It's 2020!!!! Let's see your Campsites!!!

[DougW]

Our spot at Majestic Oaks in Zephyrhills FL.

[Wandering]

Our home for the next month+
Red Coconut RV Park, Ft Myers Beach.

[cboss]

Another move! Here's our site at Oak Mountain State Park near Hoover, AL. We will be here for a month.

[Suru]

Furnace Creek Campground at Death Valley NP, CA. Nice clean and quiet campground central to all the sites in the park.

[ependydad]

Originally Posted by Suru

Furnace Creek Campground at Death Valley NP, CA. Nice clean and quiet campground central to all the sites in the park.

Oh man, I drove through there when we explored Death Valley a few years back. I wanted to stay there- it seemed nice!

[kenandterry]

Originally Posted by Wandering

Our home for the next month+
Red Coconut RV Park, Ft Myers Beach. Attachment 222754Attachment 222755Attachment 222756Attachment 222757Attachment 222758

We know your exact spot.
Just two words of advice......
WASH (your feet every time you go inside)
SHOPVAC....(the sand gets EVERYWHERE)

[ependydad]

We went back to Thousand Trails Orlando for a couple of weeks. While there, I broke down and we bought Disney Annual Passes again. The wife was jonesing to get back and there are some new neat Star Wars things, though I'm not willing to get up at o-dark-thirty to maybe get on the ride.

Our site was decent and we ended up having 3 or 4 friends fill in near us. My son was in hog heaven being able to walk to his friends' houses.



Mickey signed my son's cast. My wife and son noticed that Mickey did it left-handed which they thought was cool because it was my son's right arm that was broken and he's been going lefty lately.



Cellular internet speeds are pitiful with the park being so full and being right outside of Disney. This was as fast as it got and slower was much more common:

[ependydad]

We left TTO and were supposed to go boondocking at Bennett Field Campground. The fact that it's like 2 miles from a prison and per reviews has a large homeless population, we decided to skip it.

Instead, we hit one of Orange County parks called Moss Park in Orlando, FL. It's fairly near the airport and we had regular flight traffic over our heads. Every time a plane would start to come in, it sounded like something out of a sci-fi movie and I was certain aliens were finally taking me home.

Beautiful setting. Water + electric only but only $23/night.







But, the Internet was weird. Should have been decent speeds but with upload speeds so slow, it was fairly unusable at times.



My son loved being out in nature. He asked that we put out the rear patio each day and he did his school work out there.



Sadly the sandhill cranes are obviously fed. These two walked right up to our rig and were fairly intimidating when I went to shoo them away as we were fixing to head out.



Torklift step's adjustability was good as we were able to land them right on the curb vs. splitting the curb and gravel:



And without sewer and us being there for just 4 nights, I told my wife that we were going without dumping. But it meant that I didn't do any of my daily showers in the rig. The < 50 campsite park had 2 nice bathhouses, though.





Other than the Internet slowness, I'd happily go back.

[ependydad]

After Moss Park, we headed to Daytona to the Sunshine Holiday Dayton RV Park using Trails Collection with our Thousand Trails membership. I called the day before our arrival and asked if we would be near friends (who were our whole reason for going out there). They said we wouldn't be which was OK because neither of us told the park we wanted to be near each other - our fault, not the park's.

But, the friendly lady on the phone asked me what size our rig was and looked at the spot I was assigned. The Trails Collection integration isn't done well and the system automatically picks any available TC site vs. matching your rig size. I keep forgetting but you really need to call the park after making a TC reservation on the TT site. This was a good reminder.

Turns out, we were on a spot that she said was good for 32-35' rigs. And frustrated with the system, she grumbled and found us a new spot. Turns out, we got one of their Elite spots with a fully paved pad.

It was a long pull-thru, but the roads there are so narrow and cars park right on the road parallel to it. She cautioned us as we checked in to go super slow. Turns out, we made it easier on ourselves and asked 2 people to move their cars so I didn't have to worry about my tailswing as much.

It was a nice long campsite. We had enough room to not be right on the road in the rear and could still park the truck in-line with the camper.



Because of the narrow road: getting in, I had to pull through the grass to get lined up into the pull-thru.



