June 19, 2009 by steve.

“…so we loaded up the RV and headed to James Island…..” OK, so I shouldn’t mess with the lyrics to the Ballad of Jed Clampet. But the CurbCrushers did load up the RV and head to Charleston, South Carolina the first weekend of June to spend a week. Lady CurbCrusher has been wanting to go to Charleston for a couple of years. Last year she started talking about a place to stay, the James Island County Park Campground and Cottages. This county park is located just across the river from Charleston on James Island, has full hook-up, a water park, dog park, bike trails, a dock and a rock climbing wall. I think I remembered everything.

Driving
Before you enjoy the park though you have to get there. It was about an eight hour drive north from Orlando and started as a nice overcast drive. Once we hit Jacksonville the thunderstorms started, and for the most of the trip up I-95 we drove in and out of storms and rain. Once we arrived in Charleston, we followed the GPS and found ourselves driving down a couple of narrow roads. You first turn off of US-17 onto Folly Road, which is a four lane road, but it feels extremely narrow. The telephone poles are right next to the road, creating the feeling that you are going to rip off your right side mirror if you stay in the right lane. Then you turn down Central Park Road, which has lots of tree. None are to low, but I sweated the entire mile or so we were on that road. We left by a different path, traveling on Riverland Drive to Maybank Highway to Main Road to get to US-17. While a bit further, it was a much less stressful drive.

This trip also marked the first trip where we averaged over 7 MPG for the whole trip. It was roughly three-fourths of a tank of gas each way, averaging 7.5 MPG on the way up and 7.05 on the return trip. The entire MPG experience with the motorhome is documented here.

The Park and Campground
Arrival and set up was easy enough. You drive into the park past the fee collection booth, and then drive to the campground where you actually check in. The check in process is typical and quick enough. The campground has over 120 sites, and is laid out with plenty of room to turn, and wide enough streets that you can maneuver while backing up. The campground roads are paved, and the campsites are a packed gravel/dirt. All but five of the sites are full hook-up, and fairly deep and wide, so it’s easy to get into and out. There are 30 and 50 amp plugs in the electrical box, and the water and sewer were located on the back drivers sides of the campsite, so there is no need for extension cords or extra hoses. I did notice that some trailers which have forward sewage ports did have to use some long sewer hoses.

This campground is full of families, so there are lots of kids around on their bikes, trikes and scooters during the day. Since there seem to be mostly families, it was very quiet at night, no parties or loud groups gathered. There is a lot of turnover in this campground, and it also seemed like there were a lot of people that moved from site to site each day. I think there was one motorhome we saw on four different sites over four days. I guess if you don’t book early enough, you have to move each day if you want to stay.

There is plenty to do in the park also. The park contains a dog park, a large section set aside for people to let their dogs off leash and run. I don’t think there was a time that we were driving in or out of the park that there weren’t people at the dog park. The dog park has lake frontage, which a number of people were fishing in at all hours of the day, and on Saturday there were folks racing remote controlled sailboats in the lake. The park rents kayaks and paddle boats, which wander the lake, and the small kayak slalom course that is on a canal area. There are a number of nice long bike paths, and the park rents bikes also. The playground is very new, and got the Little CurbCrusher Seal of Approval as a “Great Playground!” There is also a dock on the river, where you’ll find people crabbing and fishing.

Of course in the summertime you want to get wet, and there are a couple of options available to you at the park. There is a Splash Pad near the playground. The Splash Pad is an area with the rubber playground topping and water jets in the middle that shoot up like a fountain. A great place to go cool off. For $8.99 you can buy access to the Splash Zone, which is a water park that is inside the county park. The Splash Zone has two adult size water slides, a pool, a lazy river and a kids play area with another 3 or 4 kid’s size slides. The regular admission is $11.99 for non-county residents, but the campground store sells passes for campers for $8.99. We went on Tuesdays when you buy-one-get-one free, so all three of us went for about $21.00 (The buy-one-get-one doesn’t apply to the $8.99 price.)

If you prefer the beach, you can drive the fifteen minutes over to Folly Beach County Park. Admission is $7.00 per car load, but is waived if you are camping at the James Island County Park Campground. Just show your camping pass and they wave you in the gate.

The park is well known for being decorated at Christmas time, and there is evidence throughout the park of all the lighting that takes place. Since we enjoyed ourselves, and think the place is probably beautiful at Christmas, the CurbCrusher gang is tentatively planning on a return to the James Island County Park Campground just prior to Thanksgiving in 2010.

Pictures of the park are here.

Activities

There is a lot to do in Charleston. The CurbCrusher family alternated days at the park (where there was plenty to do) with trips to Charleston area attractions.

