Bay Breeze RV on the Bay:  Yesterday, with but a little bit of drama involving a runaway hubcap, we left Grayton Beach State Park and headed west across the FL-AL border along the coast near the barrier islands.  We are barely in Alabama, maybe eight miles beyond the FL line, but we have officially left Florida until next Winter.  We are staying in a fantastic little private park, Bay Breeze RV on the Bay.  It has only 25 spots right on the inner bay, but the welcome and support from both the managers and seasonal residents is like nothing we have encountered.  The reservations, made only by phone, were smooth. Hours before we arrived the managers called to check on our status, and upon arrival one of them personally walked us down to the spot and provided maneuvering directions to back in perfectly, even offering to get us leveling blocks if we felt it necessary.  After we settled in they brought us our forwarded mail.  Most of the residents gather each late afternoon for a small bonfire, cocktails, and conversation.

The Board Meeting

It is a bit out from any sort of town, i.e., there is nothing in the way of stores or restaurants within biking distance, but a local car rental will provide a vehicle for $20 per day, and the managers even offered to drop us off at their rental lot.  The bay, at least so far during our stay, has been incredibly tranquil with very glassy waters and magnificent evening sky colors.  If the weather holds, tomorrow we may go through the trouble of setting up our little inflatable dinghy and electric outboard.

The dock right behind our site in the bright of day…

… and as dusk falls.

Grayton Beach State Park: We spent three days at this great panhandle state park. The weather was a bit chilly and windy so we did not get to enjoy the beach as much as we would have liked.  It is worth comparing this sort of North Florida beach park to something like St George Island, one of our recent previous stays.

Comming up over the dunes to the beach

The beaches here are not quite as impressive in raw natural beauty as St George, but the location is far more accessible to town on bike or walking: less than a mile from our site to the nearest coffee shops and oyster bar.

Around the World Oyster Sampler and carft beer from Hurricane Oyster Bar

The park offers two loops for campers, the lower numbered loop is hard pack dirt with signficant potholes and rather narrow sites, but with lots of thick vegetation between each spot, offering privacy.  The higher numbered loop is paved with slightly more spacious sites though with less vegetation.  The bath house and laundry facility was clean with lots of hot water.  It was a toss up for us whether to stay here or at Topsail Hill Preserve State Park; perhaps next year we will be able to provide a direct comparison.

Our back yard during this stay

What follows is a long and involved explanation of two mechanical problems we experienced in the last couple of days. The short story: we had to fill up on tranny fluid and temporarily lost a hubcap.  Read on for the longer version.

On Tuesday we left Florida Caverns in route to Grayton Beach State Park in Santa Rosa FL. What should have been a short two and a half hour casual jaunt south turned into a drama filled all day journey.  I had trouble getting the bus to “air up,” i.e., for the air compression system to come up to 90 PSI and fill the air ride bags such that the bus lifts up to the appropriate ride height.  If you don’t get that right, as we have found out through hard lessons, you may have trouble with the front wheels rubbing on the fender liners during hard turns and experience a very bumpy ride in general.  I fiddled with some switches in the cockpit and back at the engine compartment, and the system aired up, though a bit unevenly.

Satisfied, we headed out, only to have a very loud and insistent audible alarm fill the cockpit area as soon as I put it into gear.  In neutral: blessed silence.  In forward or reverse: banshee like shrieking filled the cabin.  I could find no associated warning light, and the alarm speaker was physically located behind a wood panel.  Based on the coincidental problems with the air ride system, I assumed it was somehow related to that, or possibly a solenoid issue given our past reverse gear solenoid problem that a previous diesel mechanic had worked on.  The odd thing was that despite the alarm we had no problem getting the Big Kahuna into gear.  When swearing at all and sundry proved futile in solving the problem, we elected to head down the road to the first mechanic we could find.

First stop: Love’s truck stop chain. The mechanic on duty had no idea at all and, as he made clear, no intention of looking at anything he couldn’t hook up to a computer.  He did at least recommend we try “Simbo’s” in Bonifay, apparently just down the road and right off I-10.  We pushed on down the interstate to the Bonifay exit and searched in vain for Simbo’s, both visually and via The Google, before giving up and asking advice at a truck gas stop.  The randomly selected young man referred us to Eastern Diesel, just down the block behind a Thai restaurant.

Now, normally I would have left that whole unnecessary bit about not being able to find Simbo’s out of this story except for one arguably interesting thing: During the course of writing this post I wanted to give the mechanic at Eastern Diesel that actually helped me credit, but I couldn’t find his company via any of my multiple online searches.  Being someone who always prided myself on superior Google-Fu, I pressed on and resolved to find the place via Google street view.  And wouldn’t you know it, the Thai restaurant in front of Eastern Diesel used to be called Simbo’s!  We accidentally ended up at the exact place the Love’s mechanic recommended.  In any case, Josh at Eastern Diesel was initially reluctant to offer more than advice from a distance, but with some cajoling he pulled open the rear doors and took a look, assessed that my transmission fluid level was unusually low, and that might very well be the source of all the problems. He suggested that things should be fine for the limited travel we had left to do that day.  I compensated him for his effort and we went on our way.

