B & B Travel Blog

July 30, 2026August 1, 2026

Taking the Grandchildren to Cocoa Beach – 7/29/2026 – 8/2/2026

We took the grandchildren to our friends’ Todd and Melissa’s place on Cocoa Beach to enjoy a few days on the beach. We left our house at 1:15PM EDT and arrived at Jetty Park Campground in Cape Canaveral, FL and at 3:45PM EDT.

This is the fourth time we’ve stayed at this campground. The previous visits were in December of 2021, May of 2025, and May of 2026. In order to get all five of us over to the East coast legally Beth drove over in the Expedition with the girls (this also provided us transportation back and forth between the campground and Todd and Melissa’s). We stopped at the I-4 Rest Area for a bio-break along the way.

After setting up the camper, we headed over to Todd & Melissa’s and ordered Domino’s Pizza for supper. The kids spent the night with Todd & Melissa. They played charades, watched a movie, slept in the living room on air mattresses.

On Day #2 Beth and I returned to Todd & Melissa’s just after 10AM. Beth & Melissa took the kids for a nice long walk on the beach and when they returned we all hung out at the pool until the storms started rolling in (just after noon). We ate lunch and played some more charades until there was a slight break in the weather and we returned to the camper with the kids. Todd had an HOA meeting that evening and then picked Makenna up at Orlando International Airport on her return from a summer internship in Lima, Peru.

On Day #3 the kids visited the playground here at the campground several times in the morning. We all returned to Todd & Melissa’s in the early afternoon to allow Todd, Melissa, and Makenna to recover from retrieving Makenna from the airport. They got back to their place around 1AM. We ate lunch together and then Makenna was kind enough to take the kids to the world famous Ron Jon Surf Shop to do a little shopping. It’s just a few blocks away. The girls selected necklaces and bracelets and Chuck selected a cool little surfboard toy (with a T-Rex riding it) that rides the waves to shore at the beach. That afternoon the kids also played good old fashioned Twister (and loved it) and Makenna introduced them to Yoga. We had hamburgers for supper. The kids spent the night with them while we returned to the campground.

On Day #4 the kids started waking up just after 10AM and we headed back to Todd & Melissa’s. We ate breakfast (incredible bacon and scrambled eggs) and then the ladies took the kids down to the beach. After a couple of hours on the beach they migrated to the pool where Todd and I joined them. We hung out at the pool until lunchtime and then headed back up to the condominium for lunch. While lunch was being prepared, Makenna led the kids in a spelling puzzle that Penny solved very quickly, but it stumped me for a good half an hour. Then she and Todd engaged the kids in a game called Black Magic where it appears that they are clairvoyant. At one point I thought I had solved that puzzle, but I’m not sure and Makenna won’t give up her secrets. Before long Chuckie was begging to play Twister again and they played that until the afternoon storms approached. At that point, we felt like it was a good time to leave (we didn’t need to sit around and watch numerous rounds of Twister). As we were loading the last of our belongings in the car it started to pour. Heading back to the campground we got ahead of the storm again, but by the time we pulled into our campsite it started coming down hard again. The kids got into the camper fairly dry, but Beth and I got a nice bath.

Device	Download Mbps	Upload Mbps
Campground Wi-Fi	n/a	n/a
Starlink	175	8
AT&T Hotspot	n/a	n/a
US Mobile – Brian (AT&T)	125	5
US Mobile – Beth (Verizon)	251	6

TV	Quality
Antenna	29 Channels (NBC,CBS,CW,FOX)
Campground Cable	n/a – Did Not Try
DISH Satellite	n/a

June 27, 2026July 30, 2026

2026 Summer Road Trip – Home – 6/27/2026

We slept in a bit this morning (7AM) and knocked out the last of Grandma’s famous low carb sausage balls. The little trash man/black tank flusher and I went out and dumped and flushed our black tank and we hit the road around 8:15AM EDT. Now for those who aren’t familiar with motor home travel in the 2020’s, children DO NOT want to ride shotgun anymore (at least not when there are better options). The suffering in the “shotgun seat”, covered in significantly expensive leather, is beyond compare. One now calls “Theater Seat” where one can recline and not have the view of one’s tablet obstructed by the light emanating from that nasty old sun. So the eldest of the grandchildren likes to call shotgun first thing so that she can knock it out in the early morning light and enjoy the rest of her day “back in the cave”. My how things have changed.

