Wednesday October 5th 2016

I got underway at 9:30 this morning. It was a bright and sunny day with a gusty wind. The wind was not related to the impending hurricane, but it made travel a two hands on the steering wheel task.

This was my first experience with Interstate 75 through Georgia. It was a fine three lane road with a good surface. One thing I really notice is the smoothness of the road surface. Every bump, such as concrete road joints, get transmitted through out the motorhome. On the down side, the scenery is punctuated by more billboards than you could possibly read. In many areas both sides of the highway have advertisements every few hundred yards.

Site 128 at the Forsyth Georgia KOA. Sites in this area are very close. The fireplace is a potbelly stove like contraption.

I am about 180 miles north of Florida and about the same distance from the coast. This is probably much further than I needed to move to get out of the way of the storm, but once I decided to run I wanted to be safe from any variation in the storms path. This campground is full with others getting away from the storm’s path. When I arrived around 1:30 there were four rigs in front of me at check in. I needed to wait in the road for space to open up in the campground driveway before I could register.

Traffic on the way north was heavy. I don’t think it was caused by the storm, just normal week day traffic. The evening news indicated that other highways coming directly from the coast, like Interstate 16 from Savannah, were clogged by evacuees. On I-75 the one give away that a storm was about to hit in Florida was the south bound traffic. Every few minutes a group of Electric Company trucks or tree cutting trucks could be seen heading south to support the post storm cleanup.

I plan to spend the weekend here. Where I go from here is dependent on the path of the storm, the damage it does and my mood. I have things I want to do in Florida, but not a set time line. Getting into the middle of the aftermath of the storm or even the storm itself should it loop as currently forecast is not something I want to do.

Tuesday October 4th 2016

After a busy few days in tourist and travel mode I spent the day relaxing at home. My focus was on figuring out what’s next and catching up on domestic tasks.

Site 3 at the Lake City Campground.

I did the laundry at the reasonable price of $1.50 per load for the washer and dryer. The laundry is also conveniently located across the road from my site. This means I didn’t have to hang around and wait for the machines to finish. It was load up the washer come back in 35 minutes to load up the dryer, come back in another 45 minutes to fold and bring stuff home. The laundry wasn’t busy so this was very easy.

The bigger task was to figure out how to deal with the impending hurricane Matthew. It was clear yesterday that I going any closer to the coast than my current 100 miles was not a dumb idea. The question was do I stay here or run. This area is likely to get heavy rain and this site is not the best for staying dry. That means I need to “run”.

Watching the predicted track of the storm as it changes every 6 hours, it was clear that anywhere east or south of here was in the path of the storm. I just came from the west, so I could backtrack. Any of the RV parks west of Tallahassee were an option. I just wasn’t feeling it.

I am currently camped just east of Interstate 75. The whole state of Georgia is just up the road. I decided to head north toward Atlanta. There are a number of things I want to tour at sometime in between here and there. This seems like a good opportunity.

With the decision made, finding a place to stay through the weekend proved a little difficult. There are plenty of campgrounds, but as I started to check for reservations I found a few with no available space. This is the Columbus Day holiday weekend for some people so that could be a contributing factor. Other people escaping the storm may have similar ideas and the Georgia National Fair starts on Thursday in Perry GA which is right in the middle of my target area.

I made a reservation at the KOA in Forsyth GA for Wednesday thru Monday. It is a little further north than I intended to run but has a number of things to do with in a reasonable distance. Now all I have to do is hope the hurricane doesn’t decide to follow me.

Monday October 3rd 2016

I got underway toward the east about ten this morning. I traveled about 300 miles across Florida and still have a little over 100 to go. I’ve stopped for a couple of nights at the Lake City Campground in, you guessed it, Lake City Florida.

My st.op for a couple of nights

When I left this morning, hurricane Matthew was projected to stay in the Atlantic east of Florida. This evening the east side of the Florida peninsula is in the projected path. I’m going to stay here until Wednesday. Hopefully the forecast path of the storm will be known by then. I will either turn north into Georgia on I-75 or reverse direction toward Tallahassee if the storm is still heading for the east coast of Florida. The minimal hurricane or tropical storm Hermine at the beginning of September was bad enough. I don’t want to be near at category 2 of 3 hurricane.

