Bay Bayou RV Resort - Tampa

After a fairly trouble-free four hour ride from Yulee, I arrived here at Bay Bayou RV Resort a little after 2:00 p.m. and got settled in by about 2:30 -- slides out and the cats out of hiding.  The drive down 301 took me through some areas of Florida I hadn't seen before -- horse country and rolling hills in the Ocala Downs area.  We ran into a little rain on the way and it was mostly cloudy with temps quickly rising into the 80s as we got closer to Tampa.  Had to stop on the road to get the long pants traded out for shorts and sandals to replace the hiking shoes.

Getting out of Bow and Arrow Campground yesterday morning was more of a tussle than I had hoped for as that troublesome front, left leveler fought me for more than a half hour.  The morning had started out so nice as I leisurely enjoyed the last of my quiche tarts with a cup of OJ (a cup of coffee before that, of course).  Good thing I had that breakfast since I needed all my strength (and a couple short breaks) to get that last leveler up and the rig ready for the road (Jeep on the tow bar too).  Didn't get on the road until a few minutes before 10:00 a.m. after giving three short toots on my air horns.

When I arrived here and got to the registration desk, folks here were enjoying root beer floats in the clubhouse behind me and I was told there would be a Christmas party at 7:00 p.m. last night (didn't make either of those unfortunately).  There's supposed to be an ice cream social this afternoon so, I may make it to that depending on what else I might decide to do during the day.  The RV park is pretty nice for the most part but, the section they put me in is on the west side and doesn't have cable TV and the sites are not as uniform or as nice as the rest of the park -- explains to me why they wouldn't give out site numbers or even the street names for sites that were available when I talked to them on the phone.  This section looks like it had trailer homes parked on the lots and they recently took them out and didn't bother to do the simple task of putting in the cable just below the surface of the sod (yes, there is grass).  The woman in the office seems to think that everyone must travel with antennas for satellite TV and tried to suggest that I put mine out -- how about just getting the cable installed that is advertised on your website folks?

Since I don't have that pricey satellite service and don't really have any soap operas that I need to watch religiously, I will survive as best I can with the local stations (as I have done in the past).  Hopefully, the fishing will be better in the Gulf and most of my time will be spent wading the beautiful waters off Honeymoon Island -- maybe catching some rays too (not Stingrays, I hope).  There are a few fishing piers here in the park and I walked out on the nearest one to me last night before heading to the store -- saw a guy paddling his canoe upstream (Double Branch creek).

Made it back from shopping just before it got dark last night and I had to fumble with the keypad at the security gate -- hit a wrong number and had to backup and start again.  Just need to get home before dark (maybe with some fish today).  Need to check those tide charts, first.