RV and other travels around the World
Orchid Lake RV Resort (OLRVR) is the place that we park the RV for the winter located in the town of New Port Richey, Florida. It is our home base of activities for exploring this part of Florida. In addition, the park has a huge list of activities that are all run by many volunteers. In today’s post, I will do an overview and look at what we do while here.
This is the last part of our quick 3-day bus trip from our RV resort to Key West and then back home again. Two bus loads of happy seniors made this 870 mile round trip excursion. It was some long, tiring days on the buses, but a good time was had by most of the group. In this segment, we stopped in the Everglades for airboat rides and an alligator show…
In my prior post, we loaded a large group of 100 people at our RV park into large buses and took off for a three day trip to the Everglades and Key West. The 463 mile trip was divided over the three days. They were long days on the buses, but we did enjoy the stops and of course Key West.
My birthday was a couple of weeks ago and we booked a three-day trip to Key West to enjoy my day on the Southernmost Island! The day in Key West was great. The long travel days to and from were not the most comfortable. We have been to the keys many times over the years when I was still working. And love the laid back vibe of KW. Did we really want another day in the famous city? It was my birthday, so it seemed like a fun idea. So how did we travel the 435 miles each way?
We had wanted to get back to this historic Cuban section of Tampa since a quick visit about ten years ago. Plus we had the benefit of having some family along with us. A beautiful warm day to have lunch and visit.
We had planned to meet our fellow RVer friends, the Roseberry’s, at a location about midway between our winter locations. They stay near Orlando and we are on the Gulf Coast. The close to halfway point was the town of Brooksville, Florida. And the restaurant was a very popular and quaint place called the Florida Cracker Kitchen.
The town of Homosassa Florida is just over an hour north of our winter location in New Port Richey (NPR). I had heard of this gulf coastal town from another RVer that we met at a couple of different places over the years. I wanted to check out the area plus visit the Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park, a state park wildlife preserve.
We attended this massive show on the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa this year after hearing about it and seeing their ads. It is supposed to be the second largest in the US, next to the one in Hershey, Pa. The purpose was just to look around at the new RVs and see what has changed from when we bought ours in April 2017. What functionality and cosmetic changes have crept in over the last six years?
There is always a plethora of activities here at Orchid Lake RV and in the vicinity of New Port Richey (NPR). One of the occasional activities is a small cruise out of NPR on a 31 person boat. It is run by Captain Anthony Aristides Andrianos, a resident here at our RV park. This cruise was a two hour sunset cruise out into the Gulf and along the coast.
The small town of Dunedin is one of our favorite local places to visit and have lunch. Many sites, many restaurants, and eight breweries in a 36,000 people population city. It is also known for its beaches, pine forests, and ospreys of Honeymoon Island. We also drove south to Parrish, FL to spend a couple of days with Pat’s brothers and wives.