The trip across the top of Florida is long. The terrain is very hilly and the area is heavily forested. It continues to remind me more of other parts of the country than the Florida I am familiar with. I played a lot of hopscotch with the trucks today. I run the cruise control at 64 or 65 mph which is slower than the trucks want to travel, but on the hills I can maintain speed and they can’t. It requires a little more attention when I’m side by side with one of the trucks. I don’t want to get sucked to close.

One good thing about the trip east is that I’m back in the eastern time zone. The central time zone was keeping me confused. I only manually changed a few of my clocks and a couple of devices changed automatically. That combined with TV prime time being an hour earlier really kept me guessing. When I looked at a time display, I had to know if the clock was changed before I had a clue what time it was. If I hadn’t known I was returning to the eastern time zone I would have made an effort to make sure all 12 plus time display devices were set to the same time zone.

Sunday October 2nd 2016

Today I took a day trip 70 miles west to the USS Alabama Battleship park  in Mobile Alabama. The park is home to the World War II era battleship Alabama, the submarine USS Drum and many other pieces of military hardware from the civil war through the current era.

USS Alabama on display behind the gift shop.

The USS Alabama (BB-60) is the fourth ship in the South Dakota class of battleships. It was commissioned in August of 1942 and decommissioned in January of 1947. During World War II, she saw service in both the North Atlantic and the Pacific theaters. The museum opened in January of 1965.

The ship has three self guided tour routes marked out using red, green and yellow arrows. Following the marked paths take you down three or four levels (I lost track) into the depths of the ship and up to the observation level of the superstructure. Using pictures, written descriptions, and mannequins they strive to tell the story of life aboard the ship during the war.

Battleship Alabama forward 16 inch guns.

USS Alabama aft 16 inch guns.

Crew mess area with seats around the aft 16 inch gun turret

In addition to the ships mess, the hospital area, and the engine room which are standard elements on similar tours, this ship museum has a good display of the radar/command and control center and the munitions handling for the big guns. The size of the projectiles for the 16 inch guns call for some impressive mechanisms to bring them from the depths of the ship to the guns on deck.

A-12 CIA Spy plane

After climbing up and down near vertical ladders to navigate the ship tours, I went into the pavilion that holds aircraft from world war II to the present. They have a number of aircraft in the collection that I haven’t seen at other museums. In the pavilion is an A-12 CIA spy plane. The Lockheed built A-12 was a successor to the U-2 and a precursor to the SR-71 Blackbird.

B-52D in Vietnam era night camouflage

Across the main parking lot is a B-52D  Stratofortress. It is painted in a night flight camouflage scheme used for the Vietnam war. Since many B-52 aircraft are still in service after 60 years, it is surprising to see this one here. Elsewhere on the grounds I saw a DC-3, a B-25 bomber and an exhibit of Coast Guard boats and a helicopter.

DC-3 as seen from the deck of the Alabama

Vietnam era gun boat

The other major boat to tour at this facility is the World War II submarine the USS Drum. It is mounted on dry land, not afloat. Once you climb the stairs up to the deck your can enter the bow torpedo room and work your way aft to the other torpedo room. The tour passes through the officers sleeping area, the control room, and the engine room. For some reason, I’ve been in quite a few submarine museums. Climbing through the small water tight hatches gets old fast.

All 55 of the pictures I took can be found in my Google Photos shared album Battleship Alabama.

With travel and touring time my day trip lasted about six plus hours. Tomorrow I will be moving on east with the motorhome.

Saturday October 1st 2016

It was another really nice fall day. The temperatures were in the mid 80s with low humidity. All in all it was a very good day to checkout the area.

I went south from the RV park to the Gulf of Mexico. It was about 20 miles to reach the edge of the mainland area. I was particularly interested in checking out the communities of Fort Walton Beach and Destin. I’ve heard lots of people talk about these towns in a positive light.

