Less in Tents

Tripometer –  16,128 mi

Gas Gauge –  1276.67 gal

Location – Long Point Park and Campground, Melbourne Beach, FL

Lodging – $35

Cans of OFF – 4

We woke this morning to a cold, windy and overcast day. The weather forecast calls for rain most of the afternoon and a high of about 68 degrees. While checking the weather forecast we noted that though we had intermittent rain in the forecast, the top end of the storm was dumping snow on a fair bit of the eastern seaboard. HA! With yesterday’s beautiful day behind us we decided that today we could with good conscience spend the afternoon inside watching the Ravens Game. Kelly made a few calls around Vero Beach to find a sports bar that would be showing the Ravens game and we headed off around noon leaving Ranger in the air conditioned trailer. (It’s high time this dog had a down day.)

Kelly hasn’t had intermittent queasiness in several days meaning there may be an end to the gastrointestinal trauma that we’ve been experiencing, but again Paul spent most of the day grumbling about his stomach. That made the choice of who was designated driver today very easy.

The Riverside Café turned out to be a really nice bar and restaurant located on the inland side of the island in Vero Beach. As we entered we noticed a fantastic, mostly seafood Sunday brunch laid out in the main portion of the restaurant. We were too late to partake of the buffet but noted it for next weekend. We’re coming back for that spread! After waiting no insignificant amount of time for a table, we spent the afternoon enjoying the truly excellent food and drinks while watching the Ravens ultimately lose in overtime.

While enjoying the game Kelly returned to the car to grab a dose of antacid and came back to the table with news that a car parked near the entrance had Maryland tags with a tag surround from Jones Junction in Bel Air. We must have spent the next half hour identifying the likely culprits in the bar. There was a group of three people seated right next to us who were cheering vigorously for the Ravens so we decided to ask them if they were the owners. They weren’t; however, after a quick back and forth it not only turns out that they were from Harford County but the gentleman of the party was the brother of a girl that Paul went all the way through grade and high schools with and had been to several of Paul’s birthday parties in early grade school. The world really is THAT SMALL.

Ranger was very well rested when we got home from the bar this evening and spared no expense telling us how happy he was to see us. He’s adapted quite well to being left alone in the trailer for a few hours and we no longer worry about leaving him when we go out for an afternoon. The rest of the evening was quiet as Paul continued the quest of getting caught up with the blog and Kelly watched some TV in the trailer.

Tripometer –  16,090 mi

Gas Gauge –  1257.666 gal

Location – Long Point Park and Campground, Melbourne Beach, FL

Lodging – $35

Cans of OFF – 4

Today was the hottest day we’ve experienced since the desert. The temperature approached and may have actually exceeded 90 degrees. We spent the entire day in camp playing with the dog, kayak, and fishing rods. We may have also consumed a few beers in the process.

Again, Ranger swam himself to death. By the time Kelly decided to give Ranger his first kayak ride he was exhausted and willing to sit still long enough to take a ride without trying to tip the kayak. We’ve done this with other goldens in the past but never with a dog as young as two. He has got to be the most level headed of any golden we’ve ever had. He seems to know when being boisterous will only cause trouble and the kayak ride went off without a hitch.

We’re not what anyone would call very social people, but during this trip we have adapted to our chosen path and have begun to be more chatty with our neighbors. Today was by far the most we’ve interacted with our RV park neighbors so far in this trip. As we said yesterday, the little beach that we are camping on has several other families camping on it, a few with dogs. Today we met most of our neighbors and now know most of them by name (dogs included). At one point today Riley, an older black lab three sites down got loose when Ranger was playing fetch in the water. Riley lost no time bounding up the beach to steal Ranger’s toy which was lying on the ground waiting for Kelly to throw again. Ranger was horrified. It will be a long time before we forget the look on his face as he looked back and forth between Riley prancing around with HIS toy and us. The confusion on his face was evident. He clearly could not believe that another dog was playing with HIS toy. We were genuinely concerned that all of this might cause a dog fight. Ranger hasn’t played with this toy in the water except with his sister Cutie well over a year ago when he was less than a year old. All ended well as Riley was taken back to his site to play with his own toys. We wish we had captured the look on Ranger’s face… so funny.

