Trip from Florida to Tennessee

March 1st – March 31st

Family

Last month, I mentioned that my mother, Ginger, bought a new home in Riverview, Florida. I (and sometimes Ed) went over to her place every weekend to help her pack and clean out her apartment. Ginger used to live in a mother in-law apartment at my brother’s, Scott, house for about 10 years. So, we thought she didn’t have that much stuff to pack or move. Well, my mother is an awesome storage organizer and used every spot in that apartment. She had a lot more stuff than we had thought. lol

Ginger’s new home in Kingswood subdivision at Riverview, FL

Ginger closed on her house on 15th of March and Scott, Ed and I helped her move for two days. We used Scott’s 10 foot trailer, Ed’s truck and Ginger’s car for most of her stuff. Ginger’s new home is only about 7 miles away from the apartment and we made several trips each day. We were very tired and achy when we were done with the move. I helped my mom unpack, arrange, rearrange, and organize her place. We also hung up most of her pictures on the wall. She was pretty much all settle in within a couple of days. I was very impressed how quick she got everything put away. Now, as for trying to remember where she put it all is the adventure that she will be taking for awhile. lol

I had a wonderful time being with my family. Thank you Scott for all that you have done for mom. I didn’t get a chance to see my sister, Holly, while we were in Bowling Green, Florida due to being busy helping my mom. I will see her the next time we are down in Florida. I was able to have some one on one time with my mom during all the packing and unpacking. We had a great time together as we always do. I will miss her while we are on the road but I know I can always fly down to see her anytime. It was a tear jerking moment saying goodbye to her but I know we are only a phone call away. Love you Mom!

My mom and I at her new home

Ed’s 29″ mountain bike

Last month I wrote about getting a new mountain bike and I had not had a chance to try it off road yet. Well I went to Alifia State Park where they have miles of trails all around an old rock quarry that has allowed to be reclaimed by the trees, underbrush and water. Some of these trails are a little tight around trees and on narrow ledges between rock walls and drop offs into ponds. There are several bridges and banked turns made of wood planks to add to the experience. The trail markers are color coded and shaped like ski slope markings; round and green are easy, square and blue are intermediate, and black diamonds (or double black diamonds) are difficult or expert. I rode all the green trails and two of the blue trails my first day out totaling about 12 miles. My legs were pretty rubbery after the last trail but it was fun; especially a blue trail called roller coaster. You can view some of these trail from the perspective of the rider on U-tube, just search mountain biking at Alifia State Park.

RV repair and maintenance

In February and part of March Ed did some maintenance and repair work on our rig.

1. Repair the water line to the refrigerator – Our water line that goes to the refrigerator is exposed under the slide out and I knew it would be a problem in the winter. When we stayed in TN in the winter it froze a couple of times but would thaw out during the day. I put foam pipe insulation around it to try to prevent it from freezing during overnight low temperatures. It worked for most of the time but late January we encountered three straight days where the high temp never got above 32 degrees and the lows were 9 degrees. Well, it froze. When the temperature warmed up it started to leak after it thawed out. I shut off the water to the refrigerator until I had time to fix it. When we arrived in Bowling Green, Florida, I cut out the part of the tubing that was split and put a union on the tubing and now we can have filtered water from the refrigerator.
2. Remove and reapply sealant on slideouts – They say you are suppose to remove and reseal the rig every two years which is part of maintaining the rig and prevent leaks. I think the previous owner didn’t do that. It took a lot of patience and practice for Ed to remove and reseal the joints on the slide outs but I think he did a great job.
3. Repair the screws on the bottom of the front cap where the pin box is located – Four adjacent screws in the lap seal for the front cap had worked their way loose with two of them completely falling out. The sealant was starting to separate from the trim. I removed the trim, cleaned up the old sealant, replaced the trim with the next larger size screws and reapplied new sealant.
4. Patched a hole on the topper – While we were staying at TN Hills Campground a tree branch poked a hole in our topper over the living room slide out during a storm. So Ed put a piece of clear tape that is meant to be used on toppers over the hole so it won’t get any bigger.

