High Season and No Place to Stay - Part 2

January 2005

After the Woodsmoke fiasco, we headed to what we were told was a campground up the road on the left three miles--and we actually believed these people.  We get 5 miles up the road and no campground.  We do the thing you never want to do when hauling at 38 foot RV, we decided to pull off into what looked like a large parking area of a strip mall to work out a plan.  We are on the frontage road and beginning to pull into the parking lot when we see that every parking space has a concrete rectangle slab in front of it.

With an RV like ours, you need to be able to go across parking lanes.  You may ask why did you not see this from the road.  The road--three lane divided highway with a motorcycle going by us on its rear wheel, close traffic conditions, and vehicles darting in from our left and right.  We see a large dirt area just beyond the end of the frontage road, and I get out to assist with hand held radio with the backing process while a number of cars trying to get in and out of the parking lot wait patiently.  A delightful and calming experience.

We finally get to the Ft. Myers RV Resort (resort is always used loosely) where they can put us up for a night or two.  After calling and visiting many campgrounds, we discover that indeed High Season without a place to stay is a bad thing.  The folks at Ft Myers RV Resort say they have only two sites (which happen to be next to each other) that could accommodate our RV.

Now this campground has wide streets, good size sites, about 300 sites, which is a good size as there are many streets in the campground for walks and biking, no tree problems and our site is more than large enough for our needs.  However, there is a reason the row of sites where we will stay are slow to go.

Our site backs up the three lane divided highway.  There is 5 feet of grass in back of our RV, then a row of large (2 feet or so tall) rocks, 30 feet of grass, a sidewalk and then the road.  The manager said we would get used to the noise--we're still waiting.

It has been an interesting study in the life of Route 41 (the old Tamiami Trail).  At rush hour, thousands of cars go by an hour between 7 a.m. - 9 a.m. and then between 4 p.m. and  6:30 p.m.  Now this expressway seems to have as many vehicles going from north to south as they have from south to north.  I wonder if these folks ever thought of flagging someone down who is going in the opposite direction and discuss trading homes.

The fire truck and ambulance.  I noticed that early morning, mid morning, lunch time, mid afternoon, and evening rush hour the fire truck with all sirens going races down the highway trailed by a few minutes by the ambulance with all its sirens going.  This happens every day so I though maybe they are going for meals and breaks!!  What do I know?

Now I also noticed that many folks here have Harleys -- not the quiet Hondas -- and the drivers and passengers generally do not wear helmets, they love one wheel riding, making as much noise as they can accelerating (just to impress the natives), and yes, going very fast.  Yesterday, I saw a woman, sounding like a race car without a muffler, probably going 80 mph in a 45 mph zone and at that speed her pony tail was flying straight out behind her. 

Also, on this motorcycle thing, I notice many billboards advertising lawyers to call after your motorcycle accident, and insurance companies who specialize in motorcycle accident insurance.  Have you ever noticed that when you get car insurance, it is called car insurance and not car accident insurance?  I now believe the fire truck and ambulance folks are not going to meals.

There is a great deal of construction going on in this area.  Hard to believe there is still land for construction.  For some unknown reason, maybe it is a law, but when the cement trucks drive past this RV resort, they have their air horn going full blast as they drive by.  I wonder, Is this another form of Southern hospitality?

This spurred us on for an all out hunt from Naples to our South to Port Charlotte to our North, looking for a better campground for next year.  In spite of the wild scene on US 41, the area is beautiful, rich in culture, and the winter weather is the best in the US (Thomas Edison discovered exactly that and set up his winter lab here for many years).  Something really good came out of this as you will see in Part 3.

tg