Grayton Beach State Park (Florida) - Winter Camping

It was too soon to head home after the 2015 Canopener, so we hitched up Rosie, our 25 foot Airstream trailer and moved 17 miles east to Grayton Beach State Park. This would give us time for more adventures.

Grayton Beach State Park, Florida

There are many contrasting things between Topsail and Grayton Beach state parks. Topsail is listed as a resort RV park and it is very evident that the park is meticulously manicured by its staff. Grayton is a state park and it is well maintained by its staff. Every site at Topsail has a level concrete pad for your RV. There are concrete pads in one of Grayton's loops, but the loop we prefer is mostly beach sand and gravel with a few sea shells worked in for stability. In other words, you get a better feel for the natural beach setting at Grayton.

Rosie at Grayton Beach State Park

Although we had camped at Grayton several times before, this was our first time there during January. You should also know that we are rookies at winter camping.

Because it was January and the temperatures were predicted to be below freezing during our stay, several sites that we would rate as "premium" were available. The premium sites in our opinion are the more rustic ones along the water. The ranger checking us in said that it was unusual for the site we reserved to be open.

The view outside Rosie's rear window was of the lake separating the camping area from the Gulf beach. We thought our site was one of the two best in the park and a park ranger agreed.

Selfie taken behind Rosie

This trip was different from our previous spring and fall visits. We had to run Rosie's heater to stay comfortable and it rained several days, limiting our activities. Having camped many years in tents prior to the days of Rosie, we appreciated being able to move around and stay dry during rain showers.

Annie wanting something while inside Rosie

We took advantage of the clear days by riding our bikes into Seaside. There are excellent bicycle paths along the roads giving you many places to explore. One of our few disappointments was that our favorite restaurant near the park was closed for the month of January.

Seaside, Florida

Park in Seaside, Florida

 
Beach access at Grayton is a short bike ride away. We noticed that some campers seemed to enjoy walking along the beach road and others drove there. Grayton's beach is excellent and is what draws many people to the park. We always enjoy walking along the beach and watching the clear surf of the Florida Gulf coast.

Beach at Grayton Beach State Park

Path to the beach

Here is some specific information about Grayton Beach State Park:

• Sites have water and electrical service. Our site had 20 and 30 amp service.
  
• The newer loop has sewer connections and and concrete pads. The older loop is nearer the water and it doesn't have sewer connections and the sites are dirt and gravel.
  
• There is a dump station in the park. It is not very conveniently located and you are guaranteed to have to circle around the loop twice to use it.
• AT&T provided strong 4G service over the campground for both voice and data.
• There is no WiFi service in the park.
• There is no WiFi service near the park. If you need WiFi, plan on creating a hotspot with your iPhone or Android or you will have to drive about 20 minutes to find a restaurant with free WiFi.
• We were able to watch ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS TV stations using Rosie's antenna. We also saw ME-TV, CW, Bounce and Grit digital channels while at the park.
• There is lots of shopping near Grayton Beach State Park. There is a Publix grocery story a few miles away and a factory outlet mall about 10 miles down the road.

While we enjoyed our winter visit to Grayton Beach State Park, spring and fall are times with much better weather and that gives visitors more opportunities to enjoy the park and community. Yes, we will return and we may even come back in the winter. We will definitely be back next spring.

Western Lake "trees"

A heron resting along the road

Sunset

Along the dunes at Grayton Beach

One of the trails at Grayton Beach State Park

Canopener 2015 - Topsail Hill Preserve State Park

We first heard about the Canopener while attending our local WBCCI (Wally Byam Caravan Club International) meeting. One of the group's members said he made reservations to attend something called the Canopener. That sounded interesting and I wanted to know more about this Airstream rally.

At that time, our problem with the Canopener was that it was in January and my work schedule made it impossible for us to attend. We knew that the Canopener would have to wait until another day.

Fast forward to 2015, our first real opportunity to attend and we made our reservations.

The Canopener is held at the Topsail Hill Preserve State Park in Florida. Our previous trip to this park did not end on a positive note, so we were curious to see how this trip to the park would turn out.

