2/27 Hillsborough State Park With Some RVing Women

There are various forums and clubs available for people who travel or live in RVs, but one I especially like is womenrv.com.  It's a great group of women, most of whom own and drive their own RVs, whether those be tiny mini-trailers, big 5th wheels, or motorhomes.  It's been a great place to get information and share experiences, as well as make friends.  And we get together in large or small groups several times a year. 

One of the bigger get-togethers this year was in Hillsborough River State Park. About 20 of us showed up for a few days of camping and having group fun.  Hillsborough River SP is a BIG state park, with a river for kayaking, swimming pool in season, and a real fort that I visited five years ago.  It is a rustic campground, but with electric and water.  I really needed that electric hookup because it was in the mid to upper-80s the whole four days I was there!  Here is my campsite with my bike parked in front. 

Sites were well-spaced apart, which was a good and a bad thing, but I had my bike to get around.

This little lizard was on my electric hookup pole when I checked in.

We had a meet-and-greet the first day inside the screened-in shelter.  I have been getting a lot of bad mosquito bites so I was very happy for the screening!  Here are some of us during this event and the potluck the next day.

The lady on the right is Lyn, who drove all the way from San Diego for the get-together, pulling her new trailer and traveling with her dog and cat!  And she did it in 7 days, which means about 350 miles per day.  Wow!!

Eileen (middle on the right) brought her husband from Wisconsin, so we did have a token man with our group.  Thanks, Dave, for putting up with us.

The second day, some of us went to nearby Plant City for strawberry shortcakes.  The rest went out for wine tasting and then strawberry shortcake! 

Besides strawberry shortcake, this place has a machine for washing oranges for their fruit market. I bought some strawberries and grapefruit to take home.

We were lucky to get there early.  When we left, the line was out into the parking lot!  They had just plain strawberries, strawberries and ice cream, and strawberry shortcake with ice cream, plus some other things.

I got the strawberry shortcake with ice cream!  Could not eat it all, but it was delicious.  It came with two spoons, so I think they were planning on my sharing it.

Very pleasant indoor place among the plants to eat the shortcake.

This is our group.  On the way there, by the way, we passed many strawberry fields with pickers in the fields. This is prime strawberry season in Plant City.  Check out the packages you see in the store, and you might find they came from this area.

Later that day we had a potluck, except some of the wine tasters were still out tasting, so they missed it.

That's me in the blue shirt in front.  My hair is plastered on my head because of the heat and the humidity, so I don't look great.  That day it was 88 with 90% humidity--whew! 

Liz, on the left, and some others were energetic enough to go kayaking the next day.  

It is a pretty river, though.  I took a few pictures and then headed home to my air conditioning!

 

Tomorrow, I head north to a campground just north of the Florida Panhandle.  It is supposed to be a lot cooler there, especially at night, so I am looking forward to being able to open windows and not run my AC all night.