Paddle: Econlockhatchee River

Several weeks ago we ran into another couple here at TTO, and we spent time talking with them about the places we had each paddled and the places we wanted to paddle. They strongly suggested we paddle the Econlockhatchee River northeast of Orlando. We took a look at the guide book and decided it might be a pretty good paddle. It was not too far away, and we could do it with a bike shuttle. As soon as we arrived at the put-in, I realized we had paddled the "Econ" before, probably during our first Benner trip to Florida during Christmas 2004. We dropped our gear at the put-in on CR 419 near Oviedo FL. I drove the car to the take-out at the bridge on Snow Hill Road and rode the bike about 6 miles back to the put-in. This run is about 10 miles long and passes through the Little Big Econ State Forest. It was a very pleasant day, and a very nice paddle through a remote section of state forest. The river is mainly twisty and shallow, with stained water and white sand bottom. This would be an excellent camping river; there are a number of excellent campsites on state lands. We saw three very large alligators, 12 feet long or better. We also snuck up on an armadillo rooting near the bank.

Life on the Road: It's Always Something ....

We are still camped at Thousand Trails Orlando. As usual, we are down in the woods in D loop and will be here for a total of 14 days. On Friday March 6 we will start slowly working our way northward. I continue to play pickleball every day. Dorcas and Matilda play with neighboring puppies. Matilda's new best friend is Tipper, a border collie/poodle mix, from Iredell County, NC, of all places. Unfortunately Tipper will be leaving on Sunday, and Matilda must find another friend. It is amazing how valuable a good puppy playmate can be. It is good for everyone, dogs and owners alike, when compatible dogs can run free on the trails, until they drop from exhaustion.

Now for the bad news: A motor home is a collection of complicated systems, all exposed to vibration, dust, wind, hot, cold and plain wear and tear. When everything is working correctly (and this is a rare occasion), it is best to kick back, relax and savor the moment, because something is bound to break soon. I keep thermometers in the refrigerator and the freezer. Shortly after we arrived at TTO, about a week ago, I noticed that the temperature in the freezer was gradually rising. It normally reads less than 10F. Now it was approaching 25F and the ice cream was melting! Egads! Something must be done. Today it quit cooling completely, and I shut her down. We packed it with ice, and now it is functioning as a very expensive ice box.

Our fridge has operated erratically for as long as we have owned the unit, most days working fine, but some days failing to achieve the temperatures it should. Hence, the reason I use thermometers to monitor fridge function. Most RV refrigerators use a cooling technology very different than residential refrigerators. Instead of an electric compressor and freon, an RV fridge uses an ammonia absorption process, where ammonia and hydrogen are boiled and subsequently condensed and evaporated, removing heat from the refrigerator box. This system is well suited to an RV because there are no moving parts, and it uses very little electricity when operating on LP.

The "cooling unit" is the enclosed system comprising the heaters (LP and/or electric), boiler, condenser, evaporator and is bonded to the rear of the refrigerator box. If the cooling unit is doing its thing, the fridge will be cold. No problem. One sign that the cooling unit is not working properly is when the large horizontal pipes on the lower part of the unit are not hot. On mine they were cold. Dang. Another obvious sign is either the smell of ammonia or a bright yellow/green powder on or under the unit, which indicate a loss of coolant. There was a small pile of the telltale yellow powder on the floor underneath the boiler. Dang again. Once coolant has leaked, the unit it cannot be repaired. My cooling unit was shot. After fretting and fuming for a good while, I evaluated my options. I called Dometic, the manufacturer of the unit, to see if they could provide some relief. Faithful readers may remember that I had tried to accomplish recall service on this unit in January back at Lazydays. There is a recall campaign on certain Dometic refrigerators where the cooling unit will develop a leak near the boiler, discharging ammonia and hydrogen gas into the area of the LP burner, creating a blowtorch in the refrigerator cabinet. Not good. Dometic used a thin-wall tubing in the boiler area and after repeated cycling of the heaters, the tubing will fatigue and rupture. Apparently hundreds of thousands of units are affected; it's not a matter of if they will fail, but when they will fail. A number of RVs and adjacent structures have burned to the ground because of this defect. Dometic's recall is essentially a band aid approach to the problem. They are not replacing or repairing the dangerous cooling units, but are simply installing a metal shield to prevent the escaping flammable gas from contacting the LP burner and installing a sensor that will shut down the burner when a leak occurs. I was fairly certain that my unit was subject to the recall, and Lazydays confirmed that fact when I made my service appointment back in November. They re-confirmed that I was subject to the recall when they looked at the unit in mid-January. However, when I arrived for service in late January, they said they had learned from Dometic that I was not subject to the recall. What's up with all that? Based on what I had read on the RV forums, I wasn't convinced, but I also did not argue. I would check it out later.

