Mar 2014
Catching Up
March 05, 2014 03:22 PM
Things slow down in the RV-ing world during the winter. We basically park somewhere south and wait for the weather up north to warm up. Unless you spent last winter on the back side of the moon, you know that this has been an unusually cold and blustery winter in most parts of the U.S., even in Florida, where we’ve been. The weather has kept us indoors a lot more than in normal years, cutting down on our exploring. I say all that to say I haven’t had a lot of material to share with you recently. With nothing compelling me to write, I’ve gotten lazy and fallen behind. Thus the name of this post, Catching Up.
Let’s see, in my last post we were about to leave Patrick AFB for Saint Augustine. On the first of February, we moved to Ocean Grove RV Park on Anastasia Island, the barrier island separated from Saint Augustine by the Matanzasas River. The park itself was a primitive mud hole but the location was nice, putting us five minutes from downtown Saint Augustine.
The old part of Saint Augustine is beautiful, historic, and interesting. It’s also a bit Disney-like, made so by the hundreds of tiny businesses struggling to capture their share of the tourist’s dollar. This is most obvious up and down Saint Gorge Street, a walking street of shops, restaurants, and pubs. It’s a fun place for the first hour or so, after which you start feeling overwhelmed. Relief is only a block or two away along the back streets, most lined with historic buildings and quieter, calmer businesses. We sincerely enjoyed ourselves, but after nine days we were ready to move along.
Our next stop was the Naval Station at Mayport, FL. The FamCamp is a nice, well-run park across the street from the channel connecting the naval yards and the ocean. A quarter-mile away is the naval station’s beach, a mile-long stretch of wide, flat sand. I’ve read that dogs have limited memory, but Muffin got excited as we started on first walk toward the beach. I’m pretty certain she remembered it from our visit in 2010. Needless to say, she and Ann spent many hours on the beach. Other than that, our two weeks there were spent doing a lot of walking around the base, eating a lot of shrimp at Safe Harbor Seafood Restaurant and Singleton’s Seafood Shack, visiting Engine 15 Brewing (several times), and generally hanging out. Nothing spectacular, but a nice stop.
We left Mayport on the 24th of February and drove straight through to Naval Air Station Pensacola. Having become regulars there, we immediately settled into our routine: take a long (5+ miles) walk along the waterfront in the morning, spend the afternoon strolling around old downtown Pensacola (along with a visit to Pensacola Brewing, of course) or touring the area or doing chores, take a long late afternoon walk along the beach, and then settle in for the night. We also became good friends with a former Air Force pilot we met in the FamCamp, a great guy with a thousand great stories. Hammer, we miss you.
On March 29th, we arrived in Austin and settled into a spot at La Hacienda RV Resort, our favorite RV park. The next morning we met my three sons, my (step)daughter and her family, and a Denver friend and her daughter at Camp Mabry National Guard Center where we joined over 1,800 other run/walkers for the Head for the Cure 5K walk/run. Head for the Cure is a great organization chartered to raise funds to support brain cancer research. The 5K was a huge success and raised over $210,000. After the run/walk, everyone came back to our motorhome and we spent a great afternoon and evening doing what families do—catching up and reminiscing and teasing one another about past events. It was a great way to start our visit here.
Since we’ve been here, we’ve done Austin things: eat BBQ, visit brew pubs and wineries, visit Hill Country towns, and enjoy the blue bonnets that blanket the countryside this time of year. We like Austin a lot—almost enough to settle here, but not quite. The city is straining under the influx of what seems like millions of people. We notice the difference between now and our last visit in 2010—way too much traffic, new homes everywhere, more worries about water for the city (exacerbated by the long drought they’re enduring), and crowded stores and restaurants. That and the stretches of over-100ºF days in the summertime are enough to cause us to continue looking. But we’ll definitely visit whenever we get the chance.
