solo stove – peregrinations

Trip’s End

Sunday, Apr. 21

We finally got a break in the weather, but most of the Alto crowd had left. Jack and I headed to South Hill for foodstuffs enough to fix dinner for John (arriving without Mary, who has fallen under the weather, or possibly the pollen) and additional Floyd friends, Brad and Ellen.

Because we’re settled and they’re arriving in the afternoon and likely won’t be set up before dinner time, we texted with them to let everyone know we’d handle dinner for all of us. We found the fixins for the fennel chicken dish we like to cook in the Dutch oven, and we also got some pork loins to grill for Mary and Allen who were coming to the campsite on Monday.

I began cooking circa 5:30, completing it by around 6:30, and served directly from the Dutch oven, with Omnia heat-and-serve rolls and roasted potatoes. Afterwards, we cranked the Solo fire, and the Karl & Hari crowd came over from loop C to share.

It was another glorious sunset, with the sun peeking below the clouds and shining brightly on the end of our peninsula, making the trees look like they were about to combust.

No good sunset is complete without a good reflection photo off Roomba (it’s a thing with the Alto models that have lots of windows).

Here’s a gallery of photos I’m calling “Sunset After the Storms”

Monday, Apr. 22

First thing in the morning, I watched an adult bald eagle fly over. The day dawned cold (47 degrees) but I was outside watching for birds and enjoying the clear morning by about 7. I wasn’t the only early bird, as a couple of fishermen were plying the waters near our site also.

Before lunch, we took a bike ride with Brad and Ellen while John took a kayak paddle-about. We toured around the campground, and across the hydro dam, where we stopped both coming and going to watch bald eagles and osprey and enormous fish near the dam. I could have watched the birds all day.

Instead of going back to the campground, we turned right at Rt. 4 and headed to the tailwaters of the dam, where there were tons and tons of birds all doing wondrous things, just carrying on with their birdy lives. We got off our bikes again to watch eagles and osprey and herons and cormorants and so many more. Saw this heron trying to hide while roosting in a tree.

Returned to eat a late lunch and enjoyed the sun. Even though the breeze picked up as we ate, the sky was incredibly blue-blue, and the sun was toasty hot.

Allen and Mary came for dinner around 6, and we grilled a pork loin. John, Brad, and Ellen brought their own dinners and we all ate together. Everyone enjoyed another campfire, topped off with a celebratory dram to mark the end of our trip, as well as Brad’s (Apr. 24) and Jack’s (Apr. 26) birthdays.

Tuesday, Apr. 23

Naturally, on the day we must leave, the temp soared to 52 degrees and the wind stayed dead calm. Heard several lonely loon calls in the early AM.

We enjoyed a leisurely morning and said goodbye to Brad and Ellen around 8:30. Watched a contest between a lone loon with a fish, versus an entire gaggle of cormorants. The cormorants were doing a tag-team “harass the loon so it drops its fish” game, with much of the action happening under water. The loon would dip below, with 2 or 3 of the cormorants flying over to where it dove and diving after it. The loon would pop up again and other cormorants would fly over to it and dive after it when it dove for cover again.

Finally, the loon surfaced and up-ended the fish so it would go down its gullet, and suddenly, all the cormorants looked like they were bored, as if they’d had nothing to do with the loon at all. They all went different directions after the game was won by the loon.

Once the water warmed up a bit, John took a final kayak tour before he began to load up for departure. We ate an early lunch and began breaking camp in earnest around noon.

Just as we were nearing our own departure time, we saw a Canada goose family swimming by. The water was a bit choppy by then, but the little goslings were pretty easy to see. The hard part was getting the youngsters and both parents in my camera’s frame at the same time. But I finally managed.

It was an uneventful drive back home, and we parked Roomba in the driveway near his garage overnight. All was well with the house and critters and we were thankful for Surya, our house sitter. Naturally, the first thing Mischief wanted to do was play ball.

I grabbed some meat and went out to see how Beebs (redtailed hawk) was doing, and she seemed quite keen on the food, but not so sure about me.

Thus the 2019 Spring Trip comes to a close. It was wonderful and fun and so very exciting to share with so many of our friends and to meet new friends along the way.

More adventures to come—watch this space for the next peregrinations we undertake with our Alto camper.