Parks
Payne Creek Historic State Park, Bowling Green, FL

We took the Peace River Trail that goes down the Payne Creek until it flows into the Peace River. Then the trail follows the Peace River upstream for a couple hundred yards before looping back to the start of the trail. We saw egrets on the water and heard lots of birds singing away. Ed spotted a juvenile Florida panther on the trail. I didn’t see it in time. He reported it to the park ranger and they said they would check their game cameras to see if it captured the panther.

Mosaic Peace River Park, Fort Meade, FL

This park is located in Polk County, FL. It is all boardwalk in the little swamp area. We didn’t see any wildlife but did hear a pair of owls hooting away. We couldn’t see them but

Campgrounds

Avion Palms, Bowling Green, Florida

We stayed here from February 1st to March 22nd. We enjoyed being there and met some great people along the way. When a renter stays at an owner’s lot for more than a month or so the owner may asked the renter to take care of the lawn during their stay. So, Ed used the park’s lawn mower and edger to mow about 60×10 feet of grass and also pulled some weeds. Oh poor guy he thought he was done mowing and pulling weeds since we sold our home. lol

Ed mowing on lot #75

They had a St. Patrick’s Day parade, dinner and dance at their park on the 17th of March. They did an awesome job decorating their golf carts, motorcycles and scooters. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. They were very creative and festive. We had a blast!

We left Avion Palms on the 22nd to head back to Tennessee for a couple of weeks. We drove about 4 hours to Lake City for an overnight stay at Casey Jones RV Park.

Casey Jones RV Park, Lake City, Florida

We stayed in a pull thru site #58B full hook-up for one night. They are located right off I-75 and have 120 sites with cable, laundry, restrooms with showers and free Wi-Fi. It was an easy drive with no traffic delays to Lake City. Casey Jones RV Park is not one of my favorite places to stay but for an overnight stay it worked great for us especially when Ed didn’t have to unhitch. We usually don’t like making an overnight stay but we wanted to stay in Georgia an extra night to get a free night stay with our Friends of Georgia State Parks pass.http://gastateparks.org/ParkPass We left early in the morning and headed to Pine Mountain, Georgia for another 4 hour drive.

F.D.R. State Park, Pine Mountain, Georgia

We camped here on our way down to Florida and decided to come back here for three nights. Here is the link about our previous stay at this park. The park was almost full but we found a back in site with 30 amp electric and water. We did fine with 30 amp because we didn’t need to use both of our air conditioners.

Site #310

The pollen was extremely high here! I had a sinus headache for a couple of days but felt okay. I stayed inside most of the time and didn’t want to be outside much due to the allergies.

We drove around F.D.R. State Park and stop at Dowdell’s Knob which was Roosevelt’s favorite spot to visit during the summer. It is a beautiful view and nice place to chill.

I decided to ride my bike from the campground to the Gardens Overlook parking area so I could get on the Overlook Loop trail for a 3.5 mile hike. It was a 3.5 mile bike ride with a 400 foot verticle climb. I actually walked the bike for about 50 yards two different times. Needless to say a few places were fairly steep. I chained my bike to a tree just off of the parking area in the woods. Out of site, out of mind; I didn’t want anyone to make off with my ride. I walked the Overlook Loop trail down to an area with several foot bridges over small streams that were constructed as an Eagle project by on of the local Boy Scouts. That section was named Little Bridges. It was an easy walk down about 340 feet and then a long steady climb back up. The trail takes you to the western terminus of the Pine Mountain Trail at the entrance to FDR State Park. From there I walked about 1.3 miles of the Pine Mountain Trail to complete the loop hike.

Our son, Trevor, had given me a CamelBack hydration pack for Christmas a year and a half ago but I had not used it until this hike. It worked great, especially when combining the bike and hike, as I did not have to carry a couple bottles of GatorAde in my fanny pack. I retrieved my bike and rode about 1.7 miles to the park office where I had an ice cream bar as a treat. After that the ride back to the campground was all down hill. I was flying and had to use my brakes several times, all the while hoping a deer doesn’t decide to run out in front of me. It was a good afternoon; biked 7 miles and hiked 3.8 miles. My Garmin VivoActive said I set a personal record for bike climbing and for bike speed.

