Thursday, January 23, 2014

Orlando & Peace River Thousand Trails

The air filter we were waiting on at Alliance Coach didn't come in until later in the afternoon on Tuesday. Since it was so late in the day and since we could stay an additional night in their campground for free, we decided to wait and leave on Wednesday.

We got our 10,000 steps in on Tuesday afternoon by walking across Hwy 44 to the latest "town square" of the Villages, Brownwood Paddock Square.  The Villages has three "town squares" that contain restaurants, shops, theaters, and the center of the square where musicians perform regularly.  Brownwood is still under construction and has several vacant shops to fill up but it probably will not take long considering how popular The Villages is with retirees seeking a new home or a winter home.

On Wednesday morning, we got kind of a lazy start and still had to make up our mind where we were going to go.  Part of what complicated our decision is we wanted to go by Classic Coach (the company who did our renovations last year) for some minor warranty issues and we wanted to go by a commercial tire place to have the front passenger tire looked at because it had an unusual dip over about a 6 inch section of the outer edge of the tire.  Plus, we wanted to use our Zone Pass that we had purchased in December and take advantage of our 30 days of "free camping" at their campgrounds.

Three Flags Thousand Trails (TT) was full in Wildwood so that was out.  Orlando TT further south in Clermont was available only until Friday.  Peace River even further south in Wauchula was available the entire time.  We decided to spend one night at Orlando TT, go to Classic Coach in Lakeland on Thursday morning, and then go to McGee Tire (a commercial tire dealer) also in Lakeland on Thursday afternoon, and then drive south to Peace River TT and stay there until Sunday.

When we arrived at the Orlando TT, there were only 4 sites remaining to choose from.  Based on their recommendations, I chose site #148, a 30 amp site with sewer where the satellite would work.  Orlando TT has some very nice sites with plenty of room between them, but site #148 was not one of them.  The site was very, very close to your neighbor on the utility side, was unlevel, and had a huge tree over it that Chuck had to trim some of the branches off of to keep from scratching the roof and slide-out.  The park is huge with a lot of activities and recreation available.  We think it would probably be a good campground at which to spend several days if you could get a better site.

After getting set up, we headed to Walgreens for presciptions and Nips, to Wal-mart for groceries, and to AutoZone for a digital tire gauge.  Then we headed back home and got caught up on laundry.

On Thursday morning, we left later than we intended.  We had to return the digital tire gauge to Autozone because it was not working consistently on the motorhome tires even though it was rated for pressures up to 150 psi.

Since we were having work done on the motorhome at two of our stops today, we drove separately.  Our first stop was Classic Coach where they took care of a couple of minor warranty items from the renovations they had done for us last year.  After leaving Classic, we drove to McGee Tire to have the front tire looked at.  They recommended rotating and balancing the tires and checking the alignment.  After that work was completed, we drove another 36 miles south to Peace River TT in Wauchula, Florida.

When we arrived at Peace River, I checked into the office and was told we could only get a 30 amp site with no sewer today and then be put on a waiting list for a 50 amp site tomorrow.  Since we were only going to be here for 3 nights, I thought we would probably just stay on the 30 amp site. After driving around in the car, I chose site #C-59 which was at the end of a row because it seemed more level and had more room.





Like Orlando TT, the campground has a lot of activities.  It is also surrounded by the Peace River on which a lot of people kayak.  Just a little cold for that right now...even in Florida.

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