Winter Haven is not the most exciting place to stay. There really isn't much to do except water sports and it's been too cold and rainy to do anything like that.
That's not a black and white picture either. The trees have all lost their leaves and the Spanish Moss is more gray than green.
This park reflects Winter Haven. It is not an exciting park and will never be a destination kind of place. It is more of a place to just wait. Most of the people here are staying here for jobs. It's a shame because the park is right on the lake and has 3 docks. It could be a better place, but the location drags it down. Maybe there is more to do in the summer time. We won't be coming back here unless we have to kill more time during the Florida Shuffle.
Last week, we got tired of sitting around doing nothing while waiting for the weather to clear up so we decided to go on a road trip. This place did not live up to it's descriptions or reviews so we thought we should check out our next stop, just in case. We got in the truck and drove to Lake Okeechobee,
It's a good thing we did. The place we had reservations for was a dump. There was a trailer in the middle of being torn apart. 2 walls were missing except for the studs. The site they gave us would have been really hard to get in to and the view would have been of broken down trailers. There were some decent sites in the very back on the water, but we weren't assigned there. I cancelled our reservation the next morning. That left us with no reservation for Jan. 20 to Feb. 3. Since we were already there, we drove through a couple of RV parks. One was a real fancy gated park. We tailgated a golf cart into the park and drove around. It was a pretty park, very well maintained and it had lots of room to maneuver the trailer. The problem was that the minimum price was $100 per night for a basic site and $130 a night for a premium site.
We finally settled on the local KOA park. According to the brochure, it is the largest KOA in the country and has a golf course. More on that park when we get there.
I found a town to add to the 2021 best name list. It is Yeehaw Junction, FL.
The weather finally got above 70º on Monday. This seemed to be a good time to go for a nature walk. Brie wasn't allowed so she stayed home. We went to the Circle B Bar Reserve Nature Center. It had several trails and we took the Alligator Alley trip. Go to the Florida Pictures page for all the pictures. There is one picture there of a bird called the Anhinga. I only put one picture on the web page, but they were on every tree on the water's edge. They dive in the water for fish and when they get back out, they go to a tree and sit there with wings fanned out to dry. I don't have a picture of the armadillo. I couldn't get a good shot. We have been looking for one since we hit Texas and this was the first one we've seen. There were millions of birds of all different kinds. The crows were the most numerous and the most noisy. You could hear them all over the reserve.
We did see three alligators. The first 2 were babies and probably only about 2 feet long. The other was bigger, about 6 feet long.
Today will be an exciting day of going to the store and getting the trailer ready for another trip. Tomorrow, we head for the Lake Okeechobee KOA.
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