Our Florida Camping and RVing Family Journal: family

1990 in our 1st motor home

IN THE BEGINNING: My husband and I during our dating years camped every weekend from our boat, in tents and taking lots of friends to various little islands around South Miami, Florida and the Florida Keys. Eventually we bought our first used motor home and towed the boat. Since then we sold the boat and the motor home, got married, bought our first house all within a couple of years.

Back in the day: Camping with Friends 1991

We were doing well with money in the bank and basically had everything we needed. We were by no means rich, but lets just say we were comfortable.
After our 10th year of marriage we moved into our 2nd home. We actually decided to have our first and only child after 13 years of marriage and being together over 16 years. It was time, life slowed down for us. Our daughter was born in 2004.

AMERICA HAS FALLEN: Once the economy tanked and our country fell apart, we had to become very conservative with everything. To this day neither of us have had a raise in over 4 years, but we're grateful to still be working. Now we are very frugal with the cost of everything going up except for our pay, and we are very choosey on how we enjoy the little time off we have.

CAMPING - RVing WITH A TWIST: Needless to say we found ourselves on the weekend doing the usual cleaning, mowing the yard, hanging out in our pool, and going to lots of birthday parties. At this point we've been through ballet, soccer, gymnastics, hip-hop, and now we're an involved Karate family. So this is where we're at now, in February, 2012.
November of 2011, our daughter didn't want a 7th birthday party and wanted other options. We offered her Disney again, Bush Gardens, or camping. She jumped on "camping" and we were thrilled. We decided to rent an RV for a week this past November 2011. We stayed at the KOA campground at Lion Country Safari in West Palm Beach, FL. We had such a great time at the campground and the 2 parks at Lion Country Safari next door, and so did our Daughter. She met so many new kids from various places, learned new things, and totally enjoyed the "camping experience" at the campground.

WE'VE GOT THE CAMPING BUG: My husband and I were hooked all over again. For the next two months we searched for a used RV on our tight budget that was in good condition and ran good. This was not an easy combination to find!
We're happy to say in February 2012 we just came back from our first camping weekend in our RV. She's new to us, a 1997 Fleetwood 30' Bounder that runs great and in really good condition. It was hard to find her, and we looked at a lot of junk RVs, over-priced motor homes that weren't taken care of, and some we only wished we could buy. This motor home has everything we needed and wanted, and great for us to start new memories in as a FAMILY now.

Our daughter is hooked; loves to fish, learning to ride her scooter around, meet kids at the playground, basketball court, helps with prepping grilled dinners and likes just walking around the sites and hiking paths.

We really look at this investment as "family time" for the next 5 - 7 years with our daughter before she starts to really have her own social life. We plan to take several long weekends each year within Florida, and maybe a full week during the holidays and school breaks.

2012 Camping in our RV at Lake Okeechobee, FL

So this is a blog of our journey as a family now, our opinions of different So. Florida campgrounds and other adventures along the way. We hope to meet up with others that share in that same "family camping", wholesome, outdoor fun in the sun, campfires, laughs, and a little wine & a few beers along the way.