Sailing on Lake Monroe
We have sailed many places in our beloved Catalina 22 sailboat - some great, some not so great. But one of the great bargains has to be Lake Monroe in central Florida, just north of Orlando. We arrived first in winter of 2015. I had scoped out the place a couple years earlier when I flew to Florida - Monroe Harbor marina will have to go down as the nicest AND the most reasonable marina we have ever stayed in. And Wekiva Falls is an excellent RV Park just 6 miles from the lake with very reasonable monthly rates. And the wind on Lake Monroe is some of the steadiest and most reliable of anywhere we have sailed. The lake is more or less elliptical... about 3x5 miles in width/length. Florida is flat so nothing much to look at beyond the treed shoreline and a few houses, but nice open reaches and never crowded at all. This is such a great place to sail in the winter that we returned for the full winter of 2016 into spring. If one is looking for warm winter weather sailing on fresh water, Lake Monroe is hard to beat. I would definitely do it again.
Savannah, Georgia
Of all the cities we visited, Savannah, Georgia was hands down our favorite. The old world antebellum southern charm is everywhere. You are immersed in 18th and 19th century US history. The architecture, the museums, the food... Savannah needs to be on everyone's bucket list. We visited Charleston as well and we liked it also, but Savannah stole our hearts. The entire old town is a historic district is built around 16 park-squares, with Forsyth Park being the most notable. And the city has a free trolley service that makes stops all over the city in a continuous loop, so there's no need to look for parking. Be sure to take the virtual tour of Savannah on our blog using the link above.
Lake George in upstate New York
We visited some great spots after we left Savannah, but a true highlight in anyone's book has to be Lake George in the Adirondacks in upstate New York. It is just a beautiful spot, great scenery, cool clear water, and my brother has a summer place there so that made it a great stop for us to spend a month. We had some excellent sailing and definitely enjoyed our time in the Adirondacks.
The Thousand Islands on the St. Lawrence Seaway
The Thousand Islands is heaven on earth... that's all there is to it. A magical place with great sailing, dependable winds, incredible scenic beauty, castles to sail past or stop and visit, uncrowded and all at reasonable expense... it is the ideal summer vacation for us. We did it two summers and will be going back in the future, we hope. For a full scenic tour be sure to visit our Thousand Islands picture book.
Newport, Rhode Island - 'Gilded Age' mansions
Newport on the coast of Rhode Island is a special place... It is a sailing mecca if you sail on the ocean, but we don't (fresh water only) so we just took in the history and especially the Newport mansions. The Vanderbilts and other wealthy families during the Gilded Age built fabulous summer 'cottages' here - there is a historical society and tours are available. Not to be missed!
Lexington, Kentucky - Horse Capital of the World
After another excellent winter in Florida we started our trek back to The Thousand Islands. We stopped in Lexington, Kentucky, Thoroughbred Horse Capital of the World. The gentle rolling hills and green pastures all around Lexington with mile after mile of four board fencing are something to behold. We visited several horse farms, the Kentucky Thoroughbred Horse Park, and Old friends Equine Rest Home for retired race horses. We absolutely fell in love with the area. If you are a horse lover this place is for you. We loved it so much we returned again in the fall.
Sailing Georgian Bay on Lake Huron, Ontario, Canada
After sailing stops at Lake Simcoe and Lake Muskoka in Ontario, Canada, we made our way to Georgian Bay in the eastern corner of Lake Huron, Ontario. This is one of the premier sailing locales on the continent. It was a thrill to spend a month here and sail with the big boys. We stayed at the south end on Midland Bay with our sailboat but we took our motorboat on its trailer to some other bays and island hopping areas up the east coast of Georgian Bay. We have some great memories and spectacular photos of sailing Ontario to look back on.
THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY
Well, that was the GOOD. There were some not-so-great moments during our travels as well.... here's a brief summary of some of our more hair raising moments... some downright ugly.
Our first untimely experience occurred while we were staying in central Texas. We have property here so we wanted to spend a little time, take stock of our investments and visit a few friends. We stayed at a nice RV Park called Pecan Park near San Marcos, so named for all the Pecan trees. Nice place to stay, EXCEPT that our dog will eat anything that remotely resembles food. While walking him around the park he apparently scarfed up some moldy pecans that were cracked open and not eaten by the many squirrels which populate the park. Corey got very ill and we had to take him to the vet where he was diagnosed with gastroenteritis. Between the visit to Banfield Pet Hospital, three prescriptions, and $350 later, this delayed our trip a few extra days.
