January 21-24 we attended a rally of the South East TREK Fun Club in Silver Springs FL. There were a total of 9 coaches in attendance at the Springs RV Resort. Our first motor home was a Safari TREK, and we still hang with the South East TREK Fun Club.
To view a multimedia presentation of the rally
click here.
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| Site B70 at Springs RV Resort |
The Springs is a huge resort; by my count there are 626 sites. About half are semi-permanent manufactured housing or RV's parked on a seasonal/permanent basis. The resort was less than half filled, but they still crammed us between two other occupied permanent sites, each with a home unit and multiple personal vehicles. Go figure. Additionally, we were parked on a site with a gully across the rear of the site, forcing us to park at the very front of the site, to the extent that our sewer hose would not reach the site's sewer pipe. Fortunately we would be here for just three nights and weren't likely to fill our waste tanks in that time.
Sam and Meri own what is likely the most traveled Safari TREK in the world. It is a 1994 (1993?) model and has 448,000 miles. It is powered by a 135HP 4-cylinder Isuzu diesel engine. By comparison our Dutch Star has a 450HP diesel. It's slow, but it still goes, .... and goes, .... and goes. Like the Energizer bunny.
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| A vintage TREK |
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| We have been traveling with Harry for the last 2 weeks |
This was largely a no-frills rally. We had three shared dinners, a few shared lunches and a happy hour each afternoon. We did have an excursion to Two Tails Ranch near Williston FL.
Two Tails Ranch is an educational and conservation facility featuring primarily Asian elephants, but they also have other species including tortoises, ring-tails lemurs, ostriches, emus, donkeys, zebras and camels.
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| Luke is the cock of the roost |
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| Luke is an accomplished artist |
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| Another masterpiece |
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| LiMu the emu, but where's Doug? |
Additionally, Dorcas and I led a short paddle in the spring head area of Silver Springs. The forecast was for 100% rain during the paddle, but the weather gods were with us. There was a light mist when we put in, but no rain after that.
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| This great blue heron was having a bad hair day |
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| We found a young manatee in the Silver River |
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| A green heron on the hunt |
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| An anhinga drying out |
We saw only one alligator on this cool overcast day, but he was a fair sized one.
On Sunday after the rally we drove a whopping 4 miles to the campground at Silver Springs State Park. Here we will meet friends from NC for a week of paddling on local rivers.
Life is good.
