Motorhome News from North America 30

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Motorhome News from North America 30 4th - 15th December 2006
Florida - Disney and a Space Shuttle launch. All in one week! A week or so in another world

It was the 5th January 2007 before we discovered our mistake. There had been no complaints, no questions asked from either side of the pond (except for brother Michael - thanks Mike). Y’all had been rushing around like frustrated reindeer preparing for Christmas, totally and blissfully unaware that Newsletter 30 had never reached your computers - and we were equally unaware it had not been sent. Now and again, our wireless internet connection is inadequate, low signal or something, and our transmission fails under the exertion of adding photographs or finishing the job perhaps; failing to respond to the touch of the ‘publish’ button, unbeknown to us. You are now doubtless totally confused as to our whereabouts having received number 31 with New Year wishes a week before the Happy Christmas bit in number 30. Anyway, our sincere apologies. It has happened before and will happen again as sure as eggs is eggs.

Our course for early December was marked with two red pins on the map of Florida. The little boy in me was drawing us to the Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral - and the little girl in Janice back to Orlando after 20 years, to Walt Disney World, with me, and Todd, in tow.
In addition to the pins, we have numerous areas marked with yellow highlighter. The Florida tourist authority discovered there were people with a keen interest in one of the state’s greatest assets - its birds, and an extensive birding trail now stretches around the State in a giant loop, with leaflets and information on where to go, what to look for and when to be there. So, grab the leaflet and let’s get started!

With a bit of hunting and a lot of walking, we found our way to a viewing platform in the middle of Florida’s Payne’s Prairie State Park, sending two young eagles soaring into the air as we approached across the vast marshland, its dry gullies reflecting the early scars of Florida’s shortage of rain. Several thousand sandhill cranes were roosting in the tall reeds, heads rocking back and forth like nodding donkeys, bald eagles circled overhead and red-shouldered hawks, merlins and kestrels scoured the grassland for easy pickings. An exciting beginning to Florida birding, with more to come.

Inland, Florida rises gently to open grassland, refreshingly green and light, a delightful release after weeks in marsh and scrubby woodland along the coast. Here the land has been drained and cleared making way for broad sweeping ranches, a reminder of passive Newmarket with its horses and gentle Suffolk with its cattle. We came this way to Wildwood, to meet Graeme and Moira. They were having maintenance and a few minor repairs done to their 38ft, ‘A’ class motorcoach back at the manufacturer's maintenance yard at Wildwood and expected to be around for about a month. With 14ft of extra length they had been living in considerable luxury compared to us, but size brings with it more complex amenities and many more things to go wrong! We had not met them before, but Moira had been reading our blog and sent us an email recently to assure us there were other Brits on the road - and they were going our way! They’re heading home to England before Christmas, taking with them their new motorhome after 18 months and 25,000 miles of travelling across the USA, Mexico and Canada. We could well be tempted to follow their route through Mexico, armed with their experience and good advice, maps and guidebooks. The research has begun - and we could make the time, but nothing is planned as yet.

It was great to share time with special like-minded people. We lunched together at a lovely Thai restaurant in The Villages, a nearby retirement cum-holiday complex on a mammoth scale. There are a growing number of these village communities in the area, so large each has its own smart shops, restaurants and golf courses - and residents drive their own golf buggies around the estate - to save their little legs from getting worn out. Well, you don’t walk anywhere in the USA, do you?

‘Winnie’ the Minnie Winnebago, continues to perform well. Whilst we are in the minority, with big rigs all around us, the old and proven simple technology of the 24ft ‘C’ class motorhome serves us adequately. Our total ‘downtime’ on motorhome maintenance since January amounts to two half days. One of the front door locking switches had been playing up for many weeks and we finally managed to get a replacement from the local Ford Dealer whilst in Jacksonville - it took less than five minutes to install. The annoying gas leak detector has also been cured at last; we threw it in the bin - and bought a new one! At a rough guess, we’ll add another 10,000 miles to the clock before we return to the UK and Winnie will then be on the market to the highest bidder, her V10 nicely run in at around 60,000 miles.

