Goodbye Peace River.

We have had our two weeks at Peace River. It's name is so in tune with the atmosphere. One of the most peaceful campgrounds we have ever stayed at. Our site had a lot to do with that, because we were right on the river and we spent many hours just sitting in our recliners, reading and watching the water flowing gently past. The bird life was wonderful, and no, we did not see any gators or turtles. At night we heard lots of animal noise. It took us a few nights to figure out what we were hearing, and after listening to some sound bytes on the Internet we realized that we were hearing families of raccoons.

What did we think of Peace River? Loved it with some reservation. Some of the sites, especially down in the overflow area have very low voltage on the electric pedestals. Our first site was in the 70 to 80 Volts range so we moved a few sites over. There is not a whole lot of stuff to see in the area unless you travel a fair distance. We wished we had a canoe so that we could explore the river a bit more. Some people go fossiling in the river, but that really does not appeal to me.

The pool is nice and heated, but it is small. The hot tub is also small. The laundry is good with about6 washers and 6 dryers. Something that I saw, which I have not seen at any other campground laundry was a pay station where you are able to use a credit card to pay instead of having to get a handful of quarters. Other activities are 2 pickle ball courts, shuffle board, horseshoes and various ongoing activities such as poker, and other card games. There is also line dancing and once a week ice cream social.

There is fast free wifi in the clubhouse and pool tables, book swap and a large TV.

Would we go back? Absolutely.

Here are a few random photos.

The Meeting House

Twice a week there are fresh fruit and veggies for sale at the entrance.

Timmy on his favourite walk along a nature trail.

a camper digging for fossils in the river.

Love the caption on the blue tank!

Never saw any!

The office and the club house

 

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The One O'Clock Shuffle

The Peace River campground is divided into two sections. The upper section has full hookups and the lower section on the flood plain has only water and electric. Probably because it is a flood plain and the Peace River has been known to flood.
When you book into the campground you initially have to set up in the lower section and your name goes onto the waiting list for a site with sewer. Every day at 12:00 noon, the list of empty sewer sites goes up outside the office. Those people wishing to move to a full site, write the site numbers down and then drive or walk around and pick which sites are preferred by them. At 1:00pm everyone congregates at the Trading Post with their list of chosen sites. The names of those people on the waiting list are called out in the order that they checked in and the RVer then call out which site they want. If your chosen site has already been assigned, then you can choose another one, or wait for the next day. Your name stays on the list for 3 days.
Everyday there's two big movements of RVs. The first is in the morning before 11:00 am when campers are leaving the park to go elsewhere. The second is what we call the One O'Clock Shuffle is when people who have been assigned a sewer site move from their site in the overflow section to the full hook up section. We could not be bothered to move so opted to stay down by the river. It is also a beautiful spot.

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A busy time doing nothing.

It is so peaceful here at Peace River that we have enjoyed doing nothing next to the river. Reading, computing, walking and biking. Well, I guess we have been doing something, but certainly nothing too strenuous. We have not even done any sight seeing. The furthest we have travelled is, to Avon Park, to buy a Blue Boy. For those of my family and friends who do not know what a Blue Boy is, it is a blue plastic tank with wheels and a sewer connection so that we can empty our tanks without moving the motorhome. We actually have one of these, but it got left behind in Whitby. We are now able to use our on board facilities and drain the tank (we only drain the grey water tank - washing water) every two to three days. If we need to drain the black tank - toilet water, we will drive the motorhome up to the dump station.

One of the things that people do here is look for fossils. We have seen people in the river digging and scraping the river bottom then straining the gravel to find the fossils. I might give it a try just to be able to take a fossil or two home to the grandies.... But then we are fossils so why would they want some more? ;-D

Here are some random photos around the campground. We like it very much.

There we are in the distance

Have not seen any Alligators

Nature Walk along the river

Nature walk

Office and club house

Shuffle board

Large sites

Shade or sun, whatever you want

Tucked into the palms

Some people like the open sites because of satellite dishes

We can get almost 100% signal on our dish

Ready to spend the afternoon beside the river

Peace River for the soul!

The view out of our back window.

Merlot time

Cheers!

 

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Peace River Preserve, Wauchula, Florida

After we left the RV dealership we drove the short 50 miles to Peace River. We were told at the front office to go into the overflow area and choose a site. The overflow area does not have any sewers because it is on the flood plain for the Peace River. There is a system in place where your name goes into a lottery and as full hookup sites come available those sites go into the draw and if your name comes up, you are then able to move. We found a site backing on to the river, so unhooked the car and reversed into the site. The neighbours immediately came over and told us that the site was empty because there was only very low voltage power. Michael measured the voltage and found that it was reading 110 volts, se we decided to stay on the site and see how it went. By evening the power was down to 90. Not good.

In the morning I was still in bed when Michael went out to measure the voltage and it was sitting around 80. He noticed that the occupants of a site just a short away, and also backing onto the river, were leaving. He measured their electricity and it was a healthy 120 volts. Michael came back into the MoHo and dragged me out of bed to go up to the office to ask if we could move. Permission was given and so we moved. The new site is so lovely that we have decided not to move to a full hookup.

Our first site. We had to park at an angle because of a large tree right in line with the bedroom slide.

Our lovely back yard next to the river.

Site #P81

 

 

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Solenoid fail.

Yesterday morning we were scheduled to leave Winter Quarters, Bradenton and our 12 volt power failed completely, so we were unable to get the slides in. After a brief moment of panic, Michael figure out that if he held the battery cut off switch in the On position, we could get them in. Very near to Winter Quarters there is an RV dealership, Dream RV. We drove there and asked if they would be able to help us. After some persuasion, they agreed to "take a look". It 2 hours for the technician to find out that the battery cut off Solenoid had failed. Unfortunately they are not a Jayco dealer, therefore they did not have the right solenoid. The technician managed to bridge the wiring and they have the right solenoid on order. We will stop in there on our way to Fort Myers in 2 weeks. The really sad thing is that this is not covered in our extended warranty!

 

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