Kissimmee – Fort Lauderdale FL, Ready for the flight North

Friday, Saturday, Sunday: November 16-18, 2012

We are now in Fort Lauderdale at the Sunshine RV Park.  Not a great place but not bad.  Sunshine is filled with about 99% French speaking Quebecers.  The weather here is absolutely perfect, just like a great spring day.  Temperatures are in the low 60s in the night with high 70s in the daytime.  We are really liking this after the week of “cool” temps since New Orleans.

Not a great thing when the park office is closed when you arrive.  Welcome to South Florida!

Our site at the Sunshine RV Park.

After our last post from Madison FL, we were in Kissimmee FL for just one night.  Not much to report about there as we were not there long.  We did purchase a SunPass (like EZPass) for the Florida Turnpike.  That made it a lot easier to go through the tolls moving instead of having to stop.  The temperatures were starting to get back to Florida type but it was cloudy holding down the temperatures.

We arrived at the Sunshine RV Park in Fort Lauderdale on Saturday around 2:30.  It is a gated RV park with an electronic combination key pad for entrance.  Good thing someone was going back in and told us the combination as the office was closed for the weekend.  For once we had reservations at this park. Most of the time we don’t have a reservation, but being that this is now in-season in South Florida we thought it was a good idea.

We parked at the office where there is a place for people who are checking in after hours to pick up their paper work and to let them know what site they are assigned.  No paper work for us!  There was an emergency number so I called that and got a guy who said to just find a site to park and call back and let him know what the site number is.  OK, so we walked the park and found a spot.   It’s nice that all of the sites here are pull through, however still very tight to pull a 40 foot rig into.

Right after getting set up we decided to go check out the campground we are staying at in Davie Florida when return from up north.  This park is an older park with very few reviews and the couple there are, are 2-3 years old.  We already made a deposit on this place and were just a little apprehensive to say the least without seeing the place. 

We picked this place for 2 reasons.  First is that it is in South Florida where it will mostly stay warm in the winter.  Secondly, it is a clothing optional park which is something we enjoy.  Lastly, the cost is high but not terrible considering the area (South Florida with a pool and a hot tub) and considering we wouldn't need to drive back and forth to Haulover Beach every day which is 23 miles away.

The Seminole RV Resort is 16 miles from where we are in Fort Lauderdale.  We drove over and arrived about 5:00.  The resort is located in, what was not too many years ago, undeveloped land.  Now it is mostly developed into gated upscale communities, although there is still quite a bit of undeveloped land around the park.  The park is also a gated RV resort park.  We pulled up to the key pad as another car was leaving which just happened to be the manager of the park.   Patty had talked to her on the phone a couple of time before so after she asked if we needed help, we introduced ourselves and she let us in to check out the park.

We only spent a few minutes in the park and we liked it.  We drove the whole length of the park which is maybe 1/3 mile long.  The park is small with about 70 RV spaces.  You can tell the park is old but it looks like they have been putting money into it recently.  There is fresh paint and lots of new concrete.  The pool and hot tub were being used which was a good sign.  The park looked to be 75-80% full and with many newer rigs which is also good.  We went to our future site, 41 which is all the way in the back of the park and currently occupied.  We liked the site!  It’s on gravel with a concrete pad just behind the Horseshoes and tennis courts.  We feel the park will be fine for us for the winter and we are now looking forward to staying there.

Sunday we were in the "getting the RV ready for storage mode" and packing for our trip up north.  This meant that we needed to finally take a closer look at all of the winter clothes we have under the bed.  We have a lot of winter clothes that we just couldn't make decisions on when we left NJ in the summer time.  Now we are digging through them in November when it is near 80 outside.  That gave us the ambition to get rid of more clothes for charity.  We have 4 bags at about 15 lbs each for a total of 60 lbs reduction in weight to tow around and more space!

The winter clothes we are donating.

W

Empty fridge

We also washed the truck and put a UV coating on the tires and on the bed cover for sun protection in the storage yard.  While drying it, we were approached by another couple who asked if we were American. They arrived Monday and said they were the only Americans in the park. After chatting for quite some time, they asked us to come back after our trip north so we could get to know each other.

Then we emptied the fridge and turned it off for the first time since we picked it up on August 4 in PA.  We have just a little food left over and we are going to try to give it away at the RV Park where we are storing the rig and will return to stay ourselves for 3 months after our trip north.

We couldn't keep the truck cake till NJ next summer.  So we ate it!  Thanks Leo!

Tomorrow we take the rig 16 miles to Seminole RV park for storage.  We will get a taxi from there to go the 17 miles to the hotel at Fort Lauderdale airport.  Our plane is at 12:45 pm Tuesday afternoon to Buffalo NY.

Stay tuned!