We did have to knock and ask this truck to move and there was a small car behind him that we also asked to move. I just didn't want the stress (even with my daughter spotting) of worrying about my tailswing.



It was wonderful being back in the land of fast internets! I uploaded 100+ pictures to Flickr that I had been waiting on.



It was too cold for us, but they had a nice pool and laundry room off of it.



Our site was decent but I pitied our neighbors. Our electrical box and sewer hookups were literally in the middle of their yard, right out side of their door.

[Wandering]

Originally Posted by kenandterry

We know your exact spot.

Just two words of advice......

WASH (your feet every time you go inside)

SHOPVAC....(the sand gets EVERYWHERE)

Yes. Lots of Sand!

[DaGrinch]

Originally Posted by ependydad

After Moss Park, we headed to Daytona to the Sunshine Holiday Dayton RV Park using Trails Collection with our Thousand Trails membership. I called the day before our arrival and asked if we would be near friends (who were our whole reason for going out there). They said we wouldn't be which was OK because neither of us told the park we wanted to be near each other - our fault, not the park's.

But, the friendly lady on the phone asked me what size our rig was and looked at the spot I was assigned. The Trails Collection integration isn't done well and the system automatically picks any available TC site vs. matching your rig size. I keep forgetting but you really need to call the park after making a TC reservation on the TT site. This was a good reminder.

Turns out, we were on a spot that she said was good for 32-35' rigs. And frustrated with the system, she grumbled and found us a new spot. Turns out, we got one of their Elite spots with a fully paved pad.

It was a long pull-thru, but the roads there are so narrow and cars park right on the road parallel to it. She cautioned us as we checked in to go super slow. Turns out, we made it easier on ourselves and asked 2 people to move their cars so I didn't have to worry about my tailswing as much.

It was a nice long campsite. We had enough room to not be right on the road in the rear and could still park the truck in-line with the camper.



Because of the narrow road: getting in, I had to pull through the grass to get lined up into the pull-thru.



We did have to knock and ask this truck to move and there was a small car behind him that we also asked to move. I just didn't want the stress (even with my daughter spotting) of worrying about my tailswing.



It was wonderful being back in the land of fast internets! I uploaded 100+ pictures to Flickr that I had been waiting on.



It was too cold for us, but they had a nice pool and laundry room off of it.



Our site was decent but I pitied our neighbors. Our electrical box and sewer hookups were literally in the middle of their yard, right out side of their door.

Keep up the GREAT posts! Those pictures are worth more than 1000 words. Your thoughts and experiences, paired with the pictures, show those of us who WISH we could be there, the details we want! [emoji106]

[ependydad]

Originally Posted by DaGrinch

Keep up the GREAT posts! Those pictures are worth more than 1000 words. Your thoughts and experiences, paired with the pictures, show those of us who WISH we could be there, the details we want! [emoji106]

Thanks for the kind words!

[cantxsailor]

At 8000ft in the mountains of northern New Mexico with four dogs.
We are building a house in the spring and as we sold the house we used to live in I decided to move up here now.
My wife is staying with our daughter in Houston until she retires in July.
I’ll never be able to retire so I built my workshop first. I’m a gunsmith so I can find work just about anywhere.

The camper stays nice and warm with the furnace and a 20lb propane tank lasts about five days.
The heated mattress is the best.
Propane tanks never go empty during the day and always go empty at 3:35 when it is 17° outside so being able to leap back into bed and find it nice and warm is a treat.

I used 2” styrofoam insulation all the way around the camper to help keep the floor a little warmer. Last winter before I moved here, the dogs water dish froze solid one cold night. Not this year.

We don’t have running water of course but it’s no biggie to haul a six gallon jug. My older daughter lives a few miles away so that’s where I shower.

The only down side of winter here is the daily trip to the outhouse up the hill. Brrrrrrr.
The snow comes and goes.

We have electricity on the property now and the internet. Having the web in the woods is a luxury beyond belief.
It means I have telephone service, there’s no cell service here, and better yet I can watch tv. There is no antenna tv here either.

We have lots of wildlife, deer, elk, coyotes, bobcats, and lots of smaller animals.

So far everything has worked pretty well. The lift motor is frozen solid again but I don’t need to do anything with the roof for now so I’ll deal with it in the spring.

