George Washington Birthplace National Monument

Yesterday, we had a great time touring around Westmoreland State Park and George Washington Birthplace National Monument. Both sites are within 30 minutes of this Outdoor World. Click on the title to link to the National Park Service for more information. Our ranger guide was a fountain of information and had done extensive genealogical research into the Washington family. The grounds are amazing and right on the banks of the Potomac River.

We returned to our site by mid afternoon and I just had to give this Dri-Wash I bought in Chesapeake Bay a go. Walt Fulton, who we met in Peace River last year was a few sites down at Chesapeake and I was always amazed how his coach and rig sparkled. Dri-wash is a waterless cleaning compound that works wonders both inside and outside our Phaeton. Spray on, wipe off with one micro fibre towel, and then buff with a second micro fibre towel. Results are fast and awesome. We did the whole coach up to about 7 feet high, but only because we didn't have a ladder with us. Then we tackled the Vue which was filthy. Wow! I think our photo speaks for itself.

Today, we are heading to Gettysburg Farm in Dover, PA which is another ODW park. We are going to be daring and try taking Hwy 301, I-695 and I-83 through Washington, DC and Baltimore as well. It's Sunday, so perhaps traffic will be light.

I thought readers might also like to know that I am working on a new blog as well. Ken and Faye suggested a title to us that Ken's son Mike came up with and we loved the idea. Some of you will no doubt remember the Peyton Place TV series from the 60s...... Yep, we will be introducing "Phaeton Place", but likely not until we get back to Ottawa when I will have more time to get things set up properly. Thanks Mike for a great idea!

Caveside Blog

Yesterday was gorgeous, so we popped back out to a different area of Mer Bleu that has quite a few bird feeding stations. We even brought a suet brick for the birds to nibble on as well. We sat and watched bluejays and chickadees flit in and out for some bird seed that someone else had kindly put out for the birds earlier. None would take the suet though.....until we left of course and then we saw two greedy bluejays attack it. We were entertained for over an hour by an intrepid squirrel who lived in the same tree as the feeders. He chattered at us for standing too close to his home. Once he got used to us, he crawled into one of the feeders and had a feast.

Now for the big news. Chris has started her own blog called "Caveside". I have a link to it in the right margin. Given that I am spending the winter in sunny and warm Florida, she thought it might be nice for all our friends to vicariously experience a cold and snowy Ottawa winter. Check out her blog. She is promising lots of pictures of snow!

TTN Forest Lake

We were on the road by 10 am this morning. We only had a short 200 mile drive today, so we left a little later than usual.

Most of today's drive was along I-85. We stopped at the Flying J in Blacksburg, SC to top up with diesel fuel and unleaded for the Vue. Diesel was down to $3.979/gallon ($1.05/litre), the lowest we have seen since last fall. Unleaded was $3.429/gallon ($0.905/litre). Still considerably lower than in Canada. We also checked out a Waffle House for lunch. Enough said on that one. Won't be stopping there again anytime soon.

The drive was great. Traffic was moderate and moved along quite well. We stuck around 55-57 mph and just watched the countryside roll on by, averaging a whopping 9.3 mpg!!! Not bad really when you consider how heavy we are and pulling another vehicle as well. Doesn't take long to blow through $200 or more at the pumps either and of course that will increase the further north we go. Oh well, it is still a great life! We heard truckers are doling out over $1000 per tank full these days. Ouch!!!

We arrived at Forest Lake just before 3 pm and were able to check out a bunch of different sites because the park is only half full. We found two nice sites near the pickleball courts. We couldn't get level on A-20, so we opted for A-18. As you can see from the photo, we are in a well treed site, so no Canadian satellite TV for the two days we are here. Antenna works great though, so we will survive.

The park is very well laid out among Carolina pine trees. The 2 outdoor pools are not open until Memorial Day. Too cold anyway. Last night, it got down to 36F here!!!! Brrrr!!!!!! This afternoon we were closer to 70F.

According to our Garmin Nuvi 760 we are 800 ft above sea level and our GPS coordinates are:
N 35 degrees 51.625', W 80 degrees 23.823'. Punch those numbers into Google Maps for a good idea of where we are.

Our Verizon U-720 modem works well from the confines of our motorhome. NationalAccess though, no Broadband.

Lastly, I added a traffic meter to the blog yesterday. It displays a list of where people accessing our blog are from. I thought it would be neat to see that info. Please sign our guest book too when you drop in. Repeat entries are fine. You don't need to leave an email address if you don't want to, but all comments would be greatly appreciated.

Guestbook Added

Temps are back to normal! Yay!!!

Pickleball again this morning. Great games. Unfortunately, Mitch may have fractured his wrist after falling awkwardly while retrieving a difficult shot. He and Barb were on their way to the hospital right away. Lets hope all is well.

Chris is also on the limp with some pain in her lower shin and I have a very slight achilles strain so no pickleball for us for a day or so at least. Swimming tomorrow morning for sure.

