So very Florida, tropical flowers everywhere!

OK, as promised, this week a little more about our beautiful new campground.

 

Called Camelot (Merlin probably feels right at home) , they had fun with their signs and details on buildings etc. ..

Merl', lording over 'his' Camelot

                           

                                         Even the dogs wear crowns around here ..

And as I mentioned, it's right on the water, called the Coastal Waterway, which is in fact an inlet from the Atlantic, and it has it's own, private dock.

You have to dodge some traffic to get to it, because Hwy #1 separates the park from the water, but it's easy to do, there's lulls in the traffic because of the traffic lights a little further down the road.

                       Looking back towards the campground

From it you have a nice view of the inlet and Florida's East Coast Barrier Island that separates it from the ocean.

This is looking at the Island over the Inlet

Talking about that dock, it's a popular hangout for all kind of birds, like these Pelicans:

        

     

And Dolphins! Yeah, my first ones!

  

I hope I'll see some more, and a little closer maybe ...

In the meantime, James has finished most of the projects he was working on from before the holidays and is now actively looking to find more.

He went to Home Depot to pass out some new business cards, and went for an interview to Orlando to a company that has it's offices there, but small (short-term) 'handyman' work over here in Melbourne. 

He is in fact hired for that job, but he's still looking around for other opportunities that might have bigger jobs available.

This fence and kitchen were some of his previous jobs ..

This weekend he also had to do some 'fixin'-up to do on the RV. 

I'd noticed a soft spot under one of the windows, and it turned out we'd had a leak that caused some dry-rot ..

Yikes! Fortunately it was all dry, and James took the window out (just 6 screws or so) and after scooping out all the loose stuff, he squirted a whole lot of caulking in and around the edges of the sill, and plopped the window back in.

Not the most elegant repair, but he doesn't have much time and we're tight on money to do it 'proper', so this will have to do for now ..

I've been working hard at catching up with the blog (only one more to go!), taking my daily walks to the dock, and I finished the Christmas puzzle and started my 'snow-puzzle' ..

Since the weather has still been 'unseasonable' warm over here (high 70/low 80), I'm trying to get a little bit in the winter-mood here with all that snow!

So far it's not really working, but I just heard that the temperatures are supposed to go down this week! Yeah! 

Finally a word about the truck. Yeah ... saving the 'best' for last ..

After much deliberation we've decide to have US Engine send us a whole new engine, like they've offered to do, and not go for 'just' repairing the heads.

They didn't have one in stock anymore so they've started to build another one. 

It's probably another week before it's ready, so ... we'll be here for a while longer ... 4 weeks? 5 anybody? Do I hear 6?

I need a glass of wine. Oh, make that half off one, it's (one of) my New Year's resolution(s) ... right, bad timing!

View from 'our' (campground's) dock ...

A happy new Year to Y'all, and may 2019 have a better ending than 2018 ... and a very good begin .. .. and maybe a nice middle part also .. knock on wood!

As I mentioned in the previous post we have moved to Camelot RV Resort in Malabar, about 10 miles from our previous place.

Rob, our friendly neighbor had agreed to tow us there, and we drove behind it on the way over, which was a very weird situation .. we'd never seen the RV this way, seen from the back, in traffic ..

Camelot sure is a beautiful park, right on the water and due to an unexpected cancellation, we ended up in a much better spot than originally agreed on! 

We also don't have to move to another spot in 4 days as was the case before. There you go, we're lucky already!

This site is much wider and has much more room all around it ..

 No direct bay-view but down the end of the road you can just see the water.

We've made ourselves at home already and attended the New Years 'party' here at the campground to get to know some of our fellow campers.

Happy hour (and free drinks) started at 6.30 and the music (a husband and wife musical-duo) started an hour later, and I'm really not that picky, but gawd, they were so incredible .. bad!

We sat through an hour of it and than quietly departed through a back door! Jeez .. did nobody check these people out?

We spent the rest of the evening happily in front of the TV, went to bad before 12 (as usual) and woke up in 2019. Perfect!

Despite me messing up the dough for our traditional 'oliebollen' something awful (twice the flour, and too much yeast and salt), James did a great job baking them.

As always. He saves many a day .. it's Super-James to the rescue!

And as always, I did a great job eating them! They were slightly salty, but heavily dusted with a cloud of powdered sugar and cinnamon, they were just fine!

We had to wait a little for our traditional 'watching of the Rose Parade', because of being all the way on the other side of the country, California is now 3 hours behind us!

But it did come through, and as always the floats were stunning and it was a lot of fun to see a little bit of California. 
I miss it, and after all our traveling so far, and seeing so many beautiful places, I still think it's the best place to live ... if it's up to me, we'll go back there once we've completed our 'Grand Tour of the US'.
Maybe somewhere north in the winter and somewhere south in the winter ... we'll see!

