1. May, 2016

1. May, 2016

SUNDAY 16-11-08

Fortunately the trains don’t run here on Sundays though I swear the last one ran through at 23:59. I had another rough night but things are getting better and the thought of being able to get out of this campground and back on the road tomorrow was keeping me going. 

The temperature outside has dropped about 20F overnight due to a cold front passing through, which is quite noticeable. I managed to eat breakfast and shower at the proper time of day. Rosina went to the campground office to make a freephone call to American Airlines to explore the possibility of changing our two flights home (Jacksonville-Miami/Miami-Heathrow) to direct flights from Dallas. She’d tried yesterday but came up against problems when connected to the airline. After some time she came back to announce bad news. The airline would not allow the change (ignoring the fact they had already changed the flight time of our Jacksonville flight to suit themselves) and we would have to purchase new single fares from Dallas at a cost of $1037 each. In ‘Brown Pound’ terms right now that’s about £650, and we’d lose the money we paid for our original return fares. I’d had problems with these people back home regarding booking online and vowed then I would never again fly American Airlines. I’ve never known a business to treat its customers with such contempt, for the sake of future travellers I do sincerely hope they collapse as part of the forthcoming recession. 

We were now faced with getting ourselves from Fort Worth, Texas where we now plan to leave the RV to Jacksonville or Miami to pick up our already booked and paid for flights home. We considered and costed an internal flight from Dallas to Miami and a one way car hire including fuel and accommodation costs. In the end we decided to go for the internal flight and as a consequence will fly out of Dallas to Miami on Delta airlines, arriving about 24 hours before our flight home. There were two reasons for this. Firstly to fly the following day would have cut it too fine to get our connecting flight with American Airlines, and the thought of them giving me some kind of insincere apology that we’d missed our flight and would have to buy yet another ticket was more than I could stand, secondly it was about $150 a ticket cheaper flying on the day before Thanksgiving Day. 

We went for a nice walk around the campground and then down the road, our suspicions were correct – there’s nothing out there, still it gave me a chance to get some fresh air and exercise. 

We can’t wait to get away from this campground it really is dreadful. Friday night was very busy with so many families stopping over to watch the shuttle launch, on Saturday many people moved off, and this morning lots more went, I suppose kids have to go to school tomorrow and parents to work. Much of what’s left behind is the dregs of the RV world. Tatty, battered vehicles and riff raff, many of them full timing here by the looks of it. 

This evening we endured some loud music from a neighbour to one side, and I was determined to repay the favour with some ‘Chas & Dave’ later through the combined front and rear RV speakers with the door open before realising it would unfairly disturb the Dukes of Hazard on the other side of us, and so dropped the idea after closing the door and turning the TV on so that we couldn’t hear it any more. 

Tomorrow we are making for Tallahassee about 250 miles away, from there we’ll probably drop down to the coastal road past lots of lovely Florida beaches heading towards New Orleans. From tomorrow we’re winging it with no planned itinerary, we’ll probably mix and match between Wal-Mart’s and campgrounds all the way back to Texas. 

We’ve just watched a soup advert on TV and The Chef was reminded of the tour we had around a racehorse facility in Lexington, Kentucky, where we were told the manure from the horses was taken to the ‘Muck Room’ where it was baled up and sold to Campbell’s who use it to grow the mushrooms for their mushroom soup, or ‘Muckroom’ soup as it’s known in Lexington. 

LOCATION TONIGHT: Manatee Hammock, 7275 S. U.S. Highway 1, Titusville, FL 32780.

1. May, 2016

SATURDAY 15-11-08 

It was another rough, noisy night. This morning the neighbours to our left, the Dukes of Hazard were playing under the bonnet of ‘General Lee’. It looked like a piece of crap and it sounded like a piece of crap. The neighbours on our right had the obligatory yappie dog and that seems to enjoy letting everybody know when it’s awake. The kids were back out playing at 07:00 and the trains had been running noisily all night. Being the weekend we had to also endure the noise from Harley Davidson’s along the road outside and the first one went past at 09:00.  If only I felt better, we could be escaping this place today, but instead poor Rosina is left to keep herself amused whilst I take to the bed. Fortunately when I woke up around lunchtime I felt a little better and hope that I’ve turned the corner now and we can be back on the road on Monday. There’s just nothing to do here unless you’re a fisherman. All this is made worse by the amount of American TV we suddenly find ourselves watching. 

This afternoon after a shower I went for a walk around the campground and waters’ edge. The scout group who arrived here yesterday were playing American Football, as I stood there watching them I wondered why they call it football since there’s virtually no kicking of the ball at all. The ball itself isn’t even shaped to be kicked. The backdrop to this game was the Indian River and the Vehicle Assembly Building and launch pad 39A from where ‘Endeavor’ had launched last night. I was still feeling weak and so returned to the RV, lazed around watching more TV and looking forward to our evening meal as a means of escape. The Chef had been creative enough to produce spaghetti with tomato sauce (speg bol without the meat). It was really tasty and easy to eat which was my concern. I’m hoping that by tomorrow night I can sit down to a proper meal. 

LOCATION TONIGHT: Manatee Hammock, 7275 S. U.S. Highway 1, Titusville, FL 32780.

1. May, 2016

1. May, 2016