Topsail Hill State Park in Florida

We were unable to reserve a site in the main loop housing the rally. Using the knowledge gained from our first visit, we booked a site that backed up to one of the small ponds in the park. This turned out to be a much better site than the one we had during our first visit.

Our site at Topsail

View of Rosie from the pond

Our first day at the Canopener was marked by some very cold temperatures. The heating systems in Rosie, our 25 foot Airstream trailer, kept us nice and warm and we enjoyed our evening together and played Mexican Train Dominoes.

As we walked through the park the next morning, we were able to see what was taking place that weekend. More than 100 Airstream trailers and motorhomes were there. You saw aluminum everywhere you looked and Airstreamers outside talking to one another. It turned out that the event was very similar to the mental picture I created for it.

Some of the Airstream trailers at the 2015 Canopener

We quickly learned that this was a great place to learn more about our trailer. I had a question about Rosie's hot water heater. I simply asked our neighbor and he shared his knowledge about that subject with me and answered my questions.

We tested Rosie's new bicycle rack we recently installed on this trip. We learned that we needed to make a few adjustments to make it easier to load our bikes. We didn't unload the bikes until the last day because it was too cold to ride them.

Bike rack on Rosie

Topsail park is near the beach, but not on it. You have to hike, ride a tram or your bikes to get to the water. On our last day in the park, we rode our bikes and discovered that Topsail has a great beach area. Be sure you don't miss it.

The beach at Topsail

Selfie at the beach

Saturday was the big day for the Canopener. It started with breakfast with the Ranger and the Airstream open house was next. We enjoyed looking at the different Airstreams and talking with their owners.

People talking with each other at the Canopener

The potluck dinner was later that afternoon followed by dancing in the street. We fared well with the potluck because Airstreamers know how to prepare great food while on the road.

The potluck dinner

At the potluck dinner

We didn't fare as well in the street dance. It seems that a public display of my questionable abilities to move in sync with musical rhythms was a bad idea. Thus, the time spent making a fool of myself was short. We moved to the sidelines to allow real dancers unimpeded access to the road, which was the dance floor.

The evening was lots of fun and the Canopener turned out to be a great way to start the new year of camping.

Some specifics about Topsail Hill Preserve State Park:

• There are two main camping loops for RVs in this park. The central loop is where the Canopener events took place and where most people tried to get their site reservations. The other loop is everything outside that primary loop.
• Some of the sites were very shallow and would not support big rigs.
• There are two bath houses in this park. The one supporting the center loop is better maintained and appears to have been updated more recently than the other bath house.
• There is a nice laundry facility at Topsail.
• You will want to bring your bicycles to get to the park's beach area. While you can ride the tram, it is more fun to ride your bikes along that path.
• Most sites have 20, 30 and 50 amp electrical service.
• The park has sewer connections for all RV sites.
• There is a dump station at the park, but you probably will not need to use it since each site has sewer connections.
• There is a camp store in the park. It contains minimal supplies.
• There is a Publix grocery store a couple of miles down the road from Topsail.
• AT&T covered the park with a good 4G signal.
• Wifi service was available in this park. We didn't have any trouble connecting to the Internet through the park's wifi.
• The sites come with cable TV connections. Our connection didn't work. (Our cable connection didn't work on our first visit, either.) Our neighbor said that he complained to a ranger and the park's staff quickly fixed his cable connection. Maybe we need to complain more to the right people.
• We were able to watch CBS, NBC and ME-TV from Rosie's antenna.

The Canopener turned out to be lots of fun and informative. We plan to add the Canopener to our "must do" list for next year. Maybe we can get in the main loop next time.

Boondocking at a truck stop on I-65 near the Kentucky/Tennessee state line

After four days in the service center at Airstream's headquarters in Jackson Center, Ohio, our camper was ready and we got on the road around 5 p.m. We wanted to get a few hours down the road so that we could reach home before sunset the following day. (See the previous posting to learn about our adventures at Airstream's factory service center.) That meant we needed to be south of Cincinnati and Louisville before stopping for the night. Our goal was to find a place to camp before 10 p.m. and to be back on the road early the following morning.
We use the AllStays app on our iPhones to find potential places to camp for the night. As we were heading south on I-65 in Kentucky, we were running out of options and decided to stop at the Flying J Travel Plaza at Exit 2.

