Hey friends and fam! As most of you know, on December 17th, 2023, we embarked on a journey to make our way down to Sneads, Florida for our first try at being camp host. We are hosting at Three Rivers State Park from January until mid-April. We sort of just fell into this opportunity, which is a whole other story! We took some time to think about it and decided to go for it! So off we went into a new adventure.
Our trip down was great with stops in Dallas to see friends and family. We started at Lake Ray Roberts which is one of our favorite parks. There were very few campers there. The weather was good except for one day when we had a lot of rain. I took advantage of the great walking trails and got in some serious miles!
Next was a stop in Eunice Louisiana to see more family. We stayed at Lakeview, another one of our favorite little parks. We spent Christmas with the family and had some amazing food and really good times. It was so fun watching the little ones open their gifts. Time with family is so precious and it was really hard to leave.
Next was a fun little stopover in Gulf Shores Alabama, where we stayed at Gulf State Park. We have stayed here many times and we love it but it is hard to get a reservation for more than a couple of nights because it is a really popular state park. The park has miles of trails for biking and hiking in addition to miles and miles of beautiful gulf beaches.
As usual, our gator sighting at Gulf State Park was on track. Same place we always see gators. This one was fast asleep.
The beach sunsets were amazing but the temps were in the 50s so you had to bundle up. I did see some kids swimming in the surf but wow! Too cold for us :)
The seafood is always great near the gulf and we definitely got our share of fried shrimp while we were there. Doesn't this look yummy??
On New Year's evening, we spent some time hanging out with friends from Colorado who are RVing full-time in Foley Alabama. We had dinner at a yummy Mexican restaurant and then said our goodbyes because on January 1st we were expected at Three River State Park for our camp host position.
When we arrived at Three Rivers State Park, the weather was beautiful. The park is situated on Lake Seminole which makes for a perfect picturesque backdrop. Unfortunately, this state park was heavily damaged by Hurricane Michael in 2017. While the park is very beautiful you can still see the devastating effects of the hurricane - mainly in the trees. Many are badly damaged or destroyed and the forest canopy is gone. However, everywhere you look there is new growth and the park with Mother Nature's help is slowly rebounding. It is incredibly peaceful and quiet. For our first camp host job, this is a great place to cut your teeth. It is small - only 30 sites and very easy to manage. The ranger and all of the staff here really go out of their way to make you feel welcome. The guests coming in are often repeat customers and they are so down-to-earth and very friendly. The wildlife here consists of alligators - which we have not seen yet probably due to cooler weather, fox squirrels which we have not seen either, armadillos which are everywhere, and whitetail deer which we have seen but only the "white butt" running away. They are very skittish!
We had our first work assignments on January 6th. For a couple of weeks, we are in training mode. We work three days on and then we have three days off. There is another couple here that is also hosting so we rotate schedules with them.
Interestingly, we had an early introduction to the inclement weather that can happen in Florida..... At about 6:30 a.m. we were awakened by tornado warnings sounding off on our cell phones. We quickly got dressed, grabbed the doggos, and booked it over to the bathhouse where we proceeded to hang out with about 15 other campers, an assortment of dogs, and one Maine Coon kitty cat. It was a scary morning and we hung out for about 3 hours as the tornado warnings kept coming. Fortunately, we did not get a tornado but an RV park about 25 miles from us was destroyed. As I write this blog we do not know if there are any injuries or fatalities. Hopefully, the campers and residents were able to find a safe place before the storm hit! We are grateful that we are all ok.
For those of you curious......Louie and Lola seem to be adjusting well ...... well, except for Louie when it is stormy. But, that is nothing new. Louie likes hiking with me on the good days and we try to go out daily and do 2 to 3 miles of trails. I think he believes he is on Armadillo patrol! Lola doesn't care about the hiking or the Armadillos but she likes all the petting and attention from the other campers. She gets in some really good naps when Louie and I are out hiking!
I think we are going to like it here...... So far so good! I'll try to post as we get some interesting content! Thanks for tuning in! Take care and much love!!
Glad to "meet" you! We are a few sites down from you at Three Rivers (Feb. 28th). Saw your flag and have enjoyed your pics and blog! We are Clay and Andrea from Baltimore, MD, in our first year of FT RV living. Follow Next Waypoint on FB and Insta!