Volunteer Job at Myakka vs. Church

Tough Decision...  How exciting to get a job offer (on Nov 18th) to Volunteer at Myakka State Park for January through March 2012.  These are the hardest months (of course) to find a position in Florida.  We would just have to clean a few cabins for our spot in one of the most popular parks in the system.

Our Temple at Orlando, Florida...Don't miss it!



Myakka River

So what does this have to do with church?  RU kidding?  Any week we haven't been able to get to church has been a most unpleasant experience.  We absolutely need the recharge of taking the sacrament with people we love and who love us....unconditionally.  Here's the reply I sent to the offer:  "It looks like an excellent opportunity. We have been cleaning the cabins at Bahia Honda SP, so you might say we've had some training already. We don't know if this will be a problem, but it's important for us to go to church on Sunday. We'd need a few hours in the morning, but would be available in the afternoon...and of course all day on any other day of the week.  Please let us know what you think. Thanks so much, Bob & Eileen White"

Here's the reply:  "I am afraid that would be a problem.  Sundays are our biggest check out days for the cabins so we would need at least a 10:00 am start time on Sundays. I really appreciate your honesty in this matter."

The fact we lost the position was no surprise at all.  Even in Utah, where church attendance is generally a way of life, we'd been told by our area managers that no one would be allowed to go to church next season (even though we'd only be gone for an hour, or even less).  We absolutely wanted to take the position.  We already knew how deliciously fascinating Myakka is.  We loved it well from our former visits as Florida residents. 

We knew how thick it was with gators and armadillos.  One of our most vivid memories was of turkey vultures picking the flesh from the armor of slain armadillos in the park.  We loved the skywalks and airboats and perfect biking trails.  We even enjoyed the feral pigs and their bursts of activity in the understory that got your adrenaline busy raising your blood pressure.

Myakka is one of those horse-loving parks, too.  Just pick up a horse trail map  ...and start your adventure.  There's about 14 miles of trail right in the park...through the marshes and over the hammocks!  Giddy-up...

Wildlife abounds...you may even see a Burro...??

So what did we lose by choosing our life-enriching experiences at Church vs. volunteering at Myakka?  Here's the list of benefits we were emailed by the Volunteer Coordinator: 

Horses R-WELCOME at Silver River State Park

Water Pump & Kiosk at Trailhead

Lottie gets a drink from the hand pump.  A careful check of the trail map on the kiosk in the Silver River parking lot sets you up for the best of adventures. Trails are marked orange, green, pink and red; there is also a river trail...and the river is simply gorgeous...preserved from human harm and lined with mounds of flowers, monkeys swinging on branches, and alligators of all sizes ignoring you.  If you do all the trails and wiggles, the trail is 10 miles. 



Even people who don't own a horse can experience the trail on horseback. Silver River State Park has contracted with Cactus Jack's Trail Rides for guided trail rides seven days a week.   You have to make a reservation because the horses don't live in the park...they have to ride in their trailer to meet up with you.  The cost is $55 plus tax for 2 hours.   It is a wonderfully interesting and pretty ride.  The sounds and sights are all wild:  deer, hogs, hawks, owls.  Of the 151 state parks in Florida, only 32 have horse trails...and this trail system is new. 

I've decided my initial exuberant reaction to Silver River SP was well justified.  It has it all...!

The park not only preserves 5,000 acres of natural Florida but its natural history.  We were told that camp hosts love being in their park, but rangers don't.  We've seen enough at the 20 or so state parks we've stayed at to say that this is mostly true.  Rangers very often start out as volunteers.  But once they switch to the strict schedule and requirements of a ranger, they make the "sad change"...from pure enjoyment of their surroundings to "just another day at work".  Even the most enthusiastic volunteers will succumb once their freedoms are restricted and the pressure of constant evaluation and added requirements sets in.  We are happy to stay in the volunteer category.  You really do have to PAY for a pay check.

