Catch Up

 

Wesley Chapel, Florida  (high 80, low 61)

When we left the Keys, our plan was to spend 2 nights in Naples,at Collier Seminole State park.  The weather in Florida made us change our mind and extend our stay two additional days.  There was some really ugly weather in central Florida and even a few tornados and we saw no sense traveling or arriving in that.

As it turned out, there was another big storm front in the Naples area and we got some heavy rain for two days.  Of course all that rain gave our site number 116 some nice dirt and mud.  When we finally got outside, we discovered our power pedestal was in a foot of water.

After the 3rd night and the weather still iffy, so we decided to stay one more night.  Unfortunately our site was booked for that last night, so we had to move. 

The good news on that move was that we went to site number 89, which was a real nice long pull through site.  We had wonderful privacy and nice views out our windows.  The site was much drier as well, so less dirt being tracked in.

The bad news, was that it was on a real curvy loop of the campground that we were going to have to navigate when we left.  We also had two palm trees right by the front end that we had to negotiate when we pulled forward and made a sharp left turn.  Karen, the worrier, spent 24 hours worrying if we were going to be able to first get out of the site with the two palm trees in front, and second, negotiate the curvy roads.

Al thought we were going to be fine, but I even got him a little worried.  I can’t help it.  I’m a worrier.  Of course I was already worried about the weather, so it was not a fun few days.

Anyway, we got out of the campsite fine, following “Barney at Lazy Days” method.

The curvy campground road with trees and site markers on each side was another story.  There were obstacles on both side of the curvy road and we didn’t go far enough to the right due to some campsite number signs and, we ended up  stuck between a rock and a hard place.   A palm tree was touching the awning slide topper (no damage)  and we had a site number sign right outside our back bumper.  Uh oh.

Al got out and looked at the situation and went right over and pulled up the offending site marker.  No problem.  He then turned the wheel the opposite way to get away from the palm tree and then maneuvered a bit and got out safely.  (not before removing another site number sign though)   Once we got out, he put the signs back in their places and we were off.

I’m not sure we’ll go back there again.  We had two days of rain, and once that quit the trails were muddy, so we didn’t really get to enjoy any of the park amenities.  There are some nice trails and even a kayak trail, but we didn’t get much exploring in.  We never saw any bear or panther.

There are two separate loops.  The one we were in has a section they call motorhome row, which was where we started at site 116.  It’s fine for a night on the way, but the sites are not private and mostly not level.  There is another loop that had mostly tents.  The ranger never even mentioned those sites.  There were some very nice sites there and the main road was less curvy and probably easier to negotiate than the one we went on.

I took a few pictures mainly for Sherry and David.  Nice, big sites with lots of privacy.

site 17

Site 2

 

Once we finally got out of the campground loop, we had a safe trip back to Tampa and arrived at our site at Quail Run.  Oh, was it nice to be level and on a concrete (no mud) slab.

On the way back to Tampa, my 12 1/2 month old laptop died.  Of course it had a one year warranty. The consensus is a motherboard failure and not worth the cost to repair.

With a little help from our friend Rick, I went laptop shopping yesterday and got another machine.  Unfortunately, I’m having to add all my programs to this one and it appears the Live Writer program I use for my blog isn’t set up like it was.  My new laptop has Windows 8 installed and I can say right now, I a not a fan.  It will be nice for the new touch screen systems, but mine is not a touch screen and I hate hunting for everything I need.  grrrr