May 30, 2007 by steve.

Well, took the Itasca on the road for the second weekend in a row. This time about a 90 mile trip from the house to Hillsborough River State Park near Tampa. This park is located around 10 miles from LazyDays RV showroom, as a matter of fact if you’re traveling to the park via I-4, you take Exit 10, the LazyDays exit, and continue west until the road dead ends into US 301. Head north on 301 to the park entrance.

There are over 100 campsites in the campground, split into two loops, one next to the river. There are a couple of pull throughs in each loop, but most of the sites are back-in sites. There is electricity and water. A single dump station serves the entire park. When you enter the park, you are about a half a mile from the campground, but since the park is served by a single road that is one way and about 2 and half miles, you are about 2 miles from the campground. You turn away from the campground and pass through the parking lots that are associated with the park’s features.

Parking Lot #1 is where you park to take the tour to Ft. Foster. This is a wooden fort that is located across 301 from the park. Parking Lot #2 is near the river rapids. Parking Lot #3 is near the suspension bridge and Parking Lot #4 is next to the pool.

The site we were in was a large pull through in the Hammock Circle loop. There is no river in this loop, but the sites are shady and there is a playground (slide and swings) in the middle of the loop along with a bathhouse. This trip was one made with the Florida Pop-up Camper (FPUC) group. We arrived and got set up by about 1PM on Friday.

After having some lunch, we took advantage of the ranger led canoe trip that takes place every Friday at 2PM. You can call the park and make reservations (suggested), and then show up at 2PM at the concession stand. Our Ranger was Patrick, and there were eight other people on the trip beside the CurbCrusher family. Patrick carried out a safety briefing, issued everyone life jackets and paddles, and we wandered across the parking lot to the canoes. At the river’s edge, Patrick inquired as to everyone’s canoe experience. Canoe 1 had a “veteran” canoer and park volunteer along with a lady that was going to start volunteering at the park the next week. Canoe 2 had a woman and her adult son who had canoed before. Canoe 3 had Grandma, Ma, baby and teenage brother. Canoe 4 was the CurbCrusher family. We all mounted our canoes and pushed off. The first thing Mrs. CurbCrusher notices is the smell of cigarette smoke. We turn around and there is Mr. park volunteer puffing away. Mr. park volunteer then navigates his canoe in front of us and starts a running commentary on the fauna of the park. He points to a Bald Cypress tree and loudly announces that it is a “Cypress Oak.” Mrs. CurbCrusher asked for a clarification and he repeated “Cypress Oak” again. There apparently is such as thing as the “Cypress Oak“, but it is a cultivated tree, not one found on the river banks of south central Florida. We drifted down the river for about an hour, and then turned back. Your trip length will vary depending on the skills of group you are with. In our group, Canoe 3 dictated our speed as they were beginners and navigated the river by going from one side to the other.

Saturday involved some time at the pool. The was short though, as the pool was pretty cold. Little Curb Crusher was shivering after about 20 minutes in the pool, and never seemed to get warm enough to go back in. Both Saturday and Sunday were great lazy camping days, as we visited with friends from the FPUC group and took long walks and bike rides.

Pictures from the trip are here. 

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May 22, 2007 by steve.

Location: Bumby near Livingston, across from the Colonial Plaza, Orlando, Florida

Rating: Good!

Visited: 5/22/07

Its been a while since I grabbed lunch at Beefy King, and I had almost forgotten about it. Due to circumstances at the office, an emergency trip to Staples was in order around lunch time. As we left the office somone asked, is there anyplace to eat around Staples. I thought for a second a then said “I know the perfect place.”

Beefy King is one of the last of a breed, a local fast food place. It’s not a chain, it’s just a family place that was started in the late 60’s and is still around. They server a “sliced meat” menu, beef, ham, turkey from a steam table where they make the sandwiches. For sides the standard is Tater Tots, but you can get onion rings also. They also make shakes here, if you get a flavored shake (chocolate, strawberry) they actually mix the thing up for you instead of just drawing it out of a machine. You get a fair size serving for the price, and it is tasty.
The place has character, its probably been a while since it was re-decorated, but it doesn’t need it. It is a timeless look that invites you to feel comfortable while you enjoy lunch. It definitely beats the chain fast food places in charm and quality of food. If you find yourself a little east of downtown Orlando around lunch, find Beefy King and have a sandwich.

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May 20, 2007 by steve.

Or as it is officially named: The Bill Frederick Park and Pool at Turkey Lake. This is a city park located on the west side of Orlando, about 4 or 5 miles from Universal Studios. If you’re traveling north on the Turnpike, you can see the lake and the park off to the right after you go past the Turkey Lake Service Plaza.