Need to save money on the best horse ride in the East?  Check out http://www.groupon.com/  Search for current coupons to this or any other great attraction.  Have fun!

Mechanics Reveal ALL - Which RV is the Most Reliable?

I had to know which RV was best.  We talked with the closest expert available, who happened to be the person in charge of pulling out our slide and doing a 2-day repair-- Carlos Armando Alonso.  Carlos is the son of the owners of America Choice RV (repair) Armando and Miram Alonso.  They'd been in business since 1979, and Carlos has 18 years of working experience.  He summarized everything he'd learned after seeing and working on thousands of RVs over the years.  I was an eager listener, since all of my brain-files were empty on the subject.  (It had just never been a matter of interest since I'd never wanted to give up working...and certainly never wanted to live in an RV.)  Carlos explained that the answer to my question was online...for anyone to see.  You just type in the name of the model or manufacturer you are interested in and read as much as you want to, including reviews. I told him I'd seen more Winnebago products than any other type in his shop.  I had two hypotheses:  I figured they weren't as reliable as they used to be, or they were so popular that they make up a large percentage of units in use.  Carlos said it was the latter, that there are more faithful owners of Winnies than any other make.  

We had a sad-bad room during the repair

Carlos said there really isn't a problem in the industry with any company producing lemons.  "They are all moving houses with lots of mechanical parts, and they all need repair at some point."  He said the big mistake owners make is they tend to park them and forget them....not knowing that they are nullifying their warranty.  I knew that all Four Winds have a warning in the owner's manual that you have to do a maintenance check at least once every 6 months.   Carlos said if you don't go around your RV and check the seals and roof and the integrity of all of the parts, your warranty will not go beyond one year...even if it is a 6-year warranty (which is what we have): no maintenance = no guarantees.  I think he could see I was a bit upset.  I mentioned the fact that the back corner must have separated along the roof line of our RV because I could see light from the outside when I looked up to the roof from inside my clothes closet.  Ouch!  I wanted to know what kind of sealant to use, but instead of telling me, he said when we came back from our (wretched) motel stay (necessary since our RV was going to be on the rack for 2 days), that he'd walk around the 31K with me and give me maintenance suggestions.  Whew.  That did put me at ease....somewhat. 

Rv Earthquake Mess

Why does a brand-new RV need maintenance?  The major reason is each time you drive your home down the road it experiences at least a magnitude 5 earthquake.  I know if you lie down on our bed in the back while traveling, your tailbone is going to slam (hard) into the wooden bed platform.  Ouch!  And we all know how cans love to fall out of cupboards.  Bob is fearless when it comes to the type of roads we travel, so we've experienced some news-worthy earthquakes in our time.  Once he went straight up a dirt road that went over a mountain divide.  It was on an impulse, as we had no idea where it went.  The road had no switchbacks.  It just angled up into the sky!  Within minutes my bike had bounced up and off of the rack and was drug along until the tread was ground off of its tires.  I became a witch about "no more dirt roads"...and our manual for our new RV actually states:  "no unpaved roads".  So there's multiple ways you can void your warranty.  One way, that I'm still amazed at, was demonstrated by an owner of a nice RV who backed down a boat ramp, right into the water, over his tail pipe...just to get his boat in the water.      Crazy....          Crazy about fishing, that it.

Sunliner's Provincial

I still thought there was one RV manufacturer that was the best.  Carlos liked Thor and said he'd never seen the problems our own Four Winds was having... but then he took some time to sift through all of his experiences and admitted that the BEST manufacturer (of all time) had to be Sunliner.  He said he had looked and looked but had never found any weaknesses in it.  He raved about its reliability to the point that I had to ask another mechanic if he felt the same way, and he said Sunliner was the best.  All of the mechanics I've talked with say there is no perfect RV...but Sunliner comes close.  If you go to their site, they definitely have a different approach and novel construction techniques.  Leave it to the Aussies, but Carlos said they went out of business.  Quality perhaps hurts the bottom line too much.....???

