We are up, packed ready to leave by 10:30. We stop in the office to speak with the manager at Bay Bayou RV Resort and talk to her about our plans for the web site. She is very excited giving us a lot of information from her years of resort employment. She’s new here and having previously worked in Michigan. She gives us a multitude of information for campgrounds/RV parks, managers, publications and contact names.
We’re heading east towards Camp Mars in Venus, Florida, in the middle of the state. We drive through Lake Placid, Florida; renamed by legislative act at the urging of Dr. Melvil Dewey, creator of the Dewey Decimal System. He arrived in 1927 and thought the area reminded him of his home in the Adirondack Mountains in New York. This is the last place for supplies before getting to Camp Mars—just 30 minutes away.
We arrive mid afternoon at Camp Mars and are greeted by Koren. We complete our membership applications and Dale (the owner) comes in to greet us as well. Dale escorts us to our campsite driving ahead in his golf cart, warning us of low hanging limbs. We miss a big limb that would have ripped our roof off. Since we made late reservations we’re put beside the swimming pool with water, 30 amp electric and no sewer. It is a nice sunny spot. We’re greeted by our neighbors from Michigan and their dogs.
Set up goes smoothly again and we’re able to relax. We are soon walking the dogs, being greeted by many campers. There are several permanent sites with trailers, 1 with a fire truck and several with nice landscaping. The park has been owned by Dale for 5 years and was previously a religious campground—interesting news. What goes around….
Friday evening is a planned Camouflage Bingo and then Gary’s 50th Birthday Party! We arrive for the Birthday party and there is a drag show just starting. The hostess is the usual talkative, though slender blonde introducing the performers and everyone does a tribute to Gary! There is a bar set up by the stage and the hostess periodically helps herself to a shot. They are average performers except for one who did several sailor numbers and can dance, lip sync and gave an exceptional performance. It is clear that several men have arrived that are younger than the mostly middle aged men we had seen earlier. Watching the crowd and later watching everyone on the dance floor it became apparent that a lot of these are regulars who know each other. Everyone is very friendly. Nobody should ever feel left out at Camp Mars!
The pool was packed Saturday and we sat by a friendly group of “bears”. We enjoyed their conversation and friendly banter. It seemed that many were married men, away from their wives for the weekend. We had met Jim from Port St. Lucie the day before and suddenly, he’s asking to borrow some flour. He was making an apple crisp for the pot luck, would we be going? I said, “I wasn’t sure that I had anything to make.” He said, “I’m making plenty, please be our guests.” We really were made to feel a part of the crowd by some of the people here. This was Uniform Weekend and the party on Saturday night started with a pot luck dinner. We sat with Daniel who is a very cute late 20’s early 30’s professional. He was very intelligent and fun to talk to. Many of the regulars are from the beach towns a couple hours away. Daniel is from Port St. Lucie. Everyone left after dinner and returned later to dance the night away. We returned about 10 and the place was pretty full and everyone was having a good time.
On Sunday, we explored the campground further. There is a portion of the campground that is just for tents removed from the main part of the campground, we wandered through that area to find only one campsite occupied. But we did discover an outdoor “play area”. That should prove interesting for some. Then we drove some of the roads nearby and took some pictures. There is not much in the immediate vicinity of Camp Mars. If you need anything at all, you really have to drive the 30 miles to Lake Placid.
Monday morning we prepared to head to Bluewater Key RV Resort 10 miles from Key West. It turned out to be a tough morning. We were all packed up and driving out of the campground, talking about various things, when all of a sudden, Steve froze…..I wasn’t sure what was going on…he said, we hit something. He looks back to discover the roof of the trailer was being held by a huge tree limb--the one we were warned about on our way into the campground. At this point, we couldn’t back up, so he just drove forward. We pulled up to the dump station and cleared out tanks then pulled forward to inspect the roof. We temporarily repaired it with Tyvek tape and hit the road.
Authors bio is coming up shortly.
