Sugar mill ruins
Left side of the mill
It looks like there were some nice nature trails within the park. But there are also some nice ones outside the park. If I wanted to walk I would save the $4.
Historic marker
Bulow Plantation Ruins Historic State Park
Categories: Adventures, FL, Places, TN5
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“Imperfect Strangers” by Stuart Woods
Copyright 1995 by Stuart Woods. Published by HarperCollins.
This is my first Stuart Woods novel ever and it won’t be my last. He is a very talented writer who kept my interest.
Those of you familiar with the movie Strangers on a Train will recognize the starting premise: two strangers meet – on a plane, not a train – and discuss the possibility of killing each other’s wives. Woods gives credit where it is due: the strangers broach the subject because the movie was shown on the flight. The plot continues in a familiar way initially. They meet again, discuss the details of how both murders would be done and they agree to do it. Then one – Sandy Kinsolving, a wine executive in his wife’s family business in New York – decides he can’t go through with it and executes the agreed-upon signal to call it all off. But his wife is murdered anyway, in a way that suggests that the other husband ignored his signal. And since she was murdered right after she told Sandy that she was filing for divorce and wants him out of the business, Sandy is a prime suspect. He has an iron-clad alibi, but the detective on the case is convinced that he hired someone to kill her and tries very hard to prove it.
Sandy is none too pleased that his attempt to call off the execution was ignored. But he can’t deny that he is pleased that his wife is gone as she died before she had a chance to change her will. He not only inherits her half of the thriving business – which he sells for a nifty $28 million – but he finds a new love interest, a beautiful interior decorator.
But the other husband – Peter Martindale, a San Francisco art dealer – won’t let him off the hook. He says he has proof that Sandy masterminded the execution of his wife and has deposited that proof with his lawyer with instructions to send the proof – a full description of their murder-exchange agreement, along with the keys to the basement storage unit that Sandy had given him and where his wife was murdered – to the police in the event of his death. So much for the idea of killing him instead of Martindale’s wife. Sandy feels cornered and compelled to go through with his half of the bargain. So, during a trip to San Francisco to tour some vineyards, he attempts to kill Peter’s wife in her art gallery. But someone beats him to it: he arrives at the gallery to find it surrounded by police and a body being carried out.
What is going on?
What follows is a rapid series of moves and countermoves that are pretty fascinating and veer the plot away from the original. I was constantly surprised and even 80% of the way through the book had no idea where it was headed, though I did feel that it was likely to end up in Sandy’s favor as he was much more sympathetic as a character than was Peter.
I was right. Sandy ends up smelling like roses, but the way he triumphs was pretty interesting. The conclusion was a little bit of a letdown, but the book was still a very worthwhile read.
7 out of 10.
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Tomoka State Park
Chief Tomokie statue
Another day, another state park. This one, Tomoka State Park in Ormond Beach FL, is larger and has a wider variety of recreational activities than the Bulow Creek State Park. Florida apparently thinks it is better because it charges $4 to enter.
The park encompasses the site of an ancient Timucuan Indian village, documented by an early Spanish explorer in 1564. The park also contains a rather odd statue giving homage to Chief Tomokie of those ancient Timucuans.
You can fish, swim, canoe and camp in this park. I stopped at the park store for some refreshments and to enjoy the view on a beautiful day.
Drawing of Timucuan village
Boat rentals at park store
Categories: Adventures, FL, Places
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Bulow Creek State Park
A southern live oak
Fairchild Oak trunk
We have a TV problem at our new campground. No OTA stations and the funky cable system, which requires a cable box (free) doesn’t seem to work either. So we are facing 2 weeks with no TV – a period which includes the finale of Big Bang Theory. This is not good. And it is going to make me stir crazy.
Jett basically kicked me out of the RV yesterday, demanding that I go check out the Bulow Plantation Ruins Historic State Park just down the road a bit. Well, I couldn’t do that because it was closed on Tuesdays, so I did the next best thing: I checked out Bulow Creek State Park, right next to the plantation ruins.
We have found the Florida state parks to be very nice and very well maintained. Bulow Creek is no exception. But it is a small park whose main feature is trees. More specifically, southern live oak trees – huge, hulking trees that are made more impressive by the Spanish moss dangling from their branches. The main tree is the Fairchild Oak, which is nearly 90 feet tall, about 300 feet wide and perhaps 500 years old. An impressive tree. Admiring it took about 5 minutes.
The other attraction of the park is nature trails, the longest of which is over 6 miles. I went about 200 yards down this trail. Seems nice, but I was wearing sandals and wasn’t about to go trekking.