When I called Dometic this week they confirmed that my unit was subject to the recall. However, since the coolant had leaked out, they told me that I must first repair (replace) the cooling unit before they would authorize the recall service. Of course, replacing the cooling unit would negate the need for the recall. Catch 22. Since the refrigerator was outside its original three-year warranty period they would not repair/replace the cooling unit at their expense, even though the recall was designed to mitigate the consequences of the inevitable failure of the cooling unit. A responsible company would repair the root problem of such a safety defect, even after the warranty period ended. Apparently Dometic is not a responsible company. OK, so I'm on my own.

I called Camping Connection, a local RV repair facility a mile or two down the road. I learned that a rebuilt cooling unit was about $1650 including parts, labor, shipping and tax. A new cooling unit (vs. rebuilt) was about $100 more. To have a comparable new refrigerator installed was about $2300. The labor to replace a cooling unit was 5 hours at $95/hr. To replace the whole fridge the labor was only 1.5 hours. The new fridge came with a full three-year warranty, while the cooling unit had a limited 90 day/one year warranty. Decisions decisions. Additional research revealed that I could buy a rebuilt cooling unit from a mail order outfit for about $400 or a new unit, built using a better design, for $650. Both units used thicker tubing than the OEM unit and had a full 3-year/5-year replacement warranty. Camping Connection wanted over $1000 for their cooling units, and they had shorter warranty periods. Ultimately I decided to order the new aftermarket cooling unit for $650 and install it myself. I found some pretty good written instructions describing the installation procedure. It's pretty complex, but it's not rocket science. Removing the fridge from the cabinet and removing the old cooling unit from the box is basically grunt work. The most critical step is attaching and bonding the new cooling unit to the cooling fins in the box. If that's not done right it flat won't make cold. After reading the instructions a half dozen times, I decided I could do it. If I get hung up, I can call a repair service to help me finish the job. Even if I end up needing professional assistance, I will still have saved almost $500 for the part and several hundred dollars for labor. Besides, it builds confidence and is more satisfying when I can accomplish such a task myself. The new cooling unit is scheduled to arrive here at TTO on Wednesday. I will post an update describing how it all worked out. Wish me luck. I might need it.

Paddle: Reedy Creek NOT!!!

We hadn't paddled in a while, and I was getting jittery from withdrawal. So, I perused our Florida paddling guide, looking specifically for venues that were close to our camp and didn't require a car shuttle. One jumped out and grabbed me: Reedy Creek. Reedy Creek flows out of Walt Disney World and is only about 10 miles from our camp. I think its headwaters are on the slopes of Space Mountain. It sounded interesting, but the guidebook warned that there could be some logs and snags in low water. And we certainly are experiencing low water in central Florida. But we can handle logs and snags, right? Right! So off we went.

Our plan was to put in at the bridge where Reedy Creek crossed US 17/92. We would paddle north and upstream as far as we could, then return back to the put-in. No shuttle required.
Sweet! If we were lucky we would get as far as I-4. If we were really lucky we would make it all the way to Tom Sawyer Island in Frontierland, in the heart of the Magic Kingdom.

Alas, it was not to be. Things started off fairly ominously. The Great State of Florida has built a new bridge across US 17/92, and there was no easy access to the creek from that bridge. The old bridge was still standing about 100' north of the new bridge, but access to the old bridge was about as bad as access to the river from the new bridge. The approach roads for the old bridge were gated and posted 1/4 mile back from the bridge in both directions. Finally we found a wide place to park up on the new portion of the highway and dragged our gear over the guard rail, dodging speeding cars and trucks, and made it to the old bridge. There was a good access to the creek at the eastern end of the old bridge, and we could see signs that other boaters had put in here. That was encouraging. That's when we first really looked at the creek. The anticipated logs and stumps were not to be seen. They were probably under the thick mass of weeds that choked the creek in both directions as far as we could see. Dang. Well, we had already unloaded the gear and hauled it 200 yards to the water and hadn't been run over by a bus, so we might as well give it a shot while our luck was holding. After all, we had paddled in weeds before. We put in and began to paddle/pole ourselves upstream. We might as well have been paddling in wet sand. We couldn't go anywhere. After about 20 minutes we had made perhaps about 100 yards, and there was no relief in sight. We decided we better turn back before the trail we had cut through the floating jungle closed back in on us. We finally made it back to the bridge and saw that the weeds were not quite as thick southbound, at least as far as we could see. So we continued downstream a short distance before we realized that route was futile as well.

