Drawin’ Closer to Home

Left the Gulf Coast this mornin’ headin’ ever closer to ‘Home Range’. Took FL 20 east, great road, a few small towns, no traffic. Turned south on US 27 after passin’ the Tallahassee area, headed around the ‘Big Bend’ of Florida. Our destination today is Mayo, FL, a Passport park named Suwannee River Rendezvous. Found them listed on Passport America’s website and we’re gonna see what it like. When we reached Perry we were back on FL 20 again , next stop, The Rendezvous.

We arrived to be pleasantly surprised at the beauty here at this park. The grounds are covered with giant Live Oak trees, creatin’ a beautiful canopy, not your typical ‘awnin’ to slide’ commercial park. When we went to the office we were greeted by the owner Susie. She was surprised that we were inquirin’ about Passport in that they had just enrolled with them last week. So we were their first Passport America customers to come thru the door. We talked and talked, Susie’s husband Frank came up and we talked some more. Seems they were in Alaska in 2007 same as us, and we talked some more. Didn’t want to but we broke away from conversatin’ and went to find our site. Not too shabby, $11, full hookup and right on the Suwannee River. They’re regular rates are nothin’ to sneeze at $15 fer water & electric and $17.50 fer full hookup.

Here’s our site

Couldn’t resist this shot of the Suwannee through the trees

The rest of the day was pretty lazy after after the long drive/ We settled in and had some supper watched a little TV, did some internetin’ and read till I drifted off too La La land.

Saturday we awoke had a lazy coffee time and breakfast. Then it was out to explore this nice rustic, wooded park on the Suwannee river. We met some folks camped out in front of us, one couple was from Georgia and the other was from Jacksonville. They been comin’ to this park fer 25 years and said the new owners were takin’ much better care than the previous ones and had made a lot of improvements. Somehow we got on the subject of Passport America and we left them our directory to look over while Linda & I explored further. The park has an eight unit rental in the center under the oak hammock and another four units right on the river along with a couple of single cabins. I guess they get a lot of Scuba divers explorin’ the spring that lies just north of the office cause there were signs about asking to keep your wet scuba gear outside.

This is the eight unit rental

This is the four unit rental that backs right up on the river

Here’s Linda by the spring behind the office

If you look real careful like ya can see a small piece of orange tape at the top of the picture on the second tree from the right, I almost cut it off in the picture. That’s where the river crested this spring at almost 45 feet above flood stage, which is 29 feet. They’re website has more info on the spring & pictures of the flood.

I’ll tell ya I’ve lived here in the sunshine state fer 37 years and we always seemed to have adequate rainfall and lots of water flowin’ in the rivers. The last four years seems like it’s feast or famine when it comes to rain, last year it was dryer than a popcorn fart and you could drive down on some o’ the sandy river bottoms in the northern part o’ the state cause they had ‘NO’ water. We had a big problem with fires and such then this year the Suwannee is 40 feet above normal. Weather pattern sure has changed since them Hurricanes came through in ‘04. I been to Alaska and British Columbia and the Yukon and seen the glaciers, spoke with the locals and read the history regarding the glaciers. I as in WE don’t believe all the hub-bub of ‘Global Warmin’. It’s just a cycle of ole Mother Nature. Them glaciers have been growin’ and shrinkin’ back fer as long as people have been seein’ ‘em. Oh well back on track.

This here’s the Office, Lounge area behind the ‘Springs’

They even have a restaurant that boasts ‘Home Cooked Food, but we didn’t have the opportunity to try it. The lounge area in the office is spacious with many tables, free wi-fi and a big TV. So if you’ve got a hankerin’ fer some time away from the ‘Rat race’ of today’s world and enjoy not bein’ parked on top of your neighbor while drinkin’ in the splendor of ole Mother Nature, then stop by Suwannee River Rendezvous and get ya’ a spot fer a while and recharge your soul while drinkin’ in the beauty around ya’. By all means tell Susie & Frank we said Hi, and we hope to return soon.

We headed back to our site and stopped to pick up our PA directory and of coarse conversate some more with the folks we lent it to. Then it was time we got ourselves movin’ on down the road as this chapter of our wonderful adventure is comin’ closer to an end.

Hope to see ya’ down the road as we’re;

Dancin’ on the Wind.