Rosie spot for the night

This turned out to be a huge truck stop with spaces for more than 170 trucks. Since we were arriving late that night, it appeared that most of the truck parking spots were full.
One of the things we learned from our first night boondocking at a truck stop was to get as far away from the trucks as possible. That way you don't have to listen to their desel engines and air breaks all night. We found a place to park next to the curb in front of the Denny's restaurant and figured we found our spot for the night.
The temperature was in the teens and the memory foam on Rosie's bed (our 25 foot Airstream trailer) was hard as a rock. We fired up the furnace and went inside the truck stop while the heater took the chill off inside Rosie.
The cold may have been responsible for the LED lights in the main cabin area not working. We would turn them on and they would quickly dim. The LED lights in the bedroom area worked fine. The main cabin LED lights are on a dimmer while the bedroom lights are not. Now that we are home and Rosie is in her inside storage space, we have been unable to replicate that problem.
After hanging out inside the store for a while, we ventured back out to Rosie. The furnace was working hard and we doubt that it turned off during the night. The memory foam on the bed didn't have time to thaw out and continued to be stiff, but we were warm enough inside Rosie.
The lessons we learned from our first camping experience at a truck stop paid off. By not parking in the middle of the trucks, we didn't hear their constant loud noises.
We were glad we decided to start heading home when Rosie was released from Airstream's service center. Once we were on the road that morning, we realized that we would be home in time to pick up our dog, who we boarded at her vet.
We have to classify our trip to Ohio as a success. We were able to make some improvements to Rosie, fix several nagging problems and learned many new things about camping in an Airstream trailer. In addition, we found the farm that Becky's father grew up on and that led us to many pleasant memories.
We are already planning the next round of improvements for our next trip to Jackson Center, Ohio.

Airstream Terraport, Airstream Factory, Jackson Center, Ohio

Our service appointment at the Airstream Factory Center in Jackson Center, Ohio, was for Wednesday, but we arrived on Monday. We didn't want to arrive during snow and freezing rain predicted for Tuesday. Living in the Deep South means we have very little experience in driving on snow and ice and we felt that we didn't want to learn while pulling Rosie, our 25 foot Airstream trailer.

The Ohio State Line

In case you are wondering why two cold weather novices had an appointment in northern Ohio during November, you need to know that we called during August for an appointment only to discover that the next available service time was in the middle of November. We decided to chance it and hope that the weather didn't force us to cancel. It turned out that we saw temperatures in the low teens and snow flurries during our visit.

Selfie at a rest stop in Ohio

Jackson Center's city limits

Our new fear once we arrived in Ohio was the following week. If the Airstream people could not finish our repairs by Friday, we would have to spend the weekend there and the lows were going to be single digits the next week, the highs were going to be below freezing plus it was going to snow. We are poor candidates for camping in freezing weather.

Rosie arriving at Airstream's Factory

Wally Byum's Airstream trailer

Airstream's Factory in Jackson Center, Ohio

A 1930s version of an Airstream

Looking at the historic display at the Airstream Factory

If you are in Jackson Center for factory service, you can camp without charge in Airstream's Terraport area. The Terraport offers water, 30 and 50 amp electrical service plus sewage connections. The sewer connection was too far away from the dump port on Rosie, so we would have to rely on the dump station found near the exit of the camping area.

Airstream's Terraport

This turned out to be an interesting place to camp. The common thread linking all of the campers together was that we were all Airstreamers and had decided to adopt that lifestyle. We did see one non-Airstream truck camper pull into the Terraport one night. It was interesting in that they kept saying their other camper was an Airstream.

Rosie in Airstream's Terraport

We picked a camp site at the rear of the Terraport. We felt this would give us a better view of the factory area and the campground.

As winter camping rookies, we were warned to disconnect the water feed to Rosie if the temperature dipped below freezing. It was clear at 10 p.m. that it was going to freeze that night and we were outside in the cold removing the water hose. We were unable to reconnect the water the rest of our time there because of the cold weather.

