STS Hop 12
167 miles, almost entirely on I-75.
This would have been a simple, uneventful trip in sunny weather had it not been for the idiot young woman who cut us off north of Tampa and who damn near caused a catastrophic accident. I guess she was missing her exit, so, at 70 mph, she swerved in front of us – less than 40 feet, I would say – and then slammed on her brakes, to avoid the other guy who was going down the off ramp at the same time. Which meant that I also had to slam on my brakes, then swerve into the left lane to avoid creaming her left rear corner. Fortunately, there was no one in that lane (probably because she had just blasted past me there). No accident, but it was as close as we have come to one in all our travels.
I saw her as we blew by – late 20’s. Old enough to know better. She just ignored us. She apparently had no idea how close she had come to dying. Being rear-ended by a 10-ton rig would not have gone well for her.
Sumter Oaks RV Park
Site 41 at Sumter Oaks
Sandhill cranes wandering by
We stayed at Sumter Oaks RV Park for a full week. The plan was to use that week to get our Florida driver’s licenses, register our vehicles and register to vote as newly-minted Florida residents. However, that plan got short-circuited by Jett leaving her glasses in the Yaris, which will be delivered to us in Ft Myers. She failed her vision test without them (no surprise) and because registering the vehicles required both that they be physically in Florida and that we both have licenses, we had to abort our plans. We will complete the process in Ft Myers after the Yaris arrives next week.
I did, however, get all the vehicles – including the RV – fully insured. The now have dual coverage. As the Florida rates are considerably lower than the Massachusetts rates, it will be nice when I can drop the old coverage.
Anyway, I am now a Florida resident and Jett still resides in Massachusetts. I guess we will have to carry on a long-distance relationship for a while.
Sumter Oaks is an “Escapees Rainbow Park” – one of 8 in the US. This means that it is owned and operated by the Escapees RV Club. Which, in turn, means that it is an inexpensive destination for members. Our cost for the entire week: $151. About $22/day.
The park doesn’t have a lot of amenities. It has an indoor pool (which was closed), a basic dog park and a small but inexpensive laundry room (conveniently located just a few steps from our site). But what it has in abundance is camaraderie. The Escapees there were wonderful, just as they were in Livingston TX (aka “the mother ship”) which we visited way back in 2012. Though we were there just a week we feel like we have a bunch of new friends. We learned to play Hand, Knee and Foot which is a variation on canasta but uses a lot more cards – 6 full decks for 4 players. I couldn’t find a link to the rules, which are fairly complex, but we obtained a printed copy for our use. We may experiment with playing this, as a variation on canasta, while we are in Ft Myers.
Puzzled dogs
We also got the new rig weighed. We did well. We were well within limits for each axle and just slightly over the rated weight for the truck. But the weighmaster (yes, that is his official title) said that overall we were fine.
The park has a natural beauty which I found soothing. The park’s back side was bordered by a cypress swamp and there were pastures on either side. It also had a family of sandhill cranes which seemed very comfortable wandering around the park in close proximity to the human residents. They reminded me of the family of turkeys that visited us in Littleton, MA, but were larger and a bit louder. They didn’t like our dogs but our dogs seemed to be only puzzled by them. They didn’t even bark.
One thing the park lacked: TV reception. Even after adding a second booster, we managed to pull in only 2 not-very-interesting channels. We gave up and went without TV for the entire week. We caught up on Perry Mason (season 2) and started on Mad Men (season 1). I thought we were going to miss our daily TV fix more than we actually did.
Bushnell is a town of about 2,000 that is pretty far from any major city. Ocala is about 40 miles north and Orlando is just over 50 miles east. It is large enough to have a Walmart, a CVS and not much else. The best meats were found at a gas station (really!) in the adjacent hamlet of Webster (population 800). It did have a sports bar which I visited on Sunday to watch the Patriots improve to 8-0 while all the other patrons cried in their beer over their mediocre Florida teams.
We also found a local dog groomer and took both dogs there to be bathed. Rusty also got a summer cut – he now looks like his bald brother. The groomer was on a farm which also exuded the serenity that permeates the region. The two horses in the front “yard” made the place a bit different from your average PetSmart.
At the groomer’s
The swamp