Rock Glen Falls

Another cool morning here in southwestern Ontario.

I called my mother in England to wish her a Happy Mothers Day. I bought a calling card the other day while in Niagara Falls for the princely sum of $2.50. Tried it for the first time today and received $5.00 worth of credit in my account, which allowed me to speak with her for over 16 hours if we wanted. However, calling from a payphone with a cool breeze blowing, I think I lasted for maybe 20 minutes. Chris is still trying to get through to her mother.

We attended the Mothers Day breakfast at the resort today. $3.50 for me and Chris was free. Met a few of the locals while there and received some nice compliments on our Bounder.

After breakfast we walked across the street to check out Rock Glen Falls. There is a 100 foot gorge with a waterfall. Arkona Lions have run boardwalks with stairs all over the place, making it a good hike down to the river and back. Trilliums are just starting to bloom. There is also a museum detailing the geology of the area including many fossils and Indian artifacts on display. Water levels are down at the moment but it is readily apparent that things boil up significantly during spring runoff. Entry fee is only a loonie for Resort campers.

Park Model Home

We have spent the last 3 days in this park model home at Thousand Trails in Peace River. The one we were supposed to go into was unavailable for our stay because the previous occupants had medical problems and had to extend their stay. So instead of going in unit P-16, we are in unit A-22. Actually, we saw this park model unit brought in on a low bed semi trailer back in January. The unit is used but functional, however the outside skirting and permanent entry staircase are not yet in place. It is definitely a challenge getting used to this after being in our Bounder for the last 4 1/2 months. We miss our home! Oh well, it is not the end of the world.

Our Bounder was to be in the bodyshop at Lazydays, April 1-3. They called yesterday afternoon saying it had just gone in the bodyshop and it wouldn't be ready until Monday afternoon. Apparently Lazydays decided to do the a/c repair first instead of the bodyshop work. So looks like we are staying in the park model for another 3 days. I will deal with Lazydays on Monday regarding the extra cost of accommodations their delay has caused us.

On the positive side of things, our son sent us an envelope from home via Express Post on March 20th at a cost of $21.50. Well it just arrived in Wauchula today! Fifteen days to get here!!!! Think I shall have a chat with Canada Post when we get home as well.

We continue to play pickleball everyday, although there are fewer people playing now. We were also back in the river fossil hunting again yesterday afternoon. The water is cool and refreshing and welcome relief to the afternoon heat we have been experiencing for the past week or more. No major finds yesterday except for the top of a tibia bone. Hard to say what type of animal it is from though.

So this weekend will be low profile, awaiting the return of our motorhome on Monday afternoon. We'll then head up the road to Orlando where we'll be until April 25th.

We Saw A Wooly Mammoth!!!

We were up bright and early Sunday morning in order to get Sarah to Tampa International Airport for her return flight home. We left at 5 am and took Hwy 64 west over to I-75 and then onto I-275 and over the Sunshine Skyway Bridge to the airport. Traffic was very light so we made good time. Chris picked us both up a Starbucks coffee and muffin for the drive back to Wauchula. We were on our way home by 7 am and made it back in time for pickleball. Our thanks to Jim and Jane for kindly offering to look after Buddy for us overnight. It made the trip into Tampa much easier.

Chris and I spent almost four hours fossil hunting in Peace River yesterday afternoon. It was our best day so far. In the photos, the largest item you can see in the upper left corner is the tooth of an adult wooly mammoth. Next to it, in the centre, is what we suspect is the jaw bone of a baby wooly mammoth with one tooth still in place. Another partial mammoth tooth on the left below the large tooth. The remaining items are a variety of shark teeth, some fossilized turtle shell, as well as what I think is a claw, perhaps from a turtle.

We had no idea exactly what we had until Jane had a good look at our haul this morning. We were really hoping to find a spear or arrow head but I think some wooly mammoth remains rank right up there as well! I'll have to do a little online research to confirm.

Pickleball for me this morning while Chris cleaned up the inside of the motorhome. She's so good to me! Then back to the RV to get things packed and ready for our drive into Lazydays. We were on the road out of Thousand Trails by noon and pulled into Lazydays at 2 pm. Our rig is ready for a 3 day stay to repair a superficial scratch on the driver's side which I caused last summer at Fanshawe Conservation in London, Ontario.

We plan to overnight at Lazydays tonight. Tomorrow, we will spend cycling and beachcombing at Fort Desoto, before heading back to Wauchula tomorrow afternoon. We will spend 3 days in a park model home while our Bounder is repaired.

We did a little shopping in Brandon this afternoon. Given the recent hard drive crash on my Toshiba laptop, I am a little more diligent about backing up our data. To this end, we purchased a Western Digital 250 GB USB hard drive. It is larger than we will need...for now. The nice thing about this USB hard drive is that it draws its power from the laptop, so there is no external power supply and therefore it takes up less space. Very important in an RV where space is limited.

When we got back to our RV, I cranked up the generator and fired up our two air conditioners. Looks like the rear a/c has gone out now. Front one works fine but the rear one won't come on. Breakers are all okay, so not sure if we lost the capacitor on it or not. Something else for Lazydays to check out while it is in the shop.