North Bend Federal Campground, VA

North Bend is among our favorite camping spots. It is enormous, and nearly everywhere there is good privacy between sites. The variety of sites available is awesome, but for this last segment of our Spring Trip we chose our “happy place,” an unserviced peninsula reaching into Kerr Lake (Buggs Island Lake) pointing to the south (North Carolina). We usually take site 117, so we face the sunset, but right across the road are excellent sites as well, which face the sunrise.

It’s a bit of a walk to the bathhouse, which is 4 private shower/toilet/sink rooms that are roomy and clean. Just as a side note, the dishwashing station is so far away that you need to drive up—and it’s not even at the newer of the biggest bathhouses serving this loop. You have to go to the old bathhouse—now closed to users except for the dishwashing station—which consists of no countertops, just a pair of deep utility sinks, set rather low (and back-achey). So it’s good to remember to take a table along for placing your dishes on.

While North Bend only offers aluminum can recycling, the tremendous upside is that one can get between 3 and 4 bars of LTE nearly everywhere.

For this trip, Jack had mentioned online that we’d be there, and a few of our Altoistes friends (fellow owners of Alto trailers) suggested they’d be interested in joining us. So, on Thursday, April 18, we arrived (after finding a self-help car wash in South Hill and hosing off all the pollen from the vehicles) to discover Mike and Barbara already arrived and getting ready to set up. Their friends who are on the waiting list for their Alto (July pickup), John and Dana, were set up in a tent next door to them; and down at the end of the spit were Hal and Dawn in their 1-year-old model 2114.

It was VERY windy when we arrived, so we decided not to erect the awning. But we did set up the Clam screen house, and Jack tied it down every way from Sunday to keep it secure. Rain was forecast for the night into Friday, so we didn’t take down or uncover the bikes.

We all agreed to meet at Hal and Dawn’s site for a Solo stove fire and dinner, but it was so windy, no one wanted to have their food get icy before they could eat it. Most ate in their trailers and joined us for the campfire afterward. Meanwhile, friends of Hal & Dawn who don’t own an Alto pulled into the site next to theirs and set up. We met John and Ginger as the fire kicked off.

We enjoyed a beautiful moon sparkling on the water, and the light lined up for me to get a great fire-and-moon shot.

Friday, Apr. 19 & Saturday, Apr. 20

Although the strong wind had kept us awake overnight, none of the called-for rain had yet arrived as I sat outside with my book and tea at 7:30 AM. I had a great time watching three bald eagles in a contest for territory. It began with the arrival of a juvenile.

There was a pack of vultures feeding at the nearby shore (a dead fish or such in the rocks?) and a juvie bald eagle flew very near to check it out. When it saw me so close, it peeled off to go across the inlet to sit in the “eagle tree” (named by us during last year’s visit when an adult frequently sat there). Shortly another slightly less mottled sub-adult came along and was either about to alight or challenge when an adult came and chased them both away, chittering and flying aggressively after the youngest. They all disappeared for a while over the trees, and then I saw two of them flying high and away to the east.

I also watched a common loon fishing along the shoreline. Checked out the list of birds one can see at Kerr Lake, and the common loon is an uncommon sighting. During our stay, we saw and heard lots of them (or maybe the same ones over and over?).

Later in the morning, I heard the peeping of an osprey, sounding distressed. I got my binoculars up in time to see an osprey with a fish being harassed by an adult bald eagle. The osprey was lithe and quick but burdened by its fish. The eagle was aggressive and determined, working very hard to get above the osprey—yet it was ponderous and clunky in flight, compared to its target.

Eventually, the osprey got high enough above the eagle to catch more of the wind and beat a very fast retreat off to the southeast. The eagle gave up and flew westward.

Not long after watching that contest, I began to feel raindrops—the rain began in earnest around 11. Jack and I pulled out the next jigsaw puzzle during the heavy rain, and the wind returned with a vengeance, rocketing the Roomba with pelting rain.

Before finishing the puzzle we headed to Clarksville to have dinner with Allen and Mary at their farm. In some places en route, the rain was so hard it was difficult to see the road, and we got quite wet racing from the car to their garage upon our arrival.

