A Brewsky/Dog Heaven
~Thursday, March 4, 2021~
Day 263
Meeting our new neighbors and their cockatiels from Georgia. Like our Florida friends, they too were breaking in their new rig and were running into a little trouble getting the hitch off the ball. Been there, done that. So Jeff went over to lend a little “greasing” knowledge (nice to be paying it forward), and of course struck up a whole conversation on travel trailers vs. Class A’s. It’s quite the opposite seeing a retiree selling a Class A and downsizing to a small travel trailer, but that’s what they did. They purchased a cute little Flagstaff E-Pro, perfect for their weekend getaways and much easier to store. It is kind of strange in a way that we’ve moved up from being newbies just 9 months ago, to becoming more intermediate travelers and sharing our knowledge with the other newbies out there. But there’s always something new to learn from each other, I don’t care how expert you might be.
It’s a beautiful, sunny day and my is this campground stunning with the sun shining through the Spanish Moss laced trees, dense palms and oaks. There are unquestionably more birds paying us a visit and entertaining us with their songs. The rain puddles are all just about dried up.
I was making some phone calls to Dometic regarding replacing a broken shelf on our refrigerator door, to which the reply was, “you have to buy the entire door”. The cost…..$250. There is no replacement. Not accepting that as my final, ridiculous option, I found one on Amazon. The dimensions and appearance seem to be the same. So cross your fingers! We also found out that our Dometic range is part of a recall after all. I was originally told we were not affected. Apparently, the fitting can come loose, leaking propane into the trailer, causing a fire hazard. We have smelled propane slightly, in the trailer before, but it seemed to have stopped. So now to deal with this one.
Our friends from Florida, Jane and Rick, stopped by to say hi since Jane hadn’t seen our trailer yet and just had to take a peek. Good thing I had just tidied up! Such a nice couple and hope we can meet them again on the road someday! We meet only to meet again.
Jeff was figuring out more route planning while I got caught up on our blog posts/photos and oh yes, and tax stuff. It is that time of year I guess. 😩 Since this was our last full day here, we were hoping to at least get to the beach and check out a little bit more of St. Augustine, especially with this beautiful day. But since we had quite a list of things to do between finding our next lodging and taking care of business, we just didn’t have the time. The last month has gone by so fast. Previously, we had set up at least a month’s worth of lodging for February, and now with March here, and Spring Break around the corner for many, in hindsight, should have booked all of March and April too. So Jeff had a brilliant idea to do our planning while checking out this cool joint called the BrewHound Dog Park & Bark. There is another brewery/dog park in town called Kanine Social, but it’s further away and much smaller. Why not let Sadie socialize with other pups, and have a brewsky while making our travel plans. It was a no brainer.
It’s a great concept really where tourists/locals can come, enjoy some yummy snacks from the local food trucks, have a glass or two of beer/wine and let your dog play. It is quite the setup. When you first come in, they make you fill out all kinds of information on your dog and ask for proof of spay/neuter/rabies vaccine, etc. You can even sign up for an annual membership which averages less than a $1.00/visit. Since we were one-timers the fee was $8.00. As we filled out the necessary paperwork, the other old-timer dogs were checking Sadie out. “Hey, look at that pretty dame over there. Haven’t seen her here before”. At least that’s what I think they were saying. I swear it’s just like humans. All sorts of different personalities, some really outgoing, some chillin’, some a little shy (like Sadie). At first she just stuck close to us and then it dawned on me that Sadie really hasn’t had too much socialization lately; just her mom and dad. She must be missing the old days at home with the daily visits by my piano students and the many dogs she met on her daily hikes. It’s really been just the three of us. Anyway, once we were let in, the dogs came a runnin’ to say “hi”. After Sadie let a few have it with the butt sniffing, she started joining in the fun. It really was a hoot to watch. This place is really dialed in.
They have about an acre of parklike grounds for the dogs and people to mingle. The Brewhound Ruffarees keep a watchful eye over pups as they lay and break up any rowdiness that may ensue overexcitement. For the humans, an outdoor bar and beer garden serves specialty coffee drinks, local craft beer and wine on tap. There are even lawn games and large outdoor screens set up outside next to a large firepit. It’s a win for everyone! We also met a couple from Florida along with their 3 beagles. It was fun hearing about their experience of living in Florida and exchanging travel stories. They too have a dream to do what we’re doing once retired.
Back to our lodging. While watching Sadie have a good time, Jeff and I were beyond stressed, even with the beer. With phones and my laptop in motion, it became apparent we weren’t going to find any lodging for tomorrow night. We know better than to book a weekend stay anywhere, the day before, especially with the nicer weather. Oh my goodness, will it have to be a Cracker Barrel or Wal-Mart parking lot for the next 3 days? We must have looked into 20 places-all fully booked. Time to start thinking outside the box. We’re obviously not going to find anything within 30 minutes of Savannah, so I found something about an hour away. Jeff and I both have running lists of highly recommended places to stay and visit which is where I found Parkwood RV Park & Cottages in a town about an hour outside of Savannah, GA called Statesboro. Another fellow RV’er recommended this place on Instagram, so I had made note of it a while ago. They had an opening for 3 days and offered to keep it open for another week if we decided to extend it. Whew, that was a close one! Now we could enjoy the rest of our evening, but need to spend a full 2-3 days hunkered down to book the next few months. Planning routes and scoring on awesome lodging is probably the most stressful part of RV’ing full-time.