H. L. Hunley	The first submarine to successfully be used in combat. Used by the Confederates defending Charleston to sink one of the Union blockade ships, the Hunley was lost after the attack in 1864. In 1999 it was finally found and recovered. Since that time, it has been being restored and analyzed. You can take tours and see the actual vessel on Saturdays and Sundays. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed in the Hunley. The submarine is still in water, so you can only look down into the tank that it is kept in. Furthermore, their “museum” area and store are so intermingled, that I didn’t feel like there was as much history as there could have been.
Charles Towne Landing State Historic Site Pictures	The State of South Carolina has a historic site where settlers landed in 1670. There are cannon and musket demonstrations, a 1600’s replica ship and a museum (although I’m noticing that they’ve started calling these “interpretive centers” now). You walk through the park and can visit the small zoo area, and the archaeological dig. We brought our lunch, had a picnic and spent about three or four hours walking around.
Fort Sumter Pictures	I think most people will associate Charleston with Fort Sumter and the start of the War Between The States. Fort Sumter sits on an island in the middle of Charleston Harbor, and is a National Park (or Monument or some such designation that might not be a National Park, but it’s managed by the National Park Service, so there). At the foot of Calhoun Street in Charleston is a visitors center with an “interpretive center” (or museum) component. You can purchase tickets for a boat ride over to the fort and the boat departs from the dock behind the visitor center for a two and a half hour tour. It takes about 45 minutes to travel each way to the fort, and they give you an hour on the island. When you arrive at the Fort, a park ranger gives about a ten minute talk about the fort, its origins and history before, during and after the Civil War. You can listen to the ranger and then wander around the fort, or you can just start wandering. There is a another museum in the fort. Well worth the effort to make the trip.
Downtown Charleston Pictures	So what do you do after a cruise out to the Fort? Take a five mile hike through the streets of Charleston. We wanted to walk along battery street and admire the old houses, and Lady CurbCrusher wanted to see White Point Gardens. We also wanted to take the Gateway Walk (I could not find a functioning website with the map) that runs through a number of church yards and cemeteries. This would probably have been a great walk, but it was kind of ruined by the locked gates between the cemeteries and the poorly marked path through the cemeteries, which caused numerous detours. Finally, we hit Market Street and the Official Visitors Center before calling it a day.
Lighthouses Pictures	There are two lighthouses that are easy to see in Charleston, the Charleston Light on Sullivans Island and the Morris Island Light. the Charleston Light is about a mile from Fort Moultrie, and the Morris Island Light is just north of Folly Beach. You can drive right up the Charleston Light, but with Morris Island you drive to Folly Beach, make a left and drive ’till the road ends. Then you park and walk a quarter mile to see the lighthouse.
Fort Moultrie Pictures	Fort Sumter is not the only Fort in the Charleston Area. Fort Moultrie lies on the north side of Charleston Harbor and also took part in the Civil War. Some of the first shots at Fort Sumter were fired from Fort Moultrie. Fort Moultrie was first a fortification during the Revolutionary War, when it was built using palmetto logs. The Americans found out that the fibrous nature of palmetto logs absorbed cannon fire when they repelled a British attack on Charleston. Fort Moultrie is near the Charleston Lighthouse, and near the spot the Hunley launched from the night of its fateful mission.
Folly Beach Pictures	Well, we did spend one day lazing around the beach. We went to the Folly Beach County Park and played in the sand and surf. Not a lot to say about the beach. The entire CurbCrusher gang is made up of native Floridians, so we may be a bit biased, but we haven’t been to a non-Florida beach in the Continental US that is better than the worst beach we’ve been to in Florida. Not saying we didn’t have a good time, just that it’s not much to write about.
Charleston Tea Plantation Pictures	The only “tea garden” in America, or so the sign says. South of the campground down Maybank Road, lies the Charleston Tea plantation. We spent a couple of hours, and took the tour. While not really exciting, it was educational. For instance we did not know that tea comes from camellia plants, and it was interesting to see how they harvest and process the leaves in order to make tea.

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May 10, 2009 by steve.

On our way home from Gold Head Branch State Park, we stopped in Palatka at Ravine Gardens State Park. This is a park that began life as a city park, and then was turned over to the state when the city could not maintain it any more. While we drove the RV to the park as we headed home, I would suggest that you not do that. There is really no RV parking at the park, and you wind your way through a number of small city streets trying to get to the park, especially if you follow your GPS.
The park is a set of gardens that are situation around a ravine that has been cut by a stream that flows from a spring into the St. Johns River. There is a 1.8 mile road that winds through the park, or you can walk across and around on the various trails that work their way through the park, crossing two suspension bridges. Even though it was a very warm day (temperature in the upper 80s) when we were there, getting down on the floor of the raving and walking around was a cooling and pleasant experience. There is an Azalea Festival in March/April at this park, and I imagine that the place is absolutely gorgeous then.

All our pictures of Raving Gardens are here.

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May 6, 2009 by steve.