We enjoyed a lovely dinner of crab cakes and conversation, followed by a quick song or two around the piano. They have a lovely room with excellent acoustics where Mary plays the piano and Allen listens to his robust music collection with a high-tech sound system. A very comfortable spot—and Allen was also working a jigsaw puzzle—a beach scene in the dark blue of late evening. The rain had stopped and the wind calmed by the time we left.

Breakfast in the very windy and sometimes rainy Saturday AM (April 20) was drop biscuits in the Omnia oven, with the last of the Edwards ham we’d gotten in Smithfield.

DropBiscuitsWeb — Biscuits in the pan before dropping the lid

Because the weather was still dicey, we stayed indoors and worked at finishing that diabolical jigsaw puzzle. Its theme was National Parks, and it was a “poster” of a bunch of our parks’ postcards—so every park was represented at least twice in the picture. It was 1000 pieces, which nominally would fit on our nook table, but 1000 is too many to fit unassembled and still be able to work on the puzzle. So we had to bring in our smallest camp table, cover it with a towel and place a whole bunch of pieces there. It was quite a bear and a gift from a friend we might not be able to forgive (just kidding).

As the weekend drew to a close, our Alto friends were leaving, and some Floyd friends were scheduled to arrive. Hari & Karl had come to join us in their Cassita, but the wind was so bad still, they didn’t want to try to get the tent for their kids set up. So they moved over to the C loop, where it was sheltered from the wind and decidedly warmer than at our site. They texted us this information and invited us over for a campfire. Before we headed to Hari and Karl’s after our cold dinner, I took a shot of the choppy water and clearing sky as the sun was setting. We enjoyed their Solo stove fire for a while, along with a few adult beverages, and closed out the evening with a forecast for better weather during our final days of vacation.

Bike Florida Spring Cycling Tour Pt. 2

Day Five of the Bike Florida tour (April 2) was a fun cycle that we “interpreted” so we did not have to ride 60-odd miles to see the Gulf of Mexico. The main draw was the potential to see some Manatees, but it was nowhere near warm enough that day for the Manatees to be anywhere near where we met the water and turned around. But it was a great ride anyway.

What we did to “interpret” the ride was to drive to the Crystal River rest stop and begin our ride from there, pretty much straight along a long causeway, past a marine science center and the “land’s end” picnic and boat launch area. Theoretically, we were also going to end our ride at the cars, but Mark and Jack rode all the way back, hoping the map indicated a long stretch of cycles-only trail (apparently not so). So Angela and I drove the vehicles back to headquarters so we could all have a shower before heading over to the “ride’s end celebration” at a pub in Inverness. But I get ahead of myself.

It was truly the best day of the ride to date. Riding along the causeway out of Crystal River was quite pleasant, and on the way, I noted a sign at a place called Shrimp Landing that indicated they were serving “take out” lunch from 11 to 2. That was on the outbound side of the roadway. Evidently, some cyclists need reminding to ride with the traffic.

We made it to the end of the road and saw the place where Crystal River meets the Gulf of Mexico. There was a sign way away in the water that noted it was a “Manatee Zone.” A friendly cormorant was sunning on the sign.

Jack dipped his tire into the Gulf, just for the symbolism of it all.

On the return ride, we stopped by the Shrimp Landing place and they did, indeed, offer take out lunch. We all ordered shrimp po-boy sandwiches, which came with fries or slaw. Fresh and delicious, although we had to wait for them to be fixed to order. There was even a picnic table out front for our use—a couple of older locals were eating their lunch there, but were done by the time we were ready to start. And as it happened, another couple who’d driven in as we were eating were ready to eat just as we finished. Karma or what?

Behind this old, tired-looking place was the most beautiful bougainvillea I think I’d ever seen. Jack’s yellow jacket contrasted nicely with the enormous vine.

As I said earlier, Angela and I drove the cars back while Mark and Jack rode to HQ. We’d finished our showers and were lounging in our camp chairs in the shade by the time they arrived and reported that we hadn’t missed a thing in skipping that part of the ride.

After their showers, we hung out a while, rather than driving back to camp, because this was the evening of the celebration party, held at The Cove Pub and Grub restaurant nearby. It was pay-as-you-go for beverages and food, and they offered airboat rides to the group as well. A live band as old as the audience demographic was set up in the trees, and they were surprisingly good, aside from being waaaay too loud. But their playlist was fun and there was even some dancing captured on film.

