlantic coast for a day at the beach and to watch a SpaceX rocket launch! We got up early Saturday morning to find that the weather at Cape Canaveral was questionable, for both a rocket launch and a nice day at the beach. While we were trying to figure out if we should head out or not, they scrubbed the launch. We decided to make it a shopping day instead and went to visit (where else?), IKEA.

The launch was rescheduled for Sunday morning, and this time the weather held. We weren’t sure how many people would turn up, so we got there early to get a good spot to park both our truck and our beach blanket. It never did get too crowded though. While we waited for the launch, Izzy had a lot of fun playing in the sand and waves, and looking for shells.

When launch time time came around, we watched the countdown on YouTube until the rocket appeared in the sky to the north. I will admit, the visuals weren’t super impressive from our spot on Cocoa Beach, roughly 17 miles from the launchpad. You could see a bright light surrounded by some orange fire slowly propelling a small white stick across the sky, leaving a cloudy trail as it went. I had to listen hard to hear the roar of the engines over the sounds of the waves.

Still, I thought it was very cool, and was able to check off an item on my RV-ing bucket list. The rocket was a SpaceX Falcon, hauling a Dragon cargo capsule up to resupply the International Space Station. Thinking about all the effort and knowledge needed to launch a vehicle into outer space just bogles my mind, and makes me proud of the human race. Of course, Izzy isn’t so easily impressed and pretty quickly turned her attention back to digging in the sand.

After we convinced Izzy it was time to leave the beach, we went out to explore a little bit of the city of Cocoa Beach. First up was the Key Lime Pie Company, which had a live alligator hanging out in front of the store. The gator’s name was Sweetie, and we got to pet her! We then grabbed some treats and ate them at a table outside of Ron Jon’s surf shop.

After our snacks, we had to check out Ron Jon’s. Charlotte informed me that it was super cool to have a Ron Jon t-shirt when she was in elementary school, since it meant you had been on vacation to a nice beach somewhere. I don’t remember the same being true for me growing up in Fargo. I attended more of a Hard Rock Cafe school. Anyway, we had to buy Izzy a t-shirt.

Our stay at in Orlando was for three weeks, and our last week overlapped with friends we made back in North Carolina. They invited us to join them for a trip to Blue Springs State Park, north of Orlando. The park is centered on a freshwater spring. I’d say the water is actually more green than blue, but it is very clear, and comes out of the spring at 72° F. In the winter, manatees swim upriver so they can hang out in the warm waters of the spring. The day we visited, the park counted over 300 manatees!

In addition to manatees, we saw a lot of large fish in (and occasionally jumping out of) the water, turtles, and large birds. Izzy actually enjoyed seeing the manatees, but the playing on the playground with her friend was also a big highlight for her. Overall, it was a great visit, and seeing manatees checked off an item on Charlotte’s list!

Finally, on one of our last nights at TTO, we made our way to the Disney-developed town of Celebration, FL to see some Christmas lights. One street in particular puts on a very impressive display. There are tens of thousands of lights coordinated to music across several houses. There are also inflatables, colored spot lights, smoke machines, snow/foam machines, a 3D-mapped video projection, a live Santa, and even an energy drink company handing out samples. It was really cool. As far as I can tell, despite the town’s Disney connection, this is all put on by individuals. We were lucky to see it when we did because they decided to take it down after some neighbors started to complain about the crowds it was drawing.

Whew! We really crammed in the adventures during our first three weeks in the Sunshine State. Stay tuned for further adventures as we get more of a taste of the Floridaman life. See you down the road.