There are 1079 sites in Recreation Plantation.  It has old sections, some new sections and some newer sections. All the sections are nice.  The park is mostly mobile homes and fixed RV’s, with a couple of sections open for fleeting  RV’ers , like me & Dave usually are.  Lots of golf carts and retirees, we seem to be the youngest people here.

It’s a 55+ RV community  that has lots of activities going on. There are 3 buildings throughout the park where some of the activities and meetings are held. You can take part in softball, pickleball, tennis, volleyball, horse shoes, shuffleboard, table tennis, corn hole, or badminton. Exercise classes like  water aerobics ,Zumba, Yoga, Dancercise, Walk Aerobics . They have games going on constantly like poker, hand & foot, bridge, euchre, 500, mahjong, bunco, etc. and of course Bingo. Square dancing and line dancing .  You can meet to craft with woodworkers, quilters, knitters, and crocheters. There is a sheet with a schedule  of activities going on every single day including regularly scheduled dances,  dinners, and socials.  They have free coffee and donuts on Thursday morning which we haven’t been to yet.

Where the transients are parked

Older sections of the park

Newest Section of the park

Third Recreation building. the building itself is open and very nice. This is where the ping pong tables are.

They haven’t finished putting in the pool or the hot tube yet. The owner is saying that he is having difficulty getting supplies in to finish it and the residents are saying it’s cause the owner bought more land elsewhere in Florida and is spending all his time and money there. Good thing they already have a nice pool and hot tube in the older section of the park.

The lots in the new section are double the size of the older section. Lots more room to spread out.

Below is our trip plans for 2022 into 2023. Once we leave Bill Baggs, in June that will be our last workcamping gig for a while. Time to get out and explore things out west.

                                                          Trip  Itinerary 2022-2023

March 1- June 1  –                    Bill Baggs State Park Florida

June 1- June 4 –                       St. Augustine Florida

June 4- June 5 –                        Fair Harbor RV Park, Perry Georgia

June 5- June 6 –                       Holiday Travel Park, Chattanooga, Tennessee

June 6- June 9 –                       Cave Country RV Park, Mammoth Cave, Kentucky

June 9- June 10 –                     Parker Cross Roads RV Park, Jackson, Tennessee

June 10- June 13 –                   Lake Katherine, State Park, Hot Springs, Arkansas

June 13 – June 17 –                  Crater of Diamonds State Park, Arkansas

June 17 – June 20 –                 Ivyscove RV park, Arkansas

June 20- June 24 –                   Prairie Creel Corp of Eng. Pia Ridge, Arkansas

June 24 – June 25 –                 Aok RV Park, St Joseph Missouri

June 25 -June 28 –                   Palasades State Park, Sioux Falls, South Dakota

June 28 -July 2 –                                  Sleepy Hollow Rv Park, Wall, South Dakota

July 2 – July 16 –                       Hartland RV Park, Hermoas, South Dakota

July16 -July 20 –                                    Sturgis RV Park, Sturgis, South Dakota

July 20    -July  23 –                   Peter D’s Rv Park, Sheridan, Wyoming

July 23 –  July 27 –                    Peak View RV Park, Guernscy, Wyoming

July 27   – August 9 –               Bayo Lake State Park, Fort Collins, Colorado

August 9 –August 22 –            Cheyenne Mountain State Park, Colorado Springs Colorado

August 22- August 26 –          Storrie State Park, Los Vegas, New Mexico

August 26- August 29 –          Elephant Butte State Park, Truth or Consequences, New Mexico

August 29-  Sept. 12 –              Mission RV Park, El Paso Texas

September 12 – Sept.19-         Leasburg Dam State Park, Las Cruces, New Mexico

September 19 –Seot.26  –        Rockhound State Park, Deming, New Mexico

September 26- October 7 –     Butterfield RV Park, Benson Arizona

October 7 – October 21  –       Roper State Park, Safford, Arizona

October 21- November 4-       Lost Dutchman State Park, Apache Junction, Arizona

November 4-  November 18 – Katchner Taverns State Park, Benson, Arizona

November 18- December 2  – Catalina State Park, Catalina, Arizona

December 2-  December 16  -Patagonia State Park, Patagonia Arizona

December 16- December 30  Katchner Caverns State Park, Benson Arizona

December 30- March 31  –      Pilot Knob RV Park, Yuma Arizona

Dave & I tried new places to eat which we’ve never been, such as The Key Largo Fisheries with our good friends Bill & Barb. The waterfront is a fishery and marina, the seafood comes off the boats docked next to them, and is processed and packaged right there and shipped to people stateside, or prepared for you at their Backyard Cafe.

We also got to see the African Queen which is docked at Marina Del Mar. I was excited because I got to see the movie a couple of years ago and loved it and seeing the boat like it was in the movie was really nice.

