Camping at Sebastian Inlet State Park

On Monday we started getting everything together for our trip to Sebastian Inlet State Park. I made a pasta salad to take with us. Sebastian Inlet State Park is only 13 miles from our house and check-in time is 3 p.m., so we didn't leave the house until about 2:30.

We were in site 25 which is a back-in. We are getting better at backing the trailer. We're still using the hand signals that we used with backing up the motor-home, but we don't have a rear camera on the travel trailer like we did with the Winnebago. 

Site 25 is a gravel site and is pretty level. Mike set out the grill and we had hamburgers and pasta salad for our first night's dinner. We haven't decided whether to get Dish satellite TV or not, so we're getting some local TV stations with the local antenna. 

It was cloudy and looked like it would rain any minute when we got up Wednesday morning. We checked the weather forecast and they were expecting rain to move in that afternoon and rain for the next few days. So Mike took several photos of our campsite while the rain hadn't moved in.

The weather forecast was right and we had rain Wednesday night and most of Thursday and Thursday night.

We did take the opportunity on Wednesday during one of the times it wasn't raining and took Tinker for a walk around the campground. We were looking to see what the other sites looked like and to see if there

House and Dog Sitting

We drove down to Fletcher's house in Ft. Lauderdale on the 17th to spend a few days house and dog and cat sitting while he was in California on business. Before heading down to his house, Mike took the Pilot and the running boards he had ordered to a local shop and had the running boards put on. It makes it easier for me to get in to the Pilot since it sits higher than the Outback did.

We spent our days walking and feeding the 2 dogs & Tinker and the 2 cats - one of which used to be our cat. Josie is a stray kitten that showed up at our house in Dothan in 2002. When we sold our house in 2006, Fletcher took our 3 cats to live with him and Josie is the only one left of the 3. So she is now a senior citizen at the age of 15. I'm not sure if she remembers us when we visit, but I like to think she does.

We only went out to eat once and that was for Sunday breakfast at the Original Pancake House. Mike had pancakes with link sausage and I had pancakes with bacon. It's always a great place to have breakfast.

On our way home from Fletcher's, we stopped to check out the campground at St. Lucie South. It is a Corps of Engineers campground on the St. Lucie Canal which is part of the 152 mile waterway that goes from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. Mike made reservations last month for 4 days in July. He chose site RV1 which is right on the canal and we wanted to look at the campsite and take photos.

Mike has made more campground reservations the last few days for several Florida State Parks - with one reservation for each month until the end of the year.

Mother's Day Surprise

It's been a busy first half of the month. Mike and I went up to the IMAX theater in West Melbourne on the 8th to see Guardians of the Galaxy 2. We enjoyed it as much as the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Afterwards we were hungry for some Mexican food and I found a place not too far from the theater - El Sombrero Mexican Cuisine. Mike ordered the Steak Fajita Burrito and I had the Chicken Fajita Burrito and a couple of Modelo beers on draft. It was a good choice and the food was very good.

I thought I'd add a photo of our Sonic Travel Trailer parked in our driveway here at home. It sits far enough back that we can back the car out of the garage easily.

On Wednesday the 10th we went to the American Legion Post here in Sebastian where Mike and several other men joined the American Legion.

Mike made reservations online for us at Sebastian Inlet State Park for June 6 - 9. We would like to stay for more than 3 days, but the campground is busy. It's only 13 miles from the house, so it is probably the shortest distance we've ever driven to a campground. 

Fletcher drove up on Friday the 13th for Mother's Day and went back home today. It was a surprise for me because I didn't know he was coming - a nice Mother's Day surprise. This morning Fletcher went down to the IHOP in Vero with us for breakfast with our friends Chris & Matt, Nancy & Bill, and Steve. Then after we got back home Fletcher left to go back to Ft. Lauderdale. 

Fletcher is going out to California for some meetings because of his job later this week and Mike and I are going down to house, dog and cat sit.

Buying items for the Travel Trailer

We've spent the rest of this month making a list of things that we need for the travel trailer. I found a microfiber sofa protector and one for the loveseat in burgundy and ordered them from Bed Bath & Beyond - they weren't available at our store. We wanted to add some touches of color since the cabinets and wood are a dark brown and the sofa and love seat are dark brown, too. 

After doing some research on light-weight vacuums, I bought a Shark Rocket Ultra-Light Stick Vacuum at our Bed Bath & Beyond store. It comes apart and is easy to stow in one of the cabinets. We're also looking for a small area rug to put down on the floor when the slide is out. The area we want for the rug isn't a standard size for area rugs, so it might be a while before we find something to fit.

