Sunday September 25th 2016

It was another hot day in northwest Alabama. The high 90s temperature made it more conducive to stay in than going out, but I made a foray into town for a bit.

Around noon I went for a drive around town. I had two objectives, get gas and get food. The gas part was a little more difficult than I had anticipated. The first couple of gas stations I found were closed. Lots of places are closed on Sunday in this community. I found a Chevron station on the other side of the center of town that was open.

The two grocery stores in town were open. I chose the Big Star grocery store. It had more cars in the parking lot than the Piggly Wiggly and it turned out to have a good selection. The prices were Ok for the few things I purchased. I’ll probably stop in again Tuesday or Wednesday.

Conversations I over heard in the Supper Market prove just how much of a small town this is. In two different areas of the store, by two different groups of people the conversation was the same. The topic was, why was the congregation at some church asked to donate money for some particular family. I don’t generally eaves drop but these were very open and loud conversations. Everybody seems to be concerned about the family in need, or just curious about the issue. To me, this was a good indication that everybody knows everybody.

Empty parking area at the Campground. The parts store is closed on the weekend, but the laundry had on the right had more activity on Saturday.

The campground is full tonight. Many rigs that arrived for service were sent off to the other campgrounds in the area. They need to drive by my motorhome to turn around so I started to keep track. It has been very quiet here today. Not as many people have been out of their rigs walking about. Many of the cars were gone as well, so people probably went off to tour the area. The heat kept me at home. Cooler temperatures are forecast during the week.

Saturday September 24th 2016

The temperature is in the high 90s during the day here in Red Bay Alabama. Today is my first full day of waiting for service at the Tiffin Service Area Campground. I stayed at home all day and got a few things done around the motorhome.

This is an interesting place. All the people here for service seem to have a very positive attitude. For some people it is an annual pilgrimage. It’s not that the service can’t be done at other locations across the country. The attraction here is the simplicity and quality of the service. At other places you have to make appointments well in advance, then often wait for parts and leave with unsatisfactory results. Here, you can’t make reservations, the technicians are well qualified and most parts are on site. It is worth the effort to come to this rural section of northwest Alabama.

The town of Red Bay has a population of around 3,500 people. The Tiffin Motorhome Company and supporting service companies dominate the town. The large influx of people to get service also feed the local economy. There are signs and other advertisements for many different local businesses all around the service center campground. Almost all of the ads are for small business, not chain stores. There is a McDonalds and a CVS, but the nearest Walmart or other big box stores are 20 to 30 miles away.

Over the air television is also sparse. I can get a PBS station and occasionally a CW station. Luckily the wide open parking area I’m staying in has a clear satellite shot. I’ve got all of my Directv stations. Those have kept me company all day. I need to find a local radio station for the weather, but that seems to be a non issue for a few days.

Map of the Tiffin Service Center Campground and service bays.

I’ve met a number of my fellow campers. Most conversations seem to start with “What are you in for?”, “How long have you been waiting?” or “Is this your first time here?”. Some people have very serious issues like broke slide out rooms, but others are here for simple things like a broken cabinet door hinge. My list is somewhere in between those extremes.

The campground has a very nice and inexpensive laundry. I got caught up on my laundry tasks. It was only a dollar per load of washing and seventy five cents for the dryer. I should try to find what else needs to be washed before I leave.

Friday September 23rd 2016

I got on the road to Red Bay Alabama at 9AM this morning. A little over 4 hours later after going through Alabama’s two biggest cities I arrived at the Tiffin Motorhome company service center campground.

The traffic in the cities was heavy but moving. The biggest challenge was the quality of the road surface. The concrete was heavily patched and very rough. I had more stuff move around and cabinets open in transit than I’ve had yet. The stack of plastic draws I put in the back wardrobe closet came out and dumped the contents all over the bedroom. It made for a lot of fun (not) restoring order in the bedroom.

My early afternoon arrival on a Friday allowed me to secure a site in the campground. This evening it looks like all of the sites are filled. A number of people completed their service today and will be leaving tomorrow. So some room will be available tomorrow. Service doesn’t work over the weekend so anyone that came in today or over the weekend will not get scheduled until next week.

I turned in a list of 10 items I want addressed while I’m here. A customer service manager will meet with me on Monday to go over the list and schedule me for one of the service bays. If any of my items need a specialized service bay, I could be here a while. I don’t think I have anything like that but will still need to wait for a service bay.

View of some of the RVs parked along the runway at the Tiffin Service Center Campground.

There are close to 100 sites here at the service center. It is located at an old airport. The road in front of my RV home is actually the old runway. The campground is not much more than a parking lot with electric, water and sewer hookups. It serves the purpose it was designed for well.

Most of the motorhomes here are high-end units. My rig is one of the lower end units present in the lot. The motorhomes come from all over North America. I saw several from California, Washington and Arizona. They probably have the distance record, but Canada, the Midwest and the eastern seaboard are also well represented.

Thursday September 22nd 2016

It was a long travel day. I got started a little later than I’d planned at 10AM. It ended at about 4PM local time just south of Montgomery Alabama. With the hour gained with the switch to central time, I was on the road around 7 hours.

