Ken's New Weblog

Karl and I have been camping at the Grove Ridge Estates on US Hwy 98, Dade City, FL.

Here is the 5th Wheel all set up and looking good.

Here is a picture of the couple parked next to us.  They are from New York state.  They have been RVing for ever and even owned a campground in NY state for over 20 years.  Neat couple.

This campground is so clean it almost squeaks which is definitely different from the other campground I stayed at earlier.  It has paved streets and you park on Florida grass.  No dust, no flies, etc.  We like it so much that we made reservations for next year (5 months starting Dec 1, 2007 thru Apr 30, 2008)

I would recommend  this campground to any and all.  And by the way, if you are from Michigan (which I am), probably 60% of the people here are from there so it is kind of like old home week.

Well I finally got to Silver Springs, FL to visit the theme park.  It quite different than Disneyworld, etc as it is a natural park.  It has glass bottom boats that take you out on the Silver Spring River.  This river pumps over 600+ million gallons of 99% clear water.  This park and river has been home to many famous movies, to mention a few:  Tarzan (Johnny Weismuller), Creature from the Black Lagoon, various Lloyd Bridges movies, and Ester Williams to name a few.  A side anecdote:  Lloyd Bridges was terrified of snakes and alligators.  Thus most of the scenes with Lloyd in the water were filmed using a stunt double (a 17 year old man who lives in Silver Springs today)

And here are the glass bottom boats.

They have three boat rides, all of which are worth riding.  They have alligator ponds.

Birds and other animals as well as a bear enclosure.

I was really impressed with this old tree.

By the way,  you can see fish and other wild life through the bottom of the glass bottom boats.

I recommend you visit if you are in the area.

 A new trailer came into the campground with several nice people.  One is George from Ontario and Ray from PA.  Really great guys.  They and Mike & Justin, Karl and me went to Papa Joe's Italian Restaurant for dinner.  Had a great time.  Here is George and Ray.

Justin and Mike.

And of course Karl and me.

If you happen to be near Dade City, FL or Brooksville, FL, I highly recommend you visit Papa Joe's.  Great food.

This post is about 2 new friends we made last weekend.  They were in a site behind us.  They purchased a popup camper one hour before arriving at the campground.  The previous owner showed them how to take it down, but  not how to put it up.  Thus starts our story. 

I was sitting on our patio cooking dinner when Debby and Kim pulled in with their popup  trailer pulled by a nice Ford Explorer truck.  They backed it in without a whole lot of hassle, but it did take Kim some time to get it backed in.  They unhooked from the truck, extended the stabilizers/jacks without difficulty.  Then the fun began.  Kim was trying  to raise the popup, but couldn't figure how.   I went over and started to crank the top up, but Kim yelled to stop as they had been told not to get the cable too tight.  I kept trying over and over, but Kim kept telling me to stop.  About that time Mike from the campground came along and started to crank it up.  Kim said to stop, but Mike did not stop, but coninued to crank - and behold the top started to rise up.  After a ton of ribbing Kim, we all got the trailer set up and they stayed for the weekend.  We had a great time. 

They purchased some wood from the campground to have a fire, but it was wet wood (those  of us  who  had been here for a while, knew it would be).  I again came to their rescue by taking some dry wood over to them.  They then got their fire going.   Funny.

On sunday, I ran into  them  at the pool bar and they insisted on buying me a beer.  We talked for quite a while and had a great time.

Here is a picture of the popup not erected.

Here it is partly erected.

And here is the trailer ready for departure with Debby on the left and Kim on the right.

Enjoyed it and hope to camp with you another time.

Ray, a friend from Flint, MI visited for 5 days.  We had a good time while he was here. One of the places we visited was Bush Gardens, Tampa, FL.  Here is a picture of Ray standing by the BIG allegators.

We took the train around the Serengheti Plain and enjoyed it very much.  We saw all sorts of animals.

We departed the train and had lunch at the Smokehouse Cafe.  The food was not very good and was quite expensive.

We then went down to see the birds.  We really enjoyed this as Ray has a parrot as I do also.

After that we took the Skytram over the  park.  You can see everything from up there.

We did not ride any of the rides as we were too busy visiting the various animal/bird exhibits.