A new month and a new park. We headed about three hours north of Orlando this month to visit Mike Roess Gold Head Branch State Park. The park is located northeast of Gainesville, and southeast of Jacksonville near a town called Keystone Heights. Since there were a number of ways for us to get there, we decided to make a grand circle trip and went to the park by traveling up the Turnpike from Orlando to I-75 and then jumping over to US-301 and finally to State Road 21. For the trip home, we came down State Road 100 to Palatka and visited Ravine Gardens State Park before heading down to Deland and I-4 for the trip home.
The park is one of those where you go in the front gate, and then drive for about a mile and a half to get to the Sandhill camping loop. If you are in the Lakeview loop (which doesn’t have a view of the lake), then you drive another mile and a half or so. There are a total of 70 or so sites in the park, but less than half are RV sites. After driving through both loops, and staying in the Sandhill loop I think that is the better camping loop. The sites were all fairly large, and in the Sandhill loop the road is paved. All of the sites on the outside back up to undeveloped area, and the road and sites are roomy enough that we just pulled into our site so that the windshield view would be of the woods rather than the campground road.
There are a number of trails in the park. One of the best runs along Gold Head Branch, the spring fed stream that the park is named after. It starts in the ravine near the park entrance and runs down to Little and Big Lake Johnson. There are parts of the trail running right along the stream where you can just hop into the stream and walk along in the cool water. The lakes are apparently not what they used to be. You can still swim and canoe in Little Lake Johnson, but as you drive along the road to the boat ramp, you can tell the big lake is not what it used to be. The boat ramp is blocked off, and if you climb over the chain, you can walk to the end of the pavement without getting wet. It’s still a good ways from the end of the boat ramp pavement until the water starts. Based on other reviews of the park, it’s probably been a few years since the lake was high enough to launch a boat.
The only thing I didn’t like about the park was the dump station. We stayed in the Sandhill loop which was the first loop you come to after entering the park, and the dump station was much closer to the Lakview loop which was about a mile further into the park. So when you left your campsite, you had no idea how many folks are in front of you at the dump line, and you’ve got people coming from two directions lining up for the use of the dump station. We didn’t have a problem, but I could see this being a problem on a busy Sunday with lots of folks leaving.

Our pictures from the trip are here and Mrs. CurbCurushers review is here.

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April 17, 2009 by steve.

Well spring is here and it is triathlon season again. Actually there have already been a few races in Central Florida, but for Team CurbCrusher the season starts with the Escape From Ft. Desoto, or at least it did last year and this year. Since this race was on Easter weekend and we had family obligations on Sunday, we didn’t try and camp at Ft. Desoto. Lady and Little CurbCrusher had Easter oriented activities that they wanted to tend to on Saturday, so there was no interest on their part in making the trip to St. Pete. Since I didn’t want to get up at 4:00AM to drive over, I traded in some Marriott points and spent Friday night in St. Pete.

Pre-Race
Well, with the night before being spent in St. Pete, it was possible to sleep an extra half-hour or so. Because of the race being on Easter weekend the park had asked them to move the start time back , so it was changed to 7:00AM. I’m sure at the time this seemed like a good idea, but the weather had a different plan. When I arrived at the North Beach parking lot, it was so foggy (well it was dark too) that could only see a glow where transition was. As with last year the check in procedure was well organized, and I was able to zip through getting my packet, shirt and cap. A walk back to the car to retrieve the bike, and then a trip to the body marking and chip pick-up made me ready to set up transition. I’m not sure if some people didn’t show up, or if the reduced the number of bikes on a rack this year, but it felt like there was a good bit more room on the bike rack. I was able to get everything set up in plenty of time and wander down the swim start.
Of course it turned out that there was plenty more time. A thick fog was over the beach, and even though the buoys were set in the water, they would fade in and out of view as the fog moved around. As 7:00AM approached, the organizers postponed the race until 7:30AM.

Swim - 12:30
Ok. That’s a heck of a lot better than last year. BUT, it seems they may have had problems setting the buoys in the fog, so the it is likely that the distance was more like 600 - 700 yards instead of the intended 880. The water temperature was advertised as 74, and it was a bit cold when you first jumped in. However, it didn’t take much past the first buoy to get warm. The waves were sent out six minutes apart, and while this meant I started 30 minutes after the first wave, I think was good in that is spread the 1000 athletes out over the course better. Unlike last year’s race where the swim felt crowded the entire way, it really seemed to empty out after the first buoy (once everyone gets around me), and there was plenty of room to swim.

T1 - 6:59

Straight forward transition. The reason it takes so long is that you have to run from the beach to the transition area. I don’t know what the distance really is, but race organizers include this distance in calculating the 4 miles of running advertised for this race. T1 is non-eventful. Bike jersey, helmet and sunglasses on, then sit on the bucket and get shoes and socks on. Grab the bike and run out of transition. Mount up and on my way.

Bike - 31:23

I messed with my bike over the winter, raising the saddle and the handle bars, and it feels a lot better riding. Not a lot of wind this year, although I hears some people complaining about a headwind after the turn around on the bike. I was very happy with the ride, over a minute faster than last years ride, and I felt good at the end of it. Maybe it was because I was in the next to last leg starting, but the bike course seemed less crowded where I was riding, but I could see large clumps of people coming the other way. As a matter of fact, looking at the penalties, it seems there are a lot of drafting violations, probably a result of the number of people on the course.

