Nice campground!

What a nice campground we stayed at last night. It wasn't very busy, so we were lucky to be able to get a waterfront site. In fact, there were enough sites for probably 25 RV's, yet our nearest neighbour was probably 150 feet away!

We went for a walk with Whiskey around the camp lake last night, and watched the ducks playing in the water. What a peaceful place. Well, except for the occasional train going by in the distance. Here's our camp site...

Yes, I am talking about the Walmart! This Walmart was better than most "RV park" type campgrounds. And, it was free. And, they welcome RV'ers to stay here. Why anybody would overnight at an RV park when they're travelling, I can't figure out. By the way, we've been on the road for 12 nights, and haven't used our generator yet. Going to have to make an effort to start it up one of these days to make sure it still works.

It's a sunny morning, and it looks like it's going to be a great day!

10:20am

Drove about 40 miles south and pulled over for breakfast and internet. Thanks Holiday Inn Express!

We've decided to head to Highlands Hammock State Park and treat ourselves. It's a nice day, so we should be able to take advantage of their facilities, and then we'll only have a short drive to the ballpark for tomorrows 6:30pm game.

11:00pm

There was quite a bit of wind this morning, and although the sun was shining for the first time in a few days, the drive wasn’t that enjoyable. Sherman doesn’t like too much wind! That, and there is so much development around highway 27 (we were only a few miles from Disney World) that traffic was fairly heavy, and we had to stop at quite a few sets of lights.

But, we made it through all that, and drove into Highland Hammock State Park around 1:00pm. It was pretty busy and there was a bit of a line up. When it was our turn, we inquired about camping, and were told to move off to the side and go in the ranger station. There, I said we wanted camping in the “primitive” area, with no hookups. They said the fee structure had changed, and it was $18, only $4 cheaper than the water and electric camping. I was tired of driving, and this park has a lot of trails, both walking and biking, so we bit the bullet, and paid $18 plus tax (total $19.62 US) to camp in the primitive area.

The primitive camping area is a full mile (1.6 kms) from the main area where the showers and washrooms and everything is. But there is an outhouse. I just don’t understand the fee structure. $22 is getting up there for a water and electric site, but for just “parking” or tenting, $18 is too much. Having said that, we rode out bikes over to the main camping area, and we’re glad that we are where we are! Considering that this is a state park, they are packed in like sardines. I can see where this park was probably nice for camping at one time, because the actual camping area has lots of trees, and is nicely laid out, but they have 138 sites where they should have half that. Simply too close together for my liking. So we’re happy where we are, but the fee at the primitive area should be closer to $10 than $20.

So on our bike ride, we stopped along the loop at several different trailheads where each trail walk is supposed to be around 30 minutes. Some trails go through swamy areas on boardwalks, and you’re not allowed to take dogs on them because of alligators. We didn’t see any alligators though. Another trail goes through an area where there are “wild” orange trees growing. We’re going to take that one tomorrow morning.

Ruth on the swamp trail boardwalk

Distance driven today: 123 miles (210 kms)

Distance driven total: 1,710 miles (2,750 kms)

March fuel: $517.00
March Groceries: $137.86
March overnight: $25.90
March Misc: $78.17

(Note: prices are in CAN dollars, although the exchange rate is almost even right now anyhow)