Pioneer Park, Zolfo Springs & Wauchula

We had a busy day today. This afternoon we drove down to Zolfo Springs to go to Pioneer Park. Pioneer Park is operated by Hardee County. There is a museum and a campground with about 60 campsites there. After driving through the campground, we drove over to view the buildings that are part of the museum.

From Zolfo Springs & Wauchula, FL

From Zolfo Springs & Wauchula, FL

After leaving Pioneer Park we drove around Zolfo Springs and took photos of a few houses there. While we were driving around, it started raining so we have photos of rain and houses.

From Zolfo Springs & Wauchula, FL

We then drove up to Wauchula to drive around the town. When the Florida Southern Railway came through the area, they build a train depot in 1886 and named the town Wauchula which comes from the Miccosoukee Indian word "wa-tu-la-ha-kee", meaning "call of the sand hill crane".

Fortunately by this time the rain had quit, so we were able to get better photos of the town.

From Zolfo Springs & Wauchula, FL

From Zolfo Springs & Wauchula, FL

After driving around Wauchula for a while, we headed back to the RV for dinner. After dinner we took a walk on the nature hiking trail here at Peace River Preserve. The trail followed alongside the Peace River and was a nice relaxing walk.

From Peace River Preserve

From Peace River Preserve

We are leaving Peace River Preserve tomorrow and going to Highlands Hammock State Park near Sebring.

Shopping at Sweetbay supermarket & doing laundry

This morning I drove up to Wauchula and went shopping at the Sweetbay supermarket there. We had seen a number of these stores in Florida, but had never shopped at one. It is similar to Publix or Winn Dixie, but no "rewards card".  I will definitely shop at another Sweetbay if I am near one.

This afternoon I went up to the laundromat here at Peace River which is located behind the Trading Post and next to the swimming pool. There are 6 washers and 8 dryers which cost $1.50 each. There were fairly comfortable chairs to sit in while I waited for my clothes to get done and tables for folding them.

We have been going up to the adult lounge every afternoon to use their wifi service. They are in the process of refurbishing the adult lounge and today it being painted. It should look nice once they finish.

Tomorrow we are going to down to Pioneer Park in Zolfo Springs. It is operated by Hardee County and has a campground and museum.

Weak Verizon signal

We have a weak signal here at Peace River for our Verizon MiFi broadband. We went up to the lounge at the Trading Post today to use their wifi service. Our cell phone signal is OK enough for calls.

Besides checking our email, we also needed to make a reservation for Highlands Hammock State Park near Sebring for a week starting August 12.

We drove up to Wauchula (about 4 miles) to do some shopping at Winn Dixie and Wal-Mart Supercenter. We located a car wash and washed the Vue while we were in Wauchula.

We took these photos when we came back from Wauchula this morning. The alligator and bears are located by the gate entrance to Peace River Preserve.

From Peace River Preserve

From Peace River Preserve

Little Manatee River State Park to Peace River Preserve

We had another short driving day - only about 50 miles. After stopping at the dump station to empty our tanks, we left Little Manatee River State Park around 11:00 this morning.

We traveled south on US-301 to SR-62 and then east to US-17. After driving about 5 miles south on US-17 we reached Peace River Preserve a little after noon. Peace River Preserve is a Thousand Trails campground. This will be our first stay at a Thousand Trails campground since purchasing our membership earlier this summer.

We stopped at the Peace River Trading Post to check-in. We will be here for a week. Our camping fee for the week covered by our dues, but there is a $3 a day resort fee here. We were given a map of the campground and we disconnected the car from the RV, so we could drive around and pick out a campsite. After driving around and looking at a number of the empty sites, we decided on site #F2. We returned to the office to let them know which site we had chosen. 

From Peace River Preserve

After we finished checking in and receiving the security code for the gate, we headed over to our campsite. We have full hook-ups with 50 amp electric. One reason we chose site F2 is because of the trees on the west side of the site - they will help shade us in the afternoon. We don't have a paved patio, but the site is grass covered and fairly level.

From Peace River Preserve

From Peace River Preserve