Today we drove from Ocala, FL to Valrico, FL. It was a short hour or so drive to our destination park called Rally Park. Oh my goodness, I've never heard of such a place. This place is gigantic. It's like a huge campus. It is so large that they have trams going around every 20-25 minutes.
In addition to the over 400 RV sites, they have an extremely large clubhouse, an oversize swimming pool, a billiard room, a couple very nice looking tennis courts, a couple racketball courts, continuous garbage pick-up until 4:00pm, free newspaper delivered to your RV, free breakfast, free lunch, and MUCH more.
We checked in about 12:30 and the free lunch goes until 1:00. So we decided to head over to "The Cafe" for a quick lunch. We drove instead of waiting for the tram and it was at least a five to ten minute drive. When we got to the building it was supposed to be in we couldn't find it! This was a monsterous builing. When we finally found The Cafe we were shocked to see how large it was. It seated at least 600 people. Along with many other people, we had a very nice lunch.
While we were lost trying to find lunch we found numerous huge rooms where they were giving various RV travel lectures - once again all free. And since they sell almost every brand of RV, they have over 200 sales people right here on site. The cubicles weren't the little moveable walls. They were built in about waist high. From there up another three or four feet was etched glass with scenes of different cities throughout the U.S. We found one of Seattle. It was a beautiful office building.
Also on the campus, in addition to hundreds of brand new RV's for sale, was a very large Camping World with numerous service bays. I think this Camping World isn't really for the "general public" as you have to go through the gate to get in and show your pass. I guess you either need to be staying here or shopping for a new RV here to get in.
We didn't begin to see the entire campus as we were in a hurry to get the dogs out on a hike. Mike and the dogs had done this hike a couple weeks ago without me but Mike liked it so much he wanted to take me.
So we went to the Hillsboro State Park. In Florida they seem to have many state parks but you must pay to get in. But it seems worth it as they keep the parks up very nice and they do have a lot of ammenities - not that we use any of them.
Our timing wasn't really all that good as we got there mid-afternoon which is nap time for a lot of the animals. In addition, it was very overcast so they weren't out sunning themselves.
We saw many signs warning of alligators but they must have all been underwater sleeping as we didn't wee any. However, due to the possiblity of alligators, we did keep the dogs on leash.
Even though we didn't see too much wildlife it was still a very beautiful walk. It was right along a river so we were busy watching for the abundance of wildlife Mike saw the last time he was here.
The river was very calm most of the route. I enjoyed seeing the calm but beautiful river.
We did manage to spot a couple turtles that were sitting on a log waiting for the sun to come out.
We came across a really cool bridge which seemed like the perfect place for a family (minus one) picture.
Here is another bridge we came across on our river trail hike.
We came across some interesting plant life. Here is a very pretty fungus called Beefsteak Polypore
And this log was covered with a variety of beautiful fungi.
Glancing up we noticed a very large wasp nest. Fortunately we didn't see any wasps!
A short while later Wazzu struck her very famous pose.
Yup, you guessed it.
A squirrel. Finally!
We were only two or three minutes from being done with the hike when Sparkie ran ahead and flushed out this beautiful Red Shoulder Hawk.
Good for Sparkie! We'd never have seen it otherwise as it was down in the underbrush. She dove right in and flushed it up after a very beautiful "point."
On the way out of the park we saw probably 20 or 30 turkey vultures in the tree tops. A park ranger stopped to talk with us and said they hang around near the dumpsters and raid them after the people all leave each evening.
Guess they were glad to see the stream of cars leaving the park!
Debbie
1/5/07
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