QC31-03 Ortona Locks

January 10, 2013 (Thu) La Belle, FL (2) 69/82° - Ortona Locks, on the waterway between Ft Myers and Lake Okeechobee, is one of our favorite campgrounds. Run by the US Army Corps of Engineers it is much like some of the better run private camping resorts - without their many, often unnecessary and unused, amenities. There is one site we consider the best in the campground and we have lusted after it for the many years we have been stopping here. This year it was available when we were setting up reservations. We grabbed it! We only have it for three days, we'll have to move on Saturday, but here we are for now - panoramic view of the canal and the boats waiting to go through the locks sit right off our shore.  And we have no close neighbors. What a great site! No wonder it is seldom available.

For some reason the designers of the switch panel that controls Q's water heater neglected to include an indicator light so it has been hard to tell whether it is on or off. This afternoon Mark wired a small LED bulb into the circuit that lights up when the hearer is on - burning propane.

January 11, 2013 (Fri) La Belle, FL (3) 62/80° - Since there was no mail for us at the LaBelle Post Office Wednesday when we came through - our mail is usually available on Wednesdays but sometimes Thursdays - we went back to get it today. There still isn't any! We called FMCA who forward our mail to us while we are on the road and they said they hadn't had any to send. They have some now though and will send it on Monday.

We spent the afternoon reading and watching the boats in the canal going to and from the locks.

January 12, 2013 (Sat) La Belle, FL (4) 65/81° - Moving day. This campground is always fully booked 6 months in advance from January to mid March. The only way we have been able to get in is to watch for cancellations in the time frame we want to be here and reserve the vacated site. This means we sometimes have to move from one site to another if we want to stay for any length of time. Today was the day we had to move from the best site in the campground to one across the way and down the road. It's not a bad site, none here are. The pads are angled and spaced such that we have a  fair view (past the motor homes and 5th wheels across the road) of the canal and locks out our port window and the tropical shrubbery forest out our starboard window. Our neighbors are nearby, but not  oppressively close as they would be in most private parks.

January 13, 2013 (Sun) La Belle, FL (5) 64/79° - I'm sitting here looking out at the beautiful park like landscaping and wondering: Why, when most, if not all, the "residents" here are paying half price (golden access senior citizen discount) is this campground so well maintained while National Forest campgrounds like Alexander Springs, where paying full price is the norm, struggle to keep toilet paper in the rest rooms? Could it be that Corps of Engineer campgrounds are maintained from the virtually bottomless military budget pockets while the National Park Service budget gets cut year after year?

January 14, 2013 (Mon) La Belle, FL (6) 62/83° - Soon after we moved a couple of days ago a diesel pickup truck droned by pulling a huge 5th wheel trailer, a Cougar with 4 slide-outs, followed by a little red Honda Civic. We saw the 5th wheel later on that day on our old vacated site with the Civic parked on the pad with it. We haven't seen the pickup truck since and it's becoming quite apparent that it was probably only used to move the 5th wheel into the site. This might be a reasonable practice when the trailer is to be parked in one place for a season but this is a short term park - the rule of being here only 14 days in 30 is supposedly strictly enforced. It seems an expensive endeavor to hire a tow vehicle to move your trailer from one park to another every 2 weeks.

Q087296 Ortona Locks South CG #21&8 w/e $12g