The Friday after we got home from Silver Springs State Park, Mike and I went to the MOAA (Military Officers of America Assn.) luncheon at the Vero Beach Yacht Club. We had the Chopped Steak with potatoes for lunch. The speaker was Tom Doyle a former Special Agent with the Secret Service. He gave

Heading home from Silver Springs State Park

Last night was the second night we slept in the Sonic and this time it was at an actual campground and not the dealership's lot.

We're both pleased with how we slept on the memory foam mattress since we've heard that a lot of RV mattresses are uncomfortable. We had had a Sleep Number bed in our motor-home and that was great, so we wondered how comfortable the mattress in the Sonic would be.

We made coffee and sat outside just enjoying being back camping again.Tinker liked checking out the new smells in the area. 

We usually take photos of all of the campsites we stay at and Mike took some this morning.

 Then after another cup of coffee we started breaking camp. Check-out isn't until 1:00, but we wanted to take our time this morning - we had our routine for breaking camp with our motor-home and this a little different from that. For one thing, it's not as large so there is less for me to do on the inside to get things stowed away for travel. Mike's stuff he has to do on the outside is basically the same as with the motor-home. 

We stopped at the dump station on the way out of the campground and dumped our black and gray water tanks. So we were on the road by 11:20 and we headed east on FL-40 over to I-95 near Ormond Beach and then south on I-95 to Sebastian. We arrived home a little before 3:00 from our 177 mile trip from Silver Springs State Park.

Something that is new for us, is having to unload food and stuff from the trailer to bring back into the house. With our motor-home that was our house, so everything stayed inside. 

We're looking forward to going to some of the Florida State Park campgrounds.

Our First Night Camping in our New RV at the Dealership

For spending our first night in the travel trailer and on a new bed, we slept pretty good. We were up early this morning and had had our coffee by the time the techs arrived. 

After some checking to find out why our trailer brakes locked up yesterday, it was a short in the wiring to the electric brakes. So once they found that out and made the repairs, we were finally on our way to Silver Springs State Park. Mike talked with the sales manager and 
explained that we had had a reservation for last night at the campground and they reimbursed us for one night's fee. 

It was lunchtime when we left the dealership and came over to the state park. After checking in and driving to our campsite, I fixed lunch while Mike was hooking up to the electric and water connections. Then we leveled the trailer and disconnected the car. 

We are in site #43 which is a pull-through and it is pretty level. Once we had everything setup, we just relaxed for the rest of the day. I had bought some steaks and potatoes for dinner and of course, some wine. 

Our son Fletcher called us tonight to see how we were doing and we told him how the last couple of days had been. We told him that we were pleased with the trailer and that we felt we had chosen the right one for us.

We're not sure how Tinker feels about it, though. He likes checking out the campground with all of the new smells, but I'm not sure what he thinks about the smaller RV.

I had set up our new TV and connected it to the local stations antenna, so we pulled in some channels and are watching TV.

With all that went on yesterday, I didn't go over what the inside of the trailer is like. We have a slide-out

Picked up New Travel Trailer & Our First Night in it

We had had an appointment for last Friday at 1:00 at Optimum RV to do our pre-delivery walk-through of the Sonic travel trailer we bought last week. But we got a call Friday morning that some of the techs had called to say they weren't going to be at work that day, so our delivery date was postponed to Monday. 

We left the house this morning around 8:00 and drove up to the dealership in Ocala. We brought Tinker along with us this trip because we were going to go to Silver Springs State Park for a couple of nights camping after we got the travel trailer. We stopped for gas in Belleview at Raceway and paid $2.859 a gallon for premium - the manual for the Honda Pilot says to use premium grade gas instead of regular whenever you're towing anything.

In planning ahead for our stay at the campground at Silver Springs State Park, I had brought a cooler with food that we were going to eat while we were at the campground.

We had the tow bar and sway bars installed

and the brake controller installed.

The techs also removed the exhaust fan in the bathroom and installed the Fantastic Fan Vent in its place. 

Then there was a problem regarding the wiring of the brake controller. The Pilot was already wired for the connections, but the tech didn't realize that it was pre-wired and was going to run a whole new set of wiring to the front of the Pilot. Another tech knew the Pilot was already wired for the brake controller and said that we only needed an adapter to go from 4 wires to 7 wires, so he pulled out the wiring the other tech had installed. Then they had to go to a parts store to get the adapter and that took a while.

So after a long day at the dealership, Mike, Tinker and I were finally headed over to Silver Springs State Park at 7:00. The park closes at sunset and today that was going to be a little before 8:00, so we had plenty of time to get there before the gates were closed.

However - we had just pulled out of the dealership lot onto US-301 and hadn't driven no more than a mile