Few Days in Lakeland

We moved on from MacDill AFB in Tampa about an hour east to Lakeland FL.  In-laws and good friends Marg and Bill are spending the winter here and it was another chance for us to spend time with extended family.

I called a couple of days to confirm our reservations and was glad I did.  From time to time there can be a mix up and such was the case.

 Though we visited Sanlan last week on a day trip from Tampa and made reservations at the Office, they had no record of it.  Our original site near Bill and Marg was not available but we got one a short walk away.
Sometimes it pays 'just to follow up and confirm our reservation'.

We drove over on Tuesday morning.  It was light traffic and a pleasant journey.  Our new spot was fine.  Level, full hook ups and plenty of room with a nice pad for the picnic table.

 I had to knock on a neighbor's door and ask him to move his truck so we could make the turn into the 'alley' for our pull through site.  He was gracious and quickly did so.

Bill was playing golf and we visited with Marg for a while before we to lunch and drove around Lakeland to see what we could see and get a feel for the town.  Nice place.  We came across Frank Lloyd Wright Way which indicated to me that there must be more to that story...something to check out while we are here.

Later, we then had happy hour with Bill and Marg and then dinner together.  Fun hanging out!

The next day, Bill and I played golf at Cleveland Heights in Lakeland for only $26 with the cart included.  We are were a little cool starting out in 49 degree weather.  But the sun came out and it was mid 60's before we finished.

And it was a very nice course.  They have a new superintendent / golf course manager in and he has systematically worked on it and it is in great shape. The day was lots of fun although the golf stunk.  We had way too many three putts, too many errant shots etc etc.   However -- it was a beautiful day, we enjoyed the company and it was a nice day in Florida in January...

We have lots of friends in Florida and got together with two of them yesterday in Celebration FL.  I've known Ed and Candi (Candice) since my college days at ASU.  They live in Winter Park and we were able to get onto their calendar for lunch and some time together.

A few years ago we met in St. Augustine FL and had lunch at Columbia Restaurant.  And we thought we'd try another one of the famous family of restaurants.

I found the history of the Columbia Restaurant fascinating.  I thought it was a Mexican restaurant but its really Cuban.  And the original was established in the Cuban section of Tampa (Ybor District) in the early 1900's.

We spend a couple of hours over lunch then talked some more at a table near the downtown area of Celebration.  It was just a great time hearing about kids and their Christian work in the Orlando area.

We are so glad to be able to do these kinds of things and visit friends.  We love this lifestyle!

On to Tampa

We moved on from Cedar Keys to Tampa and are enjoying Florida.  We feel so fortunate to be able to do this for another winter.  We love the lifestyle and are living the dream...

We got underway about 8:30 AM or 9:00 AM on Monday morning and thoroughly enjoyed the drive.

We purposely avoided the major freeways and headed south along some small towns along Highway 98 and 589.  We got to see some new areas and it was a divided four lane highway.

We had called to the FamCamp at MacDill AFB and expected to be in overflow/dry camping for at least a week and we picked a spot in the open field and got set up.

We had plenty of room from our neighbors and found a level area.  The Winegard Dish/DirecTv dish always takes a long time (35 minutes ish) but it locked on so we were glad about that.
Boondocking causes us to get into a different mindset of conserving water, limited our use of our own toilet and running the generator a couple of times during the day.  Perfectly manageable things and fine with us.  At $10 a day we figured we'd improve on the daily campground fee average.

To our surprise we got a call the next day and were able to move to full hookups.  I guess some civil engineering folks got back from the holiday and decided they could release more sites that had been upgraded throughout the main park to 50 amp.  Fine with us.

We moved over to the spot where we will be for a couple of weeks and got set up there after only one day in overflow.

Shortly after we got settled in the vacant spot next to us filled in.  It's a little tight but not too bad.  Full hook ups is nice and no issues with the neighbors so this is doable.  $20/night is fine.

We got in touch with Bill and Marg who are near Lakeland FL at Sanlan RV Resort for the winter

We took a day trip over to see them and it was an easy hour's drive.  The last time we'd seen Marg and Bill was after Adam and Melissa's wedding in October.  They came down from Petrolia Ontario (across from Detroit MI) for the wedding in Fairfax VA.

It was really great to spend time with them.  We went out to lunch at a local place which was fantastic!

 Plenty of food, good prices and tasty!

Afterwards we went back to the campground and then took a little tour of the expansive trails on the property.  They have a golf cart and their neighbor let us borrow his so were were off!

 We stopped along the way a few times.  If you look closely you can see some residents' bird houses hanging from the branches.

 Beautiful and very peaceful paths.  We saw an alligator along the shore, egrets, blue heron and other birds.

The trails go along a few holes of the golf course and it goes for 3 or 4 miles on the resort property.  Its perfect for a good hike, ride or a bike trip.

We're off to a great start here in the Tampa area and are enjoying the warmer temperatures.

That's all for now on the Roadrunner Chronicles!