So, traditionally Tamales are eaten on New Year's Day in Latin America, and since we discovered a Costa Rican food shack right around the corner from the campground, we though they would be perfect for lunch.
 

Usually these traditions bring luck somehow, and we take anything we can get .. especially if it involves food!
 

           

Afterward we went for a little drive to get our bearings in our new neighborhood, and ended up on a quest to see if we could find some Manatees.

They've been on my 'to-see' list for Florida from the moment I knew we were going to go there and I'm determined to see them!

Manatees, or Sea-Cows, are Florida's state mammal and they are large aquatic relatives of the elephant.

They take up residence primarily in Florida’s coastal waters during winter and can be found in the warm waters of shallow rivers, bays, estuaries and coastal waters. They rarely venture into waters below 68 degrees Fahrenheit.

Today’s population is estimated at approximately 6,000 individuals.

I did some googling and found a park close-by where they are seen on a regular base.

And guess what, they were there! 
Just two, and we caught only glimpses of them, but still .. so cool!

I hope we'll get to see more of them while we're here. 
I've heard people say they saw them at the campground's dock, so guess where I'll be hanging out a lot?

Another hangout for the Manatees is Turkey Creek Sanctuary, the very park where our truck gave up the ghost some 7 weeks ago!
(wow, I can't believe it has been 7 weeks already!)
Hoping history wouldn't repeat itself (!)we decided to go for another short visit to see if we could find some more Manatees.



We discovered we missed part of the boardwalk last time, and ended up seeing a view different areas of this beautiful little Refuge ..

We didn't see any Manatees but just like last time there were a lot of turtles around, like this Florida Redbelly turtle ..

 

And this huge Florida Softshell ..

And this pair of Gopher Tortoises seemed to be stuck in a 'face-off', probably a dispute about territory. They didn't move at all, didn't blink an eye, and were still there, exactly in the same position, on our way back:

We even came across this little fella. Quite unusual to see a Raccoon in broad daylight.

 

Unfortunately, he seemed pretty tame and was begging for handouts. He was definitely used to being fed, despite the signs all over the park telling you not to .. people are stupid ..

But what a beautiful place this is, we'll definitely go back again!

Next time I'll put up some more pics from the campground but I think I've covered enough for now.

Oh, by the way, no news on the truck yet  (as if that isn't important at all). Still a waiting game.

Who is going to pay for what and why (not) ...

               

Merry Christmas!

Well, despite the circumstances, we actually managed to have a very merry Christmas indeed.

The nice cranberry-apple pie helped of course ...

All in all, as James likes to say "it could have been worse".

"Not by a whole lot though", I would say ..

Reason being .. the new engine is leaking water!! !@#$%&!

Can you believe it? Look, we were so close ..

But, no cigar .. when they fired up the truck for the first time after installing the new engine, it only took 10 minutes before it started to drip water!

They think the head-gasket is leaking, which should be under warranty, but we're not sure .. and because of the holidays and most mechanics are off, we probably won't know anything for sure until January!

 

Which also meant we had to extend our stay here, or somewhere, which was an almost impossible task, since all campgrounds around Melbourne, including the one we're staying right now, were full for the holidays.

After calling and driving around Melbourne all Saturday, we finally managed to snatch up the one and only site available at Camelot RV Park in Malabar, just a few miles south of here.

 

And we're very fortunate that Rob, the guy who towed us to our current spot, is willing to tow us all the way over there as well!

Also fortunate, James has work and the truck we are borrowing is ours for as long as we need it. 

So, yes, it could have been worse, but jeez .. I wouldn't call us very lucky either!

We'd hoped to be on our way by now, and had made reservations for the next 2 campgrounds we were going to stay. So we had to cancel them .. again.

It's anybodies guess how long we'll have to stay here, it could be weeks ..

Oh well .. let's move on to something nicer, shall we?

From the site we are in now we have a view of one of the small lakes, and early yesterday morning there were 4 different 'wading birds' in it!

(I couldn't get the 4th one in the shot but it was there, scouts honor. It was a Snowy Egret, btw)

 

Besides the more common Great Blue Heron and the Cattle Egret, I was thrilled to see this Wood Stork, a first for me!

Pretty black and white feathers, like the common stork, but a rather ugly head ...

Talking about ugly heads .. these are Black Vultures!

       

I've never seen them either, they're pretty impressive from up close!

Well, that's about it for now, it has been quite the week although I have not much to show for.
But .. let's hope for the best .. like everything will be under warranty, a new engine will come our way soon, or this one will be repaired, and we'll be on our way in a couple of weeks! 

Like I said, we're OK, James has work, we have a truck, we have a place to stay, Merlin is almost back to his own self (yes!) and we're actually in Florida for the winter, just like we wanted!

Life is good ..