The band members were as old as their audience

Mark and Angela cut the rug–um, I mean, grass. Gravel?

Anyway, they danced, as did many of the cyclists

It was a very pretty setting, and a walk down to The Cove itself (for which the restaurant is named) ended at a dock with a couple of seats that I took advantage of to take some pix before it got too dark.

Along the walk back to the party, I noted another tree covered with ferns. Florida is an amazing place.

Day Six (April 3)

The 42 miles of our last day were mostly on the Withlacoochee Trail. Angela felt like her leg was going to begin acting up, and with the return miles, she elected to stop at the rest stop and wait for our return. As a spare body hanging around, the rest stop personnel put her to work, so Angela had her first experience as a bike tour volunteer.

We rode to the trail’s northern terminus in Dunnellen, where the Withlacoochee and Rainbow rivers meet. We were told it was a nice little town to visit, but we didn’t ride anything extra, except for the part where we got lost. By the time we got to the turn-around point, most of the signage had been removed already, so we got a bit disoriented.

In making our way back toward Angela and the first rest stop, we ran into these two famous fellas.

As before the Withlacoochee was a lovely, shady trail and we thoroughly enjoyed our final ride. A little while later, we picked up Angela at the rest stop.

After our showers, we returned to camp via the Publix market in Inverness where we picked up some essentials for dinner. We wanted to fix our final ride dinner together, so Mark and Angela sautéed the scallops, and Jack grilled the asparagus and I made the rice. Of course, we had a nice fire for the first time on this trip.

Overall, the bike tour was a good experience, made more fun with Mark and Angela to accompany us. But both of us agree that our experience would have been much improved (we would have felt more integrated into the “group tour” part of the ride) if we had known we could camp at both of the HQ sites. At the time of our registration, that was not an option.

Tour pros

Friendly people
Good registration process
Great weather
Beautiful trails
Brooksville & Inverness (ride “hubs”)
Being able to “interpret” each day’s rides
Police/monitor support in town

Tour cons

Having to port our bikes to the start each day (and back to camp at the end of each day)
Surprise hills of significance
No organized, on-route lunches, and no on-route lunch options (except for the shrimp shack) on any of the routes
Decent but not superior rest stop food
Not enough shore time
Hardly ever saw any SAG support vehicles
VERY busy downtowns to start & end the rides
Substantial amount of urban cycling

We liked the Brooksville area in particular and would return to that neighborhood again. But there would have to be compelling scenery or opportunities for us to choose another Bike Florida Spring Tour. One of our major objections was the lack of lunch opportunities, except for the odd rest stop’s peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, for a substantial midday meal. In summary, we feel the tour did not deliver the level of accommodation we might expect for the price.

Cycling stats

Day 5

Ride time=1:40
Stopped time=1:50
Distance-22 mi
Average speed=13 mph
Fastest speed=19 mph

Day 6

Ride time=3:30
Stopped time=1:30
Distance=45.5
Average speed=13 mph
Fastest speed=26 mph

Kalkaska, Travers City, Michigan

July 23-24

Enjoyed an uneventful border crossing not long after leaving The Pinery, where Ontario’s Sarnia turns into Michigan’s Port Huron across the border bridge. We asked the guidance lady in the Honda to take us all the way to Kalkasa, MI via a less-interstate-slightly-longer route (we’ve named her Mo, short for Miss Obvious Woman, as she tells us there’s traffic when we’re sweating it out in a construction zone going 4MPH; and when we’re Cadillacking right along she tells us the traffic is light. Doh). So it was actually a lovely drive with only I-75 as the speedy-but-boring part. We listened to more of the book we’d started on our way to The Pinery.

So it was maybe 4-4:30 when we got to Kalkaska—or actually just east of the community/town, and to the Kalkaska RV and Campground, a private concern run by friends of our housesitter, Dennis.

We didn’t have an assigned site, so Gail offered us the choice of 4 she said would probably suit us. It looked like we would be setting up in the rain, so we chose D-19, where one side looked like a pool without water, and there was a decidedly higher place for the trailer. The awning, however, is slightly interrupted by a couple of trees.