T2 - 2:30

T2 is fairly non-eventful. Rack the bike, change shirts, grab by race number belt and make a pit stop. It took a minute longer than last year, but that’s a combination of the pit stop and changing shirts. In the past I’ve always biked and run in the same shirt, but when Lady CurbCrusher gave me a bike jersey last year, I started using it on the bike. It is sort of nice to start the run with a dry shirt.

Run - 42:06

I’ve talked before about how much I just LOVE running. I had really hoped with running the half-marathon this winter and my increase in mileage that my run time would improve. It’s two minutes slower. That was a disappointment. The run starts down the bike path from North Beach to the fort, and along the way you pass the one mike mark. I look at my watch and see that I did that mike about 9:30. Ya-hoo! There’s some hope here, I might just knock off some time from last year’s run and race total. Even as we run past the fort and walk up the stairs, I’m feeling pretty good. After some water and Gatorade though, and going down the stairs, my body starts wanting to slow down. I can feel the energy just emptying out of me, and I just get slower and slower. Once I started back on the beach, with no shade, it became a chore to run. I alternated running and walking on a five min run to one min walk ratio, but even that seemed difficult, but I did finally cross the finish line.

Post Race — 1:35:29

So even though I thought the run was going to kill me, it turned out OK, I was two minutes faster than last year. That’s a good thing. I ended up 57 out of 67 for the age group, and 805 out of 1000 overall. A result I’m happy with. This race is well organized and the post race food is great. I filled up on pasta and chicken before heading back to Orlando. I think of all the events that I’ve done since getting back into triathlon, the Ft. Desoto is the best run and most fun.

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April 9, 2009 by steve.

A new campground this month for the CurbCrusher family. We packed up and headed south toward Estero, Florida and the Koreshan State Historic Site. Located just south of Ft. Myers on the Estero River, this state park started life as the heart of a “New Jerusalem” in the late 1800’s. Cyrus Reed, a Civil War doctor who had a vision, took the name Koresh from the Bible and started his own religion. A key premise of the religion was that the earth is on the inside of a sphere, and that the heavens (stars, moon, etc) are all in the center. This group ended up moving to Florida and establishing a colony just south of Ft. Myers. Over the years, the colony shrunk (their desire to be celibate may have had something to do with it) and in 1961 the last few remaining members deeded the land to the state. At some point, the state turned it into a state park.
There are still a number of buildings from the Koreshan colony era in the park. They have been preserved and are open during the regularly scheduled tours. From October through March there are a slew of volunteers that perform living history demonstrations in the machine shop, bakery and other locations around the colony site. According to the ranger that led our tour, 23 campsites are traded to volunteers in exchange for their time during the October to March time frame. The working machine shop is only demonstrated during that time, but can be visited anytime during the year.
Other things to do include fishing or canoing along the Estero River. Canoes are only $5.00 an hour, and the river is slow enough that you can get in a nice paddle up river and back in the hour. For the more adventurous, you can take the canoe downriver to the Estero Bay and if you paddle a bit across the bay, reach Mound Key state park. Lover’s Key State Park is about 15 miles away, and puts you on the beach.

Campsites Sixty campsites with water and electric make up this park. The sites are an OK size, but narrow, our rig from slide to awning took up the entire site. Some of the sites seem like they open up more once you get off the road. All the sites are sandy and surprisingly sunny even with trees around. The wooded area in Koershan has not burned in a long time (per the ranger) and you can tell it. The palmettos and underbrush are extremely thick between campsites, this might not be a good place to be during lightening season. There are two campground loops with paved roads that make up the campground, with a dump station placed on the entrance section of the second loop. The water and electric (30amp) boxes are not consistently at the back of the campsites, they are generally toward the middle to the front, so it you have one of the deeper sites and place your unit towards the back you will need extra hose and cord.
Activities There are self guided and ranger led tours of the Koresh colony, and the park rents canoes. There is a day use area, boat ramp and playground located right adjacent to the playground. There are a couple of small hiking trails in the park. Just outside the park, there is a river outfitter that rents canoes and kayaks. A big “outlet” mall is close by, and the beach is within 20 miles. This park is also located close enough to Ft. Myers to go see the standard Ft. Myers stuff like the Edison house and Sanibel Island.
Overall As always we had a great weekend, a bad weekend camping beats a good day at work. I found the history of the whole Koreshean Unity Colony to be interesting and probably could have spent some more time wandering around the colony. We only took the short upriver canoe trip, but heading down river to the bay would be a great trip to go back and do some time. I think you do feel a bit hemmed in in the campsites because of the overgrowth, but this may get corrected over the summer. The ranger that led our tour said they were going to close the campground this summer and upgrade the water and electric and if they were fortunate do a prescribed burn to clean out all the built up fuel in the area.