Right around dusk Paul took the kayak out to fish using live shrimp as bait. This, according to the fellow at the local bait shop, is the secret to catching fish in this part of the world. Floating around the little islands in front of our campsite he had several bites and lost no less than half of his dozen live shrimp to nibbles. After returning to camp as the light started to truly die he landed a very healthy-sized whiting from the shore. There are fish here other than catfish!

Special Note: Ranger sleeps in the bed with us most nights, travelling back and forth between the bunks as his whim hits him throughout the night. For most of the trip we have had copious amounts of dirt and debris in our bunks every night. Since he’s been swimming on a sandy beach, this has reached epic proportions. When climbing into bed several of the past few nights one of us (whomever had the pleasure of Ranger sleeping with them the majority of the prior night) has scooped out almost a cup of sand from their bunk. We’ve both contemplated stripping the sheets to have a truly sand free bed but haven’t knowing that as soon as he jumps up, all of that work will have been for naught. Add that to the list of things we’re looking forward to when we get home. A sand free bed.

Tripometer –  16,084 mi

Gas Gauge –  1257.666 gal

Location – Long Point Park and Campground, Melbourne Beach, FL

Lodging – $35

Cans of OFF – 4

While still lying in bed this morning the camp office called to let us know that due to a cancellation they had secured one site for us for the remainder of our 12 days here. No more trailer moves after today – YAY! We executed a typical within-park campsite move, meaning we didn’t bother to put away the aft bunk and essentially just threw the outdoor gear in and on the truck to move the 300 feet to our new site stopping only to empty the waste tanks at the dump. We were done and sitting in our new site by noon.

We are now situated on a much wider beach that several trailers are camped in front of. There are at least three dogs along this section of beach and at one point in the day all three were playing fetch in the water. It looked like a proper dog park in the water. The campground has the typical ‘all pets must be on leash’ rule but that doesn’t seem to be strictly enforced at all. This is the sixth day of camping at the water’s edge and Ranger is showing the signs of true fatigue. By this evening he was wearing the face you can see in the picture above. On the up side, he’s sleeping really well these days.

The temperature rose into the 80s today and after Kelly completed her work for the day our minds turned to the weekend. We did quite a bit of searching on the internet for a local shop where we could rent a kayak for a few days. The fishing from shore has not been as fruitful as we had hoped (though we still have not ventured to the jetty where we’re told the really good fishing is) and we feel like a kayak might allow us to extend our fishing range a bit. We’re also just flat out jealous of all of the boats that seemingly everyone in the park has. We decided at the start of this trip that we were not going to bring any of our myriad of boats with us because we didn’t want to either pay the gas or deal with the hassle of carrying a boat across the country and back (been there, done that). Now that we’re camped directly on the water, we need a watercraft for at least a few days to explore the area.

We found a rental company a few days ago just up the street that wanted $75 per day which is ridiculous. In our searching today we found prices as low as $45 per day across the water on the mainland, but even that sounds a bit high. Kelly, in a stroke of genius, decided to find out what the cheapest kayak at a nearby sporting goods store would cost. After a half hour of google-fu she came up with a cut rate boat at Walmart for $170. Doing the math, we can have a kayak for the rest of our stay for less than the price of 4 days rental at the cheapest rental shop. SOLD!

We spent the remainder of the day securing a boat, paddle and life jacket before returning to camp feeling like we had cheated the system. The boat is no racer and has to be the ugliest color Paul can imagine for a kayak, but it floats and due to the fact that it’s made for entry level canoers, it’s stable enough that you could do gymnastics in the thing without tipping. Tomorrow is going to be a fun day!

Tripometer –  16,024 mi

Gas Gauge –  1257.666 gal

Location – Long Point Park and Campground, Melbourne Beach, FL

Lodging – $35

Cans of OFF – 4

Ranger’s Birthday!

It was another cooler day today with the high just over 70 degrees. Ranger swam off and on throughout the day wearing himself out completely. Kelly did her very best to give him a birthday to remember (though he has no idea why). We picked up a package of three beef bones at the grocery store yesterday and he spent a good bit of the day contentedly gnawing on beef marrow at our feet before running back into the water for more fetch. He doesn’t seem to have a mental limit, but physically he is dead exhausted by the end of every evening.

