Wow the last few days have kept us pretty busy… First we left last Thursday to head north in our CRV to attend the Tampa RV Show. We had heard a lot of good things about this show and decided that we should finally visit it. We only had to drive 100 miles of the 150 miles to Tampa since we were invited by our RV’ing friends from Illinois to spend the night with them in Bradenton. The plan was to have a nice visit and then attend the show together. We showed up around 3:00 pm and were greeted by Mike and BJ.
Shortly thereafter the first bottle of wine was opened as another couple we know from Illinois, Steve and Diane, joined us. Steve is the fellow who flew us in his airplane when we visited Illinois this summer so it was great seeing the two of them as well. More wine was opened after other friends also joined the reunion. Pam and Vic, whose blog is Travelin’ in the BigEZ, made the evening complete and what a feast we had thanks to everyone who brought goodies to compliment dinner made by Mike and BJ.… We had such a wonderful time catching up with our friends that the time flew by and I can’t believe I didn’t even take a picture of the event!
The next morning we all met for breakfast and then headed to Tampa. After paying the parking fee we purchased our tickets and entered the first of two buildings packed with exhibits to begin our day looking at any and everything RV related… We were especially hoping to find camping opportunities since we have yet to make plans for our February trek out of the state of Florida.
We were lucky to score loads of either free camping or special priced camping coupons at several campgrounds on our planned exodus route north. I also found a nice LED replacement for our fluorescent lights. I will have to read up and see if they are worth buying… We also enjoyed walking in many of the new RV’s on the lot and there were tons of them. We even checked out a 3.6 million dollar custom Prevost and although it was really cool I just can’t see how it is all that much better than what we have for a whole lot less cash!!!
There was no new RV for us since we didn’t really see anything that we liked better than our current rig… well....... at least one that was in our price range…
By 2:00 pm we were pretty exhausted so we bid farewell to our friends and grabbed a bite to eat before heading west. We coordinated a visit with one of Sharon’s cousins and his wife from Michigan and another cousin from Pennsylvania who were staying in a condo at Vero Beach. On the way over to Vero Beach we checked out a few RV parks but the only one really nice one worth mentioning was the Westgate River Ranch, thanks to a commenter Flowergirl for pointing this one out as we may have missed it otherwise. A really beautiful and well appointed RV park in the interior of Florida.
We really enjoyed visiting Sharon’s cousins on Friday and Saturday but more of that later as the blog is long enough…
What a fun and informative blog post....thank you.
ReplyDeleteLet us know when you learn more or purchase the LED replacements for the flourescents.... we are thinking of doing that, and 2 years ago they were very costly.
ReplyDeleteWe have done just a few of the bulbs in the bayonet fixtures to start...
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Karen and Steve
(Blog) RVing: The USA Is Our Big Backyard
http://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com
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these were $40 each but replaced the entire light!
DeleteDon't know how you do that scoring free and discount nights. Nice job! I was so overwhelmed in those two buildings I couldn't think straight. I'll be interested in how you like the LEDs too and if you do them and especially if they put out enough light.
ReplyDeletewe had heard that many of the parks would offer a night or two free and or discounts for a stay... many did and some others did not
DeleteSo nice to meet up with friends on the road.
ReplyDeleteWe love the deals you can get at these shows, as you know, pretty well all our camping is free or $10.00 a night, sure makes our money go a lot further being fulltime.
LED bulbs really save your battery using about 1/10 of the power. We have four led bulbs in our coach, a real must for dry camping that we enjoy.
You know how to solder so you can use the sticky back strip LEDs and it would cost less than $5 a fixture.
ReplyDeleteWhat a paint job on that Prevost! Wow! Discounted camping makes the parking and entry fee worth it. Will follow to see if you do the LED's...
ReplyDeleteSounds like the Tampa RV Show is worth going to. Good luck on finding camping for the month of February.
ReplyDeleteY'all are just having so much fun!!!
ReplyDeleteWhat a paint job on the bus! Sounds like you're having good times!
ReplyDeleteWe sure LOVED finally catching up with you again--just wish we had more time. Glad you found some good deals at the RV show. We found more possibilities when we had a more open itinerary.
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