RV adventure travel

I have been playing around in another State Park about 23 miles east of Tampa. Its called Little Manatee River State Park. I’ve taunted some gators, mocked some turtles, rode my bike around many of the trails, found a few geocaches with my Garmin Etrex legend handheld gps device. Yes, geocaching is my new hobby. Its sort of a high-tech game of hide and seek. I think of it as a game for nerds like me who also love the outdoors.
You can read more about the game at geocaching.com.

Been geocaching today. Its fun. I have a new Garmin Etrex legend handheld GPS unit. I’ve been treasure hunting around Osprey Florida at a State Park. I’ll post more later.

Wowie Zowie and super granulated coolness. I really enjoyed my stay at this beautiful state park just outside of Sebring Florida.

I pulled the Oyster Can of Adventure into the park and stayed for 3 days. I had a site with water and electric with a dump station to use on the way out. Now Highlands Hammock is one of the oldest parks on Florida, and has a museum to honor the CC camp boys who built most of it. But the part I loved was the wonderful woods and bike trails around the place.

Earth Day, I biked around the huge bike trails and explored all day then I went to the Music in the Park Earth Day event.
A band called Groovus was playing. It was Jazz and classic rock flavors, and they were a decent group. They had two awesome Sax players, and the other members were right on as well. I had fun. Music under the stars, relaxing in the park after a day of adventure, it was sweet. Oh and speaking of sweet there was this adorable cute little girl playing bounce-bounce- dance to the music, you could tell she was a born performer, I hope someone is springing for her ballet lessons, though I am sure they are. The Dragon Flies seem to hover above the visitors in a sort of air ballet, but hey a little blink, a wish , some of the innocent energy that was going around, and one was sure that those Dragon Flies were really just Faeries joining in the fun and play. Their ballet was of course just a competition for attention with the little girl performer and actress to be. As the sunset with the cool music , the accompaniment was joined by a full moon. it all was a very cool thing.

I came back to the campsite to the Oyster Can of Adventure after a day of bike adventures and music to grill up some BBQ. Apart from the typical lonliness that tends to surface sometimes when I, a single guy, am surrounded by families (which I am use to), it was an awesome day.

Now Highlands Hammock State Park has a very special feature, that is these really beautiful and old woods. Huge oaks and palms and all kinds of plant and animal life are a feature of the park. I felt like I was in Lothlórien out of a Tolkien story, wonderful faerie trees were abundant, a hello-how-are-ya visit from a huge eagle, and various wildlife that seemed to say look at me, look at me.

Now for my attack on NASA. The nerd in me loved it!

My family and I went into the Kennedy Space Center at Florida’s Space Coast. We removed all our little pocket knives and other goodies before we went in.
Now Kennedy Space Center has a fair security system.
You will empty all of your pockets into a little plastic tray, hand it to the security person, and then walk through the metal detector, then they hand you the plastic tray and you go take it to another security person where they make you turn on all of your gadgets to make sure they are not dummy ones.

After that rigamaroe you are done. And its time to play at the NASA Kennedy Space Center.
We went straight for the tour busses, which take you around through the large campus and show you all the cool goodies.
You go past the huge building where they put together the ships (this building is way bigger that it looks),

and onto an observation platform where you can see the various launch sites and launch towers. Then you hop another bus and head over to the cool Apollo Exhibits, we had some pizza there, and checked out the huge rockets, after that just catch a buss back to the main visitor center complex.

Now one thing to just NOT miss at The Kennedy Space Center is the rather cool IMAX films , especially don’t miss the one on the International Space Station.
I saw the one on the Space Station and another called Magnificent Desolation or something like that. That later one was about the Apollo program and the moon visits, and it was very cool to see as well.

….

I milled around the Space Center and saw wonderful exhibits, very cool and inspiring things, a nice tribute to the fallen-astronauts called the Space Mirror. And I saw one exhibit that had to be one of the most useless ones I have ever seen. It was called The Robot Scouts. Now this was a wee little hallway that you walked though and some crappy mechanical robot puppet would appear on some TV and would talk about the robot explorers.
Now I think that subject could have been done quite wonderfully, but whoever put that one together needs to go back to the drawing board.
It lost me totally when I came to a section they called “the think tank” only to find a school desk with an early 1980ies calculator at it. I couldn’t help to make Doctor Who style Dalek impersonations as we traversed through the hallway. It was that big of a joke. I don’t even think modern kids would like it. The only redeeming quality that show had was Nadine a cute spokes person on the tellie. But alas there was so many cool things to see for a lover of science and space exploration that more than made up for the silly robot show. Miss that one, and use your time to see other shows.

Oh and another thing, Your ticket is good for 7 days after you use it so you can go back and see more space fun. You can also turn it into an annual pass for 12ish bucks.
I went back the following day before I went on down to the Treasure Coast, that is when I saw the IMAX on the Apollo mission. I had my Travel Trailer with me, so there is plenty of RV parking.
If I wanted to stick around the space coast I might spring for the annual one, but alas I found no Jennie on the beach like Major Nelson so I am off to other lands.

