Living Our Dream

Ocala to Wauchula

Wauchula, FL - Events of Friday, September 29 to Friday, October 6, 2017

Since we had several things we wanted to do in the Ocala area, we scheduled a week at Ocala Sun RV Resort when we stopped there on our way south to the SKP Florida Co-op. Some of the things we wanted to do included stopping at a few of the favorite eateries from when we used to spend our winters at Blueberry Hill RV Resort in Bushnell. We could have stayed at Blueberry Hill, but we probably would have had to stay in one of the narrow sites in the front section since the back section where our site used to be is now pretty much all seasonals. More importantly, some of our favorite eateries are actually closer to Ocala Sun than to Blueberry Hill.

The one exception to that last statement is Pancho's Villa located in San Antonio, Florida. However, Pancho's is still a lot closer to Ocala Sun than it is to the co-op in Wauchula, so we headed to Pancho's on Saturday.

Pancho's Villa

We both had what we usually get at Pancho's - chicken chimichangas with queso. We also had two baskets of their warm, crisp, corn chips. Yum!

Margery with her chimichanga

On Sunday, we went to Live Oaks Community Church, which is the church we used to attend when we stayed at Blueberry Hill. Live Oaks has since moved from their old, rented building located south of The Villages to a new building located on the northern side of The Villages so it is definitely closer to Ocala Sun than to Blueberry Hill.

On Monday, we went to Hobby Lobby in Ocala for Margery to get some yarn for some of her crochet projects, and we stopped at Sam's Club to pick up a few items. On our way back to the RV park, we decided to visit Beef O'Brady's for Burger Monday. They have their Build-Your-Own-Burgers for around $5.50 on Mondays (regularly about $8). The burgers were delish!

Beef O'Brady's in Ocala

We ran more errands on Tuesday then headed to OakWood Grill in The Villages for lupper.

OakWood Grill

Oakwood has a full rack of their baby back ribs for $13.95 Sundays through Wednesdays, and we were hungry for their ribs. Margery had cole slaw and mac 'n' cheese for her sides, and Paul had lima beans and corn salad. Everything was a good as ever!

Paul with his rack of ribs

We had a few additional stops to make on Wednesday before driving to Dan's Clam Stand in Crystal River for lupper.

Dan's Clam Stand

We both had their fried clam strip basket with fresh clams ($9.95 for fresh, $8.95 for frozen). The clams were sweet and tender.

Margery with her fried clam strips

We had a couple of other stops to make in the Ocala area on Thursday. We hitched up on Friday morning and made the three-hour drive on the final leg of our journey back to the SKP Florida Co-op.

We had seen some evidence of damage from Hurricane Irma on our way from Georgia to Ocala and also around the Ocala area. The damage was mostly in the form of downed trees and branches and damaged signs and billboards. Occasionally, we would see a building with a blue tarp covering part of the roof indicating roof damage, but those were pretty few and far between.

As we drove farther south on I-75, the downed trees and damaged billboards were a little more frequent, but we still drove for long stretches without seeing any damage. After we got off I-75 and were heading east, we continued to see occasional downed trees and branches along the way. In Zolfo Springs, which is about two miles before the co-op, there are a couple of older campgrounds where there were several trailers and park models that were heavily damaged as well as some furniture piled along the road waiting for cleanup crews to pick up indicating some of the units had been flooded.

When we got to the co-op, we were surprised at how little damage there was. Two papaya trees on one site had been blown over (they are still alive and can probably be propped back up), one of the park's Wi-fi towers is at about a 30º angle, several park models had some of the skirting blown away, and a few are missing some shingles. All in all, the co-op made it through in relatively good condition.

No damage to our site at the co-op

The shed was intact, and inside there was no evidence of water leaks whatsoever. The solar-powered vent fans Paul installed last spring were still running. The only minor problems on our site was a little of the gravel in front of the shed had been displaced by water running off the roof, and the hibiscus we planted last February was at a slight tilt because of the wind. It was an easy matter to rake the gravel back to where it belonged and to stake the hibiscus so it was vertical again.

Speaking of the hibiscus, we were shocked at how much it had grown, and its greater height is the reason it was susceptible to being skewed by the wind. The first of the two photos below shows the hibiscus shortly after we planted it last February, and the second shows it as it is now.

Hibiscus as it looked shortly after we planted it last February

The same hibiscus today

We'll spend the next week or so settling in, shopping for groceries, and puttering around the site getting it back into shape. We'll have another update as soon as we have anything that is newsworthy. It's good to be home.

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Off to Florida

Ocala, FL - Events of Monday, September 25 to Friday, September 29, 2017

We got a fairly early (for us) start on Monday morning on the first leg of our journey back to Florida. It was a 6-hour drive to Fort Chiswell RV Park in Max Meadows, Virginia. Even though it's a little farther than we usually like to drive in one day, Fort Chiswell RV Park is a good place for an overnight stop because it is a nice campground that has full-hookups, it's relatively quiet considering it's minutes from the interstate (it's behind a hill that blocks most of the traffic noise), and almost all the sites are pull-throughs.

The main road in the campground is paved, and the rest of the roads are gravel. Most of the sites are also gravel, but there is one row of about 10 sites where the parking pads are paved. We have gotten one of the paved sites the last few times we were there; but this time we got a site in the row in front of the paved sites. Unfortunately, the electrical hookups in that row are about midway along the length of the site making it a long stretch to the pedestal for our electric cord since our cord attaches at the rear of our rig. As you can see in the next photo, the front bumper of the truck intruded onto the road a little.