I didn’t plan to travel this far or for this long, but I missed the first place I was going to stop. I couldn’t get the GPS to accept the address of the campground so I was looking for signs when I got to the right area. I never saw any signs, but I found The Woods RV Park and Campground on the south side of Montgomery about 60 miles up the road. It is an ok place with long drive-thru sites so I didn’t have to disconnect the car.

Long pull thru site at The Woods RV Park and Campground in Montgomery AL.

After the first 80 miles or so, I was in new territory. I found the distance across Florida surprising. It was around 180 miles from Jacksonville to Tallahasse. The turn north on US 231 was another 70 miles west of Tallahasse. At that point, the distance to Mobile Alabama was still advertised as another 100 miles. When I think of Florida, I think of the narrow area of the state from Orlando south, not the wide 350 mile or so at the northern border.

Another big difference is the topology of northwest Florida. The Interstate has rolling hills with some steep slopes. In some ways the highway reminds me of a New England interstate. Once I turned north into Alabama, it was mostly farmland. I even saw one cotton field that needed to be picked.

Because I traveled so far today, I have a shorter travel day tomorrow. The down side is I have the big cites of Montgomery and Birmingham to pass through. I should be able to avoid the worst of the traffic if I leave at the end of the rush hour. With any luck, I should be at the factory service center in Red Bay by early afternoon.

Wednesday September 21st 2016

Today was a transition day. It had two purposes. First was recovering from more than a week in New Hampshire. I was continuously on the go during that period and it ended with a couple of days of irregular and short sleep cycles. A good nights sleep and a long slow breakfast pretty much put me back into RV living mode.

The weather in the Jacksonville area has cooled off a little while I’ve been away. The AC is able to cycle on and off occasionally instead of being on continuously from morning ’til night. This is a good thing because the other objective for today was starting the preparations for tomorrow’s travel day. I don’t have to stay near an airport anymore.

Tomorrow I’ll raise the jacks and move toward Alabama. My destination is the Tiffin Motorhome factory in Red Bay Alabama. It will take a couple of days to get there. Red Bay is the northwest corner of the state. With the first year warranty on my RV coming to an end soon, I want to get a few things taken care of at the factory service center. They do work on a non-prescheduled basis. You show up, put your name on the list and they schedule you based on the type of repair. My understanding is you need to arrive near the weekend to get a campsite in their campground. There are often many rigs waiting for service. This is an adventure that I’m looking forward to and dreading at the same time. I’m not sure what I’m getting into or how long I’ll be there.

One thing I am looking forward to is touring the factory assembly line. I wanted to get down last year to watch my motorhome being built but the schedule didn’t work out. I’ll at least get to see how similar models are put together. Other than that I’m not sure what I’ll be doing while I wait for service.

Tuesday September 20th 2016

I am back in my RV home in Jacksonville Fl. The trip north was a few days longer than I’d planned, but it concluded on a high note. The sale of my house in New Hampshire closed yesterday morning. I now meet all of the definitions for being a full time RVer or as some would say “homeless”. As far as I’m concerned I’ve been living in the RV since I bought it last October 5th.

Life in New Hampshire the last week or so has been interesting. All of the furniture was removed from the house at the beginning of the month. I held back a TV, the microwave oven, a few pieces of cutlery, some bedding and cleaning supplies. I bought an inexpensive air mattress to sleep on in the empty bedroom. It was a camping adventure inside the house.

I spent my time dealing with lots of miscellaneous things. The biggest item was the sale of my old Class C motorhome. In hindsight it would have been easier if I’d traded it in for the new rig, but that would have necessitated buying the new rig differently for more money. Most of the money I saved on the purchase price of my RV home was lost on the low value I got on the old motorhome. The overall condition deteriorated during the last few years of no use.

Other little tasks included stopping services and changing addresses. I also had to get rid of the items that were not removed from the house and junk from the shed in the back yard. With the help of good friends all was accomplished by Sunday afternoon.

I spent Sunday night in a motel in Merrimack after taking the last few things including the air mattress to Goodwill. The closing took an hour late Monday morning. There were lots of things for me to sign and even more for the buyers to sign. I walked away with a check, so I would say it was worth the writer’s cramp.

Site at Pecan Park RV Resort.

My flight back to Jacksonville was at 5:45AM this morning, so I spent the night at the Hampton Inn near Logan Airport in Boston. I returned the rental car on Monday evening and took the hotel shuttle to the airport. All of these logistics required me to get up at 3AM. I got about 4 hours of sleep last night and another hour or two on the planes.

My RV home was here waiting. It survived tropical storm Julia last week and other than needing to cool it down by cranking up the AC was a welcoming sight. I am looking forward to catching up on sleep in my own bed.

Friday September 9th 2016

Well it’s time to return north to New Hampshire for one last house selling trip. This afternoon I caught a Southwest Airlines flight from Jacksonville International Airport to Boston. It was a direct flight with one stop in Baltimore. Seven passengers stayed on the plane in Baltimore to continue on to Boston. Even the flight crew and the cabin crew were changed.