View from park in Fort Walton Beach

Fort Walton Beach turned out to be an interesting town that was a mixture of tourist areas and the typical military base town. Eglin Airforce base and several outlying airfields surround the town on three sides. I stopped for awhile at a downtown park on the shore of the waterway that separates the mainland from the barrier island. Judging by the number of empty boat trailers in the parking lot, there should have been lots of boats out in the water. I could only see a couple. My guess is I saw them later down in the Destin area.

From Fort Walton Beach I crossed onto Okaloosa Island, the barrier island and drove east toward Destin. I really liked this area with a mixture of business, condos and National Seashore. The sand dunes that reminded me of Cape Cod. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before I caught up with stop and go traffic all the way into Destin.

Destin was holding a seafood festival. It seemed to be a very popular event. There were boats of all kinds in the inlet just west of the town. I think some of these came from the boat launch in Fort Walton Beach. Cars were parked in every spot imaginable and people were everywhere. Any thoughts I had of stopping went away with the congestion.

My drive through showed a typical coastal area. Hotels, condos and apartments were on the water side of the road and businesses lined the shore side. The traffic was getting to me so I was in search of a way home. The bridge and road I found was a toll road. Thankfully, my SunPass transponder account still had enough money loaded after last winter to cover my tolls getting back to the Interstate. I wasn’t sure until I got home and checked my account online.

My tour served to tickle my curiosity. I need to plan a longer stay near the beach sometime in the future. The few RV parks that I passed looked old and crowded. I will need to do some research on campgrounds in the area. I suspect I’ll be passing through this area coming from and going to the west from Florida.

Friday September 30th 2016

Today I went to the National Naval Aviation Museum at Naval Air Station Pensacola. I followed the signs in from Interstate 10. It was a very circuitous path to the appropriate entrance gate to the air station. I had to show ID at the gate and at the entrance to the museum. Bags were also being checked at the museum entrance. I suspect there was additional security that I did not observe.

Blue Angle Aircraft at the National Naval Aviation Museum

I arrived at the museum just in time to join a guided tour. The tours are conducted throughout the day by retired navy and marine aviators. The tour took a little over two hours to cover both wings of the main building. The hanger building was closed for maintenance.

A1 Triad replica. The Navy’s first aircraft.

The guide speaking in front of a Sopwith Camel

The tour was very good. The guide put the aircraft and exhibits in historical context. He told a story about an aircraft or some pilot that flew that type of plane. I suspect the stories were well embellished, but they were entertaining. Talking the tour proved to be a good way to see the museum at a measured pace. Without the tour, I would have hurried by some of the more interesting exhibits.

SBD Dauntles fought in the battle of Midway. It was found at the bottom of Lake Michigan after crashing while being used for training.

PB2Y Coronado

Plymouth navy staff car

Primary training aircraft

The museum in general seems to focus on telling the story of individual aircraft or types of aircraft. Often times the type of aircraft and its use is hard to find behind a story of accomplishment. I’m used to a museum like the Smithsonian Air and Space museum that provides the facts and little else about the aircraft in the exhibit. I’m not sure which I like better.

Skylab Apollo type spacecraft

Overall I enjoyed the museum. I took 75 pictures that can be found in my Google Photos shared album National Naval Aviation Museum.

Thursday September 29th 2016

I departed the campground in Montgomery about 10AM for the Pensacola Florida area. It was not one of my better travel days. Nothing bad happen, just many “weird” or annoying things kept cropping up.

My research identified several RV parks in the area, so I didn’t make reservations. I plotted my course using Google Maps and took the time to put my desired campground into the GPS. The first weird thing happened when I chose to follow the GPS directions instead of my Google route. This is the first time I’ve let the GPS control my route. The GPS sent me much further south and a little west in Alabama than Google did. I spent a good period of time contemplating where I was going to enter Florida. As it turns out my route intersected Interstate 10 half way between Mobile Alabama and Pensacola Florida. I entered Florida on I-10 from the west.

Blue Angel Aircraft Model at the Florida Welcome Center near Pensacola.

The Florida welcome center had the typical couple of ounces of orange or grapefruit juice as well as tons of brochures. I picked up a few for the Pensacola area. The unique element at this welcome center is a model of a Blue Angels Aircraft in front of the building. It is a reminder that the Pensacola Naval Air Station is the home of the Navy Blue Angel flight demonstration team. One of the things I’d like to do while in the area is go to the National Naval Aircraft Museum that is also at NAS Pensacola.

