RV and other travels around the World
Every year we load the RV for a fall foliage trip to our local state park. It is the perfect time of year for warm days, cool nights, brilliant colors, hiking, and ham radio! I make a campfire each night to keep warm by as we watch the sunset. State parks are some of the best camping places to enjoy the great outdoors. More on this 5-day adventure to Claytor Lake State Park…
Orchid Lake RV Resort (OLRVR) is the place that we park the RV for the winter located in the town of New Port Richey, Florida. It is our home base of activities for exploring this part of Florida. In addition, the park has a huge list of activities that are all run by many volunteers. In today’s post, I will do an overview and look at what we do while here.
We had wanted to get back to this historic Cuban section of Tampa since a quick visit about ten years ago. Plus we had the benefit of having some family along with us. A beautiful warm day to have lunch and visit.
We had planned to meet our fellow RVer friends, the Roseberry’s, at a location about midway between our winter locations. They stay near Orlando and we are on the Gulf Coast. The close to halfway point was the town of Brooksville, Florida. And the restaurant was a very popular and quaint place called the Florida Cracker Kitchen.
The town of Homosassa Florida is just over an hour north of our winter location in New Port Richey (NPR). I had heard of this gulf coastal town from another RVer that we met at a couple of different places over the years. I wanted to check out the area plus visit the Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park, a state park wildlife preserve.
We attended this massive show on the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa this year after hearing about it and seeing their ads. It is supposed to be the second largest in the US, next to the one in Hershey, Pa. The purpose was just to look around at the new RVs and see what has changed from when we bought ours in April 2017. What functionality and cosmetic changes have crept in over the last six years?
There is always a plethora of activities here at Orchid Lake RV and in the vicinity of New Port Richey (NPR). One of the occasional activities is a small cruise out of NPR on a 31 person boat. It is run by Captain Anthony Aristides Andrianos, a resident here at our RV park. This cruise was a two hour sunset cruise out into the Gulf and along the coast.
The small town of Dunedin is one of our favorite local places to visit and have lunch. Many sites, many restaurants, and eight breweries in a 36,000 people population city. It is also known for its beaches, pine forests, and ospreys of Honeymoon Island. We also drove south to Parrish, FL to spend a couple of days with Pat’s brothers and wives.
We are now at our RV park for the winter (since 12/7) in the city of New Port Richey, Florida. It is located a few miles north of Tampa along the gulf coast. Our plans are to stay here for about four months before returning back to Virginia. The time will go by quickly so Pat and I sat down and came up with a decent list of 22 quick road trips/excursions to keep us busy. Happy New Year!
Yes, the summer and fall have come to an end, and we begin another winter season on the gulf coast of Florida. But we do take a few extra days on our southbound journey. No since in getting in a huge hurry, since we are happily retired and have no pressing schedule. We delayed leaving until after Thanksgiving and seeing the family for a combined Holidays. I’ll cover our favorite southern city, Savannah, Georgia, in this blog update…