Once we arrived at Grayton Beach State Park I pleaded for help and advice on the Bus Nuts Online forum, and RJ Long and others helped me out quite a bit, recommending I put in a few quarts of Dexron and see how things looked.  I managed to find the transmission maintenance manual, helpfully filed by the previous owner under “water pumps” in his extensive files, and confirmed my specific model of automatic transmission (an Allison VS 2-6 if you must know) and that Dexron is indeed the proper fluid for it.  This morning when we headed up the road the annoying alarm did not recur, but we took no chances and picked up some Dexron at Wal-Mart and topped off the tranny straight away.  So far so good.

But… as I was bringing my two gallons of tranny fluid and other miscellaneous supplies back out to the bus I noticed the alarming lack of a shiny silvery hubcap on the rear right wheel.  Faithful readers may recall that this is the exact wheel that gave us problems right after having all of the tires replaced.  The evening after installing new Michelins, we found the hubcap very much ajar and loosely bound to the wheel, while the next morning the tires on that quarter were flat.  I thought I had worked around the stripped threads on some of the extenders to the hubcap, but apparently they were damaged worse than I had thought.  As we were only 20 minutes down the road from the last known position of the hubcap, we chose to backtrack to Grayton and hope we might find it.  The park rangers were sympathetic but did not have possession, though they were happy to let us drive back into the park and retrace our steps.  Which we did, to no avail, until we were within minutes of being back at the very same Wal-Mart when Rosemarie screeched with excitement having spotted the damn thing on the side of the road.  

Oh man, did I foolishly whine about the cold and mention our longing for the tropical South Florida weather in a recent post from Central Florida?  Shockingly, it turns out as you continue north it gets colder!  Who knew?  Though nothing like what any of you in actual northern climates are suffering, for those of us accustomed to Miami temperatures the increasing chill has been a difficult adjustment, particularly the 30 degree low the night before last. Fortunately that was a short-lived drop such that even our puny heating strips on the roof ACs kept us pretty toasty while the water heater in the storage compartment kept the pipes clear.

At Andrea’s Cute Yellow House

We adjusted our schedule to have a one night stay in Gainesville visiting daughter Andrea and Nate, and Cousin Robb, Colleen, Maeve and Nola. Thanks to all for the hospitality, especially the “all barbecue all the time” meal planning, starting with Andrea’s order of BBQ tempah pizza and Colleen’s pulled pork, ribs and beans.  After an evening of “drinkin’ with fire and stories” it was nice to have a break from the bus and sleep in a real bed as well.

Scaring one child…

… and the other.

St George Island State Park:  This is a spectacular place near Apalachicola, Florida, just west of the crook in the state between the panhandle and the main peninsula.  We started and ended the three day stay the same way: with fresh raw Apalachicola oysters at a very local fish market on the coast.   Having entered true oyster country we plan to take full advantage.  Located on a barrier island the park is more isolated than most of the places we have stayed; the entrance is about four miles from commercial stores and the campground an additional four miles into the park.  Perhaps this will help ease us into truly remote boondocking out west.  The sites were very spacious and reasonably level, with power and water hook ups and a nearby dump station.  The park offers both forest hiking and fantastic stretches of beach, exhibiting some of the largest sand dunes I have seen in the state.  We did quite a bit of biking and day hiking, during the course of which we found all 12 active geocaches in the park.  Though the island offers pretty good opportunities for the shell collector, given the cold and wind neither of us were up for getting up before dawn to catch the low tide for first run at the best.

Miles of beaches, very few people

Perhaps our most critical learning experience for this stop was figuring out how many days our holding tanks will handle when we are exclusively and liberally using our own shower, sink and facilities rather than the park’s.  Three days is the limit, meaning if we want to stretch a week out of our tanks while boondocking we will need to make some lifestyle adjustments, such as paper plates vice dishwashing, and more conservative water use during showers.

Easy hiking in the scrub forest…

…but not much wildlife spotted, despite the extra effort.

Florida Caverns State Park: After two stops to satisfy an apparently unquenchable lust for the previously raved about Apalachicola raw oysters, we made the pleasant drive through Tate’s Hell State Forest and the adjoining Apalachicola National Forest, during which all of Rosemarie’s distorted beliefs about The South were confirmed when we passed by Children With Guns Alone In The Forest.  We entered the park just north of Marianna, and found our very spacious site, though the ground is packed dirt rather than gravel, and in the rain things can get a bit muddy.  Unusually, this park has sewer hook ups on all sites, alleviating the need for a stop at the dump station.  As these were our coldest and rainiest days to date, we did not do much more than a couple of miles on the bikes in order to take the cavern tour, Though we did manage to snag four or five geocaches.  Our biggest learning point for this stop was finally figuring out exactly where a slow roof leak was occurring, something we will need to address shortly.

Wild animal spotted in the cavern

Sure it’s looks amazing, but what does it taste like?