US Camping holiday Winter 2023 with the RPod trailer

At the best of times, our winter weather is not conducive to travel…but when one must tow a trailer through the mountains, the travel lasts longer, hence the weather window must be a nice big one! 

Our window arrived only mid-February!!!

Kingston’s weather promised to be sunny and to be around 0C. It was…but the humidity produced a thin layer of ice on the road…a bit intimidating for our first trip. But all went well.  We realized that stopping at a rest area required us to park with trucks and trailers!  Cute, isn't it?

But when at the Petro Truck Stop for the night, that experience became more spiked! We were in the big league now!

 It was a strange feeling to sit in the Pod and be somewhere else than in our driveway! The gas furnace worked: we kept the temperature at 12C during the night. With our summer duvets and a blanket, it was comfortable. Heiner made coffee in the morning, we ate granola. Quite a nice feeling to have a cozy breakfast when it is cold outside! Then we were ready to hit the road again! 

Our second stop was Raphine, Virginia on February 13. We arrived on a huge but empty parking area, wondering why the area was so big with nobody on it. Ha ha…that changed during the evening as more and more trucks arrived. We were 10 minutes on foot from the washrooms. Such a truck stop is really a world in itself..like a village. Hot (and fried) food, huge portions of meat, living rooms and places to watch TV, showers ($15.00 each for non-truckers), chiropractic office, etc…  

A little surprised awaited us, however. As we are entering this area of Virginia, we realized that the hills are actually mountains making our NY state stretch look flat! The Blue Mountains are high…we stayed at close to 1000 meters for a long while! Anyhow, we learned to coax the Kia through those mountains at 45mph, sometimes a bit more…luckily, the landscape was wonderful! And we did not mind driving slowly!!!!

 

After another good night, we set out for our next stop in South Caroline. Rock Hill SC.

By then, the nights were not so cold anymore and the landscapes were changing to rewarding spring like colours.

We did not mind so much that we took two more days of travel to get south. It was a fun experience to be among truckers. We missed the hot showers, however. What a treat when we arrived in our Brunswick’s campsite! We were not allowed to go to our usual spot in the wild camping area because we have a trailer. Instead, we had to go to the RV's area. Luckily, the reception area staff managed to get us a “deluxe” site overlooking the pond/lake. We had electricity, water and yes, we felt like we have arrived! 

We spent 4 nights in Brunswick From Feb. 15 to Feb 19). Finally, we could enjoy hot showers, leisurely breakfast overlooking the small lake, bike rides and walks. Also, we needed to reorganize our material inside the trailer.

 On Sunday February 19, we left Blythe Island for Florida. We got up at 6h30 and at 8am, we were on the road. Because our fuel consumption doubled with our trailer towing, we must fuel more often. That day, driving into the gas station, we bumped on the cement pavement. Big clunk. Strangely enough, we did not think of checking under our vehicles or between our vehicles to see whether we damaged something. 20 minutes later, driving the Interstate, we realized that the R Pod side lights were not on, which meant that the connector was not working and that we no longer had any power to the brakes of the trailer! D a r n! We stopped at the next rest area and realized that the connector was badly damaged (we schleppt it on the road for miles!!!). Luckily, Heiner managed to work out a fix and to reconnect both vehicles. 

We are driving to the River Junction Campsite (area of Withlacoochee river)!  But we needed food first, and asked our navigation system to get us to the next Walmart.  It did, but via side roads, spiked with speed bumps every few yards!  We ae talking here big, elevated speed bumps! Took us 20 minutes to run this obstacle course. 

But t was just a training exersize:  And, as described in the guidebook, the road to the campsite was very bad. Lots of potholes!   Paring the trailer uphill was not an issue - H. is getting pretty good at placing the trailer where we want in no time.

In contrast to Hog Island and Cypress Glen campgrounds near by, this River Junction camping was far from everything.  Like 20 minutes (by car) to the Croom bike Trail or to any shop  - via pothole alley!

One day we stopped at a BBQ stand. Unfortunately, the man did not have much left on his grill (it was about 2h30pm). But I could not help to notice a huge Bible placed on the table for waiting customers, asking them to select there preferred passages and to read them out aloud …

 As for kayaking on the Withlacoochee river, we did 3 trips, trying to avoid Saturday…it is a popular day-use facility and on Friday, we encountered one Airboat on the river (Saturday, we were warned there will be more). A terrible device. Polluting the water with gasoline, noise and too much wake. Luckily, it was going to be the only one we met! 

