A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 77 miles from Dunnellon, Florida to Clermont, Florida.
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Posts featuring the coach.
Travel from Dunnellon to Clermont, Florida
We drove our coach 77 miles, only about 1.5 hours of driving, from Dunnellon, Florida to Clermont, Florida.
Here’s a map showing our route, heading southeast:
An interactive map:
After exiting our (very nice) site and looping around, we passed our site on the way to the check in area to toad up:
Exiting the campground:
A fuel stop:
Filling the DEF (Diesel Exhaust Fluid):
“Welcome to Florida’s Turnpike, The Less Stressway”:
Toll plaza when exiting the turnpike:
Arriving at Thousand Trails Orlando:
“Welcome to Thousand Trails Orlando; We Are Family”:
A long line to get sites:
At TTO people go to a parking lot then are guided to a site; you can request an area that you like, and are shown to that section, and can ask for a different site if you don’t like it. Kinda a hybrid between the usual Thousand Trails approach of first-come-first-served, where you roam around and find a vacant site, and the more typical assigned sites approach of other RV parks. Though Thousand Trails is moving to an assigned sites approach.
A bunch of RVs waiting to be guided to a site; this is where motorhomes untoad, too:
Guided to our site:
Polished and replaced exhaust tips
While in Red Bay wet got Steve Brooks, aka School Bus Steve to do a few repairs for us. He’s so-named as he uses an old school bus for his mobile RV service:
One minor fix was to polish the exhaust tips of our generator and Aqua-Hot system.
He was able to polish the generator exhaust nicely:
But the Aqua-Hot one was beyond hope (see it on the ground), so he replaced it:
Much nicer!
Rainbow Springs State Park
We stayed at Rainbow Springs State Park in Dunnellon, Florida. (Campground Reviews listing.)
A very nice state park campground.
Dates:
- Check in: 2025-01-12
- Check out: 2025-01-19
- 7 nights
Weather:
- Partly sunny, some rain
- High temps 57-68°F, lows 38-48°F
- Little wind, gusts to 21 MPH, sheltered amongst trees
Noise:
- No road noise
- Occasional distant train horn noise
- Little neighbor noise
Site:
- #9, back-in, gravel
- Needed to disconnect toad, parked in front of coach
- Somewhat level site; high on passenger side; used hydraulic leveling
- Gravel driveway about 75 feet long by 15 feet wide
- 40 feet to neighbors on both sides
- Thick trees and bushes between sites, nicely private
- Picnic table
- Fire pit and charcoal grill
- Tall trees
- Clean site
- Elevation 50 feet, front facing SW
Utilities:
- 50 amp power, conveniently located
- 40 PSI water, conveniently located
- Unthreaded sewer connection, conveniently located (1 10-foot pipe needed)
Internet (in usage priority order):
- Starlink: 50-140 Mbps down, 15 Mps up, 30-40 ms ping
- Verizon: 5 Mbps down, 5-10 Mbps up, 60 ms ping
- AT&T: 1-4 Mbps down, 0.01-1 Mbps up, 86 ms ping
- T-Mobile: 5 Mbps down, 5 Mbps up, 750 ms ping, unreliable
- Campground Wi-Fi: none
Amenities:
- Garbage dumpsters
Our review on Campground Reviews:
Beautiful state park
We enjoyed our stay here and wish we could’ve stayed longer. The sites were spacious and private, with good hookups. It was quiet most of the week, with just some noise from the weekend crowd. You do have to drive a bit to get to the Rainbow Springs headwaters area, but it’s worth checking out. The river access at the campground is nice enough on its own, with kayak rentals at the main store/ranger station. We camped at Rainbow Springs State Park in a Motorhome.
Tip for Other Campers: If you’re new to Florida and looking for manatees, this is not one of those springs. It is an easy daytrip down to Crystal Springs, however, where we saw tons of manatees….
Campground map:
An interactive map:
Our nicely secluded site:
Can’t see any other sites from the living area of the site, though there is a path behind the sites that occasionally has a walker or bike:
Utilities:
Other sites:
Bathrooms, with a washer & dryer just out there:
RV check in area:
Basic camp store in the building with the check-in office:
Picnic shelter:
A very moss-draped tree:
The Rainbow River:
Rental kayaks:
We’d be very happy to stay here again, and for longer.
Video: Carrabelle to Dunnellon, Florida motorhome travel timelapse
A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 203 miles from Carrabelle to Dunnellon, Florida.
Travel from Carrabelle to Dunnellon, Florida
We drove our coach 203 miles, about four hours of driving, from Carrabelle to Dunnellon, Florida.
Here’s a map showing our route, heading southeast:
An interactive map, with potential stops marked (we actually only stopped once, at Rocky’s 98):
Toading up at Ho-Hum RV Park; we miss that view:
Why does their bear sign look like a polar bear?
Goodbye Gulf Coast:
Lunch stop at Rocky’s 98 gas station:
They had convenient big-rig-sized parking:
A kitchen with various food options:
We just grabbed some super-healthy stuff for lunch (and fudge for dessert later):
Paladin on the dash:
Turning right in Perry:
Paladin was feeling very snuggly on this trip:
“Follow That Dream Parkway”:
Arriving at Rainbow Springs State Park; we had to wait for several minutes for another RV blocking the entrance, presumably because they didn’t have the gate code; this park is unusual in that you need a code to get in even before checking in, which they provide via email beforehand:
Check in parking:
Office:
Our site:
Custom desk tweaks
While in Red Bay we got Cody Poores of Cody’s Custom Cabinets to do a few tweaks to the custom desk he previously built for us.
As a reminder, here’s the pull-out desktop he originally built. It was fine, but had a few things that bothered me:
Firstly, the front edge was flush with the cabinet below, making it harder to open, which also meant that when it was extended the desk chair would have to be on the edge of the carpet. Secondly, the ends of the sliders were exposed, which was untidy. Thirdly, the piece of Corian next to the desktop didn’t match the height of the others:
And lastly, the desktop was sloped towards the back:
He removed the old desktop and side piece, and had new ones made:
The new desktop addresses all of those issues — it extends four inches in front of the cabinet, so is easier to pull out and the chair doesn’t have to go onto the slide carpet; it has a wider front to hide the slides, it isn’t angled, and it has a lip on the back to prevent things falling into the monitor lift area:
Plus the piece to the right of the desktop now also matches better:
The desk in use, with the monitor raised:
Much nicer.
Video: a peaceful timelapse of one day from a waterfront site at Ho-Hum RV Park
Watching the sun rise and set while the tide comes in, recorded from a waterfront site in our favorite Gulf Coast campground, Ho-Hum RV Park in Carrabelle, on the panhandle of Florida.
Video: a peaceful timelapse of a couple of weeks from a waterfront site at Ho-Hum RV Park
A peaceful timelapse watching the sun rise and set while the tide comes in over a couple of weeks, recorded from a waterfront site in our favorite Gulf Coast campground, Ho-Hum RV Park in Carrabelle, on the panhandle of Florida.
Video: Ozark, Alabama to Carrabelle, Florida motorhome travel timelapse in 360°
A silent 360° timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 155 miles from Ozark, Alabama to Carrabelle, Florida. Drag to look around anywhere while playing the video.