Yesterday was a short travel day for us. In fact, one of the shortest we’ve had in a very long time.
We enjoyed our time at The Great Outdoors in Titusville, Florida, and I took a photo of our Winnebago in Peter and Connie Bradish”s lot before I started unhooking our campground utilities in preparation for leaving.
This is a very upscale RV resort, where you can buy your own very nicely groomed lot, and enjoy every amenity you could imagine.
The resort has several small lakes, and I’m told the fishing in them is good, but I never got the opportunity to check that out.
The resort even has its own church! As you can see, most of the homeowners drive their golf carts everywhere, even to church!
We left The Great Outdoors just after 10 a.m., traveled south to the next exit on Interstate 95, and took State Route 407 a short distance until it merged with State Toll Route 528, which took us west around the south side of the Orlando metropolitan area to Interstate 4. We traveled just a mile or two south on Interstate 4, exited onto U.S. Highway 192, then took it west a few miles to U.S. Highway 27, where we turned north a couple of miles to the Orlando Thousand Trails preserve. Peter Bradish had given us the directions, and they were perfect.
Well, the directions Peter gave us were perfect. The directions we got from our GPS were not so perfect. We had entered the address of the Thousand Trails into our GPS, so we wouldn’t miss the turn into it, because somebody had told me that a condominium complex next door hid the sign until you were right on top of it. According to the GPS, we had over a mile to go, when I noticed the Thousand Trails sign, which was indeed hard to see. By then it was too late to make the turn.
U.S. 27 through here is a wide six lane divided highway, with designated left turn lanes. We drove a couple of miles, looking for a place to turn around, but I wasn’t sure that we could make a U-turn with the van in tow. I finally pulled into a left turn lane, and decided it would be too tight to make the U-turn, and the last thing I wanted to do was be jackknifed across three lanes of busy U.S. highway, even on a Sunday morning. There was a divided driveway leading into a housing subdivision on the far side of the road, and I told Terry I was going to pull into the subdivision instead, and we’d unhook the van from the tow bar and get pointed back in the right direction.
It wasn’t until we had pulled into the driveway that we discovered that it was a gated community. So there we were, with a locked gate in front of us, two cars that had pulled in behind us, and no place to turn around. Can you say “oh crap?”
Fortunately, the fellow in the first car gave us the gate code, we punched it in, and the gates swung open. I pulled in, parked along the curb, we unhooked the van, and got the heck out of there. A GPS is a handy tool, but never trust one completely.
We had never stayed at this Thousand Trails before, but I have to say that we’re impressed. The 255 acre campground has 850 full hookup RV sites, a swimming pool, activity center, and a 60 acre spring fed lake. The property also backs up to Lake Hancock, a large lake that is supposed to be home to some massive trophy bass.
We choose a site on a corner at the end of a road, with some trees on one side of us, a pasture behind us, and the sites next to us and across the street are empty. Gee, no neighbors. Maybe I’ll just run around in my BVDs. No, Miss Terry says maybe I won’t.
A sky writer was posting this message for us when we got into our RV site. Isn’t that nice? I love you too.
Even with the unexpected detour caused by the GPS, we drove exactly 70 miles, and I was in the office at the Thousand Trails registering by noon. That’s a short travel day!
Once we were parked and hooked up, we drove down to the campground’s boat launch at Lake Hancock, to check things out. It was windy and chilly, but the weather is supposed to improve by mid-week, and getting out on the water is a priority for us. Our kayaks haven’t been wet in over a year, and we need to correct that.
I bet some whopper bass live in these lily pads!
The lake isn’t home to just big bass. I don’t think I’ll be dangling my toes in the water!
Terry and I walked out on the floating dock, and we heard a loud thumping sound and a big splash of water in this little lagoon. Then several fish jumped. We didn’t see the gator, but we knew he was there.
We’re looking forward to doing some relaxing here, getting some paddling in, and I may just buy me a fishing rod and a license, and see if I can tempt one of those big bass to bite!
Thought For The Day – A bargain is something you can’t use, at a price you can’t resist.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Got you beat!
Our shortest travel day has been 31 miles, from South Savannah KOA in Richmond Hill, GA to Hardeeville RV Park in Hardeeville, SC.
Watch out for the gators.
No kayaks in the water here in the Keys. Winds were north gusting in the 20’s yesterday, with more of the same from the NE today. Enjoy your stay in the Orlando area. Are you going to visit Mickey?
Whoa there Nick…lets think about this….do you really want to take a plastic kayak into a gator filled water way?????
I get a kick out of all the gator fear. There ARE lots of gators, and they do look scarey. Never heard of one bothering a kayaker, though. A great place to paddle and see the gators is Fish Eating Creek. That’s one place we won’t take Odie again! We call him “Gator Bait”
What GPS are you using? Both our Garmin and Droid phones have TT Orlando right on.
Nick,
doesn’t the sign mean that it is ok to swim there because there are “no swimming alligators present”?
If you believe that, would you be interested in buying some waterfront property in Florida….??
Florida must be a very dangerous place to live…………I noticed that you can’t drive 5 miles without seeing a huge billboard put up by a very concerned lawyer asking if you have been injured.
The gators that you need to look out for in Florida are the real estate agents and the lawyers.
Otherwise, Florida is a wonderful place to visit, especially in the winter.
I think we have you all beat for short travel days, our was a total of 13,5 miles. This was recently when we left the Texas W State Winnebago Rally in Conroe TX and when it ended our next destination was in Willis TX. We learned many years ago that in Florida gators can show up any place. Mikes mom lived in a very nice mobile home park on a canal and went to get her mail and found a six foot gator sunning itself on her lawn near the water. We even heard they show up on golf courses I though real estate people no matter what state you are in are related to sharks, not gators.Be careful when you put your Kayaks in the water we do not want you to be gator bait.
Be careful by them gators. What a lot of people don’t realize is that they can move very fast for short distances. So if your within 10 yards of one, he could pounce on you before you knew it.
Recently got a new Garmin GPS and have noticed that although she has a pleasant voice to tell us where to turn, I’m not sure she has a good sense of directions sometimes. We had punched in directions to a Wal-Mart in Clarksburg, West VA. We were on a state highway heading toward Clarksburg when she says “turn left”. I have a pretty decent sense of direction and just had a gut feeling that this GPS gal doesn’t know what she’s talking about. I was right. The road got narrower and curvier and after about a mile I pulled over and knocked on a door to confirm we were doomed. Ended up have to unhook, back the rig, turn around and head back to where we made the ill fated turn. Luckily we did not meet any on coming traffic because there was no way we could have passed each other. Moral…trust your gut.
Howdy Nick,
Your writing is VERY ENJOYABLE!!! Your pic posting ain’t!!! Most of them download fine,
but the ones I want most to see are 10%, 25%, 50%?????? I think you ought to swim there..
They just stick those signs up for the tourist…heehee And you are thinking about an
inflatable kayak!!!!! At least the plastic one will stick in the teeth, before they get to the meat of the subject… Get you an U-gly Stick and a C-6000 series reel.. that’ll work for
anything…even Alli if he bites it…
Hi Nick
Just wanted to tell you that I so enjoy reading your blog. I usually end up reading some part of it to my hubby, Ron. Today when I read about your turn around experience we both chuckled as we have pulled into a gated community before and not realize it till too late. Fortunately, like you we were rescued by the next person in line.
His other comment was “why not?” in regards to running around in your BVD’s? He keeps telling me he is going to but when I tell him go ahead he always chickens out 🙂
Wishing you both a great day and a wonderful time in Florida.