The historic African Queen provided the setting for Humphrey Bogart’s only Oscar winning performance has been resurrected from the scrapheap by a movie-loving Florida couple. The African Queen is a 100 year old steam boat famed for its starring role in the 1951 hit movie of the same name.

The classic picture – which also starred Katharine Hepburn and told the story of a Canadian steam boat captain and a British missionary working in German East Africa during the First World War – saw Bogart receive the 1951 Academy Award for best actor.

After falling into a state of disrepair following the death of its previous owner in 2001, the vessel was spotted gathering rust in a Florida marina by Suzanne Holmquist and her engineer husband, Lance.

The couple have since repaired the ailing ship and opened it up. You can take a 1.5 Hour cruise that departs from the Marina Del Mar and travels down the Port Largo Canals to the Atlantic Ocean before turning around to return.

Dave & I had breakfast at The Hideout a few times.

We also had a great time going to The Italian Food Comapany and The Catch with our friends Skip & Nancy.

The food was good at both restaurants

One of our favorite places to eat was The Shipwreck.

The Shipwreck has really good food and the added bonus was the awesome volunteers from Pennekamp gathered here for dinner and great times!

Speaking of Incredible Volunteers and awesome people !

Some of us got a chance to get together at The Marriott for the last time to catch the sunset

The last day before we left Pennekamp the weather was perfect for parasailing! so Barb and myself took off.

Smooth take off and landing and gliding through the air was an incredible experience. With a dip in the water before we landed back on the boat was lots of fun.

This was our 4th year here in Key Largo and it was awesome! We met fantastic volunteers whom now we call our friends! We snorkeled, kayaked, parasailed and explored what can be more wonderful than that?

We know we never will!

We are now at Recreation Plantation, which is just a little north west of Orlando. We left Key Largo on Friday the 14th. Drove a total of 353 miles, took seven hours. We are staying here till the end of February at one one of the lots here. There are mostly mobile homes here, with scattered Rv lots. This place is right next to the huge community called The Villages. Looking forward to not work camping and just relaxing for a while. A picture of our spot is below.

Melissa will make a final post soon, about our last few days in Key Largo. For now that’s it

It’s hard for me to absorb it being 2022, let alone having to type it!

For New Year’s Eve the volunteers and some of the rangers got together at The Point and had a campfire and celebrated the New Year.

We had a great fire and time as some fireworks were exploding and popping around us

There was about 15 of us ringing the new year in.

“Take a leap of faith and begin this wondrous new year by believing” Sarah Ban Breathnach               

“New year — a new chapter, new verse, or just the same old story? Ultimately we write it. The choice is ours” Alex Morritt

December 17th, in Orlando Resa, a male white-and-blonde whippet, bolted ahead of the competition to win the second-annual Fastest Dog USA competition. The three-year-old ran a 100-yard dash in 5.769 seconds or 35.45 miles per hour. That’s 0.5777 of a second faster than last year’s winner, Phelan.

That same day in December here in Pennekamp’s Grove Trail Cooper and his female whippet friend Piper raced.

Cooper is ahead

Cooper & Piper had a great day of racing. Cooper has faster strides but Piper sure knows how to turn sharp corners on a dime. Piper was ahead of Cooper a lot of the time which really confused Cooper as no other dog can even keep up with him! Piper you go girl! They both had a lot of FUN!

Elena got the Volunteers together to see some Christmas Lights

This house had every blow up decoration ever made for Christmas. Great light show

Join us for the kick off of campfire program season!

Ranger Siarra will be showcasing a holiday craft and talking about some of the rare and endangered animals that call the keys home. We will have the campfire going, so bring the s’mores!

We made a Deer Key Head

I bagged this one myself

Our friend Lisa, a volunteer that we met “volunteering here 3 years  ago at Pennekamp, was here when we first arrived at Pennekamp and the 3 of us went to the Key Largo Conch House for dinner on her birthday. I never ate a conch before, but I wanted to try it.  Pronounced “konk”, it is the meat from an oversized sea snail. It is native to the coasts of the Bahamas, Florida Keys, the Caribbean and Bermuda.  It’s eaten raw or cooked.        

I don’t remember what Dave got, but I know it was some kind of fish and he said it was also very good.

A good time was had by all.

All the volunteers that are in staying in the campground got together with some of the park rangers for a delicious Thanksgiving with all the trimmings and even more! It was a beautiful day to give thanks with friends.

Occasionally the volunteers and rangers will meet up and head to the Marriott to watch the sun set and relax a bit, the pics are of that and a birthday party for our fellow volunteer Jim.

Dave & I have been snorkeling in the waters of the park and recently we took one of the snorkel trips from the park. Our boat was named the Sea Garden and we went out to Grecian Rocks Reef, lots fish and coral and lots of fun! It a whole new world under there.

