Arrived at Silver Dollar Resort

Odessa, Florida

We left Bushnell Saturday, and drove the 60 miles south to Silver Dollar Resort in Odessa Florida.  We arrived early afternoon.  It used to be a campground with a few mobile homes thrown in.  Now there are mostly newer modular homes, and older mobile homes in this park.  There are a few empty lots with rv's in them, but very few.  Years ago this was mostly an rv park with a few mobile homes.  It was your typical snowbird campground.  I remember coming in here 20 years ago and seeing all those snowbirds having such a nice time, and I envied them!    It's not your typical campground, but it serves our needs due to the location.

We arrived a day early so we called first to confirm there wouldn't be a problem.  We spoke to the week-end manager Ken and he said not to worry about paying for Saturday, we'd just start paying on Sunday.  That works for us!   

We're just 10 miles from my Moms house in Tampa, in the city of Odessa.  Odessa is a beautiful outskirt of Tampa with beautiful lakes and large Live oak trees. It was rural with lots of horses and houses with acreage, at least it was until the developers came during the housing boom.  We passed some mega mansions on the way to the rv park.

Silver Dollar Resort is a golf and trap shooting club.  We were told they have more trap shooting contests here than anywhere in the country.  Currently there are no shooting contests going on.

 There is a small separate campground (where we are) right by the driving range.  We are parked there overlooking the driving range.  Hopefully the golf balls will not be coming in our direction.  Our our rear window, we look out at the clubhouse.    There is a snack bar and regular bar there with big tv's all around.

This is a golf community with lots of golf carts running around, even in the evenings.  Most everyone has one in their carport or garage.

We have a nice level concrete pad and are one of only 3 rv's here right now.  It gets busier during shoots and after Christmas.

We woke up Sunday morning and saw 5 deer playing on the golf course.  Once it got a little bit light outside the golfers started coming.  The weather was nice and we only needed a light jacket all day. I think it got up to the mid/upper 60's.

We spent most of the day with my Mom.  Her sister from North Carolina is there and also my cousin.  It was nice to see everyone.

The wind started picking up last night in advance of a cold front.  The high today is only supposed to reach 50 and down to 31 tonight.  We'll be having several days of that until it warms back up Thursday.

I'm up early this morning because it's do windy, the wind noise woke me up.  Once I was awake, I realized it was cold in here so I turned the furnace up.  It didn't kick on.  We wondered if the pilot light blew out due to the strong winds.  We're not exactly sure how the furnace works.  We have never had to light a pilot light, we just turn it on from our Intellitec Electronic Climate Control. I got out the manuals while Al checked the fuse panel.  He found the fuse was not pushed all the way in.  I don't know how it got out, because it was working fine last night.  Anyway that solved the problem and we have heat again.  Thank goodness.  This was not going to be a good day to be without heat.  We have a forced air heater but I won't leave that on while we're sleeping or gone.

Today will be cold and windy, so I don't think we'll be outside much.  It's supposed to be windy most of the day.