Shopping

Sarah arrived on time at Tampa International on Sunday night, well actually the wee hours of Monday morning! The drive there and back were uneventful. We didn't get back to the motorhome until almost 02:30 am, so we left Buddy with Jim and Jane. It felt great to finally lay our heads on our pillows. Sleep was certainly no problem that night.


We were all up early yesterday. I played pickleball while Sarah and Chris went for a run around the nature trail. Temps were a little cooler than they have been but Sarah was determined to go home darker than when she arrived here.


I spent the afternoon sorting out runnng Outlook 2007 on Chris's computer. I think it is working properly now. Chris and Sarah went fossil hunting in the river with Jane and others. Chris looks like she has an "Indiana Jones" thing going wearing her new hat.


We enjoyed a mexican supper outside on the picnic table last night and then sat in front of the fire watching our outside TV. We never thought we would make much use of the outside TV on our Bounder but we seem to use it a fair bit.

Jane and Julie accompanied Chris and Sarah on a shopping trip this morning. They'll be back later today, just in time for a beading session over at Jane's. Jim will be outnumbered over there, so I have invited him over here if he wants to come. Four women, possibly five once Barb and Dennis arrive later today, in one motorhome....beading....now there's trouble.

More people leaving today after the Easter weekend. Even some of the member/worker staff employed by the park over the winter are starting to pull out now.

Peace River and Poop

We've been having a great time here at Peace River again. Pickleball is going very well but fewer people seem to attend now, likely because the park is slowly starting to empty as many head home.

The park was having water problems the other morning, so we had no water for almost 4 hours. We've already learned to keep our holding tank half full just in case there is a water line or valve break. I emptied our black (poop) tank and then usually rinse out the tank through a connection on the motorhome. Well of course the rinse didn't work without water. I tried it 3 more times throughout the day and still no water. Around 3 pm, I am sitting inside using the computer when I hear water dripping. I checked the bathroom only to see the toilet starting to overflow! Turns out the water was back on and I had left the rinse valve open. The black tank filled with water and had no where to go except to overflow from the toilet! We quickly shut of the water and dumped the black tank. The park was nice enough to lend us a shop vac to suck up what we could. We also rented a carpet cleaner and shampooed the rugs as well just to be on the safe side. Good thing I was in the motorhome and heard the water! I can't imagine what would have happened otherwise. All is back in order today. Lesson learned. THe rinse hose stays on the ground outside the motorhome and will not be connected until needed from now on.

Little pickleball tourney this morning. Chris placed second with the ladies! Her game has really improved. We went fossil hunting in the river again this afternoon and found a bunch more shark teeth. Nothing of any significance though.

Beautiful sunny and hot day here in Florida.

Starting to plan our route home already. Yuk!! Hard to believe the time has passed so quickly.

Keep the comments clean please.

Thousand Trails Peace River (Wauchula)

We got out of Lazydays early yesterday afternoon and headed for TT Wauchula. We used our new Garmin Nuvi 760 GPS to navigate through southeast Tampa which got us to Hwy 62 and eventually Hwy 17. This is our first time at the Peace River Preserve. The GPS came up a little short on the actual location of the preserve.....about 4 miles actually, but I think that may have been my fault too. Not sure if the address I typed in was 100% correct. We were told there is a difference between Hwy 17N and Hwy 17S. Anyway we arrived here around 3:30 pm yesterday and are set up in site G4 until Jan 03, 2008.





(If you click on the above photo, it will enlarge and you should be able to see the gator on the opposite river bank.)

This is an excellent campground and the people here are very friendly. The campground is likely half full or perhaps even slightly less. We have been told that all campgrounds in Florida will get busy in January. Hopefully it won't be too busy. We are hoping to get an extra 4 days here if possible before heading back to the Orlando area. No sooner had we pulled into our site, than our neighbours from Kentucky were over with a beer and introducing themselves.

There certainly seems to be a lot of activities to get involved in here. There are sign up sheets in the store for all kinds of activities: Christmas Potluck Dinner, golf, pizza night, RV seminars, pickleball, bicycling, fossiling, etc. We hope to try pickle ball tomorrow. Basically, it is like tennis but played with a smaller racket and a wiffle ball.....or so I think!

We ran two loops around the preserve this morning. A combination of streets and nature trails that run along Peace River. The run was great and was our first real exercise since leaving Thousand Trails in Orlando. The pool here is not very big, so we are not yet sure if we will even swim here. Lots of areas to walk, run, hike and cycle though.


This afternoon we met several other campers for some fossiling in
the waters of Peace River. One regular, Princess Jane, so named because she is British, stays here all winter and gave us a few pointers on what to look for and how to dig and screen off the silt and sand to see what we had recovered. We were up to our knees in cold water for about two hours, which was great after our run, looking for fossils. We found many teeth, mostly small, but also some old Indian beads, shells, etc. The area of Peace River we were in is only about 2 ft deep in most places and runs quite slowly. There are two alligators that enjoy sunning themselves on the opposite bank during the day. One is about 12 feet long and named Stumpy because he only has 3 legs. The other is only about half that length. They each have their own territory and stay separate from each other, about 1/2 mile apart I should think. We will try to get some pictures tomorrow. Lots of wildlife here too, squirrels, wild pigs, turkey vultures and more.


I've added a counter to our blog so we'll have some idea of how many visitors we get each day. Feel free to add your comments and tell us about what is going on where you are.


Stay safe everyone.