We planned to stay in Cedar Key for a full week but had to reduce that to 5 days after a quick airplane trip to Oklahoma City. Even on that trip we couldn’t escape tropical weather as we were supposed to return through Houston on the day tropical storm Imelda came ashore nearby. By the time it was done almost 40″ of rain had fallen in places around Houston. Our plane had started to taxi out on our way there when they stopped air traffic into the Houston area. While we sat on the tarmac waiting for it to open up again (which it likely never did that day), a problem came up with the airplane and so we taxied back to the gate. Before we could even get off the plane, Southwest had re-booked us on another flight through Dallas leaving within the hour. We were thrilled it worked out that well.
We stayed here a total of 12 nights upon returning to the orlando area after escaping Hurricane Dorian. Luckily Orlando and the original place we were staying in Christmas, Florida were spared by Dorian but with it reaching category 5 status we weren’t willing to chance that. The place in Christmas where we stayed before Dorian was subject to flooding even with the daily rain showers so it would have been really bad had we gotten 10 or more inches of rain from Dorian.
We stayed at the Jennings KOA for a week to escape hurricane Dorian. Luckily, Dorian turned and stayed off the coast of Florida but we were glad to be on asphalt pads rather than dirt like we were at Christmas, FL. We got very little wind and no rain here from Dorian but I don’t think it ever got that bad in Christmas either. We do know they got a fair amount of rain and it really didn’t take much to turn the park into a swamp. For peace of mind it was worth adding a few hundred extra miles to our trip.
Watching the sunset from our siteBeautiful sunset as hurricane Dorian passes by 200 miles awayLooking east toward hurricane Dorian
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ Site Quality: Asphalt roads and pads. Barely long enough for our rig and truck, we had to back the truck up under the trailer as far as we could. Sites are somewhat narrow and only have broken concrete patios with a picnic table. Luckily they have electrical limitations supporting 50A trailers so they generally only fill every other site which makes it feel less cramped. Type: Commercial Park Access: Just off Interstate 75 on Hamilton Ave in Jennings. Staff: The staff were friendly and accommodating as we lengthened our stay twice as we tried to figure out where hurricane Dorian was going to go. The owner moved other reservations around so we wouldn’t need to change sites part way through. Amenities: Laundry facilities, Restrooms/showers, Volleyball, Shuffleboard, horseshoes, Bocce, Basketball, Cornhole, Gaga Ball, Tic Tac Toe, community fire pits. Playground and picnic area along with a small lake. Swimming pool. Recreation room. Free cable TV and WiFi. Cellular/WiFi: Verizon and AT&T were both decent at about 4 Mbps. Their WiFi was also usable at about 3.5 Mbps. What we liked: Full hookup sites on pavement (important during the rainy season). Although within site of I-75, there wasn’t much road noise. What we didn’t like: KOAs are always expensive for what you get. Sites are narrow and the site we were on (#50) was difficult to get the truck parked in front of the trailer. You either had to back up a long way or go through an empty site. There isn’t much around Jennings, however, Valdosta Georgia is only about 20 miles away and has pretty much everything you would want including a Walmart and Sam’s Club. Verdict: This is not a destination park but for us it was exactly what we needed. It was about 100 miles from the coast which helped distance us from the expected path of hurricane Dorian. It also had paved roads, few trees above the sites (nothing to fall on our rig in high winds and satellite TV access) and it had cable TV which included the weather channel and several locals for us to get weather information. Overall, it was one of the nicest and best maintained KOAs we have stayed at.
This launch on 8/22/2019 was historic as it is the final launch of a Delta IV rocket in the medium, single stick configuration. There were clouds and some rain in the area the morning of the launch that caused weather to go red for a short time.
Launch day sunrise.
We found an Osprey waiting for the launch nearby where we decided to set up to see the launch. We were in Jetty Park where we camped the week before.
Osprey waiting for the launch
We were about 8 miles away from the launch pad which is about as close as you can get for safety. The picture below shows what we could see (with magnification) of the launch pad from where we were viewing the launch. The rocket is hidden just below the trees.
Launch pad LC-37 from Jetty ParkAn early launch photo captured from our videoAbout 40 seconds into the flight and we began to hear the roar of the enginesSmoke trail after launchLaunch Video (Caution large file)
We originally booked Jetty Park hoping to see a rocket launch from Cape Canaveral as well as to spend some time on the beach. While we accomplished the latter, we missed the opportunity to see a rocket launch by just a few days and had to move on. Luckily we didn’t move far though and we plan to come back to Jetty Park on launch day to see United Launch Alliance send a GPS satellite into orbit aboard the final launch of a medium configuration Delta IV rocket. We will have more about that in a future blog post.
We weren’t too sure what we’d get into at Jetty Park since many of the sites including ours were grass and the roads were dirt. It turned out to be about as we expected with numerous small pot holes in the road and at least some of the sites were in bad shape due to recent rains. Ours turned out to not be too bad and we managed to get in and out without leaving deep ruts. The other issue was that we were only able to get a 30 amp site instead of a 50 amp site. Because of the way 50 amp connections work you actually get 100 amps of power to work with. So, 30 amps was less than 1/3 of what we normally have. What this means is that we could only run one AC unit at a time and with temperatures reaching into the 90’s they each run full time normally. We managed by just running the AC in the area we were using – bedroom at night and living room during the day. Lucky for us, we had rain nearly every afternoon and that helped too . The one night it didn’t, it took a while to get the bedroom cooled down from 90 degrees.
