I can’t believe another week has come and gone! This past week was a hot one with temperatures soaring into the high 80’s. Everyone around here is telling us that this has been the warmest winter Florida has seen in years, and we are OK with that! To beat the heat, we spent time everyday in the pool. Brytan has really progressed in his swimming this month and is not wearing floaties at all anymore. He’s quite the little swimmer. Sophie has also really taken to the water. Charlie and I took her for a walk down by the springs the other day, and by the time we got to the water she was panting pretty hard. She walked in, took a long drink of the cool water and promptly laid down, in the middle of the spring! It was so funny.
Because of the holidays the campground is much busier than it has been this month. Many locals seem to camp for Christmas, which kind of struck me as odd since at home in Wisconsin we are usually in low temps and snow by now. With the holiday behind us, the snowbirds are pulling in like crazy; every time you turn around another rig is going by to find its new home for the winter months. We have met a ton of people from Michigan, Wisconsin and Canada at this park.
Monday ended up being a really special day for Charlie. She made a really great friend at the pool! Her name is Isabella and her family traveled here from the Dallas area for her older sister’s soccer tournament. She and Charlie hit it off right away and made plans to meet at the park 30 minutes after we left the pool for the day. I sat at the park with my friend Debbie (my new friend) and Isabella’s mom while the girls laughed and played together. We had to pry them apart after an hour with the promise of more pool time the next day. By the end of the day Wednesday, the girls had exchanged numbers and made plans to meet up when we pass through Dallas in a couple months! How exciting. It was so nice to see Charlie in her element with a lovely girl her age.
New Year’s Eve day was spent, again, by the pool and we were all in bed by 10:30. Boring….. but so nice! New Year’s Day we all took a walk around the campground and spent the day being lazy. It was nice to have Scott off of work and hanging with us. Saturday night I played Sequence with Debbie at the clubhouse while a great group of ladies taught Charlie Bunco and some other game called something like “Hand and Foot”. She was really loving them teaching her but I think she was loving the candy they were giving her even more than the games! When we were all getting ready to leave, the security guard came in and told us to be careful biking home because a large male bear had been spotted poking around at the back of the campground! Charlie and I were so excited that we might have a bear sighting that we rushed home and grabbed Scott and Brytan to go investigate. From the safety of the truck we drove around the campground hoping to see the bear, but no such luck. Bummer. After the entire month, I am the only one who got to see the bears! One night on my way home from the grocery store, the Momma and 3 babies ran across the road a little ways in front of me. They were really cute and I was hoping the kids would get a look at them before we moved on to the next campground.
Saturday brought change. We took down most of the Christmas decorations and got ready to move. It has been a great month at Wekiva Falls. Everyone here has been so nice, and we have made lots of friends. Some of them I am sure we will stay in touch with for many years to come. We said goodbye to Debbie, gifted her our Christmas tree and drove away from the falls. We headed due west and landed in Crystal River about 2 hours later. Our new place is at Rock Crusher Canyon RV Resort and it looks really nice. It is a smaller campground so there are fewer amenities. It is a little more out in the sticks, so this month we will focus more on nature than being in the city. We even bought fishing rods! I am so excited for that! Fishing is my favorite! (said with a Buddy the Elf voice) Our site is surrounded by palm trees and is very quiet. I think it is going to be a very nice month.