Categories: Adventures, FL, Places
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TN5 Hop 2: Flagler Beach FL to Flagler Beach FL
TN5 Hop 2
10 miles via FL A1A, FL 100 and Old Kings Rd. Cumulative tow miles: 237. Truck miles: 293. Cumulative truck miles: 530. The truck miles were accumulated in my trip to St Augustine and various shopping trips in and around Flagler Beach. Plus two trips to the hospital.
Once again, this was not the hop that I planned. We are now committed to spending a total of 3 weeks in Flagler Beach while Jett undergoes a series of tests. While we liked our initial destination in Flagler Beach – Beverly Beach Camptown – there were 3 things that argued against staying there for the duration:
- Cost. It is expensive – ridiculously so, for what you get.
- Salt spray. If we stayed for 3 weeks I think the truck would have been reduced to a pile of rust.
- Lovebugs. These little pests bloomed while we were there. By the time we left they were swarming. They might be gone in a couple more days but they would be a miserable couple of days.
As I said, we liked Beverly Beach Camptown. Being close to the ocean was nice and was a balm for the emotional burns we suffered with Jett’s illness. She enjoyed the sound of the surf and the smell of the salt spray.
Oher than proximity to the ocean, the campground doesn’t offer much else. The office staff was pleasant and efficient and the camp store was pretty nice. It had a small but adequate laundromat that we almost – but not quite – used. The beach was more golden than white, but the sand was very soft and the beach was very clean. I can’t comment on the water as I didn’t jump in.
Being on the Atlantic, the sunrises were spectacular. Jett, of course, slept through them. But I didn’t.
Sunrise on the Atlantic
Our site
Categories: FL, Places, Routes, RV Parks
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Cypress Trail RV Resort
Awesome sunsets
This is my first ever review of an RV resort where we are residents. I will keep it brief as I can’t possibly be completely objective.
In a nutshell… we like it!
My hibiscus at sunset
How so? Let me count the ways:
- A very nice community center with ballroom and kitchen.
- An “omni” room with pool tables and cable TV.
- A large, attractive pool.
- A poolside patio with tiki (but no bar).
- A small laundry room (but large enough) with very nice machines (and a broken coin dispenser).
- A card room/exchange library with a large collection of books. We may never buy another book.
- A very nice dog park with “large” and “small” sides.
- Wide roads and sidewalks.
- Very nice pickleball courts. Also bocce, shuffleboard and tennis.
- Two beautiful ponds.
- Fun activities (thanks, Michelle!).
- Our site – spacious, private, nice pavers and beautiful landscaping, including a wonderful hibiscus.
- Our shed. Next winter we will have our own washer and dryer!
- Wonderful neighbors.
- Awesome sunsets.
Also, the resort is in Ft Myers. We like Ft Myers. The Red Sox are here in the spring.
Ok, enough gushing. What is wrong with the place?
- Poor cable TV. The cable TV is included in the monthly HOA fee, but it is very basic – about 40 channels, of which we view maybe 10. But… not all of the channels are viewable all the time. The signal is weak with the result that our living room TV picks up maybe 25 of the 40 and none of the network channels (switching from cable to antenna and back again is really, really annoying). And sometimes fewer. It isn’t weather that causes the problem; the signal is just weak all the time.
- No tiki bar. This really isn’t that big a deal except that (1) Gulf Waters, which we regard as the standard for a really great RV resort, had a tiki bar by the pool that we loved and (2) we were told when we bought our site at Cypress Trail that a tiki bar would be there when we took up residence. A broken promise.
- Weak WiFi. This is probably a corollary of the “poor cable TV” problem as they are both served up by the cable system. We were surprised and pleased, initially, that we got a free internet modem, but the quality has been mediocre (we sometimes can’t get Netflix when we want to watch it) and the WiFi has been nearly useless.
- The developer. The park is relatively new – about 6 years old, I am told – and the developer (or, more specifically, the on-site developer agent) is universally disliked. The park is currently managed by a board consisting of 2 developer reps and 1 owner rep, so the developer still controls everything. But that will change soon – probably next winter – when the number of sold sites exceeds 90% of the total number of sites. The board at that point will transition to a majority of owner reps, so the owners will gain control. This is exciting, but also will be a time of turmoil and uncertainty. We probably should have paid more attention to how the park was managed before we bought in.