[Funengineer]

Gulf State Park, Gulf Shores Alabama. Site 83.

[Life Without Whine]

Another great music festival camping weekend at the Sertoma Youth Ranch in Brooksville, FL - this time for the 8th annual Celtic Family Jamboree. We actually borrowed a camper 8 yrs ago to go to this festival & see one of our favorite bands and then by May we had bought our first camper after having way too much fun.

Temperature this year ranged from 68 midday to 32 when it was time to get up & turn on our big coffee pot to make a bit of Irish coffee for anyone wanting it. Wonderful dark beers to share, someone selling moonshine as a fundraiser for her nonprofit (the peach sweet tea shine was to die for) and a few potluck dinners with crockpots filled with all kinds of goodness. So glad we purchased a propane firepit - went thru TWO 20 pound propane tanks staying warm this year!
Great music again this year on two different stages including Albannach, Screaming Orphans, Byrnes Brothers, West of Galaway, Trevor Tanner, Bing Futch and many more. Looking forward to next month's Blues Bash at the Ranch (with a few of my fellow FROGs joining us for the first time from this past years Florida event)

[aceinspp]

Shake down with new Phoenix camper at Yonah Mountain cg Helen Georgia this past weekend. Few minor thing that got work out over all all was great. Temp got down to 28 but had my two ceramic heaters going and fire place and all was nice 75 degrees. Back to having to re winterize do to couple more nights coming up in the 20s. Later RJD

[SailorSam20500]

Originally Posted by aceinspp

Shake down with new Phoenix camper at Yonah Mountain cg Helen Georgia this past weekend. Few minor thing that got work out over all all was great. Temp got down to 28 but had my two ceramic heaters going and fire place and all was nice 75 degrees. Back to having to re winterize do to couple more nights coming up in the 20s. Later RJD

I've heard about arriving a couple of days early for a rally, but isn't this a bit extreme???


Nice looking rig.

[ependydad]

We spent about 10 days in a friend's driveway in Osprey, FL. Getting through the gate is a little tricky as it's narrow and the road isn't very large. Fortunately there's a little loop in the road right after and the grass is firm enough on the other side of the road. Usually takes 3-5 wiggles forward/backward to get the tail end of the camper into the gate and then straightened out that I can back into the driveway. This is our second stay here now.



We back up to about where the buildings are. That's right about the length of my power cord, extension, and my friend's extension laying the length of his garage. It's a 50amp plug but has double 30amp breakers behind it.



This is our view out of our dining room window:



And they have a nice pond:



Something changed between this year and last summer when we were there- the cellular speeds are WAY faster!

[ependydad]

Then we went back to Thousand Trails Orlando (TTO). They have 50-100 check-ins per day and a strict noon check-in time. If you get there before noon, they literally send you away. They're also running nearly at 100% occupancy. The good? news is that we aren't noon people and didn't leave the Sarasota area until almost 2pm.

We rolled into TTO at 4:30pm and had to wait for an escort. While waiting, friends drove looking for spots and reported that there was nothing in the 2 areas near them. When the escort got to us, he was jovial but nervously asked how long are we? I said 44' and he sighed. He made a phone call and asked someone if a site was still open. It was.

And we were off headed to the "annuals only" section with fully paved pads in a low traffic area (it's off to the side and most folks forget it is there because it isn't in the path of anything). That's the good.

The bad is that there is some out of control growing landscaping that someone did but wasn't maintained when they left the site. The spot isn't wide enough where our door is. We can't go back too far as we'd all but have the butt of our camper in the neighbor's window.

So we parked all crooked to give us extra room at the steps and are primarily using the rear door into the garage. Yay for having a rig with 2 doors.





Cellular speeds at TTO are abysmal. It's slightly better in this section over here but still not good at all.

And we are far from any friends in the park.

[Suru]

Monument Valley KOA in southeastern Utah. It was a good central location to see all the sites and a great place for night skies. It was the first time in 40 years of camping that we have ever stayed at a KOA. Since it's winter with nighttime lows in the teens it wasn't crowded at all and I really appreciated the electricity to run our little space heater. One day we were the only people in the campground!