Paul worked with the camp office to secure our stay in this park until December 19th. We just don’t feel the need to move the rig anywhere else. We’re loving the little campground that we’re in. The amenities are fantastic, our neighbors (during the week) are quiet and generally good company, the weather is nice and warm and the price is right. We were able to arrange the rest of our stay here so that we only have to move the trailer one more time, on Sunday, from site # 45 to site # 46, a very easy move considering we can carry all of our outdoor gear about 25 feet and be done.

Ranger’s twin, a female golden named Bailey, moved in next door to us this afternoon. Bailey is 11 and has a bad leg, but Ranger doesn’t know that and REALLY wants to play. He isn’t getting his proper dose of dog to dog play on this trip and that is taking its toll on him. That is one of the things we’re really looking forward to when we get home, true dog parks and play dates with his sister Cipher. We’re sure, by this point, that he thinks he’ll never see her again, but rest assured he remembers her as that is a forbidden name in the trailer. If we say her name or Christine’s name within ear shot of the little guy he will immediately jump up and start looking for them.

Now that we’ve set up the rig in a stationary location and the opportunities for tourism are dwindling, we’re starting to get a bit claustrophobic. The trailer is getting smaller by the day it seems. We are both longing for a wider selection of clothes, larger beds, a couch to lie down on and a refrigerator that can hold more than 2 meals worth of food. As much as we’d love to stay on the road to see and do more, it’s time to think about heading home to both space and responsibility.

Special Note: As we’ve talked about a few times, Ranger is getting more and more communicative as time goes by. He has started to whine and grumble for a fairly wide variety of wants and needs. Considering the activity level that we’ve maintained over the last 5 months, we’re not sure how he’s going to adapt to winter in Maryland without swimming and so much outdoor time. We’re dreading the idea that he does nothing but whine and grumble all day every day, wanting to go play fetch in the bay during January.

Tripometer –  16,021 mi

Gas Gauge –  1257.666 gal

Location – Long Point Park and Campground, Melbourne Beach, FL

Lodging – $35

Cans of OFF – 4

As soon as Kelly finished a bit of social media writing this morning, we jumped in the car and drove towards Cape Canaveral. The launch was on schedule. We had breakfast at a little café about an hour north of our campground and found the sign and flags above, right next to the parking lot. We were both a bit stunned that this is actually a thing and wonder what must have happened to make someone think this was the best course of action to take. What happens when all of the flags end up on one side of the road?

We pulled off the road at a parking lot just on the east side of the A. Max Brewer Bridge in Titusville. Taking position along the bridge rails with hundreds of other spectators we watched with glee as the rocket launched with a somewhat muted roar. Sadly, we didn’t do our research early enough to take advantage of VIP tickets that Kelly can get through work friends and were several miles away from the launch zone. If we HAD been on the ball, we could have secured seats in what is called the gantry viewing area located at the neighboring launch pad which would have been well less than a mile away. Next time!

Probably more spectacular than the launch was watching and listening as the rocket’s spent second stage thundered back to earth at well over the speed of sound, it blasted a sonic boom which was much louder than the launch and landed in the water on the ocean side of the cape. It was intended to land back at the cape on a landing zone, but a malfunction on the rocket forced the command center to send it into the ocean. It’s still a new technology, returning the spent rockets to earth in a controlled manner, and it sometimes malfunctions but in this case it was retrieved by boat and will be used again in the future. So very cool.

Leaving the Cape we travelled back down the coast doing a few errands along the way. We stopped in a little pizzeria for dinner and then retired to the trailer for another quiet evening.

Tripometer –  15,883 mi

Gas Gauge –  1257.666 gal

Location – Long Point Park and Campground, Melbourne Beach, FL

Lodging – $35

Cans of OFF – 4

Today’s SpaceX launch was postponed until tomorrow. This is an ‘instant launch window,’ meaning that if they miss the launch by so much as a second then it must be postponed by at least 24 hours. Apparently while loading the cargo for the launch they noted that some of the mouse food for an onboard experiment was moldy and needed to be replaced before liftoff. That seems somewhat preposterous but at the same time entirely real-life. Regardless, Kelly was up at the crack of dawn to make her own press release window which launched without issue.