We were also told to run our propane heater when it gets below freezing because it vents warm air to the camper's water tanks. This would help keep the fresh, gray and black water tanks from freezing. Armed with that knowledge, we used our electric heater to take the chill off in Rosie but the furnace to heat it.

On the morning of our service appointment, we heard Airstream's tractor heading towards Rosie around 7 a.m. It only took a moment for the driver to hitch up Rosie, then she was heading to the service bay.

Airstream's tractor hitching-up Rosie

Rosie on her way to the service bays

We jumped into the truck and drove to the service office. We met the technician there who was in charge of fixing Rosie. We had a long list of little things and one or two potentially big problems for him to solve. Our service technician decided to start with the scariest problem first.

We had a ground problem in the 12-volt power system. The ground cable was not making a solid connection with the batteries and my quick fix was to use a battery jumper cable to patch the negative terminals on the batteries to Rosie's frame. While this was effective, it didn't fix the underlying problem.

Our service rep said this could be a simple wire loose in the tongue jack or it could be a tedious process of tracing out the wires at $115 an hour. Turns out it was the latter and we invested more than two hours to fix this problem.

Our service rep would put Rosie back together every afternoon around 4 p.m. and the Airstream people would tow Rosie back to our site in the Terraport so that we could spend the night there. Then the whole process started over again the next morning.

Rosie in the service bay

Our service technician found and corrected a serious propane gas valve problem in our water heater that we were unaware of and could have been a serious problem later on. When he told us about that issue, we remembered smelling the propane gas "rotten eggs" scent a couple of times and mistakenly thinking we had a black water tank problem.

In addition to fixing the things on our list (missing rivets, door hinge problem, grounding system issue, a slow water leak around the panorama window, etc.), we wanted to add a couple of improvements. They installed a new bicycle rack to Rosie's back bumper and LED lights in the cabin.

Airstream's waiting room

Factory tours start at this desk

During the day, we would talk with other Airstream owners who were also there having their trailers serviced. We saw that valuable information was being passed on by experienced Airstreamers in the waiting room. We picked up on the "must visit" campgrounds, the best WBCCI caravans plus towing and maintenance tips for keeping Rosie in tip-top shape.

The store at Airstream's factory

Our trip to northern Ohio wasn't only about Rosie. Jackson Center is less than 50 miles from the farm Becky's father grew up on and where she visited her grandparents as a child. So, one day was dedicated to the nostalgia tour of the family farm.

A section of Becky's family farm

Another picture of the farm

With some crucial help from her father providing us with street names and landmarks, we found the farm. It was sad that the farmhouse Becky remembered visiting was no longer there, but the corn field and the livestock areas were. There were some emotional moments as Becky reminisced about visiting her grandparents at the farm and how much she wished they were greeting us from the porch as we arrived.

Old family photo of Becky's grandparents on the farm

We also found the K-12 school Becky's father attended. It continues to be used for all grade levels under one roof.

K-12 School in Ohio

Temperatures were an issue while camping at the Airstream factory in Ohio. Nighttime lows were in the low teens and we saw some snow flurries. We burned through a 30 pound bottle of propane in four days! We discovered that we can survive in Rosie through freezing temperatures, but it is more fun to be out in warmer weather.

Becky with a few snow flakes on her coat

Some specifics about the Airstream Terraport camping area:

• There are four or five camping loops in the park. All of the loops are named after Airstream models. We camped in the Safari loop.
• There are five camping pads in each loop. The sites are very close together, but the campers here are there for factory service and not for the park's features.
• There is no shade in the Terraport.
• The sites offer 20, 30 and 50 amp service.
• There are water and sewer connections at each site.
• There are no bath houses at the Terraport.
  
• All of the camping pads are paved and close to being level. We dropped the stabilizers the first night, but not the rest of the time to help speed up our preparation time in the mornings waiting for the tractor to arrive and tow Rosie to the service bay.
• There is a dump station at the park.
• AT&T provided moderate 3G and 4G service over the park. Our service would frequently drop back to Edge while there.
• There is Wi-Fi service in the customer service waiting room. We were able to use this Wi-Fi from the Terraport.
• There isn't a lot of variety in restaurants near the factory. We quickly found our favorite table at the local Subway.
• We were able to watch ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and PBS using our TV antenna. We also saw digital signals from THiS-TV, MY-TV, GET-TV and ME-TV.
• Make sure you take the factory tour while in Jackson Center. You will see how Airstream trailers are hand-crafted and it will make you proud to own one.

