The family that snowbirds together..... stays warmer than you!

Home to Flamingo Lake RV Resort

 

Wednesday December 14 2022

We departed Myrtle Beach at our normal 9 AM-ish and traveled on secondary roads through South Carolina and most of Georgia. We entered I-95 for the first time near Brunswick Georgia and traveled on it to Jacksonville Florida. After the days drive of a little over 300 miles we spent our first night in Flamingo Lake RV Resort. (A Sun Resorts property) 

Nice place but too rich for my wallet.

Cost was a wopping $80 for one night, that’s what happens sometimes when you have no plan and look for an overnight spot when the sun is low on the horizon. Nice place though. On the plus side it was a paved level pull through site and we were able to leave the truck hooked to the RV. Day one ended with a peek of sunlight, which was nice after a day of driving in overcast dreary weather. Temperature was 70 degrees at sundown.

Sabastion Inlet, one of my favorites in Florida.

Thursday December 15 2023

We got underway on Thursday morning at nine AM, our usual departure time. It was raining when we left Flamingo Lake and it would continue to rain the whole day. We circled the west side of Jacksonville on I-295 narrowly missing a traffic backup due to an overturned truck. It happened a few seconds before we got there, but there were already a group of men who were assisting the driver so we went on by. We were looking forward to escaping the break neck speeds of the interstate when we exited onto Highway 17, but this road was busy too. After about ten miles the surroundings became rural and the traffic thinned. We enjoyed a relaxed country drive all the way to Deland before turning east to the Daytona Beach area. 

Sabastion Inlet State Park campground.

We traveled south along the ocean on A1A and arrived at Sebastian Inlet State Park at 4:30pm, it was raining buckets and we were only here overnight so we did a minimal hookup. Our site was close to level so we left the truck connected and just hooked up water and electric lines. Didn’t record the temperature, but the air was cool and it rained into the night. We traveled a bit over 200 miles today.

Our site at Sabastion Inlet.

We started watching the final (6th) season of Better Call Saul on DVD, we are only watching one episode a night. We watched the first five seasons on Netflix and didn’t want to wait for the 6th season to be on Netflix next year, so we bought it on DVD. We filled in evening with a couple episodes of Arrested Development, the wacky comedy series from the early 2000’s.

Sabastion Inlet (view from the north)

Friday December 16, 2022

As the day dawned we were pleased to see the sun, the air was still cool but not bad, not bad at all. We delayed departure and walked around the campground before embarking on our short driving day of about 125 miles. 

Sabastion Inlet to Easterlin County Park

We drove the first half of the day on A1A down the coast. We passed many obviously rich homes and coastal communities; there are not many working class people out here on the barrier island. After Titusville the traffic got increasingly congested and by the time we got to Stuart we decided we might as well be on I-95 if we have to be amongst all these road warriors. We continued the journey on the interstate, traffic was heavy but moving. We had one short backup so everyone could rubber neck a minor accident. Leaving the interstate near Fort Lauderdale the passage began to look familiar as we neared our destination for the next week. We had stayed at Easterlin County Park several years ago when we stopped to visit an old friend in nearby Davie Florida.

Easterlin Park, an urban wilderness.

We arrived at Easterlin County Park at 3pm, the earliest time we could check in. I had read that it was rigidly enforced so we timed ourselves to get here at 3 pm.. It seems that an awful lot of campgrounds are along a busy highway or a railroad track. Well Easterlin is the trifecta of noisemakers; it is bordered by an interstate and a railroad track, plus is in the flight path of an airport! It’s all good, after a couple hours you hardly notice the noise. 

Our site at Easterlin

When Millie and RaeAnne decided in October to meet in Florida in December, I started searching for a camp site, not the easiest thing to acquire this late in the game. Every Rv’er wants to be in Florida during the winter. The target was to be in the Fort Lauderdale area the week before Christmas, two weeks earlier than our previous plan. I checked repeatedly for an opening in the area and after my third call to Easterlin, they had a cancellation. It was only because of the RV’s relatively short length of 24 feet that it was not snapped up by someone else before me.

The lake at Easterlin.

At the same time I was campground hunting, RaeAnne was searching for an AirBnB house, probably facing the same challenges as me. Knowing how congested the roads are in the heavily urban southeast it would be a real craps shoot if we booked lodgings close to one another. Well, seven come eleven we were a mile apart. We could have walked between our places, but nobody did that.

One of the campground roads.

I was able to reserve the site from the 16th to the 23rd, not perfect but the best I could do. The New Mexico Contingent will not be here until tomorrow night, but that gives us time to pick up a grocery order for them and put it in the AirBnB house they have rented. We will leave the day before them but that’s ok too, as they will be busy on their departure day.

The park has a very popular disk golf course.

Our site is paved with full hookups, water, electric and sewer. It’s in the rear of the campground with no campers behind us. It’s very quiet at night, except for the din of road noise from I-95 and the occasional airplane on its way to or from Fort Lauderdale airport. The commuter trains seemed to stop running in the evening. 

Beautiful palm trees

We set up the outside cooking area and made Chicken and grilled veggies for dinner. We ended our outdoor activities at dust after a walk around the block. I was surprised we were not attacked by mosquitoes, that was very strange. 

Under construction bathhouse, six months behind schedule.

I will end by speaking nicely about our location. Yes, we are in a city surrounded by cars, trains and planes, probably some boats nearby too, but the campground is nestled in a 46 acre mostly wooded county park, they call it an urban wilderness area. So, while we can hear the outside world, visually we could be in a remote forest somewhere. It’s a nice place, about the nicest place you could be in an RV in a city anywhere.