Daily life in a RV park

March 2nd-9th, 2018

Stories to tell about places and people who choose to live in a travel trailer.

When you come to a campground, you get a site to park in. We prefer pull-through sites, since we're not that experienced with back-in sites. backing in your RV is complicated for non-experienced people like us. It works against your intuition... you need to turn the stirring wheel to the opposite direction you want to turn your RV to, and then straight back. What you usually do when backing your car works different here. We were lucky to get those pull-through in most cases. I must say, that with time and practice we are improving and dealing with reverses much better.
In the state parks, each site has water and electricity supply. In private parks you get in addition sewer hookups, usually WiFi connection and in some cases cable TV.

There are people like us, that come for a vacation with their RV, usually during vacation times and weekends but most of the people living in an RV, are retirees... there are many that this is their only way of living.
We met some that are hosts in state parks. They park the RV for free in a site designated for a host. It is limited to a 3 months period. In return, they volunteer to do works needed to be done in the park like office work, cleaning the showers and toilets, handyman jobs etc. and above all that, to be an address for other people in the park that might need help or assistance. When you pass a host's site you immediately notice the fact that this is a permanent staying site... there are flowers, lamps, decorations and signs to show you: I am here and I am not moving anywhere in the near future! When time comes to it's end, after 3 months, they pack everything and move to the next state park to do the same.
www.floridastateparks.org/get-involved/volunteer
There are similar volunteer programs in most of the states.

And there are all the other RV Parks.
We came to our last stop in Camelot RV Park, Malabar FL few days ago. It's a family owned business. On the Internet we saw that this place is for adults...😳  When we registered we tried to understand what it means. We were told that no kids are staying here, there are many dogs, the average age is 60-65 and up (I bet it is higher). There are activities that reminded me of the place in Israel where my father (90) lives now - Senior assisted living!
Don't get me wrong! I get the impression that this is a good way to spend your life when retiring, as long as you can still handle it. The activities in this specific place includes zumba, bosse ball (they had a tournament while we stayed there), arts classes, quilt exhibition etc and even diner cooked for every one in the recreation hall. A whole community life! People live here the whole year or part of it and then store their RV for the rest of it. We met someone who came here, to the same place, for the last 12 years! He and his wife come here for 7 months a year and spend the rest of the time at their home somewhere in the north. I'm not sure I would like to stay at the same place year after year after year. I want to move on, to explore, to see new things and to meet new people.

During your stay in an RV park there some routines,
like: You take care of the functioning appliances in the RV like opening the gas valve for cooking, you cook and then you eat, you wash dishes, you spend an evening playing backgammon or cards and yes... you also need to get rid of your sewage.

Laundry day...

Spending a morning in a laundromat near the RV park. This event happens about once in 2 weeks.
This time we had the joy of hearing Elvis singing in one of his first movies. There are many machines, it takes about half an hour to wash and a little bit more to dry. There was a lot of traffic, people came and left all the time!