We stopped for fuel south of Atlanta at the TA Travel Center in Jackson, GA. Our next stop was the Buc-Cee’s in Warner Robins, GA. My grandson was very concerned that we didn’t get sodas when we stopped at the Buc-Cee’s in Alabama on our trip north and made me promise that we could get some on the way home. Thank goodness I decided to let them desecrate my freshly flushed black tank on final day going home or we would have been stopping at every rest stop. The Buc-Cee’s drink is about as big as his midsection and I’m pretty sure that he alone made five or six trips to the bathroom on the final drive from Warner Robins, but if spoiling the grand kids means an extra trip to Little Manatee River State Park to dump and flush the tanks, then so be it. They were good sports throughout our 2,504 mile trip.

We made our final fuel stop at the TA Travel Center in Lake City, FL. We arrived home at about 5:30PM EDT just before the rain hit. We didn’t get much rain, but the lightning scared us out of unpacking much. Our overall trip was 2,504 miles and our overall average was 13.7MPG and our average price for diesel fuel was 4.24/gallon. That’s $0.96/gallon more expensive than last year and the miles per gallon dropped 0.7MPG (I bumped my average speed up about 5MPH to decrease the suffering for my passengers).

June 26, 2026July 2, 2026

2026 Summer Road Trip – Leisure Time RV Park – 6/26/2026

We left Mom & Dad’s today at 6:45AM EDT. We stopped for fuel at the Loves Travel Stop in Dayton, OH for fuel and a snack on granola bars. We made our second fuel stop at a Weigel’s in Clinton, TN and snacked on some Twizzlers that the Miller’s Grocery in LaGrange placed in a sale display right next to the cash register yesterday (obviously a sign from above). We ate on the road. The kids had Uncrustables and I had a homemade Eckrich bologna sandwich on one of Mom’s high dollar buns (yummy!).

We arrived at Leisure Time RV Park in Adairsville, GA at 6:00PM EDT. This campground is mostly permanent residents with two transient sites literally in the driveway beside the office building. No complaints here as we have full hookups and are just here to eat and sleep. We set the camper up and commenced nuking Hot Pockets for supper again. I’m definitely tuckered tonight.

Device	Download Mbps	Upload Mbps
Campground Wi-Fi	n/a	n/a
Starlink	207	27
AT&T Hotspot	n/a	n/a
US Mobile – Brian (AT&T)	984 (not a typo)	58
US Mobile – Beth (AT&T)	n/a	n/a

TV	Quality
Antenna	8 Channels – ION
Campground Cable	n/a
DISH Satellite	n/a

June 20, 2026July 2, 2026

2026 Summer Road Trip – Camp Land of Troy – LaGrange, IN – 6/19-6/26

We departed from Unhitched Wheeler Lake Campground 7:50AM EDT and headed North to my parents house in LaGrange, IN (606 miles). We made our first fuel stop at the Buc-cee’s in Smiths Grove, KY. The grand kids had never been to a Buc-cee’s before, so they were impressed with how huge it was, but a bit overwhelmed by the chaos inside. The girls purchased fried chicken breast sandwiches and the boy and I chose turkey, ham, and bacon sandwiches. We also got tater tots and fried potato chips.

We stopped one more time for fuel at the Loves Travel Stop in Marion, IN. We arrived at Mom & Dad’s ninety minutes later (6:45PM EDT). The kids spent the rest of the evening running around the yard burning off a lot of banked up energy. They even had their Great Grandmother outside playing Hide & Seek at 9PM that night.

Device	Download Mbps	Upload Mbps
Campground Wi-Fi
Starlink
AT&T Hotspot	n/a	n/a
US Mobile – Brian (AT&T)	120	3
US Mobile – Beth (Verizon)	n/a	n/a

TV	Quality
Antenna	No Channels
Campground Cable	n/a
DISH Satellite	n/a

June 18, 2026June 20, 2026

2026 Summer Road Trip – Unhitched Wheeler Lake Campground – 6/18/2026

We left A Stone’s Throw RV Park today at 8:00AM EDT. We stopped for fuel at a Circle K Truck Stop in Clanton, AL for fuel and a quick lunch at the adjacent Burger King. We headed on to Unhitched Wheeler Lake Campground and on the way through Decatur, AL heading to the lake we topped off on fuel at a local Speedway.

We arrived at the campground at 5:00PM EDT (I refuse to acknowledge that we are in CDT). We stopped at our site long enough to put the slide out so that we could access our swimming gear and then drove back up to the beach. The kids had fun swimming once I finally convinced them that river water does NOT look like Aunt Jo’s chlorinated pool water. It eventually started raining and we packed up and went back to our site. We set the camper up and commenced nuking Hot Pockets for supper again. I think we’re all pretty tuckered tonight.

