On The Road Again to Virginia

The day finally arrived for us to pack up, pull in the slides and get back to what we bought the RV for: travel. It has been over eight months since we came to Florida for the winter. And now we are into the heat and humidity of a Florida summer that takes a hardy soul to survive. Our plan is to take a few stops and be back to Virginia in a week.

Florida Recap

1. St. Augustine – 7 days at the very cool North Beach RV park. The park is nestled into the middle of a mangrove forest. From one side of the park on the Atlantic Ocean it is about a 5 minute walk to the inter coastal waterway. We had several days to explore St. Augustine and drink from the fountain of youth, but I don’t think it took.
2. Cortez, Fl – 31 days at the beautiful Buttonwood RV Resort. Spending the entire month of December at this gulf side resort was a real treat for us. Having family living close by, our kids flying in to visit, within walking distance to many seafood restaurants and the beach made this a real memory.
3. Cocoa, Fl – 31 days at Joy RV park for the month of January. While this park has fewer amenities, we used it as a base of operations to tour the space center, take a 7 day Caribbean cruise, and a 3 day trip to Key West.
4. Clermont, Fl – The month of February was at the great Citrus Valley RV Resort. Our pre-pandemic month was highlighted by attending three Disney parks with our good friends Calvin and Suzanne along with many lunches at some nice places.
5. Bowling Green, Fl -Pioneer Creek RV Resort – While we booked the month of March at this south central park, we left early due to the China Virus lock-down. This place has all the activities that I enjoy but due to the virus, was all but closing, so we headed back to Clermont to weather the storm with friends.
6. Clermont, Fl – Back to Citrus Valley RV Resort for the longest stay that we have ever had since becoming full-time RVers. From the last week in March to June 26th, it was almost exactly three months. We entered into this strange world of the virus sheltering in place. For the first two months, we never left the park. Had groceries delivered and enjoyed almost nightly happy hours with Cal and Sue while keeping our social distance. Watched too many news reports, so finally ignored it and read several good books from the park’s library. This was very relaxing in a resort environment, but too much of a good thing.
7. Williston, Fl – Finally, on the road again just 90 miles north to Williston Crossing RV Resort. It is another park near Ocala with a multitude of activities for the winter residents or snowbirds as they are called. We were only able to stay two days due to some schedule changes, but were able to check it out for a possible future winter location. This park is a winter destination and not so much as a place for those traveling through.

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The Route and Stops to Virginia

The route back to our home area in Virginia was a whopping 850 miles and we only had a week to get back for some appointments. While I prefer to travel in our very relaxing slo-mo mode of driving 150 miles and staying for a week, we had to stretch a bit on this route. Driving 850 miles in a week reminds me of vacations back in my working days. Had to go back to work to rest up!

I already listed Williston as one of our stops above in the Florida section. The next stop was our favorite city of Savannah, Ga.

Savannah, Ga

CreekFire RV Resort – We stayed at a new to us resort at CreekFire. Located about 20 minutes from downtown was not bad, but further than Red Gate our usual go-to place. It is a very nice park, but is still in the construction phase and many amenities are not yet open.

After getting set up at our site we went into town to walk the beautiful streets and many of the 22 town squares or little parks. Then, we donned our masks and walked the River District to a restaurant we liked for dinner, The Shrimp Factory. Our second time out since the quarantine. We both love Savannah.

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On our second and last day in town, we had dinner at the 17Hunded90, our favorite restaurant. They have great food and even better service. I felt quite comfortable with their table spacing as they are keeping the max level at 50% of what it used to be. Not sure if they can make money at that level though.

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We did not have time to catch up with some friends in the area since we only had a short stopover. Then it was on to the next stop.

North Myrtle Beach

We really like this area, but honestly the only reason for stopping this time was a planned RV maintenance at our dealer RV Outlet. We had them install a new over counter microwave and raise the truck’s hitch height to provide for a more level ride for the 41 foot Bighorn.

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While waiting for the work to be performed, I chatted with some of the sales guys. Their sales have been at all-time high levels the last two months. Twice the sales as last year. That is great for the RV industry, but not so great for the folks like us. The better RV parks are getting booked up too quick.

Our park was Willow Tree as it is only about 5 miles from the dealer. This is a very nice park, well maintained, and huge sites. Definitely a place to return.

Asheboro, NC

Just for a one night stopover, we selected the ZooLand Family RV Park. Not the best, but just a place to plug in and stay for the night. Never left the park. The sites are quite small and it is mainly small, older trailers and mostly full as it was July 2nd, the beginning of the July 4th holiday weekend. We probably would not return.

While walking around the park, I had a few observations that probably put me in the grumpy old men category. First, there were many clones of Larry the Cable Guy. Maybe a convention of them going on. And most folks obviously have not gotten much exercise during the stay in place order.

Also many small kids running amok and making noise. I guess I may have stayed at the 55 and over place too long. It is nice to see all the families out camping. And lastly, most of the RV’s looked like the rig that cousin Eddy had in Christmas vacation. Oh well.

We took a walk by the large pool and due to NC covid rules, there is a low limit on pool capacity. So, you had to sign up for a 30 minute pool reservation. We opted out of that.

Virginia

It is good to be back home on familiar ground. We plan to stay here for at least two months and maybe longer. The goals are to see family and friends, make meals for Pat’s mom’s freezer, look for a possible house to buy (more on that later on), and finally to wait out the virus and drama that is gripping our country.

The Old Dominion state has changed politically since the last time we lived here. The governor, state senate and house have all leaned into a far left liberal status that does make you wonder about its future. Although in the far southwest part of the state things still seem to be about what this grumpy old and very conservative guy wants.

Take care and God Bless.