Oh well, there's always tomorrow. Besides, the trip wasn't a total loss: I found 5 pretty nice bobbers for Wayne.

Photo of the Week

This photo is for our friends back home in NC. Coincidentally, our three favorite paddling couples own very small hard-side campers all made by A-Liner. None, however, are as small as this number, the A-Lite, parked near us at Lake Griffin State Park. When any one asks how many people our coach sleeps our standard answer is always "two", notwithstanding the number of beds we have. This baby sleeps four, but everyone has to be shorter than 5' 6" and must sleep standing up.

Quote(s) of the Week

Answer: Dogs and grandchildren!

Question: What is the favorite food of alligators?

While paddling on the Dora Canal on Wednesday, we met about a half a dozen tour boats taking tourists on site-seeing excursions in the canal. I think every tour guide operator enrolled in the same tour guide correspondence school. Every single one asked that question as we paddled by. Most were said loudly enough that we could hear; actually I think everyone in Tavares could hear them over their obnoxious PA system. The comment actually seemed to be directed more at us than at their clients. One said alligators would launch their whole bodies out of the water and onto a boat for a dog. With their jaws agape, I think the tourists really expected that to happen as they watched. The truth is alligators rarely feed at all in the winter, because they can't digest the food, and it will rot in their stomachs. Jerks.

Flashback Friday

Yesterday was a dreary, rainy day and I spent much of the day updating this journal and deleting old messages from my e-mail. While deleting messages I found this photo taken by my friend Andy during our backpacking trip on the Continental Divide Trail in Colorado. The trip was in August 2006, less than a week after I retired.

Paddle: Dora Canal

We met some new paddling friends, John and Susan, just before we left TTO a week or so ago. Our respective schedules didn't mesh, so we weren't able to paddle with them at that time, but they did offer us a few suggestions for paddling venues. They were off to paddle the Dora Canal, which they had never paddled, but they had been told it was very nice. The Mt. Dora Chamber of Commerce says the Dora Canal is "the most beautiful mile of water in Florida". Well, I don't know about that, but we did enjoy it. Historic Dora Canal connects Lake Dora to the south and Lake Eustis to the north. It is only about a mile long, but there are several other side channels to explore. We put in at Summerall Park near the south end of the canal. The canal is encased in a tunnel of bald cypress, live oak and spanish moss. Once you get past the few houses at the Dora Lake end, it is very scenic. Portions of the movie "The African Queen" were filmed here. All the usual birds were abundant and are used to seeing folks on the water and are not very bashful. We also saw a few pretty fair sized gators. The only really negative aspect of the trip was the motor boaters and tour boat operators on the water. A few, particularly the tour operators, were rude and obnoxious. The canal is also a connector for a number of interconnected lakes in the area and sees a fair number of sport fishing boats. I wouldn't want to be there on the weekend.

The Dora Canal cannot be characterized as a major paddling destination, but we were camped only about 10 miles away. It was certainly worth the drive and a nice way to spend an afternoon.

Paddle: Dead River/Lake Griffin - Gators Galore!

We have paddled a number of streams this year in Florida, but have seen very few alligators, many fewer than in years past. But that changed today, in a big way. Today we paddled on the Dead River, a waterway connecting Lake Griffin State Park with Lake Griffin. We put in at the state park access and paddled out into the river. We explored every cove and about every inch of the shoreline on our 3/4 mile way to Lake Griffin. And boy did we see the gators! We saw papa gators, mama gators and baby gators. We saw swimming gators and sunning gators.It was warm and sunny, and I think the gators enjoyed being out in the nice weather as much as we did. Oh yeah, we also saw some birds.

