Christmas Golf Cart Parade and Park Pictures

We drove around the RV park today in the golf cart and took a few pictures of the park so you can get a feel for the kind of place it is.  One thing for certain the people in this rv resort are far more friendly than the people at last years park.  Last year if you rented your lot many people didn't want to waste their time to get to know you since you may not return the following year.  This park everyone is very friendly and the question of whether or not you rent or own really isn't a factor.  Maybe it has something to do with this park being larger?  I don't know what it is but it is noticeably different here for some reason than it was at Fort Myers Beach. 

On Friday they had a Christmas golf cart parade where about 50 golf carts were decorated and drove around the park.  Everyone else was just partying in the street watching them drive by. 

The last few times we have taken the dogs for a walk Tanner seems to have had some issues so we decided to buy him a fold up wagon.  Yesterday we went to Orlando to Dick's Sporting Goods and bought a really nice compact wagon for Tanner to ride in when he gets tired.  It seems the heat is what causes him the issues.  Tonight we walked several blocks in the park while it was cool and he probably walked at least halfway.  On a warm day about a block or a block and one half is all he can do before he starts wanting to stop every few feet.  While in Orlando we also stopped at Costco to pick up a couple of other things.  We would have been much better off if we would have went on Monday instead of Saturday due to the traffic but it was still a nice trip.  We were only 30 minutes away from Dick's and one hour away from Costco.  We ran into toll roads which is one of my pet peeves.  We all pay a lot of money in Federal taxes and the federal government returns some of those funds back to the states in the form of highway dollars.  Why so many toll roads.  I know there are probably good reasons but I think if you want to charge tolls then you shouldn't get highway funds from the federal government.  We paid tolls at about eight places for around ten bucks.  I know I am a tight wad when it comes to certain things.

I told you in an earlier post this RV resort has around 1600 individual sites.  It is a gated park with only one entrance into the park with 24 hour security to check you into the park.  These are a combination of rv sites, rv with house sites, and just houses.  Some of the houses still have a large garage door for a motorhome or rv.  I will try and post some pictures of the various places here.  The rv lots without anything on them probably start out in the upper $30k range.  A few years ago these lots sold for the upper $70's but have come down considerably and there are a lot for sale.  If you own a lot you can put it into a rental pool where you get a percentage of all of the rent collected from property in the pool.  Regardless of whether your lot is rented or not you still get a percentage of the rental pool receipts.  The houses probably start in the $200's and go over one million.  A lot of disparity between somebody like us on a $40k lot compared to someone in a $800k house with a $1.5 million Prevost motorhome in the garage (there are several of these).  But regardless it all seems to work. 

There are plenty of things to do here.  You can learn to square dance, make rubber stamps, carve wood, and countless other things.  They have tennis courts, pickle ball courts (half the size of a tennis court played with a paddle.  Kind of a cross between badminton and tennis.), card games, bingo, a library, an 18 hole golf course, a driving range, bocce ball and shuffle board. They have a bar inside the park and two restaurants with very reasonable prices.  They have a church and post office and two swimming pools and a very nice exercise facility.  Everything is included in what you pay for rent except the golf.  You can pay by the round or buy a membership that includes a cart.  Everyone drives separately in their cart even if you are using the new course provided golf carts.  The pro told me they had a very large outing here a couple of weeks ago with 130 golfers and they used 125 golf carts.  Go figure.  Many will use their own cart rather than transfer their clubs to another cart.  I leave our golf cart for Huli and I drive our car to the course and then use their golf cart to play golf.  All of their prices includes the cart which I don't like but that's the way it is.  I think they do it so the course can afford to have the number of carts they have I guess.


Here are some pictures of the golf cart parade and the park. 

 Huli walking down the street in front of our place with her margarita

 A plain rv lot with no building.

 RV lot with a small coach house

 This is one of two swimming pools.  The other pool is a larger Olympic size pool behind the pro shop but this one has a screen enclosure and is open all night.  There are also whirlpools here and at the big pool.

 I have seen several of these on the golf course.  They are pretty mellow.  I teed off around 15 feet from one and he never moved.  Seemed to care less if I was around.  The deer are the same way.  I have been within 20 feet of deer and they don't seem to be afraid.

