On Friday around 11:00 a.m., we left the sunny skies, warm 82 degree temperature and lush surroundings at Riverbend RV Resort near LaBelle. But as we headed north, the skies became more heavily overcast with somewhat ominous clouds and during the 110 mile trip the temperature  dropped to about 76 degrees. The weather forecast was for periodic showers most of the weekend.

Our 110 mile drive here on I-75 was uneventful and pretty boring but luckily it was only a 2 hour drive so it wasn’t bad.  We arrived at Horseshoe Cove RV Resort, which is owned by the Carefree Resort chain, around 1:30 p.m.  I guess they call it a resort because it has a small island and some frontage on the Braden River, but is pretty much a mobile home/manufactured home community with one area set aside with pull through sites for transient or seasonal RV’ers.

When we checked in, everyone seemed very friendly and we were quickly invited to attend their variety show that evening.  It was obvious that this place wasn’t geared for transients as there was no place to park or to unhitch the toad.  We decided to unhitch where we were (on the side of one of the narrow interior roads) and then we proceeded to our alleged “pull through” site.

The sites are very narrow with a small cement slab and picnic table.  There is a 5th wheeler next door to us and they have a canopy over the picnic table and cement slab that somewhat infringes onto our site.  In fact, Rob was barely able to open one of the compartments on the slide out.  These pull through sites aren’t long enough for a rig plus toad so everyone has to park their vehicles on the grass either in front of or behind their rigs. Also many are not level fore and aft so the position on the site is further limited. All that combined with the narrow roadways will make it interesting trying to get out of our site when we leave on Monday! A pull through is normally easy in/easy out but we suspect that won’t be the case here and we may actually have to back out.

Alvin is kind of freaked out and was reluctant to pose here although the kitties seemed happy and spent a lot of time in their outdoor “Kabana”.

In regard to the site hookups, AC voltage is strong with a 50A supply. Water pressure is good. The sewer cap is not threaded so our sewer hose is not as secure as with most other places that have a threaded fitting. TV reception is good for all the primary OTA networks, and even though CBS was rated marginal due to distance, we had no reception issues. Sprint service was a bit weak and Verizon was only slightly better. In both cases the network seemed to get saturated a peak times and things slowed down. The on site wifi was free but essentially useless. There was no functional cable hookup as far as we could tell, at least not on our site – there are several satellite dishes deployed so presumably that says something about the cable service.

Friday night we were invited to supper by Rob’s Aunt Linda and his Uncle Herb at Linger Lodge campground.  It was great seeing them and comparing our adventures – we always have a fun time with them!  Linda prepared a delicious supper of baked potatoes, broccoli and a spinach salad and Herb grilled some steaks.  Dessert was a red velvet cake although it was store bought was also quite good.

Rob’s cousin Cindy had flown down to visit a friend in Sarasota and to spend some time with Linda and Herb last week – we were disappointed that the timing didn’t work out for us to see her.

After supper we enjoyed more of the outdoors by sitting outside around their campfire until we finally crapped out and had to go back to our coach around 11:30 p.m. – the trip from Linger Lodge to Horseshoe Cove was only about 3 miles and under 10 minutes via back roads.