Lake Griffin State Park

We are camped at Lake Griffin State Park near Leesburg. Lake Griffin was recommended by friends who were going to be camping here at the same time, but, unfortunately, they had to change their plans. This is a very nice park, kinda small but nice never the less. The only real activity here (besides the campground: $15 night for H2O and 50A service, a great deal!) is the boat access to Lake Griffin. There is one other noteworthy feature here. In this park is the fifth largest live oak tree in Florida. Really! I don't know how they know this, but it must be true. The government says so. Actually, the tree is 300 years old. The trunk is 10' in diameter. It is 88' tall and spreads 131'. That's a lot of timber!

We will be here until Friday and then move back to Thousand Trails Orlando for a whopping two weeks.

Meanwhile Back at the Ranch ....

We are camped at Westgate River Ranch near Lake Wales, which claims to be the "World's Largest Dude Ranch". Yesterday was our 8th wedding anniversary, and I had told Dorcas we were going to the "World's Largest Nude Ranch" to celebrate. She didn't buy it. We are attending a rally of Country Coach owners hosted by the Florida Coast Alongs, a regional Country Coach owners club. The rally has a western theme, of course, and a lot of activities and events are offered. The day we arrived, we all enjoyed a hayride around the perimeter of the ranch and into the KICCO Wildlife Management Area (kiss-oh: Kissimmee Island Cattle Company), a 7,000 acre preserve adjacent to the resort. The area is rich in cattle and ranching history, as much of Florida once was, and still is. Other activities included admission to the rodeo and a choice of (pick one) an air boat ride, a swamp buggy ride, horseback riding, golf, or skeet shooting. We aren't really into guns, golf or horses, so our first choice was the swamp buggy, mainly because the buggies looked so cool. But when we went to sign up we learned that the "swamp" was dry and that the buggy would drive the same route we had taken on the hayride the day before. BOOORING! Plan B was the air boat ride, however, when we went to sign up for that, we found some friends who were negotiating for a pontoon boat alternative. The pontoon boat was an unadvertised option, but a friend, who was also an owner at the RV park, told us we could pool our vouchers to get the pontoon boat. The more vouchers, the longer we could keep the boat. In the end, there were seven of us, and we got the boat for three hours. During that three hours we cruised the Kissimmee River watching alligators, birds and cows. We had much more fun and saw much more wildlife than those folks on those noisy air boats! On Saturday night we went to the rodeo, a first for me. Big fun watching bronco riding, cattle roping, bull riding and barrel racing. Yee haw!!

The Florida Coast Alongs will not let us join their club since we are not Florida residents (at least not officially). As non-members, however, we can still attend two Coast Along rallies each year. They are a fun group, so we'll try to do some more rallies with them next winter.

Life in the Slow Lane at TTO

We are nearing the end of our 12-night stay at Thousand Trails Orlando (TTO). Tomorrow we will travel about 65 miles southeast to a resort near Lake Wales to attend a rally of Country Coach owners.

Life at TTO is life in the slow lane. Early in our stay we visited with TREK friends who came to TTO after the Safari TREK rally near Tampa. As our stay continued, we spent time with many other friends who came and left during our stay. The RVing community is a small, tight-knit world. As is the paddling community. We always talk to others with canoes or kayaks, such as John and Susan, who were camped just across from us. We found we belonged to the same paddling club and had some common friends. We weren't able to paddle with them before leaving TTO, but hope to paddle with them before our trip is over. We mainly stayed close to home, not leaving the park on most days. We went to dinner at a nearby Chili's a couple of nights, usually to say farewell when someone was leaving to travel to some other far-off adventure. We paddled a few days (see separate posts). Most days were filled with doing nothing, or with me playing pickleball and Dorcas walking Matilda. We discovered a large network of trails in an undeveloped section of the park where we can let Matilda off-leash. It is a good place to meet other dog owners and make doggie play dates with Zipper (we also played with at TT Peace River), Rusty, Charlie and Christy. There is a resident gopher tortoise who cruises our campsite regularly and a pair of sand hill cranes who make the open areas home. Red-shoulderd hawks and barred owls are also common in the park. Every evening we listen to, and sometimes watch, the nightly fireworks at Walt Disney World, about 5 miles away, as the hawk flies. Or about a week away as the gopher tortoise crawls. Ah ... life in the slow lane.