It rained at about 4am last night which cooled things off dramatically versus yesterday. It was still a shorts day, but windy and we were wandering around in fleeces by the early afternoon.

Paul ran some laundry this afternoon in the campground laundry machines and forgot to put a dryer sheet in the dryer. Even the laundry smells of the swamp. We can’t imagine what the locals must do to mitigate the odor in their daily lives. You can buy bottled water for drinking and cooking but who would have thought that the laundry would smell as well?

It was a relatively relaxing day in camp. We enjoyed steaks on the grill and a few glasses of wine for dinner tonight. The Space X launch is still on schedule for tomorrow afternoon so Kelly did a little work ahead of time this evening so that we can take the time to travel north tomorrow to see it.

Special Note: The weather has been so consistently nice that we’ve been mostly barefoot since we arrived in Florida. We’ve noticed that our feet do not have the toughness that we’re accustomed to, most likely due to the fact that for the past couple of months we haven’t been able to go barefoot due to cacti, thorns, nasty desert critters and the like in the desert southwest.

Tripometer –  15,878 mi

Gas Gauge –  1257.666 gal

Location – Long Point Park and Campground, Melbourne Beach, FL

Lodging – $35

Cans of OFF – 4

This campground is tremendously quiet. That probably won’t last through the weekend, but for now we’re really enjoying the lack of hustle and bustle. While Kelly worked, Paul continued his blog work in the shade of the awning. It’s a hot day, in the mid to upper 80s and it feels wonderful. In the mid-morning our neighbor from two sites down spotted a racoon behaving oddly in the middle of the campground loop. Sadly it was immediately apparent that it was rabid. Paul called the park office and informed them of the situation, expecting that they would call the authorities, but what happened was a little more surprising. A mere 5 minutes from placing the call a young woman from the front desk showed up on a golf cart with an animal cage and a dog catcher’s pole, scooped up the racoon, and drove off as though this were something that happens every day. That experience made us completely re-evaluate how we look at racoons in this area. If rabid animals are so common that the desk clerk at the campground office takes care of them on their own within minutes, we need to be on high alert for racoons around Ranger. Scary stuff. We learned later that some estimates say that 50% of the racoons in Florida are carriers of the disease. Yikes.

It was generally a quiet day in camp. We fished, swam, worked, and took it easy while trying to stay cool (!) in the heat. At lunch time we drove in to Vero Beach for food, groceries, and a few staples at the local Publix.

Ranger had another amazing day. He has been enjoying the wildlife around our campsite tremendously. The pelicans are of unusual size here and are constantly diving for fish along the waterway behind our site. In addition, we have seen several pods of bottle nosed dolphins swim by. We managed to catch a picture of Ranger the first time he saw a dolphin. He’s seen us pull fish from the water on several occasions but he clearly had not imagined that something this large lived in the water. He kept looking over his shoulder at us as though confirming that we too saw what he was seeing. Mind Blown!

There are two great danes staying at a campsite a few down from us who came to visit today. As is the way with great danes, Thunder and Dylan looked more like small horses than dogs, but Ranger recognized the play possibilities and goaded the younger of the two, Thunder, into a vigorous play session which quickly got out of hand (for him). Thunder quickly learned that he could lie on top of Ranger and immobilize him during their tussling. That was fine until they were both tired and Thunder decided to stay lying on top of Ranger for longer than a second or two. After a couple of pitiful sounds from Ranger, Thunder’s owner pulled him off of Ranger and Ranger retreated about 30 feet away from Thunder and sat down with a fairly defeated look on his face. Neither of us have ever seen Ranger walk away from playtime with another dog. Apparently that was a bit too much. While the two danes visited us, a couple of much smaller dogs walked by with their owner but didn’t stop. The dane’s owner jokingly called them ‘treats on feet’ which we found hilarious.

Paul’s fishing was less successful than he had hoped for. He started fishing today with cut shrimp and was rewarded with 4 or 5 very small catfish, on the order of 6-10 inches. Not what we were looking for. We’ll have to try some different tactics.

Tomorrow Kelly has a press release in the morning and we are planning on driving up to Cape Canaveral for a SpaceX launch at 1pm. To get all of that done Kelly has to wake up crazy early in the morning. It was a very early night.

