E.G. Simmons Park

On Saturday morning we left Lithia Springs to do some shopping and then go to the biggest RV show in the USA.

Since we were not really in the market to buy a new RV we just looked at a few of the new designs and layouts and bought a new carpet cover for our step. We love our Phoenix Cruiser which is only 4 years old and is like new. It was the warmest day of our trip, the day was sunny and nearly 80^oF.

We were headed for another Hillsborough County Park but since it was late Saturday afternoon there was no point in trying to get a campsite at E.G. Simmons. We figured Sunday Morning was the time most local campers leave but this was a MLK Monday holiday and it may push things back to Monday morning.

In any case, we headed to a Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club that was only about 10 miles from the park and overnighted in their parking lot. In this way we could get to the park before 8 AM and hopefully get a low number on their waiting list. About 3 AM on Sunday morning a big thunderstorm blew in, dumping 2” of rain and a small tornado killed 2 people about 20 miles away.

We got to the park and found that like Lithia Springs, they changed the regulations that allowed most campers to stay as long as they wanted. But some of the campsites still had a 14 day limit. They suggested that we stay in one of their 8 no electric/water overflow sites and chances were good that we could get a 14 day campsite on Monday. They still charge $18 for seniors for the overflow sites.

So on Sunday only 2 campers got a site and on Monday there were 3 sites available.

The park has 95 sites with almost every site on the water. The sites in the East camp were much larger than the West. We got a small site in the West camp right next to a camper from Parma, OH, who actually lived in Westlake at one time, small world.

The storm brought in a cold spell for 3 days with lows in the low 40’s and the highs barely reaching 60. I know that sounds good if you live in Cleveland where they are getting heavy snow with lows near 0^oF. But it was cold for us.

This park has lots of picnic pavilions and nice paved roads for riding our bikes around. It’s only about 2-1/2 miles to Ruskin, FL if we want to do some shopping.

It is supposed to warm up on Thursday and Friday when we will get the canoe down for a paddle around Tampa Bay to see if we see any Manatees.