Got up fairly early and went for a bike ride. We have to do this kind of thing either very early or late in the day because of having to leave our dog Whiskey locked up in the motorhome. And it gets too hot in the Florida sun to be able to do that during midday. Anyhow, we did 17 km’s (10 miles) and made it back by 9:45am in time to say goodbye to Alex before he left for Watertown.
City of West palm Beach
Somebody's expensive toy.
Alex, relaxing.
We hit the road after that, and had an uneventful drive back to Cocoa Beach. We went to the Sterling Casino Cruise at the Cocoa Beach Port near Jetty Park. It’s pretty much all free…free parking, free tickets, free drinks if you’re gambling, free musical entertainment, free deli buffet, and free overnight parking for RV’s. And it’s a 5 hour cruise leaving at 7pm and getting back at midnight. So we signed up for that.
We had a few hours to wait until the ship left, so I went for a little bike ride to scout out if there was somewhere better to park Sherman (our motorhome) while we waited. But the only spot was a huge empty parking lot beside the terminal. We moved there so I could get internet from the resort next to it. We had to wait at least until 4pm to get into the casino parking lot. Close to 4pm, a security lady came and told us we couldn’t park in this huge empty parking lot because it’s a “truck staging area”. Huh? I asked her what that was exactly, but she didn’t seem to know. There were certainly no trucks there. In fact, other than one other RV waiting with us, there wasn’t anything in the parking lot. When we got back from the cruise, there still wasn’t. I still don’t know what a “truck staging area” is, but next time I see a big totally empty parking lot, I’ll have to assume that’s what it is. Another example of not RV friendly Florida.
At 4pm, we moved to the casino parking lot. At 6:15pm, we boarded the ship. It’s not that busy this evening, being a Sunday night I suppose, but still, there are a couple of busloads showing up. At about 7:15pm, the ship starts to get underway, but it seems to be going backwards towards the port area. Then, there are tugboats that get around it and steer it in the right direction to turn around. It takes them about a half hour to get the thing finally pointed towards the sea.
There is some kind of law that says they can’t start gambling until they are 3 miles from shore. So everyone on board heads for the deli buffet or the entertainment bar to listen to the band. As soon as the whistle blows saying that we are 3 miles from shore, everybody moves. Eventually, Ruth and I head to the 5 cent slot machines to try our luck. After several attempts over the hours, we find ourselves down a total of $17. Not a bad night of entertainment, even if we weren’t so lucky at the machines. But, for our $17 worth of gambling, we had supper at the buffet, had a couple of drinks, had a 5 hour cruise, saw some dolphins playing by the boat, listened to some live music, and parked over night. Not bad value, I’d say.
Tomorrow we’ll head back to Huegnot Park near Jacksonville. It’s about 175 miles, so it’ll be a bit of a long day driving, but then we’ll stay there for a couple of days. This is the park we stayed at the first night Lindsey and Justin showed up, and it’s only $7 a night.
Total Nights Sleeping in the RV… 163
March Fuel $ 669.61
March Grocery $ 489.19
March Overnight Costs $158.03
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