Snowbird Summary - Florida, 2023

For the most part, I love snowbirding. What's not to love about warmer weather, right? Sure, sitting in one place for 3 months when you own a motor home that can travel anywhere you want to go is kinda limiting, but monthly rates also make for lower campground fees, which translates into more things we can upgrade in the RV, or to plan fun things for our grandson Jace's summer vacation.

So looking out the big windshield at the same scene for 3 months has it's challenges and rewards.

Thus far in our retirement, we have been alternating between Florida and Arizona for our winter travel. Both have advantages and disadvantages, but both give us the opportunity to visit family in each location. 2023 brought us back to Florida, and more importantly, Strawberry Fields for RVers campground in Chiefland, FL. We last stayed there in 2021 while trying to keep Jace occupied during much of the COVID shutdowns, and it was a nice, level park with paved pull-thru sites. They've expanded since then with an almost equal number of grassy back-in sites for their longer-term residents. But it's the flat-rate monthly fee which brought us back - $475 per month all year 'round, and you pay your electric cost each month. Translates to less than $600 per month. So even if Chiefland isn't right on the water, or south of Tampa or Orlando, you can't beat that rate.

It's also only a 40-minute drive to Gainesville's very excellent VA hospital and care center, which I seem to need every time I'm in Florida. This year it was to clear up a nasty infection, the details of which we will NOT get into.

Chiefland is far enough away from Tampa or Orlando to require us to either bring Grover with us for the day, or board him at a doggie day care center so that he's not alone for 8 hours or more. Not that he can't handle that amount of isolation, but it's just not fair to him, even if he makes you think the cure was worse than the disease when you pick him up after a play date. At least the staff at his play places get a laugh out of him chewing us out when we pick him up.

When in Florida in January, it's almost a requirement to attend the annual Florida RV Supershow in Tampa. Since we already have our RV, we were there primarily to see what the third-party vendors had to offer, but we DID manage to peek into a few current models just to see what new things RV manufacturers are putting into their units. Nice, but not for us in the long run. We're incredibly happy with our choice of a Tiffin Open Road 36LA for our home. Spent a nice day with our friends Byron and Lynn Hill, and I got a sweet deal saving $60 on a set of four MagneShield tire covers for the RV!

Can't even tell the tires are protected!

And Grover got his first play date. And we got chewed out for it.

I spent the time rediscovering my golf swing after almost 3 years of shoulder rehab, and played my first round of golf in years with my brother-in-law. Not pretty, but not as bad as it could have been. Barbara rediscovered recreational painting. Our camp flag had faded badly in the past year and a half, so Barbara painted us a new camp sign. Came out great!

March in Florida is strawberry season, and Plant City is the place to be for the annual Florida Strawberry Festival. It's held at a local fairground which has rides for kids, a music venue, and lots of vendors serving unhealthy foods. But their fresh strawberry shortcake is to die for! On the way to the fairground, you could see workers in a long line picking the strawberries for the day. The festival also features many vendor booths hawking their wares, some of which are actually useful. We ended up buying a really cool collapsible seat/stepstool from CycloneSeat which we'll use for Jace when he travels with us, but it's already come in handy for me as I work in the wet bay underneath our slide, and for putting up another purchase we made – a 20-foot telescoping flagpole! We also bought a dog tag for Grover in case he gets away from us.

Cyclone seat closed

Cyclone seat fully extended

Cutest dog tag ever!

 

And Grover got his second play date. And we got chewed out for it – again.

But snowbirding is also the time to renew acquaintances and make new friends. The aforementioned Byron and Lynn Hill, who we found out will be in the Niagara Falls area the same time we'll be there during Jace's summer break – so another chance to see them before we meet up with them again in late September. Dan and Jodi, fellow RVers we met and helped out in December of last year. They had never visited Chiefland before, so we had them up for dinner one afternoon. Mike, a next door neighbor, who upon hearing we'd be in Niagara later in the year, gave us some places to visit and eat at in the area. Christine and her long-haired dachshund, Obie, who played with Grover a few times. And finally Bill and Karen Moore, who were staying in the site behind us at Strawberry Fields in their new-to-them Class A motor home while their sticks and bricks home in Chiefland is being renovated. Great people to sit around and talk with while having a glass of wine (or two) at the end of the day. The camaraderie of RVing is everything we had hoped it would be when we first started doing this almost 4 years ago.

So, we saved some money (not as much as we planned on due to my impulse buying), walked a lot and rode bikes to keep somewhat active, met some new friends, rested and recharged for the upcoming 1-week storm known as Typhoon Jace (his Spring Break), and enjoyed a winter free of snow and freezing temperatures – the perfect snowbird experience!