This is a great little park with about 35 RV camping sites. The sites are concrete pads, and most are fairly shady. The city has a 30 day limit on camping, but even so there were a couple of “permanent” looking rigs there. The kind where people have so much stuff built around the rig (screen rooms, shade tents, boats, golf carts, mules, etc) that it looks like they are there permanently. Of the sites, there are about 18 that are full hook up with 50 amp service. The others offer water and electricity. There is a separate tent area closer to the cabins and the turnpike.

This is a city park, so there is a huge playground for kids. In addition, there is a fairly large pool, and a disc golf course. There is a “kids farm” on one side of the park. They are particular about telling you this is not a “petting farm.” There’s a stable with a couple of horses, a cow, a few chickens some goats and a hog in the farm. In addition, there are a number of pavilions that are close to the pool and playground. On both of our visits to this park, Saturday has been a busy day at the pavilions with catered parties and other activities.

I like the nature trail that puts you right along the Turnpike. I don’t know why, but I like walking along the trail looking at all the people driving by. Since there are two disc golf courses in the park, there is a lot of open area along the lake front. We found a couple of cool trees to climb, and had lunch in the shade of a huge live oak on Saturday. Sitting around the campground, we met three of our neighbors. Two retired judges, one working in Orlando for the week, and the other breaking in his new motor home. The other guy was a movie guy that was working over at Universal Studios and had found the park by accident. He was very happy with the park, as he only had about a five-ten minute commute to the sound stages.

Our pictures of the trip are here.

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May 10, 2007 by steve.

Ok, I was supposed to be working, but it just didn’t work out that way. I had to go to Las Vegas for a series of meeting on Monday and Tuesday. The Monday meeting started at 1330, so I saw no reason to ruin my weekend and go out on Sunday night. I had an early Monday flight that got me in to Las Vegas around 1100. So on when some one canceled the Monday meeting, but kept the Tuesday meeting on, I decided that I wasn’t going to mess with my flights. I’d just go see the Hoover Dam. I’ve been wanting to see the Hoover Dam since the 3rd or 4th grade when I read about it in a book about all the wonders of the world.

So I landed at LAS and visited the new “Consolidated Rental Car Facility”  to pick up my rental car and headed to the hotel. I was able to check in even though it was around noon. With a rental car map and a full tank of gas I headed for the dam. The drive was not bad. It took me about 45 minutes to drive out there and that included a stop to get some chicken strips to eat in the car while driving.

As you approach the dam from the Nevada side, there is a parking garage on the left. For $7.00 you can park in there as long as you want. Since I was in a Chevy Malibu it didn’t really matter, but the clearance on the garage was 13 feet.  (I tend to notice these things since I ask myself “Where would I park the RV if I were driving?”). Down the stairs and you get funneled into the Visitor’s Center. There a big signs warning you that they are about to get money from you. The first thing you see in the Visitor’s Center is a cash register.
For $11.00 per adult they let you get in line for a movie, followed by a tour. The movie is about 10 minutes long. It contains the highlights and summary of the history of the dam. I’ve seen an hour version of the movie on one of the “educational” cable channels (History, Discovery or some such) . Once you come out of the movie, you get in line for the elevator. A full theater seems to fit into two elevators. The elevators drop you some 550 feet to the power generation level of the complex. Here you can see the turbines that are used to generate electricity. This is the Nevada side of the complex, there are a duplicate set (plus one) on the Arizona side.  From the power generation level they take you back to the elevator for another drop of a few feet and show you the original diversion channels that were created to take the river around the spot the dam was built at. This is followed by another elevator ride, back to the top of the Visitor’s Center to see the exhibits.

The rest of the tour is “self guided.” Which really means the tour is over, and you get to wander around the exhibits on your own. Once you walk out of exhibits, and the building you basically leave the Visitor’s Center and walk across the street to where the old Visitor Center and an audio exhibit center are. Needless to say there is a gift shop and snack bar at this point. You can also walk across the dam, stop to take pictures and look down the sides. You can not walk onto the intake towers as they have those chained off.

If you don’t want to pay to park and take the tour, it appears that there are some free parking spots on the Arizona side of the dam. From these sort of “overlook” areas it is not difficult to walk down the sidewalks to the dam and then walk across it.

The view back to Lake Mead and opposite downstream is nice. In the lake you can see the waterlines that show how high the water has actually been in the past.

I put some of my pictures of the dam here.

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