Device	Download Mbps	Upload Mbps
Campground Wi-Fi	n/a	n/a
Starlink	76	22
AT&T Hotspot	n/a	n/a
US Mobile – Brian (AT&T)	30	3
US Mobile – Beth (AT&T)	n/a	n/a

TV	Quality
Antenna	12 Channels – CBS, CW
Campground Cable	n/a
DISH Satellite	n/a

June 17, 2026June 17, 2026

2026 Summer Road Trip – A Stone’s Throw RV Park – 6/17/2026

The grand kids and I departed for Indiana to see the Great Grandparents today at 1:00PM. We stopped for fuel at a Love’s Travel Stop in Lee, FL, but none of their truck pumps seemed to be working and we had to go across the street to a Sunoco with the world’s slowest diesel pumps and pay about $0.30/gal extra.

We pulled into A Stone’s Throw RV Park (just East of Tallahassee) at 5:35 PM EDT (271 miles). This is a convenient place to stop along I-10 (where US-19 intersects I-10). We’ve stopped here on three other occasions (2020, 2021, and 2025).

We set the camper up and commenced nuking Hot Pockets for supper. Now none of us has any skin on the roof of our mouths. The kids claim they’ve never had them before and loved them. After eating the kids headed outside to terrorize the community. I told them to come back in when the street lights come on. Penny Crane, the lawyer, asked if that meant they could go anywhere they want including up to the gas station. I handed her the GPS tracker and said, “sure”. I gave her $20 and said each child could get a treat as long as each was under $5. They came back with close to $4 in change, so they did well. I felt like it would be a good little experiment in finding their way around and purchasing things on their own, but I was nervous as a mother hen the entire time they were gone.

Device	Download Mbps	Upload Mbps
Campground Wi-Fi	n/a	n/a
Starlink	171	13
AT&T Hotspot	n/a	n/a
US Mobile – Brian (AT&T)	23	1
US Mobile – Beth (AT&T)	n/a	n/a

TV	Quality
Antenna	Good – 25 Channels
Campground Cable	n/a
DISH Satellite	n/a

May 18, 2026June 12, 2026

Thunder on Cocoa Beach – 5/14/2026 – 5/18/2026

We attended Thunder on Cocoa Beach again this year at our friends’ Todd and Melissa’s place on Cocoa Beach. We left our house at 11:15AM EDT and arrived at Budget Car Rental in Cocoa Beach at about 1:30PM EDT. We rented a Mazda CX-5 to get around in. Beth drove it to the campground and chauffeured me around all weekend (I got to be Miss Daisy). After picking up the rental car we headed down the road to Beachside Car Wash and washed what seemed like millions of lovebugs off of the front of the RV. For those keeping track at home, NO, the camper does not fit in the car wash stalls, but I was able to get the front end close enough to the spray wand to get all of the lovebugs off. We arrived at Jetty Park Campground in Cape Canaveral, FL and got the camper all setup by 3:10PM.

This is the third time we’ve stayed at this campground. The previous visits were in December of 2021 and May of 2025. We arrived on Thursday and our 25th wedding anniversary was on Friday, so we ate dinner at Florida’s Fresh Grill to celebrate. Our meal was awesome and we purposely scheduled it early enough to arrive back at the campground just in time to watch a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch from our campsite. It was our anniversary gift from Elon Musk (he’s so thoughtful).

Device	Download Mbps	Upload Mbps
Campground Wi-Fi	n/a	n/a
Starlink	n/a	n/a
AT&T Hotspot	258	2
US Mobile – Brian (AT&T)	22	2
US Mobile – Beth (Verizon)	54	1

TV	Quality
Antenna	25 Channels (NBC,CBS,CW,FOX)
Campground Cable	n/a – Did Not Try
DISH Satellite	n/a

March 12, 2026March 24, 2026

Alafia River State Park – Lithia, FL – 3/12/2026 – 3/20/2026

We spent Spring Break week camping at Alafia River State Park. We were in Site #12 which is just one hundred yards from the restrooms. We arrived to 85 degree weather, but it cooled down the final Tuesday through Friday. Mom & Dad brought the grandchildren out Tuesday and stayed for dinner. The grandchildren stayed the remainder of the time.