We made it to Red Bay, Alabama where we signed in to the Tiffin Factory RV Park to await our turn to get some work done. Tiffin will take care of any problems with the coach and base systems, but maintenance on the engine and chassis is handled by Bay Diesel, another shop near Tiffin. Getting out of there we encountered a disaster. I made the tight turn out of the driveway on the way back to Tiffin, and didn't turn wide enough. The right rear drive wheels went off the drive into a culvert which required major assistance from some heavy equipment to get out again. Among other things this twisted the chassis enough that it cracked the windshield and caused some damage to the fiberglass shell. Fortunately Tiffin was very gracious about this and covered the damage after my insurance paid to replace the windshield. No permanent damage done, fortunately, and we got a brand new windshield out of the deal - the old one had some chips.
After Red Bay we made our way to Florida. I had scoped out Wekiva Falls RV Park which was an ideal place to spend the winter, near to Lake Monroe where we were able to sail our sailboat all winter. Like much of Florida the ground at Wekiva is sandy and trying to back into our assigned space, our drive wheels got stuck in the sand and I had to call a tow truck to get us out. It actually happened a second time when we returned from a side trip over to Venice, Florida on the west coast. After that we insisted on a different space with a more solid footing.
While in Florida, I was performing one of the less glamorous duties of RV life, dumping the holding tanks. I always do a saniflush operation or two to rinse the inside of the black tank, before closing it off again and adding fresh chemicals to the tank. My usual procedure is to dump it, let some saniflush run with the valve open. Then close it, let it fill it partially and then open the valve and dump it again. I usually do that 2 or 3 times. The danger here is that if you get distracted while this is in progress, the black tank can overfill and backup through the toilet. Obviously if this is the 2nd or 3rd refill, the water is pretty clean, but STILL... not what you want to have happen. Having done this before in a previous rig, I devised a fail safe system after doing it again this time... I purchased a couple timers on a lanyard to wear around my neck and start the timer when I close the valve for a refill. That was the last time I pulled this bonehead move.
After our wonderful summer in Lake George and in the Thousand Islands in upstate New York, we headed south again for the winter, stopping in Newport, R.I. From there we drove down along Long Island Sound and crossed the Throgs Neck Bridge onto Long Island where we had planned to spend a few days visiting some old friends. As we came across the bridge we were running three different GPS to help us negotiate the Long Island highways and prodigious traffic. All three GPS directed us to take the Cross Island Parkway, even through it was a tossup for time, distance or traffic with the Clearview Expressway. Even our specialized Truck/RV Garmin which is supposed to help us avoid dangerous or inappropriate routes sent us onto the Cross Island Parkway. Next thing you know someone is flagging me to pull over onto the shoulder. I was informed that the parkway is not for trucks or any high profile vehicles. I had just passed under a bridge with a sign 12'8" and our coach is 12'9" and was thinking WTF?!?!? Thanks to the guidance from a couple good samaritans I was able to get off the parkway safely at the next exit with no actual problem, although I think we added a number of grey hairs to our heads.
Our next planned sailing sojourn after leaving the Thousand Islands was Lake Murray, South Carolina. We arrived there October 1, 2015 just as Hurricane Joaquin was building and we decided we needed to head west, find an RV park west of Atlanta, and get out of the hurricane's path. Good thing we did, too, as Columbia SC got some 24 inches of rain and suffered devastating floods. Although the campground we had reserved near Columbia did not flood, we decided Lake Murray was a mess after this flood and so we skipped it and headed on to Florida after the floods subsided.
In the early summer of 2015 we arrived at Lake Simcoe in southern Ontario province in Canada. We reserved a month here at the KOA and at the marina. We were excited to be sailing another new lake, We got the mast up and the boat all rigged and ready for launch, and as I was maneuvering to back down the tight little launch ramp at the marina, I missed seeing the overhead guy wire between two power poles where it crossed the road just beyond the launch ramp. The heart rending sound of the cra-aack as the mast hit the guy wire and snapped two stays on the boat was a horrible moment I will not soon forget. Fortunately the damage was not extensive. I found a local shop to make me up a couple new stainless stays to the exact length. They did a great job and amazingly quickly and we had the boat rigged again and back in the water in three days. Nevertheless, this will go down as one of the most gut wrenching moments of our entire trip.
But all in all, these few harrowing moments do not detract from the fact that we safely traveled some 14,000 miles cross country and back and up and down the east coast twice and have so many great memories and no lasting scars. We'll be scrolling through this blog remembering all the wonderful adventures we shared together for years to come, that much is certain.
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