Monday, October 1, 2012

Manatee Springs SP – Host

Judy and I didn’t get on the road Saturday as early as we planned to.  I wanted to be on the road by 9:00 AM but it was nearly 11:00 AM before we started rolling.  I learned from the experience though.  Next time we depart we will do a number of things the night before that will speed up the process.

Ready to leave Blanton Creek headed for Chiefland FL.

The drive was an easy one.  I followed the advice of my Garmin GPS and arrived at Manatee Springs State Park at 5:20 PM. The roads were fine and traffic was nonexistent most of the way.  We did not drive on any interstate HWS .  The park is located six miles west of Chiefland, FL.  Judy drove the CRV behind me and we used our walkie talkies to communicate. It sure made lane changes easy.  The distance to the park was 292 miles. 

The ranger on duty at the gate gave us directions to our assigned site and also informed us that we already had mail. I had contacted our mail forwarding service, “My RV Mail” on-line a couple of days before and instructed that our mail be forwarded.  We left the truck and five at the ranger office and drove the CRV to check out the site, it was not going to work.  The ranger told me that #56 was available. We checked that out and thought it would work.  It did.  Judy spotted for me and I backed the Cardinal smoothly into the site. I checked the side to side levelness and found it to be perfect.  That was a welcome surprise. Judy read the “unhitching” checklist off and we were unhitched in short order. She went inside and put the slides out and I took care of the water and electric connections.  The site does not have a sewer so we will have to use the dump station.
 
Manatee Springs SP Site # 56


The cell phone service at the park is poor to very poor so we will have to work around it. The more serious problem is no Satellite signal for Direct TV.  Our roof mounted Winegard Travler could not lock on.  Like most state parks, trees block the signal. Judy is in full panic mode over this. It isn’t that we are addicted to TV but the Braves are in the post season action.  We would also like to see the Presidential Debates.  I am surprised that I can use my Verizon MIFI to connect to the internet even though it shows no bars.

That’s all for now.  Thanks for stopping by.

NOTE:
(1.)Fellow bloggers George and Laurie (Owens On the Road) begin their travel adventure today, visit their blog and wish them well.
 

8 comments:

  1. I'll be very interested in hearing how you do as a camp host without sewer hook-ups. I don't know why more Florida state parks don't have full hook-ups for their volunteers. I hope you can get a portable antenna to lock on. Maybe we'll come up to see you one day.

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    1. Karen,
      I'm just hoping all the connections on the portable tank are tight. I am going to test it out Thur. We look forward to meeting you and Al. We are off Wed and Thur. If you get a chance to stop by it would be great.

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  2. I could live without the TV, but no sewer for an extended stay could be a real pain:(

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    1. I'll let you now in a day or two if I can live without a sewer connection!

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  3. When we visited Manatee Springs last winter we too had zilch cell signal while there. Checking out the CG I thought it would be difficult to get a sat signal as well. And no sewer for the host? That's a bummer. We have no sewer while doing the Amazon thing in Campbellsville, but they send a honeywagon once a week to pump us out. It sure would be a pain to unhook and dump. Best wishes!

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  4. Thanks for the "shout out"! We are currently motoring to Ohio. First night a non-glamourus Flying J. Glad you made it safely to Manatee..no septic would be a deal breaker I think. :)

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  5. Goodness.....no sewer hookup and 4 months....you would think the park would "upgrade" for their volunteer Host. Oh well, that is what it is all about...ADVENTURE. Hope you are enjoying it so far. It brings back a lot of great memories. I miss it a lot.
    Hope our paths will cross at some point again. We enjoyed meeting you. So glad I can keep up with you on this blog.

    GO BRAVES!!!!!!

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    1. Connie,
      It is only going to be 02 :( months without sewer connections. Dec and Jan we will be at Adelaide Shores RV Resort :). Judy and I are counting on ya'l coming back to Blanton Creek Park next season.

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