May 8th to August 6th, 2019
After bringing our new motor home back to South Florida, we decided to stay in the same general area where we had lived for 20 years. We needed to continue to work locally for awhile and clean out our storage unit. We were already familiar with the Broward County parks, so we started there.
We arrived in the Fort Lauderdale area on May 8. Laura’s last day of work was slated to be August 6th, so that meant 3 months in the South Florida heat. Of course we’ve been through Florida summers before, but we weren’t sure how we would fare in an RV. It turns out it was really not an issue. Yes, it was hot, but we had air conditioning that worked quite well. We kept it colder at night than we ever did in the house or the condo, so we slept great! We started out in site 19, but moved to site 15 after a short time. ($33.90/night, full hookups). This park is booked a year in advance for the winter months, but luckily for us is pretty much empty in the summer.
Topeekeegee Yugnee Park is one of several Broward County administered parks with a small lake, acres of wooded picnic areas, a water park, walking trails and a campground.
The campground has 61 sites, all paved, all full hook-up with a mix of pull-thru, pull-in and back in. It runs along the north side of the lake with a short fence between the campground and the walking path around the lake. Our first site was in one of the pull-in sites that face the lake.
Upon returning we had to deal with that storage unit. We had a week until we would wind up paying another month, so it became our mission to get everything out. If it didn’t fit in the coach, it was donated. After a couple of long days we met our goal of only having things that were useful and/or had significant meaning to us.
The park itself was amazing, especially for a county park. We were able to use the park from dawn to dusk, and loved every minute of it. To make it more fun, we had GREAT neighbors. Unfortunately, we cannot remember the name of the family from Pennsylvania that were there for several weeks, but we did spend all of our nights with them and with Jay and Maria, and Danny and Camille. Jay and Maria were from Deerfield Beach, but owned a motorhome and decided to “summer” at the park. We had so much fun hanging out with them. We had to move a few weeks into our stay because of another neighbor. Our first site had an RV next to us where the man cooked on the BBQ grill by putting some charcoal in, wrapping his food in foil and then squirting lighter fluid onto the coals constantly, causing it to flame up and torch his food. He went through an entire bottle of lighter fluid every meal. We were so sure that he was going to set us on fire, we had a plan on how to move the jeep and back out the RV, slides out – just to get away. We asked the office to relocate us, and wound up in a better spot.
We flew to Nevada for a few days to see our daughter, and when we returned the neighbors informed us that they called security on the fire man, tired of his BBQ methods. Apparently, he had been banned from the county parks and the sheriff came to remove him. We missed all the excitement, but were certainly glad he was gone.
The summer went by quickly, and seemed to drag at the same time. We were loving getting settled in our RV but really wanted to travel. We took care of things we could. We installed the tow bar and braking system on the coach, put solar on the roof, and whatever else we could get done before we hit the road.
Laura’s last week of work was busy. She literally worked right up to the last minute. She had always imagined a slow day of goodbye’s, but there was work to be done and she needed to get out on time. They did throw her a surprise luncheon early in the week and gave her such amazing gifts, including a book where everyone wrote a page for her. That book is one of her most cherished possessions. Instead of celebrating that night, we packed. We were leaving the next morning to head to the Fort Myers area. As we left TY Park, mid morning of August 7, we said goodbye to the park and the Fort Lauderdale area without a second look.