Chattahoochee Bend State Park, Newnan, GA

This park is in the national forest and the park occupies 2,910 acres and is Georgia’s 5th largest state park. The park is located on the northwest end of Coweta County and runs along the banks of the Chattahoochee River for 7 miles. The have two loops with a total of 49 campsites with a mix of RV and tent sites. We chose a very long (100 ft) back in campsite #110 with 50 amp electric and water for three nights. We chose this site due to the nice view of the woods.

At night we heard owls hooting away in the woods. It sounded like dogs barking to me but it was a pair of Short Ear Owls. Sorry no pictures they were to far away.

The pollen here was worse than at F.D.R. State Park. I started to cough more but still felt just okay. I used a lot of my Young Living Essential Oils (Distributor # 544344) and vitamins to combat the sinus pressure and cough caused by the allergies. They were helping but I still wasn’t up to par. I guess my system doesn’t like pollen. lol I did walk a little bit to the river but didn’t do any hiking around the area but Ed did.

I rode my bike around the roads in the park and back to the visitors center. There were a lot of hills and my ride was 6 miles with over 500 feet of elevation gain. This state park has 3.5 miles of mountain bike trails and they have plans to increase this up to 20 miles. There is access to the bike trail directly across the road from the entrance to the campground loop 1. I rode the bike trails and they were mostly through the pine forest, on pine needles. This is a little different than on dirt, pine needles are slippery if you cut too fast or brake too hard. The trails were easy but I still got a pretty good workout.

The next day I decided to hike the Riverside Trail. I wanted to go all the way to the end to an area for platform camping but there was a tree harvest taking place and the trail was closed around the 4 mile mark.

Since I could not hear any equipment running I decided to continue beyond the closure. Well, the tree harvest took out all the trees around the trail and there were no marking to follow.

I continued on until I reached the bath house for the platform camping area and was running out of daylight so I had to turn back. I got back to our camp well before sunset and my VivoActive said I did 9.1 miles.

Cloudland Canyon State Park, Rising Fawn, GA

This park straddles a deep gorge cut into the mountain by Daniel Creek and elevation varies from 800 to 1,980 feet. The view of the gorge is beautiful and can be seen from the picnic area or on the trails.

View from the east rim near the interpretive center

This park offers 72 tent and trailer sites each with water and electrical hook-ups, table and grill. There is an east rim campground and a west rim campground.  We chose a pull-thru site in the west rim campground and Ed stayed hitched again.

Site #14

After we settled in our RV, I started to feel worse and felt achy all over. The next morning Ed took me to a walk-in clinic in Look Out Mountain about 20 miles from the park. I received a steroid shot and prescriptions for a decongestant and an antibiotic. I do not like being sick and can be such a big baby about it. lol. I think the oils kept the allergies at bay for as long it could. I guess being outside in the pollen that my immune system needed some help. After of couple of days on the meds, I started to feel better and had no problem driving to our next destination.

Cloudland Canyon State Park has 23.3 miles of trails for hiking, biking and Horseback riding. I didn’t do any of them but Ed did some hiking.

Cloudland Canyon has over 20 miles of mountain bike trails of various difficulty. I did not ride any of the trails. I did hike a little though. The West Rim Trail can be accessed from the west campground via a short connector.

I came across a couple of critters; the snake was longer than my hiking stick which is over 4 feet and the goat is kind of a celebrity around the park.  The view of the canyon is outstanding from several overlooks along the West Rim Trail.

View from the West Rim Trail

The distance from the west campground around the loop and back to the west campground is 3.9 miles according to my VivoActive with over 500 feet of elevation change. The second trail I did was the Waterfalls Trail but I had to use the West Rim Trail to access it from the campground. There are two waterfalls to view; Cherokee Falls and Hemlock Falls.

Cherokee Falls

Hemlock Falls

The Waterfalls trail connects to Sitton’s Gulch Trail which also passes an unnamed waterfall. It is unnamed because it only flows if there has been sufficient rainfall. I walked down Sitton’s Gulch for about a half mile before turning around and returning to the campground. The distance of this walk was 3.6 miles with an elevation change of over 800 feet.

On April 1st we left around 11:00 am and drove for two hours to Tullahoma, TN.

Well that is it for March.

See ya’ll later.