Hiding Out In Bulow Plantation

We spent an hour at Radio Shack this morning trying to get the Virgin Broadband sorted out. The salesman agreed there was a problem and called Virgin on my behalf. He got nowhere. They insisted I top up my account with $40 but I did not want to do that until I could at least see my account on line. It was an impasse so I paid up and they started up my account again. They said to wait ten minutes until their system updated so I went to the parking lot and had a coffee. Twenty minutes later I tried again and nothing doing. At least I could see their web page now but nothing else. I went back to the store, the guy called again and this time I was told to wait two more hours. We drove on as we had other things to do.

We stopped at an RV supply where we bought a new nylon plug for the water heater. The parts woman graciously offered to install it for free as she had done lots of them and had the correct wrench. As soon as she tried to take the old one out, it broke off flush with the hole and emptied half our holding tank on the ground. Using a combination of knife, pliers and chisel she got the remains of the old one out and the new one in. I switched on the pump and even with the added pressure, it held. We thanked her for her half hour of work and headed for the RV park.

I have to stop here and tell you about our latest incident of bad timing in Florida. You remember in 2010 when we arrived in Key West in the middle of Spring Break? With all those spoiled, obnoxious rich kids with daddy's credit cards? There were no hotel rooms under $1000 per night left in Key West so we had to find a place thirty miles away and commute? Well, this time we arrived in the Daytona Beach area in the middle of Daytona Bike Week! There are hundreds of thousands of bikers on the roads, traffic is slowed to a crawl on many roads and police have radar traps and check points set up. RV parks that are usually $40 to $60 per night are up to $80+ and almost all RV parks are full. Norma finally got a reservation at Bulow Plantation RV Park just north of Daytona Beach for $65 for Saturday and $40 for each of Sunday and Monday. It is a Thousand Trails / Encore Resort and is fairly nice but is full of bikers for the weekend. The Harley's are roaring, the music is blaring and a band is tuning up in the rec hall for a party tonight. They say it will quieten down tomorrow as participants head home.

Our spot is surrounded by trees so StarChoice is probably out of the question (I will try tomorrow) and my T-Mobile phone does not get a signal. Six hours had passed since Virgin told me to wait two hours but still no Internet. I used Norma's Canadian Telus phone (which works) and got Virgin to finally press the correct button to give me Internet. The RV park advertises WIFI but fails to mention it is an additional $6 per day for service which is only available at the pool. Sheesh!

We booked in for three nights so that gets us past the St. Patrick's Day street party in Savannah and we can park in the Visitor's Center parking lot there for $10 per night. Things are looking better!