Our site at Ft. Chiswell RV Park

View of part of the row of paved sites behind us

In addition to full hookups with 30/50-amp electric, Ft. Chiswell also has free Wi-fi that is pretty fast and reliable, and they have free cable. There are also good Verizon and AT&T signals. We paid just under $35 a night at Ft. Chiswell with our Good Sam discount.

We took our time leaving on Tuesday morning because we had only a three-hour drive to our next stop at Ebenezer Park in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Ebenezer Park is a county park on the banks of Lake Wylie located to north of the city of Rock Hill. We stayed there back in 2008. At that time it was a first-come-first-served campground with no reservations. Although the rules prohibited saving sites, the locals had figured out a way to put empty pup tents on sites to save them for themselves or for friends, and the rangers turned a blind eye to the practice. When we stayed there in 2008, there were very few sites available, and most of those were in the section that is heavily wooded. Fortunately, we eventually found a site that would work for our rooftop satellite dish back then.

All that has changed today. Ebenezer Park is now tied into Reserve America so the locals can no longer skirt the rules by using tents to reserve their sites. We picked our site in advance using Google Maps to help determine our rooftop satellite dish would have a clear view of the southern sky.

Ebenezer Park has one loop with open sites and one loop of heavily shaded sites. The main roads are paved, and the secondary roads, the parking pads, and the patios are somewhat dusty gravel. The sunny sites have grass between them. As far as we can tell, all the sites are full-hookup with 30/50-amp electric, and most of the sites are widely spaced. There is free Wi-fi, but we had trouble connecting to it. Fortunately, there are good Verizon and AT&T signals in the area.

Our site at Ebenezer Park

Our site had a nice view of the lake.

View of Lake Wylie from our site at Ebenezer Park

The campground is at the end of the road, so there is no traffic noise. It was nice and quiet when we were there during the week, but it could be a little zooy on weekends because of the crowds. Depending on wind direction, the park can also be on the flight path for Charlotte Douglass International Airport like it was when we were there. Fortunately for us, the wind was coming out of the south so all we got were inbound flights. Departing flights are a lot noisier. The cost of our site was $32.75 a night.

We usually don't like to drive for two days in a row without taking a break so we planned to stay two nights at Ebenezer. Since we were staying two nights, we unhitched the trailer and went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse in Rock Hill late on Tuesday afternoon. We always like to go to Texas Roadhouse for their early bird specials (8 or 10 different entrées with two sides for $8.99), but this time we had an added incentive because Paul had received an email coupon for a free appetizer for his birthday. For our appetizer, we had Rattlesnake Bites, which are deep-fried cheese bites containing diced jalepeños.

Paul with our appetizer of Rattlesnake Bites

We both had 6-ounce sirloin steaks. Margery had a Caesar salad and a baked potato for her sides, and Paul had a house salad and mashed potatoes. Everything was delish!

When we got back from dinner, we took a walk down to the lake. The lake was created by a dam built across the Catawba River in 1908 to produce hydroelectric power. In 1925, the water level and size of the lake were increased to what it is today.

View of Lake Wylie from the swimming beach at Ebenezer Park

On our way down to the lake we saw a hawk on the ground back near the tree line at the edge of the field adjacent to our site. It looked like the hawk had something trapped in its talons. We couldn't see exactly what it was, but it looked like it might have been a squirrel. On the way back from the lake, the hawk was still standing there, but there was no evidence of the prey so it must have escaped.

Hawk whose prey had gone missing

RVing friends of ours that we met years ago at a campground in Iowa live near Rock Hill. When they heard we were going to be in the area, they invited us to their new home for dinner on Wednesday, which was another reason we stayed at Ebenezer for two nights. We had a delicious dinner and a great visit.

We were hitched up again early on Thursday morning for the 6-hour drive to Ponderosa RV Park in Fort Valley, Georgia. Ponderosa has about 50 RV sites. Most of the sites are sunny, but there are some that have shade, and most of the sites have full hookups. The main roads are paved, the secondary roads are gravel, and the sites are mostly dirt with grass between. There is free Wi-fi that was fairly fast, and there are good Verizon and AT&T signals in the area.

Ponderosa has some sites with 50-amp electric, but there weren't any available so we had to settle for a 30-amp hookup. It was 93º when we arrived, and since we were able only able to run one air conditioner, it was a little warm inside the rig until the sun went down. 

One problem with our site was that it sloped downward toward the front. That wouldn't have been a big problem if we had unhitched, but since it was only a one-night stop, we didn't want to do that so we had to be satisfied with the front of the RV being a little low. The cost of our site was $35.

Our site at Ponderosa RV

View of some of the other sites at Ponderosa

On Friday, we made the 5-hour drive to Ocala Sun RV Resort in Ocala, Florida. Ocala Sun is a winter destination campground so all have full hookups with 30/50-amp electric. There is a mixture of pull-throughs and back-ins. Some sites are fairly widely spaced while others are kind of close. Fortunately, the RV park wasn't very crowded so we had plenty of room with a corner site and empty sites on both sides. Most sites are all grass, but they have recently added paved patios to some of the sites.

Our corner site at Ocala Sun RV Resort

View of the sites across the road

There is free Wi-fi and free cable, but they said they were having problems with both and were trying to get them repaired. Ocala Sun is in the process of adding new sites at the back of the RV park, and the construction may have had something to do with the Wi-fi and cable problems. The construction meant there were  big trucks passing our site during the day and that the road in front of our site was very dusty. There was also some traffic noise from nearby I-75, but we could only hear it inside at night when air conditioner didn't run as much.

Since there were several things we wanted to do in and near Ocala, we made reservations for a week at a cost of $193 (summer rate). We'll tell you about some of our activities in Ocala in our next post.

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