We plan to return next year to add a few more modifications to Rosie.

On our last day in the service center, we were having to make decisions about what was important for this visit and what could wait until next time. We had to finish no later than 4 p.m. on Friday so that we would not have to stay over the weekend. Snow and single digit low temperatures were predicted and the next week was going to be much colder. We needed to head south before the service staff quit for the day on Friday.

The waiting room thinned out on Friday afternoon to just us, an Airstream owner from Louisiana and an Airstream motor coach owner. We had said earlier that we planned to hitch up that evening and pull out early Saturday morning. Our service technician promised that we would be ready that afternoon and as they tallied the bill, we started to dread spending the night in Ohio's sub-freezing temperatures. That was when we started thinking about getting three or four hours down the road towards home that night.

We able to make it close to the Kentucky/Tennessee state line before we stopped for the night. While traveling, we wondered if the Airstreamer from Louisiana was able to get on the road that night or if he needed to stay over the weekend so that his service crew could complete the work on his camper. When we left Jackson Center, the service technicians were working on his roof and his trailer didn't appear to be ready to roll. While talking about him, we heard his horn as he passed us on I-71 near Cincinnati. We were glad he was able to get on the road that evening. We saw him two more times that night on I-71 and I-65.

We mentioned earlier that several Airstreamers told us that it was worth heading to the factory in Ohio when you have Airstream specific repairs. We agree and plan to return in the future. Maybe next time we will be able to get an appointment earlier than the middle of November.

Boondocking at a truck stop on I-71 north of Louisville

We heard that some national retailers permit campers to stay overnight in their parking lots, but we never considered stopping at a truck stop. This idea came up in conversation with some camping neighbors while staying along the Florida Gulf coast.

That was a timely idea because we found ourselves on the road about two weeks later and needing a place to stop for the night with no campgrounds near us.

We had a growing list of repairs for Rosie, our 25 foot Airsteam trailer, and we heard that it was hard to beat the factory service at the company's factory in Jackson Center, Ohio. The word must be out because Airstream's service center is booked solid and we had to wait more than three months for our scheduled appointment. We booked our time and hoped that the weather would be good during November, the timeframe we ended up with for our service appointment.

Entering Tennessee while on the road to Ohio

Bet you don't see signs similar to this in the North

The Kentucky state line

Selfie at a Kentucky rest stop

That brings us to a truck stop in northern Kentucky.

Our camping site for the night

The weather forecast for the day before our appointment predicted snow and freezing temperatures. We both grew up in Florida and have lived in the Deep South most of our lives. The idea of towing 6,000 pounds of aluminum over snow and ice wasn't appealing to us, so we we left two days early and timed our arrival in Ohio a day ahead of the winter weather.

Our goal for Sunday was to get far enough up the road so that we could easily reach Jackson Center on Monday before 4 p.m. This would allow us to park in Airstream's Terraport, where we could stay without a camping fee while our trailer was being worked on.

So, that was the set-up. We calculated that we needed to camp north of Louisville if we were going to arrive in Jackson Center on time. The Pilot Truck Stop, or Travel Center as they called it, at exit 28 in Pendleton, Kentucky was our camp site for the evening.

Rosie in the middle of the trucks that evening

Having never ventured into the land of the 18-wheelers for the night, we first went inside the store to ask permission. It turns out that boondocking at truck stops is common and they said to find a spot and have a good evening on their lot.

The temperature was in the mid-30s that night and Rosie's propane heater did a great job keeping us warm.

Rosie after spending the night at the truck stop

We were not prepared for the loud sounds of the air breaks and diesel engines reving up all night. We will be better prepared for these annoyances the next time we camp at a truck stop.

We categorized our stay at a truck stop as an adventure and will not hesitate to try again in the future.