Where are Cheryl and Dennis?: December 2021

Nov. 21, 2021 – We left Fort McAllister on Monday morning and headed to Florida. I would have liked to have stopped and visit St Augustine but being the Thanksgiving week we could not find a place to camp. We ended up at Salt Springs Recreation Area Campground near Salt Springs Florida. This is a very nice national park campground with full hookup and paved roads and sites. It is run by an outside concessionaire and we were told the forest service thinks it too nice. We liked it!

The next day we made the 122 mile trip to Barrington Hills RV Resort. We drove on I-75 for a portion of the trip. The traffic was heavy and we saw an area of stop and go traffic going north but other wise we did not have any issues. After a few days at Barrington we reconnected with some folks we had met the last time we were here. They remembered us and welcomed us back.

Dennis planned a fishing outing with Don and Frank, two old friends at the park. They went to Tarpon Springs and took the Two Georges out to fish for Grunt and Grouper. The cost was $80 and they were out all day. Dennis caught about 30 Grunt and had them cleaned for an extra $10. We ended up with about 60 fillets about the size of perch and since we do not have a lot of freezer space we had to eat most of them right away. We had two huge meals and put the rest in the freezer. So for $90 we had three fish dinners, not too bad and they were delicious. Why are they called Grunts? Because they make a grunting sound when they are out of the water!

Earlier this month we were contacted by our friends Mike and Terri from Washington. They had been touring the Midwest this fall and decided to head further east to visit relatives in Virginia and Florida. We determined we would be fairly close to each other sometime after Thanksgiving and decided to try and meet. They were able to find a site at a RV Park just down the road from us for the weekend of the December 10^th. We visited them at Sundance Lakes RV Resort on Friday night. Had a wonderful visit and took advantage of the Friday night fish fry at their park. The cost was only $5 for a big piece of fish, fries, coleslaw and ice cream. Awesome! Then on Sunday they came to our park to continue our visit and have dinner. They also brought Susie, an older schnauzer that they adopted. She hadn't had a haircut in a while so I showed Mike and Terri how I do a schnauzer cut.

As mentioned earlier posts we are near our friends Cindy and Gary. They recently sold their Wisconsin home and moved permanently to Florida. They live in a condo at a beautiful 55+ golf community. It has been wonderful to reconnect with them. We have gone out to eat with them several times as well as play golf at the golf course in their development. Cindy and I went shopping the day Dennis went fishing. We had a great time and Cindy purchased some items to decorate a wall in their lanai. One of the unique places we went to eat is called the Freezer. It is an old fish house/freezer that's been converted into a restaurant. Its no frills dining as you order from a chalkboard menu which is very limited and all your meals come in a Styrofoam to go container. Everything is alacarte and you order your shrimp by the pound or half pound. I didn't like that you had to snag your own table when someone leaves and it was very noisy. However Dennis and I shared some peel and eat shrimp and it was excellent.

Barrington Hills RV Park has changed from when we were here 5 years ago. It is no longer a 55+ park and there are more younger folks here that have purchased park models. There are also lots of families. We don't have anything against kids and families but it is not the environment we want to spend our winter in. So we have been checking out different RV Resorts and 55+ communities in the area to potentially purchase something here in the future. We have found a few that look interesting. One place is Travelers Rest RV Resort near Dade City. It is a very nice park with a golf course and lots of activities. In order to secure a seasonal lot or purchase a park model you have to purchase a share of stock. Everyone in the park is an owner and has a say in the park. It looked and sounded nice but we decided it was too far away from shopping and other activities. There were a couple of other places that were pretty nice. One I really liked was Windward Village, a 55+ community of manufactured double wide home near Spring Hill.

We only booked one month at Barrington Hills and found out they were full for January. When we visited Mike and Terri at Sundance we thought it looked pretty nice and we were able to get a site for January.

Where we are parked: Salt Springs National Forest Campground – Ocala National Forest – Ocala Florida - 160 sites, All Year, All ages, Tents Only sites: 54, 40 ft max RV length, 23 ft elev, Accepts Big Rigs, 160 full hookups, electric, tables, grill, water, showers, dump, firewood, boat launch - $10/night with senior card.

Where we are parked: Barrington Hills RV Resort – Hudson, Florida - 120 sites, All Year, RVs only, Age Restricted (55+), No tent, 40 ft max RV length, 33 ft. elev, Accepts Big Rigs, 120 full hookups, electric, 30/50 amp, 60 50 amp sites, tables, water, Clubs-1000Trails(TC)-GSC, laundry, internet, pet friendly, pool, Seasonals, - We paid the monthly rate of about $22 a night.