 RV lot with an awning for your rv and a larger coach house

 Larger awning with a larger house at the back

 RV parking space with a larger house

 Tennis and pickle ball courts

 A look at part of the golf course

 Plantation Manor the largest building for entertainment, bingo etc.

 Shuffle board courts

 Non denominational church

 The bar and restaurant which is attached to the pro shop.

 The golf pro shop.  They have a driving range and an 18 hole course.  The driving range is a lake you hit into.  The golf balls are the kind that float and I experienced and confirmed that you lose around 15-20% of your normal distance due to the balls being the type that float.

 A golf cart sales and rental shop in the park

 The Welcome Center

 The hobby building where they hold classes and have tables for people to work on.

 The post office

 This is a casual breakfast and lunch restaurant.

 They have storage units for people who want to store golf carts etc when they leave for the summer.

This is an RV repair shop that is in the park.

All kind of wildlife here.  This kind creeps me out.  They have small rattle snakes here called pigmy rattle snakes.  Apparently they aren't very long but they are poisonous.  I am not sure what kind of snake this is.

 House with a place to park your motorhome.

 An enclosed rv garage

 House with no rv garage

 Bigger house with an rv garage

 House with rv garage, car garage and golf cart garage. 



I will work on posting the pictures some of you want to see.

I have heard from some that they want to see more pictures of The Great Outdoors RV and Golf Resort that we are staying at.  I told Huli we need to drive the golf cart around the park and take pictures of the buildings and things around the park.  We will plan on doing that in the next couple of days.

The last few days I have been busy golfing and on a Facebook site that is dedicated to Muncie, Indiana history.  I posted a few things and got fairly large responses to the things I have posted.  One has over 300 likes and 120 comments.  I have never had any attention like this to anything I have ever posted.   That post was pertaining to a popular drive in restaurant in Muncie (John's Awful Awful) that people would drive their hot cars to in the 60's and 70's.  The other was about a Hat Shop I used to get my shoes shined at on a regular basis at lunch time.  People say how could you afford to get your shoes shined every day while in high school.  I worked since I was 10 and always had money. My parents grew up in the depression and didn't believe in giving us money.  They say if you want something work for it and get it.  At ten years old I delivered  half of my brothers paper route on Thursday's and Sunday's and also collected for that half of the route each week.  This got me around four bucks per week plus what tips I could steal from him.  That paper route was the Muncie Star and it was delivered in the mornings before we went to school usually at around 4-5:00 am.  The reason I delivered Thursday and Sunday is because the papers were so big my brother couldn't deliver them by himself.  He had 125 customers on his morning route.  On Thursday or Sunday this would equate to five to six paper bags full of papers.   More times than not we would say the Sunday paper was late so we could get out of going to church that week.  When I turned twelve years old to the day I got a Muncie Press paper route that I delivered six days per week after school. (The district manager for the Muncie Press (Earl Mosier) lived on my brothers route who I delivered to and collected from so he held the route for me when I turned 12).  That route had 56 customers and I got paid 10 cents per customer per week ($5.60) plus tips.  I made almost as much in tips as I did from commissions on delivering the paper.  This route was the exact same route that I delivered for my brother in the mornings on Thursday and Sunday.  This meant when I went around and collected for the paper I would collect for both papers.  It sounds odd but many people got both the morning and evening papers on my route.  So I got paid for collecting for something I was already doing.

When I turned 16 I worked in the evening after school sometimes more than one job and they were usually crappy fast food restaurant jobs.  I also worked on lawn mowers on the side which was always something that burned my dads ass since I would drag home old lawn mowers out of people's trash and would work on them and sell them.  I did the lawn mower business until I was around 17-18.  In addition to getting my shoes shined probably four days per week mainly because I loved the two old guys who shined them I would also eat lunch at the best hotel in downtown Muncie a couple of times per week which was called the Roberts Hotel.   This was a linen napkin kind of place.  My parents would give me whatever the lunch cost at the high school cafeteria and bus fare for the city bus since we didn't have school buses. The lunches cost 40 cents per day and a 10 ride city bus pass for the week was $1.50 so I got $3.50 per week.   I usually got a ride or hitch hiked home after school so I didn't spend money on the bus.  I had regulars who would pick me up day after day after school.  I could also get home around one half hour earlier than the city bus by hitch hiking so I could get started on my paper route sooner.  Another advantage of knowing the District Manager of the Muncie Press was that they delivered the papers to my parents driveway so I didn't have to walk blocks away and wait for the papers to arrive.  Other carriers would be sitting at the end of our driveway and wait until the papers arrived.

