Skidaway Island State Park

Pulled into this state park at 5 pm on June 6. Nice pull through sites with 50 amp electric, water, & cable. We just spent the night but very nice campground. Paid $33 which included a $5 day use charge. I rate this park F***. We went through a lot of wind & rain on our trip from Florida. Our windshield wipers got a good work out. This park is in Georgia.

Deerbrook Creek RV Resort

Arrived here on June 3 for three nights. We had a very challenging trip with torrential rain for about 45 minutes which dropped 3 inches of rain, one inch per 15 minutes. Visability was down to about 20 feet at times and many cars pulled off the road to wait it out. The wind hit us hard while we cruised through an intersection and push our 32000 pound motorhome over about 4 inches. A little scarry but I am getting my fill of weather daily. I sure am glad we decided to reseal the roof in Ft. Myers as we have been getting thundershowers almost every day. This is Florida's rainy season. The campground is more like a trailer park for mini mobile homes and motorhomes. Not much of a camping experience but had full hookups with 50 amp service and a level concrete pad to park the motorhome. There are 2 functioning pools. This is a membership park so it was well worth the $10 nightly fee. I rate the park M***. Spent one day shopping for waterfront lots or houses with no luck. There are hundreds of properties for sale, but still way too expensive. We did find a quality semi custom builder who builds nice quality homes with all the luxuries we have been accustomed to for $90 - $125 per square foot. We are not impressed with Florida, so we will continue our search.

Today, we visited Epcot Center. Really tired from all the walking around and fortunately most attractions were in air conditioned comfort as the temp was around 90 degrees with muggy conditions. Our favorite attraction was a boat ride through an area where they grow their own fruits and vegetables for the park on sand or hanging from trellaces. They obtained 32000 pounds of tomatoes from one tomato tree in a 14 month period. We were contestants in a game show where Aggie had to hand velcro bags over my body. We lost the competition but Aggie got this picture. The highlight of our visit at Disney World was the Meditteranian restaurant we ate at. There was live music and a belly dancer while we enjoyed our meal. I ordered Lamb shank and Aggie ordered chicken. Really great food but a little pricey! Thank goodness for American Express. We also enjoyed the aquarium. Tomarrow we are headed for South Carolina along the coast somewhere.

Curry Hammock State Park

We arrived May 31 for 3 nights on Marathon, Florida. This park is located on the Atlantic side of the Key Islands. Key West is the southernmost Island in the island chain and Marathon is at mile marker 56 which means it is 56 miles from Key West. I believe the total distance of the chain is about 112 miles. I was surprised to see that most islands were connected by land with a few bridges; the longest was about 6 miles long. My expectations were that we would be traveling along a super long bridge between islands. As we drove south, the gulf coast was on our right side and the atlantic coast was on our left side. The water is absolutely beautiful with it's aqua blue green color. It reminded me of the waters of the Carribean. Cuba is only 60 miles away from Key West. We went swimming the first day and the water was 88 degrees - like bath water. We hiked out about 400 yards off shore to get to swimable deep water. The first 300 yards were no deeper than 18 inches. We had the ocean to ourselves since there are only 28 campsites in this campground. Our campsite directly accross from the beach entrance and we had a great view of the water from our motorhome directly out the windshield. We had a level site with full hookups and 50 amp service; very clean, well maintained campground. It was a little pricey though at $38.50 per night, but at least 50% less than all the private campgrounds in the Keys. I rate this park F****.

The following day we drove through some of the housing developments and were unimpressed with the area. We did take the dog to the beach a few miles away and let him go for a romp in the ocean. He went a couple hundred yards off shore, but finally returned to us. I did not want to go swimming after him.

The following day, Buddy was on his own in the motorhome while we took a trip to Key West. We took a glass bottom boat tour to a barrier reef about 6 miles out to sea from Key West. This reef is about 260 miles long and the third largest barrier reef in the world. We observed some beautiful colorful tropical fish and plantlife. We had no luck finding a restaurant with air conditioning and it was 95 degrees. We finally settled for a Cheeseburger restaurant, I ordered a cheeseburger & Aggie ordered a mai mai fish sandwich. Her's was great and I was not impressed with my cheeseburger. Parking was at a premium at $4 per hour so we limited our stay to 4 hours.

South Bay RV Campground

We arrived here on May 27 for 4 days to get through Memorial day week end. This is a really nice county park. Well cared for and all asphalt RV spaces, well spaced, 50 amp electric and full hookups. I rate this park F****. We paid $26.50 per night. Not much happening around this area of Florida. I was able to relax and watch the afternoon to evening thunderstorms come through daily. We took a ride to Ft. Lauderdale yesterday but the beaches there were not dog friendly. There was a festival going on and parking was $25 to $30. We elected to pass on that. The water was a beautiful emerald green color and we took the scenic route on A1A which took us along the coast and some humungus estate homes. One house was recently listed for $75 million and needed $25 million to finish it. It is a good thing the economy is slow and prices are down 50% - 80% in Florida now. I guess we will be happy with our humble abode for now. Just before leaving Ft. Lauderdale we found this great doggie park with a huge fenced dog run and a separate lake for dogs to go swimming. Most lakes we have to keep our distance with Buddy because of the allegators. Buddy was having a ball. I defrosted the fridge yesterday, uugh. Today we went to mass at a really nice church in the next town over and then tried to drive along Okeechobee lake. This is the largest lake in Florida, but it looks more like a swamp to me with a river surrounding it. Tomarrow we are headed for the Keys and are really looking forward to this trip accross this long bridge into the atlantic ocean.

Fort Myers RV Resort

We stayed here 3 nights from May 24 - 26. This was our most expensive stop so far. We repaired our generator $1700. Sprung a leak in our roof which will be resealed tomarrow at Camping World $300 and the cell phone died today so we went to verizon to get another one, which they replaced for free, but sold me on $38 worth of extras. We took Buddy one day to a great State Park where dogs can play in the ocean. He had a ball romping in the gulf with other doggie friends. This park is more a mini mobile home park than campground. I would rate this park M***. We don't know where we will end up for the next 4 days, but after that we are headed for the keys for 3 nights. Went out for Mexican food one night and probably the best mexican food we have ever had.

Old Town Campground

On May 23 we spent on night here in Old Town, Fla. No ammenities here except 30 amp electric & water. We pulled into the park at 3PM and no one was there to let us in. I walkled around the park and one of the full time residents let us in and directed us to a site. There were some homeless people living here in tents with no car or other transportation. The park was next to a ranch with steer and this property had a resident duck & roosters. (something for Buddy to chase). Would not return here and rated the park P**.

Emerald Cove RV Resort

On May 22 we spent on night here in Panama City, Fla. This was the best park we have stayed at so far. It was top rated by Woodall's & Trailor Life camping books. They had a large fenced dog run for Buddy and Buddy also took a swim in one of the lakes on the property. The pool & spa were clean and in working order. A very popular park even though the $77 per night was pretty steep. It irritated me that they wanted $2 extra for cable TV. I could not get satellite reception even though the sky was relatively clear from trees. It must have been the palm tree beside our site. All concrete sites, 50 amp full hookups, and pull throughs so I did not have to disconnect. Well maintained park and no weeds between sites like most parks we have visited. I rate the park P****+. We forgot to take any pictures and we did not even take the time to drive to the local beaches which this area is known for. We were walking around the park and Aggie said she saw a giraffe. I did not see it and it seemed to duck behind the trees. As it turns out this park is next to a zoo. I didn't think giraffe were your tipical Florida resident.