December in Miami

Could there possibly be a campground in the city limits of Miami?  Yes Indeed!  Larry and Penny Thompson County Park which is adjacent to the Metro Zoo and has a campground with 240 sites.

You are driving down a Miami road with 5 lanes of traffic and traffic is whizzing by, sirens are sounding, horns are honking, and sounds are sounding; then, you turn into this side street and instantly you are in a 260 acre park with groves of fruit trees, palms, and all sorts of tropical vegetation. 

The campground is divided into 11 pods with 20 - 30 campsites per pod.  Our site had a couple of small live oak trees on it and then a grove of avocado trees separating our pod from the next.  Each morning campers went out and picked up avocados that had fallen from the trees and still much fruit rotten on the ground as the campers could not possibly use all the fruit that came from these groves.

We cannot see the zoo from here; although, the property adjoins the campground.  However, on several occasions we could hear the monkeys engaging in screaming and yelling at each other.  Even though we feel like we are not in the city, there are from time-to-time the city sounds in the form of sirens--police, fire trucks, and EMS.  When we leave the campground to go somewhere, it is a sudden shock as we transition from peace and quiet to the chaos of city living.

The temperature was in the upper 70s daytime and upper 60s nighttime--just about perfect.  Christmas lights and decorations adorned many many RVs.  Some of the motor homes had displays on their dashboards of Snow Village houses and shops with fake snow for a cheery Christmas scene.

I always thought everyone was home with family for Christmas, but that just is not so. Most of the people here are away from home and family for the holidays.  However, we are not alone because we have each other.  In our pod, one of the couples invited everyone over to their site for Christmas Eve--bring you own chairs and a contribution to the pot luck dinner.  We were unable to go as we do have family in the area, but as we were leaving, we could see quite a group gathered at their campsite.

New Year's eve we could see three different firework displays going on and the neighborhood not too far from us had a large celebration with music and celebration.  So, yes Virginia, they do celebrate Christmas in the tropics!

tg