Paddle: Weeki Wachee River

Today we paddled the Weeki Wachee River with our friends from NC, Wayne and Lynda, and Bob and Donna. We put in at Rogers Park, about six miles below the spring head and paddled upstream. We could have done it the easy way and put in at the spring, but they charge $7 to launch and no pets are allowed in that area. Dang. It was a very cool morning and the wind blew a bit. The warmest place to be was in the 72 degree water, but then you would have to come out, and the wind chill would get you. About a half mile from the put-in there was a hole with a minor spring and about a dozen manatees. We hung out there a while and played with the manatees before proceeding upstream. The river was low, but the current was swift. After bulling our way upstream about 2 miles, we turned back for a leisurely float to the takeout. We saw practically no other paddlers on the river this day ... except the dozen boats of an Elder Hostel group.

After the paddle we drove though Brooksville to pick up three "Dry Boxes" that I had previously ordered for some friends. The Dry Box is the best canoe camping dry storage container that has ever been made. Wayne and I have used them for years. Wayne literally wore his out. I don't know how we ever camped without them. They seem to have become fairly hard to find, though. It turns out that the guy in Brooksville bought the molds from the former owner, who became too ill to run the business. He now sells them to youth camps and outfitters and whoever else stumbles onto his web site.

After our Dry Box business we had dinner at Mykonos, a very nice Greek restaurant in Brooksville. Unfortunately Wayne and Lynda are returning home and we won't have any more Florida paddles with them this winter. Hopefully we can paddle again with Bob and Donna.

Paddle: Rock Springs Run and Wekiva River

Today was the day that Denny's offered their "Grand Slam" breakfast for free. We stopped at the Denny's in Clermont, figuring we might have to wait a little bit to get seated, but we didn't count on the chaos we encountered when we got there. The parking lot was full and cars were lined up on the shoulder of the highway for a hundred yards in both directions. Customers spilled into the parking lot. We decided to pass. There is only so much I will do for a free meal, and this was over the top. Our friends Wayne and Lynda from NC had been in Florida for about a week, but we had not been able to get up with them before now. Today we would meet Wayne and Lynda for a paddle. Wayne and Lynda also went to Denny's but had better luck. The good news is that they only waited 5 minutes to get seated. The bad news is that with coffee and a tip they ended up spending $6.00. It turns out we spent less at McDonald's than they did at Denny's for the "free" breakfast. Go figure.

We met Wayne and Lynda north of Apopka to paddle the Rock Springs Run. The Rock Springs Run heads up just below Rock Springs in Kelly Park and ends on the Wekiva River just below Wekiva Springs. This is one of the prettiest spring runs in Florida and is, ironically, only about 15 miles from downtown Orlando. We put in at King's Landing, a private canoe livery that charges $10 to launch. Wayne and I shuttled to the takeout at Wekiva Marina, where we were disappointed to learn they are closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Even though the marina and the gate was closed, folks were working on-site and the gate was not locked. We figured we would be able to take out there anyway. If not, we saw that we could take out just upstream of the marina and carry our boats a short distance through the woods.

We first paddled about 1/2 mile upstream, until we reached a chain across the stream, an illegal barrier, probably put up by the owners of some homes just beyond the chain. Last year there was no chain, and we had paddled a little further upstream before the run became impassable with downed trees and brush. Today we turned around and enjoyed the downstream float. After a while the run changed from a shallow, sandy, narrow run to one characterized by deeper stained water and a wide channel. Near the end of the 10-mile run, the Wekiva River enters from the right and we paddled up about 1/4 mile to just below the spring. We then drifted down to the marina, where we found the gate still unlocked, and were able to drive the truck down to the landing to load the boats.

It was a very pleasant paddle with old friends. We saw a few gators, some otters, some deer and the usual assortment of Florida birds.

Super Sunday

This morning we packed up and moved about 60 miles east to Thousand Trails Orlando. There are two Thousand Trails preserves in Florida, and we spend as much time as we can in one or the other, since we are members and there is no charge to camp. TTO is a huge campground with 850 sites. We selected a site in D loop, down by the lake. We always stay in D loop because it is shaded by large live oak trees and is more intimate and private than the other areas in the park. We got settled in time to watch the Superbowl preview shows on our new digital HD Sony. We visited a bit with several of our TREK friends who had also moved to TTO. By kick-off time for Superbowl XLIII, we were settled in for the big game. Our Panthers choked big time in the playoffs, so we had no real dog in this fight, but I found myself rooting for the Arizona Cardinals, mostly because they were the underdogs. It was a great game, the best Superbowl I can recall. We watched the obligatory commercials, but I was a little disappointed. Few grabbed me, and many were stupid or overly violent. We will be at TTO for 12 nights. I hope to play a lot of pickleball.