But the trees are lovely, the set-up was speedy, we were not too terribly chock-a-block with our neighbors (who apparently only sleep here as they’ve been gone all day), and we have the puddle-to-be (it did not rain significantly) to park the car.

There is a site that we did not choose, however, that might be worth looking at if we’re ever here again: D-8. Gail had offered us D-7, which was low and uneven (someone was in D-8 when we arrived). But the occupants left during our stay, and by getting a better look at it, we’d choose D-8 instead, if it’s available.

We had a quickie meal of BLT sandwiches and chips, and called it a day.

July 24

We got rolling and jumped into the car to head to Travers City because it looked like the skies would open and the rain would again drench everything (it didn’t). We did a bit of online research to help us decide whether to take our bikes into the city or not. With the impending rain and seeing that the only “bike trails” in and around TC that we could find were decidedly urban riding experiences, we elected NOT.

The rain cleared and the day turned sunny and hot (low 80s), and we found a bicycling map at one of the best community visitor centers I’ve ever been to. The folks were friendly and helpful, and we came out with lots and lots of literature about not only Travers City, but Sleeping Bear Dunes and other areas up in this part of the world.

But TC itself was crawling with peeps, and lots and lots of traffic. It is a resort town, after all. I’m sure if we’d taken a stroll down the walk along the bay, we would have seen some nice marinas and beachy areas.

One of our purposes in driving to TC was grocery shopping, so we found a Lucky’s, which Jack remembered from the NABA trip we’d taken to Indianapolis/Carmel, and it reminded me a lot of Earth Fare—the new grocery in Roanoke. There were a few things we couldn’t find there, however, so we tried to avoid TC traffic and headed back to Kalkaska, where we’d seen a Family Fare store on our way out.

We finished our shopping and were quite hungry when we made it back to camp to fix lunch and prep all the food for our Dutch Oven Dinner of chicken thighs, a turkey breast (!!) and roasting veggies. We’d also gotten some frozen burger patties and some sausage patties that needed flat-packing for the freezer. Jack worked on a few “this-and-thats” around the trailer and truck, and I took up the blog updates again.

The campground is virtually empty and so very quiet! Nice change from The Pinery. The sun is shining and the breeze is just enough to keep the bugs (not that there are many of them) away. Lovely afternoon and evening. We cranked up the Solo Stove, but the rules said all fires had to be in the designated fire pit, so we started it on top (a bit aslant).

We found, however, that it was not drawing as well as normal, and the secondary burn that comes of the gasses burning at the top of the Solo was not happening. We weren’t sure why, but the only difference is it’s perch upon the firepit. So we moved it off and it gathered itself and did MUCH better. So if you’ve bought a Solo Fire Place, don’t mount it on a ring or other structure that might block the bottom holes from getting their air inflow.

The Dutch Oven cooking went quite well, with only an hour and a little before the turkey breast made it to 165-ish degrees, with all the veggies included in the pot (shallots, carrots, celery, potatoes). It was delicious, although the breast (which was boneless but had skin, and I cooked on top of the bone-in thighs with lemon slices between and on top) got a bit overcooked. But the pot likker was quite fine, and would make an excellent stew for us tomorrow, with the remaining meat cut up and included (with about a third of a beer to stretch the liquid). Very yum altogether.

Chicken thigh

Part of the turkey breast

Cycling And Rain

July 21-22

Rains came overnight while we were at The Pinery, but it was spit-and-stop for a while, so we took down the bikes anyway and headed to the “long ride” that we’d driven last night to get to the sunset beach. Much of the trail was bike-only, through the pine savannah and appropriately named the Savanna Trail.

It was both on- and off-road, with at least 12 km along a little-used (badly paved) one-way loop road. The non-paved lengths were mostly packed sand for a really lovely multi-use path. We started getting thoroughly wet as we found the Visitors Center, and took some shelter in there, looking at the kid-friendly displays (it was a great center to initiate “citizen scientist” interest in the younger set).

I found that most of the “leaflets three leave them be” plants around the sites (and through which we had to high-step to get to the shared pedestal for power) are NOT in fact, poison oak. There is, however, lots of bona-fide poison oak and ivy interspersed amongst these taller, woody-stemmed bushes.