I asked a mechanic if my conclusion might be correct:  "If all RVs were made by Sunliner, then repair garages would be out of business."  He didn't hesitate to say, "That would be true."

#3 Visit to the RV Repair Station

We cut our trip short--to only a few hours--at Juniper Springs.  Larry called to say the part was in and we needed to return to Ocala.  No!  How could we interrupt our celebration of nature's best!?  I didn't want to believe it was true, but there we were turning our 31K over to the mechanics...again.  Was this coach put together by an imposter...an amateur?...or worse, someone who could care less?  I looked around to see if perchance a Winnebago might be in the garage.

The first RV I spotted was...yep, a Winnebago.  Sad.  Lined up beside this ailing RV was a Class-A Itasca Ellipse (a Winnebago product), a Fleetwood Prowler with its innards showing, a 5th wheel Mobile Suites (advertised as having "the best bang for the buck") and one wounded Dutchmen RV.

 Below is a closeup of that Fleetwood Prowler with its forward slide pulled out.

A quick walk just around the corner revealed another surprise:  a Winnebago product, a new looking Cambria.  Oh, no...what could be wrong with it?

By now I was rubbing my eyes, because in the very next bay was another Mobile Suites ....

It was like there was a race on to be "popular" in the garage, as I found yet another Winnebago, a Four Winds (not ours) and this shiny Windsport (shown below).  

Next I found a Georgie Boy Landau Motorhome, a Safari Zanzibar (shown below in the rain) next to a Crescendo by Gulf Stream....an Itaska Sunrise (Winnebago product) an Infinity coach, and an Independence,

 TWO Hurricanes by Thor, and one brown-striped Dolphin by National (a bankrupt company)...  All were being worked on today. 

The next day I found two more Mobile Suites trailers had moved in for repair.

Winnebago products are still in the lead, however.

A Bighorn by Heartland had joined the ranks, looking a bit small next to the Fleetwood Excursion.

I know the Bounder is a very popular RV, so I had to find out why it came in today.  Ahhh...nothing mechanical, it just needs a little body work (although I couldn't tell where).

So...now I'm going to ask the mechanics which type of RV they see most often. 

I've got to know!  When it comes to anything RV, I'm pretty much ignorant.

Camp Hosting isn't All Work

The job of camp hosting in state parks usually only requires 3 or 4  days of duty....for a total of 20 hours a week...maybe 24 max.  So the obviously nice benefit is your freedom to roam.  We took advantage and explored Juniper Springs for a day.   The Chateau has claimed site #9 in the "Tropical Loop".  It's a mystical and foggy morning.  We can't remember Florida being more humid or more still.

A wondrous trail starts at our site.

There are small springs everywhere, so this jungly path soon crosses a bridge.

The signs warn that you are about to become gator bait, and you'd better not fight back...because this is a national reserve and everything in it is protected.

Who can resist a boardwalk into the wilds?  Just ahead, under the bridge, is a large pool of green water.  What's that about?

A peek into the pool from the bridge shows "boiling" sand that looks very much like the mud pots that bubble away in Yellowstone Park. 

I turned around and about lost my breath....  What an unusual series of dreamy pools.  They were riddled with sand boils.  How fascinating! 

 The oak branches growing over one pool were almost too tempting.  They were plenty big enough to walk on...and perfect as a platform to jump from into the warm water.  How exotic! 

I just kept taking pictures because it was so surreal...isolated...peaceful.  There was no one else around...no sound but that of moving water and wildlife.

I decided to follow the boardwalk along the spring run to its source.

And here it is...Juniper Springs!  Bob jumped in with his clothes on.  That's how irresistable it was.  He was floating face down looking into the spring just like he was a glass-bottomed boat.  I knew he was harkening back to his childhood, which was filled with joyful days splashing, diving, and exploring in the stream behind his home in State College, Pennsylvania. 

