When Interstate 10 was pushed through to the east much of the Florida panhandle and the northern gulf coast was left without the wandering traveler. Highway 98 parallels the coast mile after mile and I had it all to myself. Now this is the type of American driving I love. At Homoassa Springs (Native American for “where the wild pepper grows”) I found a delightful RV park-trailer park on the Hall River. I was amazed at the number of 5th wheels and RV that were set up permanently with flower plantings and lawn art. Is this the escape place for the urbanites? Near by the park was a Florida State Park Wildlife Park, which I wanted to check out in the morning.
I think I solved the dead battery problem. The most difficult part of traveling in this rig is making sure that the VW steering wheel is not locked so it can "trailer track" behind the RV. If the steering wheel is locked (which I've done for a whole day of traveling), the RV will pull right through it so the locked front wheels skid through turns. When doing freeway driving this is not a major problem due to the gentle road curves but off freeway, it causes the wheels to wear. To unlock the steerage you have to turn the ignition switch one click, BUT that "click" is very hard to sense. The day the battery died I had started out and noticed in the rear view mirror that the Jetta wheels were not tracking. I was pissed because I had checked it closely (due to the sensitivity of the situation) before I started out. So I went back and turned the key until I heard a click. The problem was that I turned it too far and had all the dashboard lights on, etc, and over two days (I didn’t disconnect over night) wore the battery down to zero.
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