Our last blog came to you from ‘Denny’s’ where Moira and Graeme had discovered free Wireless internet. Denny’s serve a great breakfast, always too much, as is the case with all fast food joints on this side of the pond. It’s great value for money, but the menus and oversize portions are creating a very evident number of oversize people. If it’s value you want, then you should pop into Wendy’s. Janice was recently talked into the lunchtime special - a 99c cheeseburger (that’s around 50p in real money!).
Being a ‘senior’ helps at Wendy’s too. We popped in for a quick break around coffee time earlier in the week.
“Two coffees please,” I said.
“Senior’s coffee is free, Sir,” the waitress answered, respectfully. I thought about that for a moment.
“We only want coffee,” I replied, not quite sure where we go from there. She too was lost for words. “We only want coffee,” was not in the training manual. Clearly you don’t say that in Wendy’s - so we paid anyway to avoid more embarrassment.

Fast food is a way of life here. Diners’ car parks are packed around breakfast time every day of the week and it’s always the diet of obesity. Most things are fried and sugar seems to be added to everything except water, which has chlorine by the bucket-load instead. Even the bread is sweet.

Blue Spring State Park to the south is another good spot on the Florida birding trail, but we were drawn there by another, rather larger attraction. A spring rises in the park, 100m gallons of 98% crystal pure water every day, erupting from the ground in great swirls, shining against the white sandy bottom several feet below. Large numbers of fish could be seen riding the current, undeterred by gentle, vegetarian manatees. I had never seen a manitee before. Created in the form of a seal with a strange turned up nose and a beavers’ tail, the manatees winter in these temperate waters, a constant 72 degrees, gliding peacefully with the flow, as if tomorrow will do, big males up to ten feet long and mothers with young, totally at ease in the sparkling water. We watched in wonder for ages. Such is the magic of nature - and that’s our passion.

News had reached us that the Space Shuttle was due to launch from Cape Canaveral on December 7th at 8.35pm, the first night launch for four years. That’s a sight the whole of America would want to see. Fearful the proposed launch would pack out the campgrounds, we reserved a pitch at the ‘Great Outdoors’ in Titusville just a few miles from the launch site. This proved to be one of our most expensive campsites to-date; extremely swish, every site a concrete pad with all the services, including cable TV. The ‘estate’ offers an 18 hole Golf course, a Clubhouse, Church, Cinema - and homes of varying sizes: concrete motorcoach pads with services and a smart storage shed, a tiny bungalow with a pad for the motorhome, a large bungalow with pad and ‘RV porch’, and even a grand house with RV porch. The church car park was full to capacity on Sunday morning - with golf buggies! It seems likely these RV people come south to Titusville for the winter every year.

We left the campsite for town at 5pm to make sure we could park in an area in sight of the shuttle launch. Cars, motorhomes and vans lined every grassy bank with a view, and car park touts were charging over the odds for parking spaces on public land and State Park car parks - to which we objected on principle. An hour or so later we found a free space by the water's edge, a fresh wind across the dark ripples, searchlights piercing the sky around the shuttle terminating in spirals of light on the base of persistent thick cloud. Groups of merry youngsters sang songs, people sat in groups on picnic chairs - and a trucker relayed commentary from Space Control over his radio. There was concern that low cloud would hamper any shuttle emergency landing, here at Canaveral and landing sites in France and Spain. Countdown came to within a one-minute window as helicopters streamed through cloud layers checking for visibility. The crowd was apprehensive; silent. ‘Thirty seconds’, loud and clear from Control. Everyone tense, waiting, waiting. Then the news we did not want to hear. ‘Stand down. It’s no go - insufficient visibility.’
People returned quietly to their cars, sad perhaps, thoughtful certainly. Many had travelled long distances to be there on the night, their one opportunity gone. It was an hour or more before traffic started to clear, patient drivers quietly waiting their turn to get back to the highway and midnight before we reached camp, bitterly disappointed, but hopeful we might get another chance whilst in Florida.

There is always some consolation. Determined to get a better understanding of the workings of flight into space we set off for the Space Centre again the following morning. Public access was surprisingly good and there was so much to see, to learn and experience, but one day proved to be insufficient. Our ‘Maximum Access’ tickets gave us admission for two days allowing us to return the following day and as luck would have it, Discovery’s re-launch was scheduled for 8.47 that evening! We would most certainly be there! A few tickets were still available for the fifty or so coaches taking people out to the causeway, six miles directly across the water from the launch pad - the best possible public view. Only VIPs (Visually Impaired Persons?) could get closer. We played our queen of spades and took our chances - tickets were non-refundable in the event of another (70% likely we were told) cancellation.