Adventures in Saint Augustine Florida.

I heart Saint Augustine.

I love this town (Saint Augustine that is).. I’m not really sure as to why I like it so much, so I tend to keep coming back. So as I write this maybe It will help me work it out as to why I love Saint Augustine. Now in spite of its loveliness, it is awful touristy, but I grew up in a tourist town so that is not a major problem for me.

This place keeps drawing me in. and every time I bike or moped the lovely back streets, peeking in gallery windows to steal a view of objects I could never afford or sneak down to my favorite pub for a sandwich. Its another here I am again trolling the Streets of Saint Augustine.

I took the Wind Up Toy of Adventure over to the Lighthouse
The Saint Augustine Lighthouse will give you a good view of the city the bay and all kinds of things. It is a tall bugger and worth it if you have the bucks to blow on the tour. Be in shape or use it to get in shape. I didn’t climb her this last trip, I wanted to save dough as I transition into my mobile lifestyle.. mehhh, now as I write this I wish I had just sprang for the fee and climbed her again (maybe next time). As I’m sure this town will find me haunting her again. Maybe that Dale guy, who comes here lots should be on the Ghost tour as a feature. The Tourist Ghost.ooohhhhhhooooooo, rattles cameras…

Saint Augustine Florida lighthouse pier
Instead of clambering up the light house this time, I mopeded around and hung out at the Lighthouse pier and watched some boats while I was over there. and then went mopeding around town for a bit.

The Rendezvous Restaurant

Ummmm Beer!!!

Speaking of Saint Augustine haunts, there are light houses (ooohhhhoooo), then there are ale houses (yeeeehawwwww) So lets stop in at the Rendezvous Restaurant for some of that good old rising of the wrist. As this ale house has some of the best brew selections around. This time I picked a time honored favorite a brew called Hacker Pschor (I likely spelled that wrong, anyway the octoberfest one) as it brought back memories of really fun times with a dangerous blond. and I washed it down with a good Ruben sandwich. and had a nice German brew for desert. The place isn’t easy to find in spite of the fact that it is right in the center of all the tourist stuff.You have to look on the map (which you can scrounge all over) for this mall thing called Saint George’s Row, you will walk by some of the cutest little faerie figurines I’ve ever seen (I always have to stop and wish), you will pass a magic shop and some other cool things to find the ale house. The brew selection is huge.

Now Saint Augustine, as the oldest town in the States has plenty of history to fascinate the history buff and tons of cute wee shops for those into that sort of thing. Parking is a hassle sometimes if you are in a car and not the wind up toy of adventure scooter/moped like me.

Arrrgggg! Me Mateys!!!

While this latest trip I stayed at a nearby RV park called Indian Forest Campground and just rode the moped /scooter thing into town as I had the camper. Before I have stayed at the quite fun hostel called The Pirate Haus Inn.

Shiver Me Tenders!!! arrrrrgghhh
I went for a private room when I stayed there last as I have loved hostels and all the folks that I meet at them for ages, but these days sometimes, as a 40 something, I think I am getting a bit old for the common room (I’ll likely get over that). But the place is great and it is right in town, so you can have all the fun you want, and have a handy place to crash, and even get Blueberry pancakes in the morning.

The Saint Johns is a river running north through central Florida.

As I begin my full time RVing experience in the Oyster Can of Adventure this place is to be an important factor.

Yep, My mail forwarding service is located in Green Cove Springs with the nice folks over at Saint Brendans Isle.

I took a pic of a sign in Spring park that has a bit more history on green Cove Springs, click the thumb to read it.

Now it is obvious that the town of Green Cove Springs is tied with a heavy-duty sailor knot to the Mariner culture of the Saint Johns River.

The Port there is huge. You can see all sorts of marine services, and huge marinas just out of town and mongo river boats , barges and more docked at the Green Cove Springs Port.

I fancied a number of of nice large sail boats in a marine storage yard near the port. As well as watching the river boats, the floating casinos and such that were docked at the port.

Now Green Cove Springs is the far most point these large ships or the sailing vessels can go when traveling South up river, as the Shands bridge that crosses the Saint Johns just has a 45ft clearance.

The mineral springs flow into the town pool and continue into the Saint Johns down a spring run.
Spring Park in down-town Green Cove Springs has a handy fishing peir so you can toss your line in the Saint John’s waters.
The Green Cove Springs Town Dock also features boat slips where you can tie up and check out town. You can dock here 48 hours for a small fee.

Clay County Theatre
This old Vintage Movie theatre reminded me of one in my home town. It is a working movie theatre. Now, If it only had a theatre company to take it over now and then, I’d felt right at home.