October 2, 2013
Lazydays RV Campground, Seffner, Florida
We spent a week in the Tampa, Florida, area and had an
opportunity to catch up with most of the people we know in the area.
Our travels began with a nice sunny morning in New Smyrna
Beach. We hadn’t deployed fully, so getting ready to hit the road was pretty
straightforward. I even splurged with a trip to the local Mickey D’s for
egg-a-muffins!
We pulled out right on schedule, quickly heading west on
SR-44, this time past I-95 to the I-4 interchange in Deland. (It would have
added over 20 miles to take I-95 north to I-4 back toward Deland.) I-4 is
notionally an East-West road, but it actually runs southeast from Daytona Beach
and then essentially south to and through Orlando before turning west to Tampa.
We followed I-4 all the way to our destination, which is in Seffner, a couple of
miles east of Tampa proper.
We stayed at Lazydays RV Campground, which is part of the
huge Lazydays RV dealership right at I-4 Exit 10. Before the Great Recession,
Lazydays was generally acknowledged as one of the largest dealerships in the
country. They seem to have survived the economy’s downturn and are still going
strong. Within the past few years, they actually expanded into the southwest,
buying a large dealership in Tucson, a couple of hours away from our “winter
home”.
We relaxed a bit on arrival, eating at their on-site Pub
(“Exit 10”) the first evening and walking the pups around the park. We saw a
few more of the interesting lilies and even a pair of cranes (the birds, not
the equipment) wandering around the parking lot. We learned a lot about these
neat birds a couple of years ago when we caravanned through Wisconsin and made
a stop at the International Crane Foundation facility.
Part of our reason for stopping in the Tampa area was to
catch up with friends and family who live in the area. We mostly accomplished
this, although we were disappointed that we could schedule time with my
nephews, Richard and David, and their families about an hour north. We’ll try
again as we head back through in a couple of weeks.
On Saturday, we drove to Brandon to visit with Barbara and
Jim, who were our neighbors when we lived in New Jersey. They have a large
house here and we visited before, when we made a “quick” trip to Florida in
late-2009/early-2010 to inter Mom’s ashes in Port Charlotte. We had a nice catch
up visit with them, their daughter and granddaughter, and their 3 poodles. I
forgot to take pictures.
Lest you think we ate out every night, Geri made a couple of
pizzas on Sunday that tasted fantastic. I’d frozen a couple of dough balls a
couple of weeks before, and we fired up the grill as an oven. We learned a
lesson: that dough recipe doesn’t freeze well (or thaw well, take your pick),
but Geri worked a miracle (as usual).
Monday, we had dinner with my cousin, Pam, who has lived
here for years. We met up at the local Cheesecake Factory, our first visit to
this chain. I kept thinking dessert, but the menu was surprisingly extensive
and diverse. We had a good time catching up and comparing notes on family
history. Once again, I forgot to take pictures.
Tuesday, we ate out again, this time with Bob, a colleague
from the Philadelphia days. He’s CEO of a local benefits firm and has been in
Tampa for a few years now. He asked what type of cuisine we might be interested
in and, being oh so predictable, I suggested steak. I’m pretty sure he knew
that would be the response, and proposed Charley’s Steak House. Great steak,
excellent wine, and awesome company; what more could you ask for? And I even
got our server to snap a picture!
So, we had a busy visit, even if we didn’t take in any
“tourist attractions”. In between, Geri caught up on laundry and I fixed up a
couple of things around the “house”. Tonight, it was back to the “Exit 10” Pub
for a light dinner before doing some of our standard pre-travel preparations.
Tomorrow’s travel is only 125 miles, so we’ll be able to finish up in the
morning and still be on the road by check-out time at 11:00 AM.
As always, please feel free to click on any picture to
enlarge it.
No comments:
Post a Comment