John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park has 70 nautical square miles of sparkling turquoise waters and the shallow-water living coral reefs of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary – the only living coral barrier reef in North America and the third-largest living coral reef in the world. These protected and vibrant reefs are home to an abundance of sea life: more than 6,000 species. What a great place to snorkel, right! 👍

The Key Largo library, where we rent our DVDs has concerts on some Friday nights. Last Friday December 3, we went to see Alligator Alley.

They are a Bluegrass band that we really liked. Don’t get to hear to much bluegrass these days.

Coral Castle is always listed in the “Top 35 out of 35,000 museums across the U.S.” to visit and people come from as far away as Indonesia to visit this incredible place. It’s also one of the Wonder’s of the World.”

The castle and its surrounding gardens were built by Edward Leedskalnin (1887–1951), a stonemason from Riga, Latvia. At the age of 26 Leedskalnin was rejected by his fiancée, a sixteen year old Agnes Skuvst, she broke off their engagement the day before the wedding. Leedskalnin was heartbroken and he set out on a quest to build a monument worthy of celebrating his lost love . He was diagnosed with tuberculosis and headed for the warmer climate of Florida, that is where it all begins.

He settled in Florida City in 1918, and began work on what he called his ‘Rock Gate Park’ sometime around 1923. With no modern construction tools or conveniences and equipped with only hand tools and a fourth grade education, he quarried huge blocks of coral rock before cutting them to shape and arranging them into position. And later, in 1936, Leedskalnin moved to Homestead where he purchased a plot of 10 acres and spent the next three years relocating, a distance of some 10 miles, using a friend’s tractor to transport each of his coral structures. Using no joint compound or mortar, the massive stones, when combined together, are held in place by their own weight. More incredible, he did all of this hard work by himself and he was was just five feet tall and weighed about 100 pounds.

These pictures are of Ed’s well. He of course dug it, carved out stairs and also used the well for his refrigerator. In the last picture he used a round piece of coral to stop the children for going down the well. It could be rolled with just a slight nudge.

A 30-ton lensless “telescope” that soars 25 feet above the castle walls. The telescope is perfectly aligned to the North Star, and on the first day of winter, sunlight pours directly through the scope’s opening.

Billy Idol wrote the song “Sweet Little Sixteen” after watching “The Castle of Secrets”, an episode of Leonard Nimoy’s program, In Search of , which was based on Coral Castle. He visited Coral Castle and sat on Ed’s favorite rocking chair. The music video was shot there as well.

Ed’s living quarters

Behind the walls of the castle

Around 1940 Ed finished erecting the walls (the largest weighing 29 tons) of his coral castle. The gates to the castle were locked at all times but Ed would give tours of his home for a  fee  of 10 cents, he later raised it to  25 cents,  and those who wanted to have a tour had to ring the bell twice to summon Ed. The sign on the wall says “Ring Twice” and if your rang less or more than two times Ed would not open the gate to let you in. Ed would love to have children visit his castle and show them around.

He would show you the 8-ton gate that a child could push open with a finger. And would tell the story of his lost love as he showed you a telescope that points to the North Star, carvings of stars and planets and an accurate sundial and his other creations.

The castle has been on TV shows and various documentaries because nobody really knows how he built the castle? Here the question arises- how could a man using only hand-made tools, attained this height? The answer to this question is still unknown.

Ed was a very private person, and his methods were a closely guarded secret. In 28 years he refused to allow anyone to watch him work – carving the stones by night with a lantern, while a series of lookout posts along the castle walls provided an extra defense against prying eyes.  He used only tools that he fashioned himself from wrecks in an auto junkyard.

Some of his neighbors who took it upon themselves to have a peek one night, said that Leedskalnin placed both palms on a block of stone and started to sing and the slab reacted by levitating. For obvious reasons, many people have dismissed this claim.  Leedskalnin even told people that he had an in-depth understanding of the laws of gravity, leverage and weight and that he had “discovered the secrets of the pyramids,” implying that magnetism was used by the ancient Egyptians to construct the Great Pyramids. And of course some say it was aliens that helped him.

However, all these theories could it have just been the fact that a human being, when set their mind with a steady focus and powerful motivation, can attain anything. Even if the story of its creation doesn’t wow you, it’s hard not to be impressed when you see Coral Castle up close. Given the primitive tools that were available at the time it was constructed, even the most skeptical visitors will be a little dazzled.

Edward Leedskalnin died in the winter of 1951, aged 64. He closed the castle with a sign that read, ‘Going to the Hospital,’ then took a bus into Miami. He wouldn’t return – first suffering a stroke, before later dying in the hospital from a kidney infection.

Coral Castle stood the test of time, being hit by hurricanes and neglect, so glad we got to see this incredible place.