Leaving Daytona for Bill Frederick Park at Turkey Lake to recover

February 24th, 2014

We left the speedway about 10am this morning.  A lot of people had already gone, including the party tent in front of us.  A couple of trucks were going around and taking metal etc. out of the trash cans.

We said our goodbyes to Mike & Emily, our neighbors and left.

Heading toward the tunnel to take us out of the infield

Last night this area was full of motorhomes and trailers

We got to Bill Frederick Park an hour later.  It was nice to have a short travel day as we were both really tired after our fun at Daytona.

It is a lovely city park and as we drove in it was like driving into our country estate!!  We didn't even have to get out of the motorhome for registration.  Everything was done at the gatehouse.  The sites are shaded with trees but there are clearings that the sun can shine through.  

We drove into an overflow area to unhook the car and I drove round to see if our site was empty as we were early.  It was, so we got settled in and didn't have to wait, yay!!

Overflow area, with lake in the background

Overflow area

Entrance to campground

It was nice to be able to relax and do nothing.

February 25th - 27th, 2014

We spent these days relaxing and catching up with the laundry.   Bryan got his hair cut ready for the wedding next week and we got our final bits of shopping.  

We booked to stay at this campground for a couple of weeks in April, which was the earliest we could get in as they are booked before then.  Well, we could have booked a day at a time and have to keep moving sites every day or two.  Not our idea of fun, but there are plenty of people here who do it.  Every day we have "musical RV's" as a lot of people move their campers to new sites and new people come into their old site.  I'm guessing that the people coming in must request a specific site but it certainly makes it difficult for the people who want to stay a while.

We asked about reservations for next winter but they are fully booked already, unless you want to play musical rv's, and don't even keep a waiting list.  This is the second park that is already booked for next year!!!

We decided to take a ride to some of the other campgrounds around here.  I really want to find a campground near to Disney next winter so we can people watch there and maybe go on a couple of rides!!  If we find somewhere we will probably get annual passes for when we come back here in a couple of weeks which will cover us for this year and next.  If not, we may end up going somewhere different and it's not worth buying the annual pass.

The first park we stopped at was  Outdoor Resorts of Orlando.  The people were very nice and told us about the park.  There are a lot of amenities, including a par 3 golf course.  I have booked a lot of our campgrounds for the next couple of months the last couple of days and had one week left to book so we decided to ask them if they had any vacancies here.  They had one site, #137, which happens to be on the canal.  So, we will be here from March 23rd for a week.

This park is a little different in that the sites are individually owned and then leased out when you are not there, if you wish.  We drove around and it is very clean and there are a variety of park homes, trailers and RV sites.  The lots are very close to each other but the maintenance of the grounds is all in with the association fees which are about $450/qtr.  You can then lease the lot out while you are not there, the park keeps 25% of the rental fee as they administer the leasing side of it.  It is an interesting concept and in a good location that would probably always be able to lease out.  The closeness of the lots is a bit offputting but as you get older there wouldn't be much to maintain.  We will see what it is like when we stay for the week.  The site we are staying at is for sale and costs $28,444.  There are resale park homes & sites for sale as well, the cheapest is $27,000.  

Here are the properties that are for sale at the moment.

We looked at two other parks but they were further from Disney and not as nice although a little cheaper.  There was one that we couldn't get into as the lots are privately owned and the owners can lease them privately if they wish.  This one looked nice and we will see if we can find out some more about it.

February 28th, 2014

Well, our stay at this park has come to an end but we will be back and will hopefully be more active and able to explore next time.  I took this VIDEO as we were driving out, wish I had thought to do it as soon as we left the campground so you could see how far we had to drive in the park.  It is beautiful.  I did take some pictures though.

As we drove along I4 we saw this electrical pylon made into Mickey Mouse face & ears, by Disneyworld.

We got to Lazydays campground about midday.  We will be here until Tuesday when the RV will go into their repair shop for the week to get some things fixed while we go to San Diego for the wedding of our youngest son.