Paul went for a shower in the late evening to find the absolute worst showers we’ve experienced on the trip. One of the bathrooms in the park is being torn down and replaced so they’ve brought in a shower trailer with 6 extraordinarily small shower stalls, all with cord actuated shower heads. In other words, to actuate the water you had to maintain constant pressure on the cord. Imagine having to shampoo your hair with one hand while pulling down on a cord with your other. Awful. (We learned the next morning that the next bathroom down had much better showers without pull cords).

Tripometer –  15,829 mi

Gas Gauge –  1257.666 gal

Location – Long Point Park and Campground, Melbourne Beach, FL

Lodging – $35

Cans of OFF – 4

It’s another beautifully warm and sunny day in camp. Kelly spent much of the morning working on social media while Paul packed up the trailer for the move (loosely, as our next campsite was no more than 3 or 4 miles from here.) We were packed up and on our way by 11am. Thankfully, when we arrived our campsite was empty and we immediately settled into our new digs. Ranger was swimming on his personal beach before the trailer jacks had even hit the ground.

We made one stop along the way to our new campsite for ice and bottled water. We’re switching to bottled water for two reasons. Firstly, we are both still feeling queasy almost every day (as well as other symptoms which we won’t discuss in detail). The owners manual for our camper recommends sterilizing the water system every three months. We haven’t done that on this trip because we’ve been mostly hooked to chlorinated water supplies and have been using the water system daily without fail, but as we’ve been trying to figure out why we feel bad this has come up as a possibility. Secondly, as is often the case on barrier islands, the water tastes like the swamp. Swampy coffee sucks.

While Kelly swam and swam and swam Ranger, Paul got camp all set up, worked on the blog, rigged our fishing poles for salt water and generally soaked up the sunshine. It didn’t take either of us very long to conclude that we would be staying in this campground longer than just this week. Our plan for Florida is just to get warm and relax a little before heading back to reality in Maryland. We had originally planned to travel as far south as the Everglades and the keys, but this just doesn’t seem to make much sense now. Camping in extreme south Florida is both expensive and difficult to get reservations in this time of year. We know if we were to move into that area we would likely spend much of our time moving campgrounds rather than relaxing, fishing, swimming, and devouring the weather. With that said, we booked a site here for next weekend as soon as we found out they had availability in the campground. How lucky is that?

We spent this evening finishing off the last of the boudin and red beans and rice from New Orleans while watching a distant thunderstorm over the ocean. While walking the dog in the later part of the evening after dark, Paul caught a snippet of conversation that will haunt us for at least the next 24 hours. The sentence was “… He was hopped up on probiotics and hormones…”. We tried for quite a while to figure out what context would make that a reasonable sentence but we’re guessing the person was thinking of steroids? Too damned funny.

As we fell asleep this evening we were serenaded by the ocean waves in the distance broken by the sounds of fish jumping in the water behind our trailer. Ranger is nigh on unconscious.

Tripometer –  15,797 mi

Gas Gauge –  1257.666 gal

Location – Sebastian Inlet State Park, Sebastian, FL

Lodging – $25

Cans of OFF – 4

Last night we were eaten by noseeums all night long. By morning we were furious as we were convinced our trailer didn’t have noseeum screen. Subsequent nights since then have demonstrated that, no, we were just stupid as we were setting up our rig last night and left the door open too much. We’ll be much more careful from here on out. Nasty bastards.

We woke this morning to a beautiful day. The temperature was in the 70s and 80s all day. We spent the morning simply enjoying the weather and investigating the local area. After breakfast at a little café about a mile down the road, we drove into Long Point Park Campground, the island based park we mentioned yesterday. We found a nice strong cell signal throughout the park and immediately made reservations for all of next week. The site we’ve selected is gorgeous. Next week our trailer will be about 1.5 feet above sea level and the back edge our trailer will be about 5 feet from the water. Ranger will have his own beach to swim from and given all of the activity in the area, the fishing looks amazing. Honestly, we didn’t expect to be this lucky. Finding excellent camping in Florida this time of year can be extremely difficult.

