Mark and Patty RV Adventures: Day at Lake Como & Observations

April 3 Wednesday, 2013

This should be a short post with many pictures. Ok, it is no longer a short post. I always start with just a bit to say and then a brain dump occurs.

Just a little about the area we are in in Florida. This area of Florida is known as the most nudist friendly place in the country. There are many resorts and loads of communities that cater to the nudist environment here. We happen to be in one where we are now in Paradise Pines RV Park. The main resorts here are Caliente 8 miles to our North, Paradise Lakes 2 miles east, and Lake Como which is the oldest (started in 1941) and closest to us. We want to visit all 3 while we are here and maybe more than once.

So, we now have visited 2 of these resorts by adding Lake Como yesterday. Lake Como is just a 10 minute walk from our site. We decided to spend the day at Lake Como and headed off from our site at 11:30 am. We each had small backpacks with a towel, sunscreen, flashlight, and our Kindles. The entrance fee is just $12 each the first time you go and they give you a second day free. Just can’t beat that!

Our plan was to get the free tour and then pay to stay the day. We had lunch in the Bare Buns café with Bloody Marys and a couple of appetizers. The food was good but the service was slow, no big deal though as we entertaining ourselves with another “day trip” couple next to us.

After lunch we went for a hike on the many nature trails around the resort. We were only going to walk a short while but we ended up walking for 1.5 hours! Part of the trail system is a golf trail. We had never seen this before. It is a series of holes that you use to practice your shots. It looked to us that you could use all of your clubs even your driver here. It just wouldn't be game of golf but you could do all of your shots. This is a big resort!

Our Rig is in the middle back. Picture was from the trail at Lake Como.

This is one of the BIG RV lots in Paradise Pines where we are. I took this from the Lake Como Side of the fence which is the only way to get a sense of how big this site is.

Carving at the entrance to the Golf Trail

Driving range part of the Golf Trail. The balls are supplied, just need to retrieve them.

One of the other lakes at Lake Como Resort.

My attempt at an artistic view at Lake Como.

Lots of wood carvings on the trails.

Looks like Smokey and Boo Boo.

Just a bit scarry!

This seems a little bit like Alice in Wonderland with a pill.

After the hike, we went to the heated (85f) pool and vegged for a while. The view from the pool toward the lake in the background was fantastic and the water was perfect to cool off in and relax. We stayed around the pool for about 2 hours and a had couple beers from the bar which was very nice after the long walk.

Next we headed to the Butt Hut Bar for a couple glasses of wine and get to know the locals a bit. When asked, we told the bar crowd that we had just come from the Seminole resort near Fort Lauderdale. Several said that a couple had just come in from there on Monday to move to Lake Como. It turns out that the couple is John and Christiana who we grew to know well while we were at Seminole. It is a small world.

A mom Bass watching over here egg nest.

A rainbow in the lake jets at Lake Como.

By 6:30 we were getting hungry so we went to the restaurant and had dinner. The food again was good but service was slow. And again, we made friends with the people at the tables on each side of us. At one of the tables was a couple who run some of the entertainment at the bar on Friday nights. After hearing that Patty sings they want her to come this Friday night to sing in the bar at their jam session. We will probably do just that this Friday night.

Now on to a couple of observations I made yesterday.

First, I made an observation about retiring in your mid-50s. It seems we are a very small group in this day and age. It also seems that a lot of the early baby boomers we meet, people now in their late 60s and early 70s, retired when we did, also in their 50s. They have already traveled like we are doing now. They have mostly quit traveling now, like 10 years ago, and settled into an RV resort with like minded other baby boomers their age. Most just leave the RV in the resort and travel back to the north as snow birds. Now, a few are looking to move on to a small house somewhere. Since our retired age group is small and that probably won't change until we are in our mid-60s, we will probably not be following that path.

Another observation, a little funny, from yesterday at the bar in Lake Como. A very bubbly woman in her 50s came in to get a drink to go and a shot of Tequila. She told the bar she was leaving tomorrow to go back to Wisconsin. Saying your goodbyes is very normal here right now as the snowbirds are in the process of leaving this month. Someone asked her, when did she arrive at the resort? She replied “last week”! Patty and I looked at each other and were thinking the same thing, we now think in weeks much in the same way we used to do in days. That short of a stay, we may not have known she was ever here! We remember when a vacation of 2 weeks seemed like an eternity to us. We also remember that we often felt like we needed a vacation when we got back from a vacation.

It’s off to the pool to get some sun and make more observations.

Pictures of the Renaissance Festival we attended last Sunday in Tampa.