The second annoyance of the day was caused by my wandering mind. I usually listen to Podcasts while traveling. They keep my mind occupied while I drive. Today I was out of new podcasts. I need to download more from the internet. In place of the podcasts I had the radio tuned to various music stations. Music does not keep my attention. Instead I heard every rattle and squeak as I went down the road. On several occasions I had to resist the urge to stop and find out what was making the noise. It really made for a paranoid travel day.

Next up on the hit parade of “weird” was an error code on my auxiliary car brake. This is a box that sits between the brake pedal and the seat of my car that applies the car brakes when it senses the motorhome braking. It uses power from the car battery. The error code indicated that the car battery was to low to apply the brake. When I stopped at the Florida Welcome Center, I check the cat and the brake controller. Everything had power and once I reset the controller everything was fine for the remainder of the trip.

The last item of the day was at my intended destination. The campground was full. A fact that I only found out after exiting the highway, navigating a narrow road and reaching the office at the back of the campground. Once again I was reminded that traveling without a reservation has risks. A call to the next place on my list determined that only one night was available. The third place was open for the weekend.

Site D-4 at the Milton Gulf Fines KOA.

I am at the Milton Gulf Pines KOA. This campground is 15 to 20 miles east of Pensacola. It is also more expensive than the other two campgrounds. Perhaps those are the reasons they had available spaces. For the higher price a free breakfast is served every morning. I just have to get up in time.

Wednesday September 28th 2016

I’m back at The Woods RV Park and Campground on the south side of Montgomery AL. This is the same park I
stayed in last Thursday night on my way north to Red Bay. It was 50 degrees when I got up this morning and 90 when I stopped here in Montgomery.

I got up before 7am as the campground came alive with people getting ready for service. It’s a good thing I did because the service techs were at my door shortly after seven with my shade ready to be installed. Five minutes later the service was complete. I was free to leave Red Bay Alabama. I packed up and checked out by 9:30, but I spent another half an hour at the local gas station filling the fuel tank. It was an old and very slow pump.

Site 403 at The Woods RV Park and Campground.

As I drove south on the same set of roads I arrived on last week, I had a chance to consider my travel pattern. Since I left New England in July, I’ve been traveling in just get there mode. Long travel days with little time spent to enjoy the areas I’ve been traveling through. This not what I want to be doing. It has made sense up until now, but I don’t have any hard deadlines at the moment.

This evening I’ve been researching better stops along the way back to Florida. If I had this thought last night, I’d have stayed in northern Alabama and checked out the Mussel Shoals area and the Rocket Center in Huntsville. Now that I’m in the southern part of the state, I’m considering stopping in the Mobile AL or Pensacola FL area for the weekend. I’ll make some calls in the morning to see if I can find get a reservation somewhere in the area.

Another consideration is the track of tropical storm Matthew. The current track has it turning north toward the US mainland toward the end of the weekend. I don’t want to sit out another hurricane. Whichever way it decides to head, I plan to head in the opposite direction.

My goal is to slow down to 200 miles or less travel each day with at least two nights stay at each stop. Over the next few weeks, I need to do more domicile related business in the Jacksonville area. I also want to visit the Food & Wine festival at Disney World. My next reservation is in the middle of November in the Fort Meyers area so I have plenty of time and options.

Tuesday September 27th 2016

Today was the first day since I departed New England at the end of July that I didn’t run the air conditioner. The temperature peaked in the low 80s with low humidity. I opened the windows and vents and enjoyed the weather.

I was surprised by a call at ten this morning. I was directed to bring my RV to service bay 32 for service. Based on everything I was told, I expected the call tomorrow morning. It only took me 15 minutes to store or tie down everything, get the slides pulled in and get to the bay. Every minute I delayed would eat into my three hours in the express bay.

Some of the service bays at the Tiffin Service Center.

The two techs went right to work on my list of issues. I had prioritized my list of 10 items with the critical items that I couldn’t fix myself at the top. They added their knowledge of the way the system at the service center works to the prioritized list. They got the night shade that wasn’t working shipped off to the mystery shade fixer somewhere in the service center. Then they moved on to the other items on my list.