Ranger has been almost unbearable whenever we get within smelling distance of the water for the past several days. He really needs a swim. Caving in to his whining we went in search of a dog beach somewhere near the campground but we found that every beach in the area has huge signs banning pets on the beach. For that matter, they ban seemingly most of the pleasurable activities on the beach except walking, sunbathing and swimming. Returning to the state park we asked where we could swim the dog and they directed us to the western edge of the park. The ranger explained that rules require we leave Ranger on the leash to swim, but said, with a wink of her eye that the rangers rarely make it out to the point and it was worth the risk to let him off the leash. He was more than ecstatic to go swimming again. It’s going to be a long cold winter for this pup once we get back to winter in Maryland…

Knowing now that we would be staying at the waters edge for several days we stopped by the marina in Sebastian Inlet that has kayaks for rent. At $75 per day it’s unlikely that we’ll be renting from them, but while we were there we quizzed the desk attendant on local sights and things to do. She recommended that we have an early dinner in Vero beach and to be done in time for the annual Christmas parade at 6pm tonight. She suggested a restaurant called Waldo’s which has excellent food and drinks and is located right on the beach. Perfect!

Our dinner at Waldo’s was good, but generally unremarkable except for an American flag planted firmly in the ocean some 200 feet out from shore. The waitress explained that it is attached to the boiler from the wreck of the S.S. Breconshire. The Breconshire was built for Great Britain in 1833 and wrecked here on April 30, 1894. All that remains of the wreck is the ships boiler which lies very close to the surface and requires a mark to prevent additional wrecks. It has become a yearly tradition for some of the locals to swim out to the boiler on the 4th of July to install an American Flag on the mark. That’s pretty cool!

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At 5:45ish, the entire restaurant and bar emptied as if by magic. We proceeded to the street out front to watch the Christmas Parade. Neither of us have ever been away from home for Christmas, much less enjoyed Christmas in a tropical location, so the whole concept of watching a Christmas parade in shorts and t-shirts seemed really odd. The parade was actually really well done and very well attended. Our favorite float had to have been the lifeguards float. Having been lifeguards for many years, we were not surprised to see that they had several coolers on board the float and had clearly pre-gamed the event!

As pleased as we are with our current setup, we went to sleep this evening really looking forward to moving to our new campsite across the inlet tomorrow. Ranger has no idea that his world is about to get so much better!

Tripometer –  15,743 mi

Gas Gauge –  1239.387 gal

Location – Sebastian Inlet State Park, Sebastian, FL

Lodging – $25

Cans of OFF – 4

IT’S WARM, FINALLY!

Shorts and t-shirts are the clothes of choice today. We got chased out of our bunks this morning because it was too warm to sleep in the closed up trailer, Halleluiah! Kelly began her work for the day outside with her coffee at the picnic table as Paul packed up the rig to move.

Moving out in the early afternoon we stopped at a restaurant chain called Chicken Salad Chick and were delighted with the food. We’re not sure why this restaurant chain hasn’t made its way north to Baltimore yet, but we’re certain that we’ll be seeing it in our home region shortly. They offer a wide range of different chicken salads, egg salads, and of all things, pimento cheeses served with traditional salad and topped off with homemade cookies (which weren’t the star of the show). That was a pleasant surprise.

We stopped at a Bass Pro Shop in Daytona Beach to grab our fishing licenses and Ranger had his first experience with an elevator. If you have a dog and get the opportunity to take them into an elevator, you should not miss the experience. We’ve done this with most of our dogs at least once and it’s never been boring. Ranger handled it better than some of our past dogs but he reacted in a predictably exaggerated manner when the elevator started moving downward. The real treat in this elevator was the glass windows on one side of the elevator car. We think we blew his mind.

On our drive to Sebastian Inlet Paul noticed an odd looking island near the inlet and zoomed in to find a beautiful looking county campground that didn’t show up in his google searches. We’re definitely going to look into the park a bit further while we’re nearby.

Arriving at Sebastian Inlet just before dark we were blown away by the sunset. The picture above was taken as Paul walked back to the rig after checking in at the camp office. The park appears to be primarily a fishing location and operates on a 24 hour schedule to accommodate enthusiastic fishermen. Driving from the camp office to our campsite we must have passed 50 people fishing from shore along the inlet and the inlet itself had probably 30-40 small boats doing the same thing. The snook are in season and from the activity around the fish cleaning station we can confidently say that fishing is good. We’ve come to the right place!