Lady CurbCrusher posts her campground reviews at rvreviews.com so there’s a link to her review.

I posted the pictures to flick for Koreshan and Lover’s Key.

Finally, I’ve updated the gas mileage chart at curbcrusher.com.

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March 20, 2009 by steve.

This month’s CurbCrusher trip is a repeat. In September of 2007 we stopped here for a couple of days on our way to Chattanooga and visited family in the area. We thought the park had potential, so we’ve been waiting to go spend a long weekend at the Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park. We did not want to visit during the summer as there is no swimming in the park, so we figured a March visit would provide the right kind of weather.
We made a long weekend out of it, headed up on Thursday afternoon, and coming home on Sunday. It is about a three hour drive in the motorhome from Orlando to White Springs, which is located just north of the intersection of I-10 and I-75. We spent Friday wandering around to some other parks in the area. Big Shoals State Park is only about five to eight miles away and has a number of hiking trails. There are two shoals, Big and Little. The Big Shoals are the only class III rapids in Florida when the Suwannee river is at the right height. To get to Big Shoals from the parking lot is about two miles, and the trail to get to Little Shoals from the end of Road 6 is probably three-quarters to a mile in length. It was easy hiking and an pleasant walk in the woods. Our pictures from Big Shoals are here.
After wandering through Big Shoals, we visited the Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park. This is the site of the biggest Civil War Battle to take place in Florida. There is a small (and I mean small) museum, and you can walk around the battlefield. The big event here is a re-enactment that takes place in February each year.
Campsites – There are 45 campsites at this park all with water and electricity (30 amp). Probably a good third of these campsites are pull-thrus, and they are big pull-thru sites. Plenty of room to hook up the car. The rest of the sites are good sized. The two times the we’ve been here the campgrounds have been very clean. There are two bathhouses that appear fairly new, and they also are kept clean and tidy.
Stuff to Do – As noted above there is a bunch to do in the area. The park itself can also keep you busy. There is the Stephen Foster museum and carillon, along with a craft area. The carillon chimes on the quarter hour from 8AM until 6PM, and plays a concert of Stephen Foster songs three times a day also. The craft area houses people doing a variety of crafts, the variety dependent on who is occupying the houses at the time. While we were there, a wood carver, blacksmith, quilter and “aroma therapist” were in residence. The last time we were here, there was no one present in the craft houses. From what the ranger told us, they are usually occupied all winter. There are also some great trails that you can walk or bike that meander along the Suwannee.
Overall — It was a great weekend, of course any weekend spent in the RV and not doing yard work is great. This is a nice relaxing park, lots of campers seem to be walking or biking around the park continuously. There is no TV here, we got one PBS channel with the digital converter active, and three weak channels using the analog signals, so after June you’ll only get PBS at this park. I really like the part of Florida this park is located in and enjoy visiting.

You can find our pictures here.

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March 9, 2009 by steve.

Well combine a business trip to Denver and a couple of free tickets on Southwest Airlines and what do you get, an impromptu CurbCrusher ski vacation. To end the month of February and start March, the CurbCrusher gang ditched the RV and hopped on a plane and then drove a bit and spent five days at the Keystone Ski Resort in Colorado.

Lodging –

We found a condo in the Buffalo Lodge located in the River Run area of Keystone through Summit Cove Properties on the web. The price was very reasonable, and the location was great. We were about a five minute walk from the Gondola so it was easy to head out skiing the morning, take a lunch break and head back out after lunch. At the end of the day, we took a short walk and were “home” for the evening. We had a one bedroom unit that had a king-size bed in the bedroom and a murphy bed in the great room area. There was plenty of room for all three of us. the kitchen was good sized and well equipped, so we were able to cook all our meals in the condo. The condo was on the fifth floor, so we had a decent view of the River Run Village and the side of the mountain.
Our only real complaint about the lodging was the key system they had in use. We were issued two different electronic keys, one for the room and another for the common areas (lobby, ski lockers, garage, hot tubs, etc). The common area keys were awful. The first keys issued got us into the garage and up to the room. When we returned after getting our skis later that day, the common area keys would not let us in the garage or the lobby. So we went back to the rental office and got new ones. The new ones would not let us in the garage, but one of them would let you in the lobby. So we called the rental office. A representative came out and gave us two new keys that worked, well sort-of. Over the next four days we found that sometimes they worked and sometimes they didn’t. It was lucky that we had two common area keys and patience , because sometimes after 10 or 15 tries with one key, the other one would work on the fifth try. It sort of became a joke as to whether we’d be able to get back in or not.

