Steph already told you about our search for a place to stay near the everglades. But I have a few things to say about it too so I’ll share them with you now. On the drive from the Keys, Steph took a short video of me giving my 2 month roadaversary update. In there I stated “my hope going forward is that we meet more people and engage in more conversations”. So keep that in the back of your mind as you read this.
After not fitting in one RV park and leaving another because it felt like Jankityville with cousin Eddie as the mayor we landed in Larry and Penny Thompson park. This is a Miami-Dade county park situated right at the edge of the Miami Zoo.
When we pulled in it felt like the perfect place. See, there are really two classes of places we stay: RV parks and campgrounds. All of the campgrounds we have been to are state or county parks while the RV parks are privately owned. And by a huge margin our favorite is the campground style. They usually have lots of trees, plenty of space between sites, shower houses with multiple showers, protected from road noise, and very affordable (we’ve had as low as $13 in NM to $40 in Ft Lauderdale but typically in the $25-$30 range). Often they only come with water and electric (no sewer) but sometimes they come with full hookups and such was the case with our good buddies Larry and Penny Thompson. Since it felt right we just paid for a week to get the discount and to relax for a bit.
We got into our site no problem and I noticed a family across the way from us that had lots of kids so I went over to say hi. On my way over the guy hollers to me “Ok….whatdya want….a beer? Some chips? Come on over man and take a seat!” Doug is from the Keys but is camping here for awhile to be near his mom who is in the hospital. His kids and grandkids are visiting him at the campground. He is a boisterous fella and telling me where the best grocery store is and restaurants etc. and he makes a couple weed and pot comments when he finds out I’m from CO. Later in the evening our kids start playing with his grandkids and we all end up chatting for awhile. During the conversation Doug tells me he is an author and written several books on dieting and healthy eating. He’s also got 30 or so rental properties strung from the Keys up to North Carolina and when he finds out I’m a landlord he says, “The secret is simple Huck. One: year long leases only. Two: first and last months rent up front. And three: check references”. The way he said it I felt like Benjamin in that scene in The Graduate when Mr McGuire says “I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. […] Plastics”. Doug and his wife are big into hunting and fishing…”got all kinds of wild game in a freezer in my rig”. Our kids loved his three tiny dogs: Pebbles, BamBam and Dino and he seemed to really love our kids and said they could come over and visit the dogs anytime they were outside.
My sister-in-law/super-sleuth, Janae, would be proud of me. As soon as I got back home I googled Doug and diet books and I found him! His original book is called Fat to Skinny and the next day he gave a signed copy to Dacen! Now I had his last name so I googled that which landed me on this gem about Doug setting up a gun range in his back yard!
The only state restriction on recreational shooting on private residential property is that the bullets cannot fly over a paved public road or an occupied dwelling, and that shots cannot be “reckless or negligent.”
Jeepers…wear Kevlar if you are on a dirt road in Florida, never know when a bullet will come flying at you. I did not know that Florida is nicknamed the Gunshine state since the gun laws are so loose. I’m not a gun owner or a gun user but neither do I have a problem with people owning guns legally and using them safely. The gun laws of Florida do seem a bit strange and had I read the article without knowing Doug I might have thought he was a wack job. But Doug , whos grandkids called Papa Bear, was a really kind man at his core. He showed kindness to me before even shaking my hand. I liked the guy.
The next day I’m outside at my office working and the next door neighbor comes over to say hi. Hal Shepro is his name and he is super friendly. When I tell him about our trip he tells about how he took his wife, 7 kids and a dog on an RV trip! We chatted for quite awhile before I had to take a call. That evening his wife came over to meet us after dinner. We invited her to sit and we chatted until it was dark. During our week stay there we crossed paths with them several times and always learned something new. When they saw us packing up to leave they came over to say goodbye and they asked where we were going. When we told them Cape Canaveral Hal gets a twinkle in his eye and starts telling about his days working on the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. He was responsible for systems testing and had all sorts of stories about the space program and the astronauts.
On another day I was at my pool side office while the kids swam and this fella next to me starts asking me questions about what I’m doing. We end up talking for quite awhile and Barry tells me all about the area, the campground, and he is the one that recommended we visit Robert Is Here on our way to the Everglades. When he found out we were heading up the east coast he had a recommendation for a campground near DC but he couldn’t remember the name. The next day I found Barry’s card in our door with the name of the campground written on the back. Barry just had cataract surgery and takes several walks a day around the park using his walker.
Doug came over to say goodbye when he saw us packing up. Our visit that evening was cut short when he got a call from his dad that the doctor said he better come to the hospital….it did not sounds good for Doug’s mom. We made Doug a card thanking him for being a good “nabor” as Brielle wrote. We prayed for Doug and his family that night like we had every night of our stay.
So there you go….my hope of meeting people and engaging in more conversations was definitely fulfilled at that campground and it was not even the campground where we planned to go.
In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps. Proverbs 16:9