The biggest fix was an actual manufacturing defect. It wasn’t something that just broke. When the floor was put down during construction, the hose for the black holding tank flush was crimped between the floor and the frame. They tried to pull it loose, but couldn’t make it happen. The solution was to cut the line and splice in a new piece.

I was able to stay with the motorhome during the service and ask any questions I had. While I was in the bay the horn blew for their 40 minute lunch break. The techs excused themselves and went off for lunch. I sat in my motorhome and waited. It was really quiet and strangely peaceful in the service center during the lunch break. After 40 minutes the techs were back at work and the buzz of activity resumed.

They completed everything on the list before the 3 hours limit was reached except fixing the night shade they sent off at the start of the work. I sat in the motorhome and watched the techs in the adjoining bay while we waited for the shade to come back. At the 3 hour limit the shade still hadn’t come back. I returned with my motorhome to my campsite with their promise to bring the shade to me as soon as it was ready. They thought it would be ready at the end of the day, but that didn’t happen. I expect to see them with the shade in the morning.

Assuming I get the shade in the morning, I’ll head back toward Florida tomorrow. If I don’t get the shade until after lunch, I’ll probably stay here another night. I’m not in a rush.

Monday September 26th 2016

Things got started early at the Tiffin Motorhome Service Center. Motorhomes scheduled for service today were getting underway before seven this morning. They were lined up at the bay doors when they opened.

The service representative showed up at my RV a little after eight to go over my list of warranty repairs. We decided my fixes can be done in an express bay. Express means 2 guys for 3 hours to work on all of the items on my list. If I needed a regular service bay, I’d have to wait close to a week. The express bay should be only be a two or three day wait. I’m guessing Wednesday, but will be ready tomorrow.

After getting the service planned, I went into town to take the Tiffin factory tour. The tour is held every weekday at 9:30am. This morning there were about 25 people so they had two groups. Each group had a man and women leading the narrative using radio headphones. The tour starts with the history of the company and a marketing video featuring the founder Bob Tiffin and his sons.

Cabinet shop

With safety gogles and radio headphones on, we were lead across an open area to one of the old cotton warehouses that has been converted into the cabinet shop. We were shown the raw lumber being milled to size, planned and assembled into cabinets for the motorhomes. We walked right by all of the crafts people doing their jobs, sorting, gluing, running computer controlled equipment and assembling cabinets. We stopped at many of the different workstations and the tour guides explained what was happening and what type of motorhome the product for.

Some chassis waiting for assembly

After the cabinet shop we went across the yard to the beginning of the main assembly line. We got an opportunity to see several chassis that had already completed being welded on the chassis line. All of the chassis were diesel Freightliner chassis waiting to start down one of the three lines. Inside the assembly building there were motorhomes in all different states of assembly. They are currently operating at a rate of twelve motorhomes a day. It takes five days for a motorhome to finish the line, then it is driven to the paint facility in Belmont Mississippi for another five days of painting.

Floor sub-assembly ready to be installed.

Workers on the roof of a gas motorhome

Gas motorhome before the front cap is installed.

Slide rooms with the cabinets pre-installed waiting to be inserted into motorhomes.

The tour ends after about an hour and a half at a final assembly and inspection area that receives the motorhomes when they return from the paint facility. We were allowed and encouraged to go into any of these motorhomes for as long as we wanted. Some people went in an out of each unit.

I enjoyed the tour, but it was not what I expected. The length of time spent in the cabinet shop was excessive. Seeing that they make their own cabinets out of real wood using quality wood working techniques is great. I didn’t need to see sub-assembly after sub-assembly being built. On the main assembly line they kept the tour moving so we weren’t in the way of workers or the heavy equipment moving large pieces around. This meant that you didn’t get to see as much actual work. By necessity the areas we slowed down in or stopped had less activity taking place. On the other hand, outside the scope of the tour, buyers are allowed to follow the progress of their future motorhome down the line.

The tour proved one thing that I already knew. Tiffin makes a high quality motorhome. They manufacture more of the components than many of their competitors to have better control on quality and cost. I continue to be happy that I bought a Tiffin product.