Florida – March & April 2021

Let me begin by saying Florida is a big state with a lot of interesting things to do and sights to see. We arrived at our first campground on March 17, 2021, and traveled slowly for nine more days until we reached my parent’s home in Sarasota County. We could have traveled much faster but took the extra time to make sure they were fully vaccinated before we saw them. We knew there would be absolutely no way to avoid hugging since it had been over a year see we last saw each other.

It was also Spring Break season and we didn’t want to end up in a crowd of college students hanging out along the beach towns. So, we took our time traveling through Central Florida and found a few interesting sights along the way.

Our first stop, Travelers Campground in Alachua, about 15 miles north of Gainsville, was nothing special, just one of the many RV parks that you see sitting next to a freeway. But, we discovered that right next door is an animal rescue farm. We walked over and found quite a few animals, and some signs that give you information about each animal.

We also saw these little guys at the farm though we couldn’t find a sign or any information about them.

Our next memorable stop was at another Harvest Host, Sugar Sand Distillery in Lake Placid. On the Harvest Host website they state, “We are the only Estate Grown Sugar Cane Distillery in North American and Hawaii distilling the Rhum Agricole style of the French Caribbean Islands. We also Ferment and Distill, Vodkas, Gins, and Moonshine.”

There are six spots available for RVs. This is the most private space we had at any Harvest Host location so far. We were surrounded by jungle.

The third place we stopped that was interesting was Sabal Palm RV Resort in Palmdale. (A quick side note – the term “resort” seems to be pretty loosely applied at many RV parks. It seems that if the RV park has a pool, no matter how old or functional, it can be called a “resort”.) OK, having said that, this place was pretty cool. It was old but had a great community of folks, mostly from northern states, who stayed here for the winter. It was also surrounded by beautiful pastures and friendly animals.

Even though we arrived after the office closed a couple of very nice ladies who were walking by let us in and set us up in this campsite. They told me to just give the park manager a call and let her know which site they put us in. Seemed sketchy to us so we didn’t plug in or get too comfortable. But, as I said, this place was a real community and the manager said she was happy we were able to get in and asked us to stop by in the morning to pay her. Everything about RVing is so different from hotels!

As I mentioned, there were pastures all around with very friendly animals. This donkey came trotting up to Joel and then followed him for several minutes while we walked along the fence line. I’m also pretty sure that he knew I was taking his picture, he posed for me until I was done.

Driving through central Florida we kept seeing white birds hanging out by large animals, mostly cows, but sometimes horses. Finally did some research and discovered this is a cattle egret. Some fun facts from the website, All About Birds:

• Cattle Egrets follow large animals or machines and eat invertebrates stirred up from the ground. They will fly toward smoke from long distances away, to catch insects fleeing a fire.
• Cattle Egrets have many names around the world, usually referencing the grazing animals they team up with to forage. In various languages they are known as cow cranes, cow herons, cow birds, elephant birds, rhinoceros egrets, and hippopotamus egrets.
• The Cattle Egret has a broad and flexible diet that occasionally includes other birds.
• The oldest Cattle Egret on record was at least 17 years old when it was captured and released in Pennsylvania in 1979. It had been banded in Maryland in 1962.

The folks here were so friendly that we wish we had stayed longer. After driving for about a week we ended up at another RV resort in Punta Gorda. We parked here for the last 4 nights to wait until my parent’s two-week post-vaccine period was up.

This RV Resort had huge sites, a beautiful new pool, tennis courts and an activities director who made sure there was something to do most days. We hated it! It all felt too much like a sterile suburban neighborhood for us. But, the wifi was good and we had full hookups. At $95/night this was also the most expensive place we stayed throughout the whole trip. Here are a few pictures from our time there:

Finally, we made it home. It was wonderful to see my parents. We brought the cats in and they seemed to settle in just fine for a couple of weeks. Well, Shilo was fine, Frankie was still not happy that we dragged him along with us on this adventure. He spent quite a bit of time hiding under furniture, and occasionally letting us know he wanted to go home.

Each day we would get up and go for a walk around the neighborhood. My parents live less than a block from a canal and have always said there are alligators in it. Sure enough, we saw one hanging out as we walked by one day.

While we were at my parent’s house we (by that I really mean Joel) did quite a few things on my mom’s wish list – installed a new dishwasher, installed new faucets in the kitchen and bathroom, met with the repairman who fixed the pool heater, and several other “upgrades” to the house. We felt like we were helpful and they seemed happy to get some of these things done without having to hire anyone to come in the house .

After two weeks at their house, and almost four weeks in Florida, we were ready to start heading home. Partly because we were a bit homesick and the cats (actually, just Frankie) were not happy traveling, but mostly because the Covid vaccine was becoming widely available and we were not able to get one in Florida since we are not residents. So we headed north.

Our first stop was just north of Tampa in the small town of Tarpon Springs, which is best known as the Sponge Capital of the World. Tarpon Springs also has the highest percentage of Greek Americans of any US city. There were many delicious smelling greek restaurants along the small downtown main street by the water. We also read that downtown is undergoing a beautification.

We stopped here to visit our friends, Vince and Angela, who are in the process of moving from Las Vegas to Florida. They were living in their RV while looking for a new home in the area. We were able to get a spot in the same RV park right next to them. They were excited to show us around.

We walked past this inlet on the way to downtown. Angela said she had seen dolphins playing in the water who were very friendly, so we stopped to see if they were nearby. Sure enough, we saw two of them playing together and one came by to say hi while we were standing there.

The RV park where Angela and Vince were staying is right on a waterway just north of Tampa. While we were not right on the water, they were. It was nice to be able to sit by the water and catch up with friends we haven’t seen for awhile.

We stayed here a couple of days and drove over to nearby Honeymoon Island State Park. It felt like such a treat to put our toes in the white sand and walk in the warm water. This was a beautiful state park and we plan to come back here again. Definitely a great day!

After a few days along the coast we headed inland to Ocala to meet up with a friend from Joel’s childhood. We stayed at another Florida State Park, Santos Campground, which turned out to be a mecca for mountain biking. It was a very nice state park with friendly people all around us. Karen came out to have dinner and we enjoyed a peaceful night catching up.

We spent one more quick night in northern Florida before we made our way home.