A Winter in Florida

This has been our third winter in Florida; the last two here in Bushnell and the first winter in Ocala.  We’ve decided wintering in central Florida suits us.  There are various reasons, of course--in the scheme of things it’s not so far from Nashville, there are some trails for hiking, we enjoy the Escapee park, and Bushnell is conveniently located to the bigger cities of Tampa, Orlando, and Ocala.

A sampling of our winter in photos.
Longleaf Pine and blue skies.

There are a lot of other places we like better than Florida, but all of those places are cold in the winter.  We want some place warm and Florida has that.  So does Texas, but Texas is several hundred miles farther from Nashville.  That’s important to us because we want to be able to see family about every three months.  On a few of our trips we’ve been away from family for six months or so.  We found we didn’t like that so much.

Withlacoochee River

Since we love to hike, it’s important to us to have trails in the area.  There are a lot of trails around central Florida.  They’re sandy and flat, which is not our favorite, but the area still offers some decent hiking opportunities.  Summerdale, Alabama would be another option for winter, but besides not being quite warm enough, there are almost no trails in the area.

Walks on the Van Fleet and Withlacoochee State Trails

Speaking of Summerdale, Rainbow Plantation Escapee Park there is wonderful.  The campground is nice and they offer almost nonstop activities at the clubhouse.  As nice as Rainbow Plantation is, we like Sumter Oaks here in Bushnell better.  It’s a much smaller campground and we like that.  The selection of activities is much more limited, but we’re off doing our hiking thing anyway.  It’s a quiet, cozy little park and we’re beginning to think of it as our winter home.

Fellowship with friends. This one at Mike and Peggy's place.

Bushnell, as a city, has very little to offer, but an hours drive will get you to Tampa, Orlando, or Ocala.  An hours drive will also get you to the Gulf coast or the Atlantic.

For all these reasons, we’ll likely be back to Florida for several winters to come.

How about all those trail lunches in Withlacoochee State Forest

As far as this year goes, we’ve really enjoyed our stay.  Because of family issues in Nashville, we didn’t get down here as early as we had hoped, but next year we’re thinking about coming down early in December--really spend the winter here.  Our hiking has been good.  We’ve hiked about 80 miles since arriving in the middle of January and didn’t do the same hike twice.  We didn’t do a lot of sightseeing this time like we did the past two winters, but next year we may slip away for a couple weeks to the Everglades.  The best part of this winter has been the time with friends.  We had a great week with Mike and Peggy, and six weeks with Tony and Diana.  We’ve renewed our friendships with several folks who make this their winter home and we’ve made a few new friends as well.  How can it get any better?

Whether Dairy Queen, Twisty Treats, or Plant City
 we could always find something sweet to eat.

We’ve been busy today preparing to move.  Anytime we sit for very many days in a row I have to go through every cabinet to be sure things are secured for travel.  I also got all the laundry done.  Escapee parks usually have the cheapest laundry facilities around.  Gene washed the dust off the motorhome and the car.  They sure look pretty.

Everything is ready so it looks like we’ll be pulling out in the morning heading up to Valdosta, Georgia for the night then on to Perry Friday.  We’re anxious to be on the road again.  But, we’ll be right back here next winter I’ll betchya.

That’s it for today.  Thanks for tagging along.

Sumter Oaks RV Park

Finally, we’re here.  We arrived at Sumter Oaks Escapees park about noon yesterday.  For the third day in a row we had great driving weather and a nice ride down I-75 to Bushnell, Florida.  We got checked in and mostly set up in our site where we expect to stay until the FMCA rally in early February.

We have a large site on the end of a row at the edge of the park.
No one in front of us or to the right.

We stayed at this park several weeks last winter.  This is the place with the sand hill cranes roaming around between the RVs.  It’s a typical Escapees park with the daily 4 pm social hour to meet and greet new folks coming in and get caught up on all the park news, Saturday morning breakfast, Sunday ice cream social, and numerous craft and activity groups which meet during the week.

We met several folks last year and have seen them from a distance already this year.  Naturally, we’re anxious to get reacquainted with them.  Our friends Tony and Diana are here.  We’ve caught up with them several times this year--twice in Alaska and most recently in Nashville.  Also here are those Maineiacs in Motion, Mike and Peggy.  It was great to see them again and are looking forward to spending some time with them.  We last saw them at their home in Topsham, Maine in 2010.  Ron and Penny, whom we got to know last winter and have stayed in contact with throughout the year, are also here.

Diana and Penny

Ron and Tony

Mike and Peggy

Tony and Diana had a little welcoming party for us at their rig and invited Ron and Penny, and Mike and Peggy.  So the fun and fellowship has already begun.  Diana also prepared a wonderful travel day meal for us last night.

There are several things we want to get done while here.  Do you remember Vern, our handy-dandy mobile RV repair guy from last year?  Gene is hoping to have Vern do a couple things for us, primarily find and fix that persistent leak.  Warm, sunny days are also good for cleaning the outside of the rig.  We’re also anxious to get in some hiking.  The Florida trail system is pretty extensive.  Gene ordered maps and has already picked out several hikes.

Today, my plans are to get caught up on routine household chores that didn’t get done while we were traveling.  Gene is planning to contact Vern to set up a schedule with him for the repairs.  We’ll, of course, be visiting with friends while enjoying the nice 70 degree weather.

That’s it for today.  Thanks for tagging along.