Activities – And of course by this we pretty much mean skiing. We spent most of our days skiing at Keystone, and with Little CurbCrusher we spent most of the first three days on the green slopes. Finally on the last day, Little CurbCrusher wanted to zip down the blues in front of us, making the old people work hard to catch up. Night skiing is available at Keystone, but it feels a big dangerous. It’s not because the runs aren’t lit, it has to do with the people zipping down the mountain that don’t seem to be paying much attention. The slow ski zones and caution seem to be discarded once the sun goes down, and with the slopes being a bit emptier, folks are more willing to take chances and you feel like you’re going to get run down in the dark. In our four days of skiing, the only time we saw the Ski Patrol hauling anyone off the mountain was Saturday night. The final day we spent about three hours skiing over at Arapahoe Basin, which is only about four or five miles from Keystone. A-basin was a great place to ski. Very wide runs and a lot of fun. The day we were there was fairly warm with the temperatures in the upper 40’s and lower 50’s, so it was very comfortable skiing. I think a couple of us even ended up with goggle face.

One evening we went Tubing at Keystone. A couple of years ago we’d been tubing at Steamboat, where the tubing was on a beginners ski slope, and that was pretty much what we’d expected here. No, Keystone’s tubing is more like a toboggan run. They’ve got tube runs that are iced down, and very steep. The ride probably last 20 - 40 seconds, but you are moving. Then you get to ride a “magic carpet” lift back to the top. We probably got about eight or nine runs in during our hour on the tubing hill. There are also a couple of lanes where you can go down up to five at a time. It was a blast whether you went down tied to someone else’s tube or by yourself.

Equipment Rental – Since part of the purpose of this blog is to tell our travel stories, I’ve included this and the next section on ground transportation, because both are important when you go to Colorado to ski. We rented our skis from Mountain View Sports in Keystone. There were a short drive from the condo, but located in the same shopping plaza as the lodging rental company, Summit Cove. Their prices were great, about 40% off what we had seen online at the other places located at Keystone, and free rental of a kids package when an Adult rental. My skis were ok, but looked like they had been repaired with a fiberglass repair kit in a couple of places. Lady CurbCrusher’s skis, when held together looked like they had spent a good amount of time riding a bull they were so bowed. I don’t know what fare the other rental places offer, but you seem to get what you pay for at Mountain View.

Ground Transportation — One of the choices we faced when making the trip was how to get from Denver International Airport (DIA) to Keystone. In the past we have always tried to avoid driving in winter conditions, assuming that it is best left to the folks that live there. However, this time our cheapness (or is it frugality, that sounds better) got the best of us. When pricing the shuttle van rides on the internet, the best we could do was about $150 per person round trip from DIA to Keystone. At worst a car was going to cost the same $450, plus give us the freedom to do some grocery shopping on our way up (a half-gallon of milk in the Keystone “grocery” store was $4.00, at the Super-Walmart in Denver on the way up a whole gallon was only $2.29). With a little bargain hunting and daily watching of the prices we were able to get an SUV class (it turned out to be a Suzuki XL-7) from Advantage Rent-a-Car for over $150 less than what the shuttle van would have cost. So we rented the car, stopped at the Super-Walmart that is about 10 miles from DIA (and thus saved a bunch more on groceries for the week) and then headed up to the mountains. The drive is mostly on I-70, followed by about 12 miles on US-6. There were snow showers and freezing temperatures on our way up, and it was sunny and warm on our way down. The Colorado Department of Transportation does a great job clearing the roads, so even though there was some limited visibility on the way up, the road was fairly clear and the drive was non-eventful. I wouldn’t want to drive the RV in those conditions, but it was not uncomfortable driving the car, it just required paying a lot more attention to what I was doing. The trip is about 80 - 90 miles and we completed drive in under two hours each time. Apparently there are times when the tunnels back up and road conditions can make it a three or four hour trip, but if you are a competent motorist, there’s not reason not to drive yourself.

All in all, the CurbCrushers had a fantastic, week. It was nice to get back to Florida and the warmer temperatures and even more importantly the humidity. We’ve discovered that were a family that likes our humid Florida air, and too much time in the dryness of the west sucks the moisture out of our bodies and leaves us feeling like sandpaper. All that’s left are our pictures of Keystone and Arapahoe (I think there are some videos in these picture sets too.)

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February 22, 2009 by steve.

Well, it’s been a year since we visited Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park, and the Florida Pop Up Campers were headed that way for Washington’s Birthday. So we headed up the road for two hours and set up camp in Micanopy on Friday afternoon. On our last trip I went on a bike ride on Cone’s Dike Trail and found some buffalo. So this time, Lady and Little CurbCrusher wanted to go see the buffalo. We finished setting up, and rode the bikes up to the Visitor’s Center. No one had seen buffalo that day, but we decided that we’d head out on the trail. We rode about two and a half miles onto the dike trail. No buffalo. That’s that problem with looking for roaming wildlife, they are never where you expect them to be. We did see two huge gators and lots of evidence of the wild horses and the buffalo the in the form of buffalo patties.

