July 29, 2009 by steve.

Well with one weekend left in July the CurbCrusher’s headed for beach. Not far from home, just a little bit north of Daytona Beach near Flagler Beach is the Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area. This is a beach park because that’s about all there is to the park. The campground is located on the East side of A1A and the check-in and administrative offices are located on the west side of A1A. So when you arrive, you turn west, go to the ranger station and check in. There is a small road that leads to a circle where you turn around and head back out of the park. When you reach A1A, you look both ways and hurry across the road to the campground area and small day use parking area. There is a locked gate that you then go through, and find yourself in a fairly simply laid out campground. There is one road down the middle, and sites located on either side of the road.

The campground has 34 campsites, one bath house and a dump station. About half the sites are on the beach side of the campground road, and the other half back up to A1A. There are dunes and vegetation between the sites and the beach, and a good bit of vegetation between sites and the road. Some of the dune side sites have a decent view, and there is enough room on the road and the sites to pull in forward in a motorhome so that you could fill the windshield with beach. One note of warning though, they are fairly strict about not showing any lights toward the ocean after dark because of the sea turtles. As far as amenities, it is fairly basic, there is electricity and water. Behind the bathhouse is a boardwalk over to the beach, and an outside shower to remove the salt and sand. Not a lot more to say about this park. If you like the beach, and your goal is to be on the beach, this is probably one of the best state parks where you can accomplish that. Pictures of Gamble Rogers are here.

We spent a good bit of time at the beach, but also went wandering around the area. A few miles north of Flagler Beach there is another state park, the Washington Oaks Gardens State Park. There is no camping at this park, but it has a very nice garden on the river that was established back when this is was a private residence, and a coquina rock beach on the Atlantic. While it was ok to do in the July heat, I have a feeling that the gardens would be a fantastic place to visit during the spring when it is cooler and things are blooming. Pictures of Washington Oaks are here.

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July 16, 2009 by steve.

As noted elsewhere in this blog, Lady CurbCrusher is a lighthouse fan and one of the only lighthouse in Florida that she has not seen is the Cape Canaveral Light. This primarily because the lighthouse is located on the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, which is closed to the public. Through some means, Lady CurbCrusher found that a free tour is offered the second Wednesday of each month (more here, then follow the tours link) that visits the Air Force Space and Missile Museum, and then stops as the Cape Canaveral Lighthouse.

The tour is three hours long (queue Gilligan theme here), and depending our your tour guide, might really feel like six or seven. The tour starts with everyone gathering at the gate to the Cape Canaveral Air Station by 0845. A bus will arrive from Patrick Air Force Base, and your two IDs will be checked and everyone gets on the bus. The tour will then meander around the Air Force Station, driving past a couple of launch complexes, and you will find yourself at the Museum.

The Museum consist of two buildings, the old blockhouse, and a facility next door, and a rocket garden that are all located on an old launch complex. Inside the blockhouse is a launch control room with computing equipment that is fresh from the 1950’s. One exhibit is labeled “Data Printer” and looks like an old Underwood Typewriter with a serial and power cable attached to it. Punched tape (not even magnetic tape) drives labeled as data collection and storage devices, and the analog clock faces that served as a countdown and mission clocks. Even if you’re not a rocket fan, the display of historical technology is pretty cool. The building next to the block house has various photos, and some references to the populations that lived in the area before the space race took over the Cape, and the rocket garden has a number of static displays.

The next stop was the Cape Canaveral Lighthouse. The lighthouse is located about a mile from the actual coast, moved to this spot in 1894 to keep the lighthouse save from beach erosion (which oddly enough has not happened). This lighthouse is made out of iron, so moving it was a matter of taking it apart, and then reassembling it in the new location. Unlike most lighthouse, this one was created with four lower floors for living space (which were never used for that purpose), and then the stairs continue on up the top of the lighthouse. If the Friends of the Lighthouse are present, then the bottom four floors will be open and you can wander through them, otherwise this just becomes a stop on the tour. We were lucky, since the lighthouse folks were there during our tour, so we were able to climb the four floors and talk to the volunteers about the lighthouse and its history.

After this, its back on the bus for some serious touring. A lot of Cape Canaveral is simply launch complexes, and apparently the Air Forces and NASA don’t seem too keen on re-using old launch complexes. So much of the this part of the tour is riding past a concrete pad, maybe a blockhouse structure, that is all overgrown with vegetation and the guide saying “This is launch complex X.” There are 40 something launch complexes and I think our guide wanted to make sure we saw everyone one of them. This is were having a good guide would have probably made a difference. If you had someone that had stories about the launch complexes, and was familiar with them, it could be interesting. We apparently drew the guy who could read the signs “Here is launch complex 23.”

The final stop is Hanger R. The Space and Missile Museum folks have a number of missiles and training artifacts that are stored in this hanger, and maybe more importantly there are facilities (after all the last ones you saw were at the Museum two hours earlier). You can walk around and touch the exhibits and take pictures to your hearts content.

Finally, three hours after it starts, the bus pulls back up in front of the gate to the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and lets you off at your car.
Links to pictures of the Lighthouse and Space Museum.

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July 2, 2009 by steve.

Off in the RV again for a weekend. This time a short trip up the road from home for the CurbCrushers, to Kelly Park just north of Orlando in Apopka, Florida. Less than a year ago, in August of 2008, we took the short ride up to Kelly Park and had a great time, so we put it on our list for this summer.

Not a lot has changed, the springs are still there and pumping out water, and its a great way to spend a day. Take your tube to the head of the springs, and then just float your way down the run until you get to the end, repeat. There are about eight or nine lifeguards along the runs and the swimming area, so everyone should feel save. The park fills up fast with day visitors on the weekend, so it is great to be camping since you can avoid having to deal with parking and just get in the springs. Since this part of Florida (actually, I think most of Florida) features afternoon thundershowers, camping at the park means that when the life guards chase you out, you just head back to the RV for a nap. Then a couple of hours later you wander back over after the storms lifted. A large number of the day use folks flee the park when the storms come, so it is much less crowded in the afternoon.

The campsites are pleasant, there are 26 of them. All but about five or six have water and electricity. Access to water and electric can be just about anywhere on your campsite, so make sure you have an extension cord and hose with you. This last trip our water was on the passengers side toward the rear, and the electric right where you’d expect it at the rear on the right. The campground loop road and the campsites are packed dirt, but they seem to shed water fairly well in the rain, and each campsite has a concrete pad. The staff said they had cleared out the brush around the campsites since our last visit, and this may well be true, but I don’t think it changed the dimensions of the campsites, which is not a problem since most will accommodate at least a 35 - 40 foot rig. One thing that has changed is that you are no longer able to reserve a specific site. You make a reservation for a type of site (water and electric or water only) and a site will be assigned to you when you arrive. This wasn’t a problem as we fit easily in the site assigned.

Pictures of trip are here.

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