Device	Download Mbps	Upload Mbps
Campground Wi-Fi	n/a	n/a
Starlink	171	20
AT&T Hotspot	n/a	n/a
US Mobile – Brian (AT&T)	66	1
US Mobile – Beth (Verizon)	220	2

TV	Quality
Antenna	66 Channels (NBC,FOX,ABC)
Campground Cable	n/a
DISH Satellite	n/a

February 1, 2026February 4, 2026

Sebastian Inlet SP – Vero Beach, FL – 2/1/2026 -2/8/2026

We departed from the house at 9:30AM EST and headed East on SR-674 (Sun City Center Blvd) until it ended at FL-37 just South of Mullberry. We took a quick hop up FL-37 to CR-630. We took CR-630 East through Fort Meade (where US-98 joined us for a bit) all the way through Frostproof to SR-60 Southeast of Lake Wales. Between Fort Meade and Frostproof we saw where all of the remaining orange tree fields had been running their sprinklers all night to protect the fruit. There were significant piles of ice below the trees on all of the grass and weeds. We joked about how Frostproof didn’t seem to be living up to its name.

We took SR-60 to a Publix in Vero Beach because we realized while we were driving that we forgot to pack sour cream and low carb wraps (we’re planning to make chicken quesadillas this week). From the Publix we moved on to an Avis Car Rental on US-1 to pickup a rental car. We’ve never been in this are of the East coast and decided we wanted a car in order to do some touring. We reserved it through AARP and ended up getting an automatic upgrade to one of the new Ford Broncos. It’s pretty sporty with a removable hardtop. We may “remove” a portion of the hardtop later in the week when it gets warmer and do some “touring”.

We arrived at the Sebastian Inlet State Park campground at 1:30PM. Florida state parks have 1PM check-out times and 3PM check-in times. In 17 years of camping in Florida state parks, we’ve never had any trouble checking in any time after Noon. Not today. We were told to come back at 2:30PM. So we parked in one of their parking lots, put out the slide-out and ate some wraps for lunch while we watched the Iowa St vs Kansas St game (we were unable to pickup CBS on antenna to watch the Purdue vs Maryland game).

At 2:30PM we were allowed to exit “time out” and moved to our camp site which is right along the Sebastian Inlet channel (with a street between us and the water). We have a very nice view. The only other issue we’ve run into is the campground power. They apologize on their web site for issues regarding power. When it’s very hot or, in our case, very cold and power consumption is very high, the campground voltage can drop below 110 volts. When we arrived, our Electrical Management System (EMS) device was showing 117 volts (which is a pretty low starting point for a fairly empty campground). By 7PM, after all the other campers had arrived, it was down to 111 volts. We had several power glitches (not caused by our EMS going into protection mode). Those power glitches cause our Starlink internet connection to power cycle which means it has to reacquire all of its satellite connections, so we’ve been “roughing it”. We finally had to switch to running a hotspot off of my phone for a bit. Other than those minor issues, we have no complaints although we are worried about our EMS shutting our power off because we anticipate the campground voltage going below 111 volts when the temperature goes below freezing tonight. At that point we will be boon-docking, which we are well equipped for. We have a site with a great view and plan to enjoy it outside once the temperature rises a bit (probably Tuesday). Tonight we will experience several hours below freezing, so we did not hook up a water line.

Device	Download Mbps	Upload Mbps
Campground Wi-Fi	n/a	n/a
Starlink	268	29
AT&T Hotspot	n/a	n/a
US Mobile – Brian (AT&T)	33	4
US Mobile – Beth (Verizon)	88	30

TV	Quality
Antenna	8 Channels (Ion)
Campground Cable	n/a
DISH Satellite	n/a

January 15, 2026

Square 1 Gun Range – Lake Placid, FL – 1/15/2026 -1/18/2026

I departed from the house at 12:00PM EST and headed Southeast to Square 1 Shooting Range in Lake Placid, FL. I took US-301 South to SR-675 in Parrish. Then I took SR-64 a couple of miles to the Verna Bethany Rd down to SR-70. The shooting range is off of SR-70 East of Arcadia, about 7 miles prior to US-27 in Lake Placid. I arrived at 1:49PM EST (all of SR-70 in Arcadia is under construction and down to a single 25MPH lane).

Since it was cold (58 degrees) and our solar panels are now working, I parked out in an open field across the main drive from the office.

Device	Download Mbps	Upload Mbps
Campground Wi-Fi	n/a	n/a
Starlink	347	9
AT&T Hotspot	n/a	n/a
US Mobile – Brian (AT&T)	159	4
US Mobile – Beth (Verizon)	n/a	n/a

TV	Quality
Antenna	14 Channels (ABC,CBS)
Campground Cable	n/a
DISH Satellite	n/a