That night, Heiner cooked Smithfield sausage, potatoes and cabbage….this made the Pod really hot. But the temperature dropped by mid-evening and we had comfortable nights.

After 1 week in the dusty brush landscape of River Junction, we were happy to move to the Atlantic coast, its beaches and an area that we very much enjoyed last year. Sebastian town in Indian River County. We had an early morning departure, and plenty of fog…differences in temperatures are common at that time of the year in Florida. The area we drove through was very commercial...and it looked like a large Walt Disney strip mall (Kissimee, St.Cloud). By the time we got to Sebastian (13h30), it was very hot! Our spot (#20) was free and Heiner did a great job at parking the Pod onto this twisted site. Two weeks without having to move it was a nice welcome. We set up our day tent, the Pod's sun roof, … our small kingdom was very comfortable. It was great to have the day tent and the Pod sunroof because the temperatures were going to hover around 30+C for the length of our stay.

On the day after our arrival, we enjoyed a long breakfast outside. First coffee, then granola. We knew what beach we wanted to go to: Golden Sands Beach. On our first visit, we walked 3.5 miles under a very hot sun. Without a sun umbrella, we had no wish to sit on our newly bought inflatable toy…we went swimming instead!  The breakers were insignificant (2.5 feet high) and the yellow flag was up. The water was just so refreshing and around 24C! 

 This was not going to be our last trip to the beach: like last year, we developed a routine alternating between beaching, kayaking on Sebastian river, biking and strolling at the waterfront.  When kayaking, we started early morning so that we would not be exposed to the hot sun. On windless days, it was just too hot to start paddling at noon! Again this year, we enjoyed the river very much. 

Of course, we were not as amazed as when we came the fist time but we really enjoyed the physical thrill of paddling, the landscapes and the very many alligators seen during our trips. Sometimes, it made us feel unsure, especially when the beast entered the water as soon as we approached! Will it come under the kayak and surprise us? In fact, wild animals are shy and look for safety when somebody intrudes their space! As we stayed two weeks in Sebastian, we also noticed that alligators are not visible at high tide: they probably hide in their nests (hole in the ground). We saw some dolphins swimming and were often surprised by manatees close to the kayak: with the water being so murky, one cannot really see what is going one down there!!! 

We enjoyed biking along the Indian River waterfront. This year, however, we did not often go to the "Sand Bar" of Sebastian.  Last year, due to Covid lack of social stimulation, we found it exciting to be in a bar, but this year, we enjoyed our campsite almost as mo than the bar!!!!

For sentimental reasons (we had been in this area numerous tmes with our boat) , we drove to Vero Beach and enjoyed excellent local IPA's at the ICW Riverside Café, not too far from the Marina.  We were amazed to see that the mooring field of the marina was three times the size of the past. Lots and lots of boats! The waterfront was very busy, especially around noon time! But it was fun to stroll among people and look at fancy boutiques... 

We did visit a seafood festival, the Grant Seafood Festival…a very very popular event.  The only drawback there was no space to sit and absolutely no shade: with the day temperature being over 30C+ and very sunny, t was hot, and we left after eating our seafood, which was excellent: large fish fillets, plus chips and delicious hush puppies! There were other items that I would have liked to taste but no more appetite! One could not buy only 5 scallops, or try some small samples here and there: on had to purchase a book of tickets and trade those against a (full) meal).

It was a first for us to stay 2 weeks on one campsite! We found that after 10 days or so, we could have moved on but finding a campsite on Friday or Saturday was ridiculously difficult and time consuming, hence, we preferred to stay full weeks (when we found something fitting), covering this way weekends.  We met a couple of Québécois (parked a site beside ours) with their RAM1500 camper (by 5Mars, Qc). They were having battery related problems and so we spoke to them (more to her) almost daily. Finally, they accepted Heiner’s assistance to diagnose the problem, and a day later, their problem was solved. Johanne insisted on taking a group photo before we separate.      

 

Other wise, we had no contact with the other campers around us.  

Although, there was a Trumpian red neck not far from us who had anger issues as well as an aggressive and barking dog… we kind of stayed away ...

However, we chatted for a few minutes with other campers who came to the boardwalk at sunset (we must have something in commonon that front). That was a very nice time of the day…the heat finally came down, dolphins and alligators swam peacefully on the river.

 After 2 weeks, we were ready to leave. March is a very busy month with all those school breaks taking place. We found that we had less flexibility with the trailer: tent only sites are usually easier to find. Finding campsites always takes a couple of hours of one's day and lots of data! We went to a Burger King place in Sebastian (not to repeat...) and then to the local library (much better choice) in order to book our campsites for the coming days.  We did no want to eat up our phone-data on our hour long searches.