Inside Jacksonville Airport.

The contrast between the Jacksonville airport and the Boston airport is huge. Jacksonville is a mid size airport in a rural setting. Boston is a large airport in the middle of urban congestion. It took me less than fifteen minutes to get to the Jacksonville airport followed by a simple bus ride from the economy parking ($5/day) to the terminal. In Boston, it took more than that length of time just to get to the rental car facility. Getting out of Boston on a Friday night at 7PM was not easy either.

I’ll be here until the house sale is complete. It will probably be a little more than a week, but the closing is not scheduled yet.

Thursday September 8th 2016

The good weather continued today. Like the past few days it started out at an unusually low temperature in the low 60s and topped out in the high 80s. We have also had very low humidity. All this is forecast to change by the weekend. The tropical weather will be back.

The water level in the retention pond at the campground is also lower than it was when I arrived at this campground last month. Even though we had a hurricane go through last week, the area is several inches low on rainfall this summer. The return to high humidity with afternoon thunderstorms may help.

Egret on the bank of the RV park retention pond.

One of the things I enjoy during the winter in Florida are all the birds. This time of year there aren’t as many birds around. They are spread out over the entire continent. As it gets colder up north the bird density should increase. On my walks around the campground, I rarely see any in the retention pond. Today was the exception. I saw a couple of Egrets. I think during the winter there would be many more birds present. The brush on the far side would provide very good cover.

I don’t plan to stick around and find out. I am here for the proximity to the Jacksonville Airport. Once my need to travel north in support of selling my house is over I will move on. The facilities are nice enough, but I just doesn’t feel right. Whatever that means.

There are not as many travelers here tonight. The office closes at 6pm so if a traveler hasn’t arrived or made arrangements by then, they’re out of luck. Most of the people arrive around 4 in the afternoon. That’s pretty common for a stopping time. I try to be off the road by that hour when traveling too. The idea that a RV park along side an interstate would not have provisions for travelers arriving later than 6PM is unusual, but not unique. Many are only staffed to 8PM, but I have run across a few that close early, particularly during the week.

Wednesday September 7th 2016

Today started with an early unwanted wake up call. The Florida Air National Guard was flying today. Shortly after seven this morning several F-15s took off from the Jacksonville Airport. My RV home is about a mile from the end of the longest runway. Aircraft taking off and landing is not an unusual occurrence. The commercial traffic is loud, but not terrible. This morning the F-15s took off with full afterburners. It was very loud and I think the RV shook. There were probably six fighter jets taking off over a 15 or 20 minute period.

I tried to go back to sleep after the F-15s were airborne, but it wasn’t going to happen. The landscapers decided to mow the lawn in my area of the campground. It was still before eight when they were doing my site less than 10 feet from my bed. Sleeping in this morning wasn’t going to happen.

Historic Fernandina Beach looking up Centre street from the Amelia River

For today’s adventure I went back to Amelia Island. I toured the historic part of the town of Fernandina Beach. The town is the eastern terminus of Florida’s first Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico railroad. The track to the gulf was completed in March of 1861. The main street has shops along both sides of the tree lined thoroughfare. Today the buildings are filled with restaurants, boutiques and tourist shops, but you can visualize the businesses that occupied them one hundred and fifty years ago. It must have been a thriving port.

Whirligig Kayak in front of one of the shops.

Marina on the Amelia River

The main street ends at the Amelia river. The railroad parallels the river and is still a significant part of the towns economy. Across the tracks is the local marina. River cruises, charter fishing boats and jet ski rentals populate the marina. Once again, I could imagine the river bank lined with sailing ships with warehouses across the tracks to store the goods when the town was a bustling port.

Tuesday September 6th 2016

It was another beautiful day in northeast Florida. The weather was a repeat of yesterday. It was hot but not very humid.

After breakfast this morning I went in search of a waterfront area to see some wildlife and take a walk. It was an adventure, but I basically struck out. I found one city park that was filled with construction equipment and effectively unusable. Then I found several bigger parks with parking fees of around five dollars. This is a very reasonable fee if you are going to use the facilities for awhile, but I’m not. Unless I come prepared for a specific hike or bike ride, I usually only stay for a few minutes. I was back at the RV by 2PM after a stop for a few groceries.

The RV park has filled up the last couple of nights.

For exercise I walked around the campground after supper. The park has an interesting mix of long term residents. While the bulk of the long term residents seem to be retired folks, there are also many folks that are working in the area. The trucks they drive and the cloths they wear provide good hints to the possible occupations. For instance, several people arrive and depart every day in loose cotton shirts that one typically sees in medical establishments. A great number of traveling nurses use RVs for their homes. So that’s one bet. Another safe bet is the tools in the backs of trucks and company logos on the doors as an indicator for construction workers.

Another curiosity is associated with the current crop of travelers that have arrived in the park the last couple of days. Several RVs with young children have arrived for a night or two. Last month there were no kids around, but now with school in session across most of the country there are kids here. Maybe they’re home schooled.   Speculating about my neighbors is one way to pass a dull day.