I've added a guestbook in the right margin just below the counter. We don't receive too many comments using the comment button after individual entries, but we know from the counter that lots of people are reading of our adventures. We would love to get some idea of who you are and where you are from. Please take a moment to sign and view our guestbook. A short comment, pearl of wisdom, suggestions on how to improve, etc would be appreciated as well.

Cheers all!

Lazydays...aka...The Never Ending Story.....

It is just after 3 pm on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 and we are still at Lazydays. They thought they had the jack leveller problem fixed around 1 pm, but before we left, we decided to try them out in the parking lot one time, just to be sure. Well, it went back into error mode again, still indicating a problem with the right front jack leveller. The tech thinks it may be a bad sensor in the RF jack and has gone off to find another one. So right now we are watching the traffic on I-4 out our front window, wishing we were out there heading east and then south to the TT Peace River preserve in Wauchula. The longer we sit today, the more likely we will have to spend another night at Lazydays. We are comfortable however. Our warranty is up in May 2008, so we want everything fixed and running properly before we head home.

I've made a few changes to our blog in the past few days as well:

1. You likely have noticed a weather widget in the right margin. I tried one and didn't like it because it didn't show the location, just temps, etc. This new one shows present location but allows other places to be queried as well.
2. Comments Button. Clicking on the comment button after each post, will drop down a comment form, enabling readers to leave comments. It also has the capability to chain comments together, allowing multiple readers to chat with each other as well.
3. Rating Button. Readers can click anywhere in the rating button scale after each post to rate the presented content. 1-5 stars.

The tech is back.....keeping our fingers crossed.

Update..................

The techs found the problem. It appears the sensor wire on the right front jack leveller had a faulty connector. Once a new one was put in, everything worked fine. We left Lazydays at 4 pm and happily pulled into TT Peace River around 5:45 pm. We are set up in a nice site just down from the pickleball courts. The jacks work fine.......for now!

Rain in Florida???? Say It Isn't So!!!

Yes, it is true! 80F today, but it has been raining heavily off and on all day so far. Well, at least we don't have to shovel the rain.


Buddy had his day at the groomer's this morning. Fran Davis is an RVer in this park who has owned 4 Bichons herself and also used to have her own grooming salon at one time. Fran did an excellent job on coiffing Buddy while we both ducked out for a little shopping. He looks like a million bucks now. Unfortunately though, we found out from Fran that Buddy has worms and that is despite the once a month Sentinel medication we received from our vet in Ottawa before heading south last November. Fran recommended a good vet nearby, so we will contact them on Monday and see if we can get Buddy in for an appointment. He is still full of energy and certainly has not lost any of his appetite.


I have placed a "Call Me" button in the right margin. The idea here is that readers can click the button, input their name and number and the call will be directed to my cell phone. I have set it so all calls go directly to voicemail. Voicemails can then be pasted into the blog if need be. This could be used as a verbal comment system instead of having to type comments. Just thought I would try it out and see how it works. GrandCentral which is owned by Google is betatesting this feature at the moment.


So it is a dull and wet day here. Chris is baking chocolate chip cookies in our convection oven. Looks like I shall be the guinea pig.....again....its a tough life!

Blog Stuff

I spent yesterday afternoon outside in the shade under our awning, sipping on a beer and categorizing all our blog posts. It took some time but you will now see a list of categories in the right margin. Each entry is categorized accordingly based on the subject of the entry. This way anyone looking for a specific topic can click on that particular category and all related entries will be displayed. Makes it a little easier than having to scroll through all the entries looking for a specific entry.

I have also added an RSS feed button and email suscription button. Those of you with a Reader can simply subcribe to my blog feed by clicking the button and you will receive any new blog entries in your Reader automatically. Likewise, for those with no Reader or those who prefer to subscribe via email. Simply add your email address and you will receive an email whenever the blog is updated. Hopefully, it will save regular readers a little time.

We took a little trip into Wauchula to the Walmart and also ACE Hardware. We picked up some groceries as well as a few bits for our new sunshade. We needed bungy cords and some tie down stakes as well before we could put up the sunshade. The sunshade is in two pieces. The first piece is two feet wide and feeds into the length of our awning roller. The second piece is seven feet wide and attaches to the first piece with S-hooks. The bottom is then staked to the ground with bungy cords. The awning roller is also staked to the ground with a rope, so that it will not move up and down in the wind. I sat out under it all yesterday afternoon. It was bright sunshine and 84F outside but shady and much cooler under the sunshade. All seem to be working well.

While I was under the sunshade, Chris went to her pine needle weaving class in the club house. She has been working on a basket and wanted to check with the instructor on how to move from the bottom part to the side wall of the basket. She spent a couple of hours in class and her basket is coming on nicely.

Chris played pickleball yesterday afternoon but I took the day off. Playing twice the day before in very hot sunshine was a little much. Hard to drink enough water here sometimes.

There were some tornados that went through parts of Arkansas and Tennessee last night causing significant damage but there was nothing her in Florida at all. Another hot, sunny day today with a nice breeze blowing. Think I will sit outside and start my new Jeffrey Archer paperback.