Bull Creek sounded pittoresque...we had never been at a fishing camp before! Well, the site was pretty, with each trailer having access to the water. People were friendly...and were all into fishing, of course. There was nothing much to do except sitting around...the big problem was the cleanliness of the facilities. They were filthy...the worst we have ever seen. No need to write the details: we will not go back.

Something else was going on, however. On our way to Bull Creek. we hit a large piece of metal (bike rack ?) at 75km/hr. Heiner was driving and he just did not have the time and the flexibility to swerve around, especially with the trailer in tow. To make a long story short, the emission control box of the KIA was ripped off and we had to stop on the road side. Heiner went underneath the KIA while I was facing the traffic and making sure that people saw our vehicles. He managed to re-connect the box (or what was left of it) to the car with our kayak rope...We were located 50 km away from DeLand, Florida. A pretty university town with a large KIA dealership! But it was a Sunday and service was closed, of course. So, we drove to Bull Creek and next day, back to DeLand  with this nice rope work under the car. The KIA service dept. was very efficient, checked out our car after we waited maybe 1 hour, gave us a list of the parts broken that they could not replace (our KIA was sold mainly on the Canadian market), and all that free of charge! We were very pleased and made our way back to Bull Creek. Unfortunately, we could not stop in DeLand for a visit because it was raining cats and dogs. Streets were like rivers! When we got back to Bull Creek, a part of the rope was dangling! So next day, Heiner proceeded to replace his rope work with a more solid "metal wire and aluminium tape" job! It is still holding ... parts are currently on oder from Korea.

Nothing else to write about Bull Creek...next day (March 15), we begin our travel north. Slowly. We passed through Statesboro, Georgia, a pretty University town and spent the night on Walmart's parking lot. Quiet night.  

Our next stop was to be in a South Carolina State Park, on Lake Marion (Santee River). Another place where we had never stopped before...with the trailer on tow, we just could not make as much mileage as with our van. 

Santee River State Park is quite large, with little privacy between campers (no hedges) but with sparkling clean facilities and lots of staff (several camp hosts). We met Caroline, a woman who was camping alone on the site adjacent to ours. She suggested some paths for hiking and biking. We rode 16 km on pavement and came back on the mountain trail...not ideal for our small bikes! 

Next day, another walk in the forest where we enjoyed the spring flowers popping up...After our beer, rum and cigar routine, the wind became cooler and we enjoyed sitting in the Pod with the heater on!  

The 2 next nights were also quite chilly. We traveled a bit further north to the Little Pee Dee State Park on the Edisto River. 

 It was a nice drive through the area with an amazing number of churches dotting the landscapes. Quite a forlorn area...with crosses and churches everywhere.

Once again, we found this South Carolina park to have very friendly staff (camp host) : our host (Barb) was about 80 years old and came to greet us with her golden retriever Koda (who "talked" to us). While the hikes were short, they were pretty and Lake Norton was also pleasant.

 A cold wind was blowing and we bought firewood.  We invited an Ontario couple from Midland to enjoy the fire with us. Sue and Keith were very nice and we shared stories of trailers and travels! The firewood bundles were small and expensive ($7.00US) : we bought 2 bundles and Keith and Sue bought another one! Quite a nice encounter. We also talked to another woman from Ottawa who was biking in the park and stopped to chat with us. Quite a number of Canadians were slowly driving north and somehow met in this nice park

Next day, we left the Carolinas and made it to Farmville, Virginia. Very noisy night on Walmart's parking lot (the first time that this happened) with Testosteron loaded adults (?) revving the engine and driving at high speed on the lot. Not worth going back to this area. And I particularly liked the sign on Walmart's entry door, asking customers to refrain from carrying openly their firearms! Nice touch...

On March 22, we stopped at Frederick in Maryland before driving to our final destination in Pennsylvania. What a neat small college town, very lively with coffee shops and restaurants. We bought a Pizza bretzel at a local place. Very busy and quite slow but we enjoyed strolling the streets while eating this "fusion" lunch. After that, we drove another 106 km to Gettysburg's Walmart. Unlike the night in Virginia, this one was very calm.

On March 23, we made our final trip to Kingston. With rain falling, bare trees and some snow in the fields, the stretch was long and boring. But we made it back safely with van and trailer !!!

And it looks like, that will be our last trip with this trailer.  Just not our style.