- I mentioned the broken coin dispenser in the laundry room and I will use this as an example of a larger problem: the office management. The coin dispenser was broken when we arrived in November and was still broken when we left in May. I don’t know what the problem was or why it was so difficult to fix, but to have no coin dispenser in the only coin-operated laundry on the premises is really unacceptable – especially since the office staff was prohibited from keeping cash of any kind, including quarters. At the very least the machine should have been replaced or a second one obtained. But, as I said, this was indicative of the general disorganization and incompetence of the office staff. I had to make four separate requests to obtain my mailbox key when I arrived and finally had to stand in the office and refuse to leave until a key was in my hand. Unacceptable.
But, overall, we are very happy with out decision. The HOA fees are low ($200 per month) and should remain low even after transition. This dramatically changes the economics of RV ownership as we now could, in theory, stay in Ft Myers year-round for $200 per month. Of course we really don’t want to do this because (1) Ft Myers in summer is hot, humid and very wet, (2) we have friends and family in New England that we enjoy seeing and (3) we still like to travel. But staying year-round at no additional cost is now an option.
Our nearly empty street
Pool
Michelle
Ballroom
Entertainment on the patio
Did I mention sunsets?
Categories: FL, Places, RV Parks
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Tripus interruptus
The AdventHealth waiting room at midnight
Yes, for the fourth trip in a row (the transatlantic cruise, TN4, TS4 and now TN5), the trip has not gone according to plan. The truck is not the problem this time; as with the transatlantic cruise, the problem is Jett’s health.
She has not been well for a long time – at least 18 months. She has been suffering severe abdominal pain for the past several months but other than getting blood tests for a possible recurrence of the low hemoglobin problem that scotched our cruise (no problem – the hemoglobin levels were tolerable), she has resisted going to a doctor, rationalizing that she will see her regular, trusted PC physician when she gets north.
But on the evening of our arrival in Flagler Beach after the 5 hour first hop of TN5, she was in so much pain that I took her to the ER at AdventHealth Hospital in Palm Coast. They did a CT scan, gave her a prescription for pain medication and sent her home with some unintelligible scan results and a recommendation that she return to discuss the CT scan with a specialist. We extended our stay so that we could see the specialist on Friday. The upshot of that meeting was we agreed to stick around for more tests.
Beverly Beach
But when? The scheduled tests will keep us in Flagler Beach for at least 2 more weeks.
I went out today looking at other campgrounds because Beverly Beach Campground, while wonderful in many respects (and Jett loves the sea breeze and the pounding surf), is very expensive and the salt spray gets EVERYWHERE. It would probably eat the truck away if we stayed for two more weeks. So we will move to another campground on Monday and start the tests on Tuesday.
This is not fun, but the fact that we are finally taking steps to deal with her pain is a relief. Hopefully this will be the start of a recovery and a happier, healthier Jett.
If we had to get stuck somewhere, the beach is a good choice.
Categories: Adventures, FL, Places, RV Parks
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St Augustine
Castillo de San Marcos
I planned to spend the better part of a day in St Augustine and planned to do the sightseeing with Jett. Well, that didn’t happen (for reasons that I will explain later), but I did get to make a short trip there this afternoon. Total sightseeing time: 60 minutes. Not enough, but enough to give me a glimpse of the town. Nice place. Very scenic.
The highlight of my 1-hour tour was the Castillo de San Marcos, a 16th century fortress built by the Spaniards. You can read all about it. There is a lot of history here.
In doing my genealogical research I was struck by how many Europeans actually came to America before the Pilgrims. The Spanish settled St Augustine by 1585, there were Dutch fur traders in the New York City area by the early 1600s, Jamestown VA was settled in 1607. Why did I have this idea that the Pilgrims were the first Europeans in America in 1620? They were Johnny-come-latelies: when they arrived in Massachusetts they encountered Indians who spoke English.
Anyway, St Augustine is one of those early settlements that the English history writers tried to forget.
It is a beautiful little town. The streets are narrow, which made it difficult to navigate in my dually, but I found a place to park for $2.50 per hour. After walking around the downtown a bit and taking some photos, I strolled along the harbor to the fortress. Watched a little film about its history, took some more photos there and walked back to the truck. On the way I bought a soft drink (peach/ginger – terrible) and caramel corn (actually caramel kettle corn – delicious) and headed home.
A beautiful town on a beautiful day.
Downtown street
Downtown park
Downtown building
Harbor
Fortress courtyard
Moat
On the parapet
Cannon
Categories: Adventures, FL, Places
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TN5 Hop 1: Fort Myers FL to Flagler Beach FL
TN5 Hop 1
227 miles via FL 31, US 17, FL 557, I-4, I-95 and FL 100. Cumulative tow miles: 227. Truck miles: 237. Cumulative truck miles: 237.
