Thursday April 5th 2018

This morning was much cooler than the past few days. The humidity was gone and the temperature was in the low sixties at best. It still warmed up into the eighties by the middle of the day.

I got up as soon as I woke up this morning to start the task of preparing for travel. There wasn’t a real rush. Checkout time at Lake Manatee State Park is 1PM and I only had a couple of hours of travel. Starting early allowed me to take a couple of breaks for breakfast and a second cup of coffee. With the cooler temperatures it wasn’t as important, but if the humidity had persisted the breaks would have been very helpful.

Site 271 at the Tropical Palms RV Resort in Kissimmee FL.

I pulled out of my site around 10:30. After a stop at the dump station to empty the tanks and a second stop at the picnic area to hookup the car, I left the park shortly after 11AM. Traffic for the first part of the trip was good. Once I got to the Tampa area traffic got heavy and slow all the way to the east side of the Lakeland area on Interstate 4. It got bad again as I got into the Kissimmee area. The only bad part of today’s journey is failing to stop for gas. I drove right by the exit I scoped out for stopping. I’ll have to stop somewhere when I leave this stop in eleven days.

I arrived at the Tropical Palms RV Resort in the Kissimmee just before 1:30. Everybody else seemed to arrive at the same time. There was a long line at the registration desk. This is a “resort” that has cottages in addition to RV sites. What “resort” means to me is more expensive, optimal use of the available space (i.e. small tightly packed camp sites), and lots of amenities that I won’t use. Unfortunately, sometimes you need to go where there is available space.

I’ve been here before. The last time was in the fall of 2016. It isn’t a bad resort campground. The park was a lot quieter in October. It is currently full of family style units with kids on spring break. It’s not all nuclear families. There are many family groups that look like grandparents hosting the grand kids. On a walk around the campground this afternoon I had to dodge several golf carts driven by kids. They aren’t necessarily bad drivers, but it’s clearly a joy ride.

This is a small alligator that lives in the campground’s retention pond.