Bob swam around and around, so I went to explore the rest of the area.  He was totally alone in his own "Blue Lagoon".  I returned after the sun had set...and he was still paddling around, marveling at his "best experience of the year so far".  So what's so special about perfectly clear, warm water surrounded by bright green ferns and well-done CCC rock work?  Come see for yourself!

RV Repair Shop - #2 Visit

Larry called from America Choice RV Repair and said he needed to count the cogs on the gears that required replacement on our 31K Chateau.  RU kidding?  I swore I'd never leave this sanctuary.  Silver River State Park has become my refuge.  I refuse to go back to "civilization"....and its billboards and red lights and dirty streets.  Bob felt otherwise and packed up so fast I didn't have time to finish my email.  He was driving and I was still typing away.  We needed to drive to North Ocala, but unknown to me Bob was heading to SOUTH Ocala.

When I finally noticed we'd been driving too long of a time, we were lost and far, far from our destination.  We endured stop and go traffic all of the way across Ocala to get to the shop.  Our stowed goods were scrambled in their cupboards.  It felt like a nightmare, so I tried to think positive:  This is an interesting tour of Ocala, and soon we'll be one step closer to getting our slide in working order.

While Larry was counting cogs, I decided to see what kind of RVs were in the shop today.

Surprise!  It looked like that Winnebago was still in the shop.  Unbelievable (to me) as I hadn't accepted the review stating Winnies had problems with reliability.

I walked around to the other end to see if it really was the same RV.  It wasn't....which was another surprise.  How many of the much-loved Winnebago RVs could be in the garage for repair?  This couldn't be happening.  Were the high numbers due to the fact so many are on the road?

I needed to collect more data before giving up my prejudice for Wini RVs.  I found this Fleetwood Class A in the shop.  What's behind it?

Why it's a Cambria....made by Itasca of Winnebago.  What!?  Larry has finished counting his cogs, so it's time to end my data collection....at least until the next time we are in the shop.



Visitor Center Volunteers - Why not?

We got a surprise visit today from Ranger Eve Shackleton, U.S. Forest Service assistant recreation program manager (17 years) a ranger at Rainbow Springs, who came to Florida in the 9th grade (after a divorce....her mother's).  Eve brought the two top people in the Forest Service over Visitor Centers.  We had the best time sharing our life experiences.  We'd all served in the Air Force, were amazed at the wild people who come to The Ocala (like very weird men from Minnesota in white vans), appreciated spiders, and wished all mosquitoes would die.  Bob got out our bug zappers and we enjoyed killing the little swarmers as they interrupted our conversation over and over.  

Salt Springs strip mall Visitor Center



Shanty Pond Campground
$3/night for seniors



We were asked if we'd like to man the Visitors' Center at Salt Springs over the winter.  That sounded great, as we'd already learned we'd get a free spot across the street at the AL&L campground where we'd already been welcomed into a close, fun-loving, activity-rich community.  But then we learned the Forest Service wasn't going to pay the $6 a day and planned to put us at Shanty Pond Campground, on a dirt road south of town.  Bob said he wasn't going to watch his RV sink in the mud and muck anymore...and that we'd need a Forest Service vehicle to drive into town if we parked out there.   I knew we wouldn't hear back from Eve.  There is no money in any Forest Service budget anymore.    Our insistence on having the nice camp site was not going to be a reality.  Click here for Campground Volunteer Host Positions offered by the USDA, Forest Service.

Salt Springs is the BEST in beauty and friendliness!

People usually come here to swim, but the campground was a gift to the public from a private owner who stipulated it be developed for the RVing community...with FHUs and spacious sites.  The other 14 campgrounds in The Ocala are all primitive.

View looking towards Salt Springs along Salt Springs run, where the water

 from the spring flows along a tidal creek to the Gulf of Mexico.

Salt Springs Run (to Lake George)

Our cute neighbors' A-liner.   They were out in their Kayaks

Salt Springs sandy paths made for challenging biking (lots of fish tailing in the sand)

We saw a boater almost run over several Manatees in the Run...

but our yelling got him to slow down.