This was not a fun hop, primarily due to I-4 through Orlando. I think I-4 and I-84 in CT are competing to be our “least favorite” interstate. Both are very rough, both are very busy and both are constantly under construction. The trip was supposed to take 4 hours and 20 minutes (according to Google) but was just over 5 hours total (including a brief bathroom break at an I-4 rest area).
The big news on this hop was: no breakdowns. The truck ran like a champ and the repaired A/C pumped out cool air the entire way – which was important when the outside temp reached 97 in Orlando. I have to confess that I am worried about the truck’s reliability. And will continue to be worried until it proves itself to be better than it has shown on the previous two trips.
Ray doing my dirty work
Both ends of the trip were more difficult than they should have been. The only hard work remaining on the departure date was to move the fiberglass stairs and attach them to the shed, to keep them from blowing away in a hurricane. That was heavy work, made easier for me by Jett’s brother Ray getting suckered into the hard stuff (I had to walk the dog, ya know?). Then he took off in the Corolla, to have a bit of a holiday in New Orleans with his lovely wife. We will reunite with the Corolla when we get to Worcester.
The teardown at Cypress Trail was uneventful until the very end, when I tried to take down the electric service. The electrician, when he added the electricity for the shed, reinstalled the electric panel cover such that it wouldn’t open. I had to pry it. As I was prying, bees started swarming – there was a nest inside. Well, I couldn’t not open the cover, so I just pressed on. I got it open, but not until I got one very painful bee sting on my right index finger.
Then I couldn’t get it to shut securely. I didn’t have time to fool with that, so I taped it shut. Something to deal with when we return in the fall.
The very empty site
The setup at Beverly Beach Camptown was uneventful – or so I thought. It was a back-in site, which Jett hates. I asked her to stand by the picnic table to provide a point of reference for me. I had to maneuver a bit, but got it backed in fairly quickly. Then I got the RV leveled, got the slides out, got the water. electric and cable hooked up. Done! Jett went in for a nap and I took Rusty out for a walk…
And as I was coming out of the RV, my brain started to function. I knew when I was shown my site on the campground map by the office staff that it was next-to-last in the row. So why were there 2 sites between me and the end? An awful realization crept over me – we had set up in the wrong site! I was in Site 75 when I was supposed to be in Site 74. In 6 years of travel, that was a first. And not a happy first, either.
What’s a guy to do? Well, the hope – a faint hope – was that I could just stay where I was and whoever was going into 75 could just go into 74. So I trekked down to the office, apologized for making a rookie mistake and inquired about the possible swap. No dice – the people scheduled for Site 75 the next day were staying for 11 nights and couldn’t easily be moved.
So we had to tear down, move the RV and set up again.
I guess we needed the practice.
All set up… in the wrong site!
Categories: FL, Places, Routes, TN5
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“Treasure” by Clive Cussler
Copyright 1988 by Clive Cussler Enterprises, published by Pocket Books
This is a long book – 678 pages in this edition. But I finished it in less than 10 days which is a pretty good indicator of how much I enjoyed it. It isn’t great literature but it sure is a fun beach book.
For those of you not familiar with Clive Cussler’s plots and the heroic adventures of Major Dirk Pitt, Air Force officer, Special Projects Administrator at the National Underwater and Marine Administration (NUMA), son of a US Senator, antique auto collector, national superhero and sexual studmuffin, I will tell you that Cussler’s plots (and Pitt’s adventures) are always epic. This is #9 in the series of 23 Dirk Pitt adventures. He has raised the Titanic, saved the world from environmental disasters, solved the riddle of Atlantis and figured out how Abraham Lincoln was kidnapped (yeah, really). In this book he not only unearths the contents of the fabled Library of Alexandria (Egypt) – long believed to be lost forever – but also brings down a global criminal conspiracy to take over Egypt, Mexico and Brazil. And in his spare time he single-handedly saves the life of the very attractive (and hot to trot) Secretary General of the United Nations… three times.
This is all ridiculous, of course. And a lot of fun.
I hadn’t read a Dirk Pitt adventure for a couple of years because I had convinced myself that I had read them all. When I ran across this book and read the synopsis, it didn’t sound familiar. And it didn’t sound like a plot I would forget. I really enjoyed this book so I will have to go look at the entire series and see if there are any others that I have missed.
8 out of 10.
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