When Muncie Burris High School would be on a quarterly break like Ball State since it was related to Ball State I would frequently skip school with a friend who was a grade ahead of me and had a car.  We would go over to the Ball State campus and hang out at the Canteen.  No one would question you as to why you weren't in school since the Burris students were all out of school.  Anyhow I have connected with the sister of a long lost good friend of mine that I went to the 1968 Indy 500 with, spent six years of middle school and high school with, and with a person who was in my class at school at high school at Muncie Central who I didn't know.  Sorry for rambling on but this is the kind of stuff me and others have been discussing the last few days that has kept me from taking the pictures of the park.

Golfed two days and was on a team that won first place the first day and third place the second day.   I was the "A" player on both teams so that should tell you something about the golfers here.  My best two friends at the park at this point are French Canadians named Gamlin and Louis.  They have restored my faith in the French Canadians who I thought were all ass holes until meeting these two.   They both speak English fairly well and I usually understand what they say after I ask them to repeat what they say one or two times.

I will get on the pics.  I promise.

A few pictures of our new home in Titusville

Today we washed the motorhome and did a few more things to complete the motorhome set up.  We put up the visor that goes on the end of our awning.  We hung the lights on the awning. Put on the wheel covers. Got some things inside set up so we are now pretty much ready to start enjoying the place.

This park has about 1600 houses, rv sites, or a combination of rv site and house.  Our neighbor has a fifth wheel but he also has a small cabana room and a work shop/storage area a few feet outside his fifth wheel.  The cabana is one large  room about 12' x 15' along with a bathroom with a shower and a closet.  He uses this for his children to stay in when they visit but also this is the main room they live in.  They primarily eat and sleep in the fifth wheel but do most of their living in the cabana room.  Other sites have small houses built next to where they park there motorhomes or rv's.  Other houses have garages with 14' doors where they park their motorhomes. 


After the first of the year there will be over 3000 people here.  That is why there are so many things to do.  Last year the park we were in had about 300 sites so this park is much larger.  Its called The Great Outdoor Resort because of the balance they have between home sites and nature.  They have natural areas separating the rvs.  While we have neighbors on both sides of us we don't have anyone behind us and it is a grown up natural setting.  This is pretty much standard throughout the park.  Our neighbor is Don Payne, a retired fire fighter from Orlando, and the President of the Condo Association.  All of the lots here are privately owned.  Many owners, like the lot we are on, choose not to use the lot but rent it out.  Don has lived on his lot for ten years and has never seen the people who own the lot we are on.  Similar to what we learned at the park we were at last year owning a lot is not something you would want to do to make money due to the taxes and hoa fees that you have to pay as an owner.  People who bought early may have gotten great deals but at today's prices the numbers to buy to rent out don't make sense.  Huli looked at a lot today that had a place to park your rv and a small unfinished cabana house and they wanted $110,000 for it. 

Here are some pictures.

 The visor makes the patio much cozier especially at night.  You can see through it but it does give you more privacy.  Since it was raining the golf cart is under the awning.

 We could have backed up another six to eight feet but we needed to stay forward for satellite reception and so we could use our visor.  The visor needs to be staked down in the front and moving back anymore would have gotten us into the round patio where the table is.  Even being forward on the pad still leaves us plenty of room to park the golf cart and the car.

The item you see under the front of the motorhome is the charger for the golf cart.  When no rain is in the forecast we park the golf cart in front of the motorhome.   Since today it would rain for ten minutes and then it would be sunny and not a cloud in the sky.  This is pretty typical for Florida weather. At night we park the golf cart out front and hook it up to the charger.  We put down the vinyl sides to keep the rain out of it. 

Here are some deer at a site across the street.  They don't seem to concerned about the two men talking close by.

This street is really into Christmas decorating.  Awesome.

 Here you can see a section in the middle of the house that has a roof over the motorhome parking spot.

 

 Here is a house that has a motorhome garage built into it.