Tomorrow is a very special day—Ann’s birthday and our 25th wedding anniversary. Unfortunately, we won’t get to do a lot of celebrating since we’re heading north tomorrow morning bound for Northwest Arkansas, stopping in Arlington, TX for a Scottish Festival. We expect to be in Arkansas for at least a month, visiting old friends and deciding if it’s where we’d like to settle. We’ll let you know as soon as we do.
Alan
Let’s see, in my last post we were about to leave Patrick AFB for Saint Augustine. On the first of February, we moved to Ocean Grove RV Park on Anastasia Island, the barrier island separated from Saint Augustine by the Matanzasas River. The park itself was a primitive mud hole but the location was nice, putting us five minutes from downtown Saint Augustine.
The old part of Saint Augustine is beautiful, historic, and interesting. It’s also a bit Disney-like, made so by the hundreds of tiny businesses struggling to capture their share of the tourist’s dollar. This is most obvious up and down Saint Gorge Street, a walking street of shops, restaurants, and pubs. It’s a fun place for the first hour or so, after which you start feeling overwhelmed. Relief is only a block or two away along the back streets, most lined with historic buildings and quieter, calmer businesses. We sincerely enjoyed ourselves, but after nine days we were ready to move along.
Our next stop was the Naval Station at Mayport, FL. The FamCamp is a nice, well-run park across the street from the channel connecting the naval yards and the ocean. A quarter-mile away is the naval station’s beach, a mile-long stretch of wide, flat sand. I’ve read that dogs have limited memory, but Muffin got excited as we started on first walk toward the beach. I’m pretty certain she remembered it from our visit in 2010. Needless to say, she and Ann spent many hours on the beach. Other than that, our two weeks there were spent doing a lot of walking around the base, eating a lot of shrimp at Safe Harbor Seafood Restaurant and Singleton’s Seafood Shack, visiting Engine 15 Brewing (several times), and generally hanging out. Nothing spectacular, but a nice stop.
We left Mayport on the 24th of February and drove straight through to Naval Air Station Pensacola. Having become regulars there, we immediately settled into our routine: take a long (5+ miles) walk along the waterfront in the morning, spend the afternoon strolling around old downtown Pensacola (along with a visit to Pensacola Brewing, of course) or touring the area or doing chores, take a long late afternoon walk along the beach, and then settle in for the night. We also became good friends with a former Air Force pilot we met in the FamCamp, a great guy with a thousand great stories. Hammer, we miss you.
On March 29th, we arrived in Austin and settled into a spot at La Hacienda RV Resort, our favorite RV park. The next morning we met my three sons, my (step)daughter and her family, and a Denver friend and her daughter at Camp Mabry National Guard Center where we joined over 1,800 other run/walkers for the Head for the Cure 5K walk/run. Head for the Cure is a great organization chartered to raise funds to support brain cancer research. The 5K was a huge success and raised over $210,000. After the run/walk, everyone came back to our motorhome and we spent a great afternoon and evening doing what families do—catching up and reminiscing and teasing one another about past events. It was a great way to start our visit here.
Since we’ve been here, we’ve done Austin things: eat BBQ, visit brew pubs and wineries, visit Hill Country towns, and enjoy the blue bonnets that blanket the countryside this time of year. We like Austin a lot—almost enough to settle here, but not quite. The city is straining under the influx of what seems like millions of people. We notice the difference between now and our last visit in 2010—way too much traffic, new homes everywhere, more worries about water for the city (exacerbated by the long drought they’re enduring), and crowded stores and restaurants. That and the stretches of over-100ºF days in the summertime are enough to cause us to continue looking. But we’ll definitely visit whenever we get the chance.
Tomorrow is a very special day—Ann’s birthday and our 25th wedding anniversary. Unfortunately, we won’t get to do a lot of celebrating since we’re heading north tomorrow morning bound for Northwest Arkansas, stopping in Arlington, TX for a Scottish Festival. We expect to be in Arkansas for at least a month, visiting old friends and deciding if it’s where we’d like to settle. We’ll let you know as soon as we do.
Alan
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