It was a busy weekend for the CurbCrusher gang. Saturday morning we left the prairie and headed up to Gainesville. First stop, the Florida Museum of Natural History. Great place and its free to, or at least the museum is. There is a Butterfly Rain Forest exhibit that has an entry fee. Most of the exhibits are in the free section, with permanent exhibits about Florida geology and history. There was a traveling exhibit on the invasive species that are found in the Everglades, which was pretty cool since we learned about a lot of those species last year when we went to Flamingo. Little CurbCrusher was interested in the butterfly area, so we took a couple of turns through the exhibit. The first was right after we arrived when it was a little on the cold side, and there weren’t many butterflies flying around. We went back in later after the sun had come out and there was a lot of activity. Pictures of the Butterfly Rain Forest are here.

Next headed out to visit three other Florida State Parks in the area. The first was San Felasco Hammock Preserve State Park located just north of Gainesville. No rangers at this park, but a bunch of bike trails and horse trails. We wandered down one of the trails a way, but didn’t do much else at the park. Some pictures from the park are here.

The second park we visited was Devil’s Millhopper Geological State Park which is on the north side of Gainesville. This park is basically a sinkhole. There is a trail around the top of the hole, then stairs that you can take to walk to the bottom of the sink hole. Small streams form little waterfalls and trickle down to the bottom of the hole, and then disappears into the ground at the bottom. The walk is not too bad, and it was a pleasant climb down to the bottom and back up. I imagine that a visit after some rain would be very interesting as the trickles of water that we saw feeding to the bottom would be more like a stream. Our pictures are here.

Finally, we wandered over to the Dudley Farm Historic State Park, located a couple of miles west of Gainesville. This farm was founded in by the Dudley family in the mid 1800’s. It operated as a farm until the 1950’s. There were no rangers or any staff wandering around the park when we were there, but we were fine with the self guided tour. Our pictures of the park are here.

Finally Paynes Prairie. Not much new here that has changed from our trip last year. But here’s the summary and this year’s impressions:

Campsites - I’d probably give them a B. If you get a good site, it’s an A, but if you get a bad site, it would be bad. There are some sites that when it rains don’t drain well (1 and 2 I think). You’ll see the rig sitting the site like an island in the middle of the lake. Most of the sites are large enough, but some appear to provide a leveling challenge. There is water and electricity at each site, and a dump station located on the exit of the camping loop.

Stuff to Do - If you just want to stay in the park, there are plenty of trails to walk and bike. We’ve seen some decent wild life in this park on our visits. If you want to wander, there is the town of Micanopy nearby, the other parks and the museum mentioned above, and you’re very close to Gainesville, so if you are inclined to do University of Florida related stuff, it is close by.

Overall - We like to visit this park. This is the third trip that we’ve made to Paynes Prairie and we will probably make another one in about 12 to 18 months. Pictures of our time in the park are here.

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January 6, 2009 by steve.

Well we started the new year out right. Got up on January 2nd and headed out camping for the weekend. A short jaunt of about 120 miles from the CurbCrusher castle to Savannas Recreation Area in Ft. Pierce, Florida. This is a nice country run campground located right near the Indian River. Hopefully it is not a sign of things to come in 2009, but getting a reservation here was half the battle. Lady CurbCrusher made the reservation back in July. When she called in October time frame no one had any record of the reservation, so she made another one. She called again two days before we left, and we were told that we had a reservation, and we’d be on site #1 right next to the playground. As a matter of fact, if we wanted to come a day early the site was empty and we could come on down.

When we arrived, there was no one in the office, and site one had a very settled in 5th wheel on it. We had lunch and sat around for a while, and finally parked on site #2. After about an hour and a half the office opened back up and I went in to check in. The guy in the office was clueless. We told him we were on site #1, but there was a rig on it. He walked out to site #1, knocked on the door and started yelling at the people to move when they opened up. Well, they yelled back and after everyone decided they knew how to talk loud, Mr. Clueless walked back to the office. I followed him back, and proposed that I was happy to stay on site #2. Mr. Clueless said, no he had someone coming in tomorrow (Saturday) that had site #2, so I needed to move to the back of the campground. We discussed this some, as site #2 was right next to the playground, and made it easy to keep an eye on Little CurbCrusher. Mr. Clueless said that the people coming in “tomorrow” were friends of the park manager and he couldn’t move them. He then went on to offer some long winded commentary about the competence of the campground manager, as opposed to working on a solution to our problem. In looking over the counter, I saw the “site schedule” that showed who was scheduled in what site. I noticed that site #2 was empty until Sunday on the schedule, so I asked Mr. Clueless if the schedule was accurate or if there was some other indication that people were arriving “tomorrow.” Mr. Clueless insisted for about 45 seconds that “tomorrow” was Sunday and I couldn’t stay on Site #2. Finally, after looking at a calendar and talking about the day of the week, I convinced him that I was arriving on Friday and departing Sunday, and the schedule showed an empty site #2 for the weekend. Finally we were able to complete the campsite transaction and move on to the next order of business which is securing a prox card for entering the campground after hours.

