Bye Bye Peace River, Hello Sarasota!

We spent three days at Peace River, and although it was FREE with our Thousand Trails park membership, it just was a little too old, a little too dated, and the sites were in very poor condition. It reminded me of staying at an old campground in Rhinelander, WI many years ago which was a nice memory, not a bad one. It's just that Wauchula is a very depressed area, and there's very little to do there...We will say that there is a very good little restaurant there called Billy's. It looks like a little ramshackle old building painted blue and it's very small inside. They have EXCELLENT home cooked food and good steaks but don't get the catfish!

The sidewalk outside the park for biking and walking led into a very poor part of town, and it's not pretty at all. Sparky still managed to get some exercise riding her bike so that was good. We were ready to leave and head to Sarasota, our next destination. But first, we needed to wait for Eldy's son, Brian and his family to arrive from Indiana and follow us to our next park destination. They had to wait several hours to get into their vacation rental in Sarasota, so they stayed with us for awhile this afternoon. They had driven almost all night from northern Indiana to Georgia, and couldn't find a motel room. There were no vacancies all the way so they ended up in Ocala having to spend the night in the rest stop which was jammed with travelers who also could not find motel accomodations. They were pooped! But the kids still had plenty of energy, as they slept better than their parents!

It's always fun to be around kids when you haven't seen any for a long time...Sparky got into teacher mode right away..."Hey, guys, let's go for a nature walk and see if we can see any alligators or snakes!" Unfortunately, Papa, a.k.a. Eldy or Eldo, happened to mention that there were several poisonous snakes in the area and if you got bit by one, you could die. This was true, but YOU DON'T SAY THAT TO A SEVEN YEAR OLD without significant repercussions. It's surprising that Trevor, the 7 year old, even consented to going on a hike after that revelation! Here we are, ready to go "hiking" with the necessary essentials--everybody's got their cell phones!

"Snake Boy"

Cate, his sister, and her friend, had no fears about going on the hike, but for the next half hour, Trevor was all over the snake issue..."Jeannie, if we see a snake, is it going to bite me?"  "Do they crawl up your leg and then bite you?"   "Cate, you're gonna die today."  "I'm gonna walk between the girls and they'll protect me."  I kept reassuring Trevor that snakes are afraid of him, that the vibrations from their feet would more than likely cause a snake to slither away, and to just keep their eyes peeled for them in case they might be sunning themselves on the path. We went looking for the alligator that I saw the other day, but no "Stumpy"--the three legged alligator that's supposed to be living along the banks of the Peace River in the park section. After awhile, Trevor says, with gaining confidence, "I don't care about the alligators, I'm just here for the snakes!"  !!!!!!!!  Atta boy, Trevor!

After our nature hike, we headed back to the rig to pack up and head for Sarasota, about an hour's drive. We have reservations at Sun 'n' Fun RV resort while the grandkids are visiting. Wait till you see this resort! We'll show you tomorrow!