Which turned out to be “fragrant sumac” (rhus aromatica) described as a harmless cousin to poison ivy. The info at the Center said that the bush grows where sand dunes have stabilized, has aromatic foliage and bright red berries, and is the most common shrub in the oak savanna. Fragrant sumac grows up to 5 ft. tall and is food and shelter for countless birds, mammals, and insects. I took a couple of photos of the two plants, both found around our campsite:

Poison Oak. Note the longer stem on the center leaf, holding it apart from the other two leaves.

Fragrant Sumac

The rain became more insistent as we waited, so we retired with our bikes to a nice little gazebo next to the VC, and played on their wifi for a while, checking emails etc.

Then we just had to go on. The rain let up a little, but as we rode, it got heavier and just as I was about to ask Jack to carry my camera, it abated a bit.

Still, you’re going to be as wet as you’ll ever get within the first half-hour of riding in the rain, so we carried on, and scooped the long paved loop to and along the beach parking areas (but we could not see any water from our vantage, as the dunes are substantial between the road and Lake Huron).

Just where the one-way road ended (near the end of the beach access points) the Savana trail headed off-road into the woodsy area, and what a great ride that was. We were nearly the only ones out in the drizzle, so we really pushed the speed along the trail, and hit some rollers that were truly fun and exciting to alternately fly down and push up, keeping our speed pretty steady, but still getting a great workout. It was like bicycling along a roller-coaster track.

The rain finally stopped and we got back to the campsite hoping that by hanging our wet gear (including gloves and shoes) in the screen house, at least some of it would get dry.

Bike Stats:

Ride time = 54 minutes
Stopped time = 1:10
Distance = 10.5
Average speed = 11.6MPH

Then Jack put a “potlatch” dry rub on the salmon steaks we’d bought in town on Friday, the 20th, and we grilled it up, with asparagus and mushies, and heated up half of the remaining frozen mac-n-cheese from our HALS party. Yum! And Jack dug out the Solo Stove from the truck and we had a lovely fire during and after our meal.

The rain chased us under the awning a few times, but let up enough for us to thoroughly enjoy the beautiful fire.

Unfortunately, the rain kicked into high gear after we cleaned up from dinner, and kept up through the night and into the 22nd, and really swamped the area. Where a gentle, intermittent rain was able to soak into the sand pretty readily, the steady downpour we experienced created vast lakes of puddles, especially in front of the bathhouse (which, by the way, had too few toilets, showers, and sinks — at least in the women’s side — to accommodate all the adults and kids swarming the place). That also made the campground quite loud, overall, with many screeching and wailing children. Of course, it was a weekend, so I guess we should have expected that.

So we tucked in during Sunday the 22nd. I took some time to ready the backlog of blog uploads, and we went up to the Visitor Center again to take advantage of their robust wifi, and hung out there for a long while.

Returned to Roomba to crank up our next movie: Dunkirk. It was really good, although somewhat confusing in terms of the time frame because the 3 stories that come together in the end are not told chronologically. But once we caught onto the actors playing each major role in each of the three separate stories, it became more clear. But among the focal points near where all the stories intersected was a British mine sweeper that gets bombed by a German bomber, so we had to watch that happen several times, which was not pleasant, but was a bit of a triumph when the stories merged. I’d definitely recommend it, and I might even see it again, knowing now what I was unsure of then.

Our “goodbye Canada” meal was another grill meal. On the same shopping trip on Friday, we’d found turkey thighs—unfrozen, farm-raised, and fresh—and Jack put a bit of Bicentennial Rub (Penzies) on them, and they were delicious!

Every November, we think we need to eat more turkey, but in the states (at least in VA), if it’s not October or November, you cannot find un-frozen turkey—much less turkey pieces.

So this was a real treat and super easy and yummy. I actually think I liked the turkey more than the salmon (but don’t tell Jack I said so).

We had another campfire in our super Solo Stove, and headed to bed as the embers glowed red.

One final note: Before we left The Pinery, some locals said we HAD TO VISIT a place called Tobermory, north of The Pinery, on the Bruce Peninsula. I place that here with the hope that a reader or two, heading that way might schedule it; and also so we won’t forget, because we will be back in that area again in the future.

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