A 14knot wind was blowing across the water that evening, waves lapping the shore a few feet from our rope barrier; looking north towards the shuttle, Discovery, illuminated like Liberty on the horizon. Wind would be the deciding factor on this second shot - all ears to the radio. Clear starlit skies gave us hope, a tense crowd gathered for the three-hour wait, checking reports from control - two hours, 60% chance of cancellation - one hour, no change; 30 minutes, looking hopeful, nervous laughter, checking cameras, another hot chocolate a dollar a cup, just time to queue - 5 minutes, still looking good - nervous silence, all eyes across the lapping waters of the night, egrets fleeting past against the stars, a flash of white shadows heading south, prior knowledge, a good omen. All thoughts were with the crew of seven. All thoughts were with the seven astronauts who died aboard Orbiter Columbia during re-entry in 2003.

Ten seconds, five seconds - “We have go!” came the cry from the crowd. A sheet of flame erupted, lighting up the night sky. The awestruck crowd stared northwards, eyes blinded by the searing light, red, orange, white - and slowly, slowly, the 4.5m pound shuttle was on its way, gaining speed, cameras clicking, muffled breaths of wonder and amazement, the shuddering roar of enormous power streaming across the water, a great arc of white flame rising towards the east, a trail of smoke in its wake, drifting on the wind. The orbiter was on its way; on its way to the International Space Station 250 miles above the earth, still in sight, a round white dot as it crossed to the Indian Ocean just eight and a half minutes after take-off. In the stillness of the night, a few hesitant handclaps, a crowd stunned - numb. As another motorhomer remarked the following morning, “It is the enormity of the task. The disbelief that man has it in his power to achieve the impossible.” We consider ourselves so very fortunate, privileged indeed, to have observed the first night time shuttle take off in four years. That moment will linger long and clear.

Recent news suggests they’re planning to build a Space Station at the south-pole on the moon. The realtors will be lining up to buy land for new housing developments and malls - and WalMart will certainly be first in line for a slice of the action.
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Winnie was also well prepared for lift-off: computer systems up-and-running, intensive checks at the service centre, fuel tanks at maximum capacity, safety belts locked in G-force mode. Our route plan was set to Orlando and the fantasy world of Disney - ‘Where Dreams come True.’ It was only an hour or two down the road, most of it through the terror of heavy traffic, mall after mall, huge roadside advertising hoardings and the traffic-light alley of Orlando’s suburbs.

They say first impressions are the most important - the first seven seconds of a meeting. Our expectations of Disney were certainly high. The tingle of anticipation, the scintillation of seeing the smiling, flag-waving Disney reception on arrival!
It was not to be. We waited in a queue of motorhomes and trailers for 45 minutes before Disney’s hassled campground staff finally checked us in, and we were left frustrated by a seeming lack of information or helpful advice.

By mid-afternoon the hot steam of discontent had dispersed of course - a five-day journey through Disney-Space was emerging on Janice’s flight plan and some fragile faith in the ‘magic’ redeemed. Before the night was out, we had filled our cup with the rich flavour of Epcot; three brilliant shows, a choral celebration of Christmas, a most memorable Italian meal - and a firework display orchestrated as only Disney could; the night air vibrating to joyous music and great crescendos of exploding fireworks high in the air, billowing smoke, walls of fire, lasers bouncing off wispy clouds and dancing fountains reflected in the dark mirror of the Lake. Cool, eh?

For those who have not yet been to Disney World, Florida, it is the scale of the spectacle that stretches the mind and the imagination. Disney bought up 43 square miles of central Florida back in the 1960’s and 70’s. Epcot alone covers more than 500 acres and stretches from the United Kingdom to France, Morocco, Japan, America, Italy, Germany, China, Norway and Mexico. Not quite into orbit! And when you’ve finished with that, you can start on The Magic Kingdom, MGM and Animal Kingdom.

It is magic indeed, a journey into another world of yesterdays and tomorrows. This week was the lull before the storm - soon the kids would be off school, but for the moment the queues were gone and five days of fun loomed before us! There were too many rides to remember, too many parades to recall them all, too many fireworks filling the sky, too much magic, too many happy faces: grannies, granddads, mums and dads, sons and daughters, wide-eyed children all, lifted for the day from the routine of life, into that Magic Kingdom - the Kingdom of Walt Disney. The dream lives on.

What a week! We’re quite worn out.



That’s all folks!



David and Janice. The grey-haired-nomads

‘Our very best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year’

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Photos

Kennedy Space Centre
From across the water

Payne's Prarie
Sandhill Cranes - a wonderful sight!

Blue Spring
Manatees wintering at the Spring

Kennedy Space Centre
lift off!

Disney
The Lion King

Janice with Winnie the Pooh
Who is your favourite character?

Blast off!
From a poster at the centre