January 18 - February 16, 2023 Rock Springs Run Reserve

After leaving the Clearwater Lake Recreation area we returned to Jane's parents for a few days, January 18 - 21, to take them to some doctors appointments before heading to my sister's timeshare on Lake Bryan Beach Blvd for a two week stay, January 21 - February 4. We connected with my brother who resides in the Orlando area a few times while we were at the timeshare. I didn't work on my heat recovery ventilator (HRV) at my brother's but I did work on it one day at the timeshare. Most days at the timeshare consisted of using the fitness room in the morning and then hanging out at the pool in the afternoon. My activity level at the fitness room did not balance out my increased consumption of comfort foods so I ended up packing on noticeable weight. Here are some pictures of the HRV internal construction.

On Saturday February 4 we returned to Jane's parents to visit with her brother and his wife who reside in Colorado Springs, CO. We left Sunday afternoon for Rock Springs Run Reserve. We stayed there in March of last year. Jane's parents and her brother came for a visit on Monday. They picked up subs on their way so we had a nice easy picnic lunch. During our stay last year I mapped out a bike ride on the reserve's forest roads. Like last year I came upon a controlled burn but unlike last year I decided on my own that I should go back the way I came instead of trying to ride by it.

We parked the camper next to but not under a cluster of live oak trees for shade. Since there aren't any assigned camp sites, I had the opportunity to locate the portable solar panels in a fairly optimal location without encroaching on a neighboring camper. I didn't use all 100 feet of my cables but close to it. Both the camper and panels can be seen in the picture below.

You can also see that we undocked the camper during our stay. We did this so I could drive to my brother's Orlando house and mostly completed the construction of the HRV.

My brother wired up a motor controller for the fans so the speed of rotation can be adjusted. So the last part of completing the controller is wiring the fans to the controller. From the leftover pink foam insulation I cut some sections that cover the inside and outside of one of the camper's outdoor accessible cubbyholes. This is part of the HRV installation. The remainder of the pink foam insulation was used to insulate more of the bedroom storage compartments. We focus on the bedroom since we had to replace the original mattress last year due to mold on the mattress underside. Additional steps needed to install the HRV in the camper are running the wiring, adding ducting and fitting the HRV to the foam pieces covering the outdoor accessible cubbyhole.

We saw turkeys at the reserve but this year we only saw one tom as opposed to multiple toms last year. There were two sandhill cranes that hung out in the field where the camper was located and they seemed very comfortable with our presence. They would come very close almost startling me while they foraged and slowly closed in on me.

We left reserve on Wednesday the 15th and headed to Jane's brother's Orlando house. We undocked the camper when we arrived and headed to the Keys the next day, the 16th, to stay at my NJ brother's rental there.