Unlike most campgrounds with a combination lock on the gate, this campground has a prox card reader. So each camper is required to provide a $20.00 cash deposit for a prox card. This will allow you to come and go after hours. But… you better plan your departure during office hours as the only way to get your $20.00 back is to track down Mr. Clueless during the “office hours” (note that “office hours” seems to just indicate when the office is supposed to be open. It is not uncommon to go over to the office and find a “back at ???” sign on the door.) I was fortunate on Sunday when we departed to head over to the office at about 9AM right after it opened. I walked up and Mr. Clueless was on his way out the door fixing to set the “be back” sign and was able to get my $20.00 back. If I’d waited another five minutes before walking over to the office, it would have delayed my departure by about and hour and a half.


Campsites Savannas Rec Area gets a solid B on their campsites. The sites are large enough, although arranged a bit oddly. The odd sites are pull intos, and the even sites are back intos. This puts the utilities of the rig facing each other, and the sites are fairly close on the utility side. Each site then has a separate drive way for parking a toad/tow vehicle. So the site that you face on the awning side is a good ways off, there are two parking driveways between you and them. A number of the sites have full hookup, but there are some water/electric only sites. The pull into concept would be nice on some of the canal front sites with a motorhome, as you’d have your big window facing the “view” as opposed to the inside of the campground. The campground road and sites are not paved, but there is plenty of grass between the sites. Most campsites have a fire ring, although there are parts of the campground were the is a “community ring” that is shared among sites. There is also a large open area with a pow-wow circle in the middle of the campground.

Stuff to Do There is sort of an open “walking area”, not really a trail as it is a more of an open island between the canals that has an observation tower at one end. In addition, there are some parks in the area. We visited Savannas Preserver State Park, Fort Pierce Inlet State Park, and Avalon State Park on Saturday. In addition downtown Ft. Pierce is nearby and on the Saturday we were there a small craft fair was going on downtown. It was a pleasant place to park and walk around. For those that like to fish there is an abundance of fishing both in the park and nearby.

Overall We liked the park. Dealing with the St. Lucie county employees (it was not just the CurbCrushers, another local family was camping for the weekend, and asked us to please not judge St. Lucie County based on the county employees) is a bit of a pain, but the park itself is nice and a pleasant place. There is a variety of things to do nearby, including the beaches and some historical stuff. We met a couple of local families that were out for the weekend, so the park seems to have a good family appeal also.

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December 17, 2008 by steve.

Well, one last camping trip of the year for the CurbCrushers. Grandmother CurbCrusher (my Dad’s mom) turned 95 the 15th of December and had a party in Pensacola. Since Pensacola is about an eight hour drive from the CurbCrusher homestead in Orlando, we packed up the RV and decided to make a long weekend out of it, and try out the new campground at Blackwater River State Park near Milton, Florida. Not that anyone reads this blog, but back in June we stopped by Blackwater and took a look at the campground while it was under renovation.

We arrived at the park around 2:30 in the afternoon. A sign at the gate said that campers with reservations should go to their site and come back to the ranger station between 3:00 and 5:00. They don’t have enough rangers to do all the work in the park and man the station, so they only spend two hours a day at the station. So we moseyed over to our site and set up. After a while we walked back to the ranger station and checked in. There had been a lot of rain the week before and the Blackwater was high. On the approach to the park, there was probably about two inches of water on the road right after crossing the bridge. By the next morning there was no water on the road, but the trails and boardwalks were very wet, and covered by water in a number places. To get an idea of the water level you can compare this picture from our trip in May to this picture taken at the same point in December.

Campsites - This park gets an A+. I pulled up in front of the campsite, and got out of the motorhome to walk the site before backing in and turned to Lady CurbCrusher and said “This is the nicest campsite we’ve ever had.” The campground road is paved, and the sites have a deep bed of gravel. Our site was huge and full hookup (water, sewer and electricity) along with a grill and a fire ring. Not all the sites were as deep as ours, but even the shallower sites were plenty wide. Our campsite had a small creek running behind it that was very full due to the recent rain. As we sat around the campfire, we were able to listen to the babbling brook, it was like a scene from one of those RV ads.

Stuff To Do - If you just stay in the park there are trails, fishing and swimming when the weather is warm enough. There is a canoe outfitter down the road from the park that will take you upriver with a canoe and let you float down the river. Your about an hour from The National Naval Aviation Museum which I talked about back in January and still think is the best aviation museum I’ve visited. The Gulf Islands National Seashore is nearby and actually stretches along the coast and includes Ft. Barrancas located near the Naval Aviation Museum (Pictures from our visit to these places) .

Overall - The CurbCrushers really enjoyed this park as a matter of fact we wish that Blackwater River State Park was not eight hours away. We definitely want to go back, but then we want to go to a lot places, so it may have to wait. This will probably become the new place to stay when we go to Pensacola to visit family. For $13.26 a night this is a campground that can’t be beat.

Our pictures from the park are here.
I’ve updated the gas mileage summary, and this trip brings our total number of camping nights for 2008 to 44

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