Wauchula, Florida ?

Wauchula?  Where in the world is Wauchula?  Well, it’s in the middle of Florida.  We’ve been in this little town now for five days and I can tell you that we haven’t found a heck of a lot to do other than eat out and create our own activities at the park.  The town does have a Walmart and even a McDonalds but it also has a lot of empty buildings.

We drove to Lakeland on Monday.  It’s about 40 miles away but I needed to find the closest Lenscrafters and that was it.  My eyes could not adjust to my new lenses.  I knew they weren’t quite right even though the place that made them said they were.    Sure enough, the optician in Lakeland agreed with me …. the measurement of the lenses was way off.  New lenses were done and a couple hours later we were on the road heading back to the little town of Wauchula.   Mission accomplished!!

We thought we would go kayaking when we arrived in town.  After all the Peace River runs right through the town and even right through our RV park but kayaking is definitely out.  Central Florida has had a lot of rain and the river is rushing. It’s nearly up to the top of the bank.  I’m sure if we put a kayak in it, we wouldn’t have to worry about doing any paddling as we’d be floating down the river with the current.  An even harder task would be paddling back against that current.

Peace River is a pretty popular place for gathering shark’s teeth and fossils but the water level needs to be about a foot below normal to do some hunting so we’re also out of luck with that.   The good thing is we didn’t see any alligators!

Our bikes were out the first day we arrived. The park is big and there are lots of places to ride.  I think we got spoiled in Bonita Springs though with all the level roads.  It takes a little more effort here with the hills.   The hills don’t seem to bother Terry on his bike but, then again, his bike is an electric one!

The shells I collected at the beach have been getting cleaned and that’s quite a task.  If I hadn’t collected so many, I wouldn’t have to clean so many!  Now what in the world am I going to do with all of these?  What you see on the table is just batch number one.  I have two more batches to finish.

With friends, Tina and Jeff, just down the road, we visited with them right after we arrived.     Then, we met them again at a local diner a couple nights later.  We talked up a storm and certainly enjoyed getting together. There are no big chain restaurants in town but there are several local diners. Actually the local diners are much more fun anyway.  Some of the menus are handwritten and you’ve got to be sure to have cash because many of the small diners don’t accept credit or debit cards. 

We met at Paul’s Kitchen with Tina and Jeff.  I ordered catfish and shrimp.  Look at what they brought me!  Not only did I get the catfish and shrimp, I got soup, a salad, baked potato, rice and corn! 

With all that food, I also asked for a to-go box!

We’ll be happy to move on to Orlando but our reservations don’t start until Sunday.   We tried to get them changed but this time of year RV parks in Florida stay pretty full and getting reservations changed at the last minute can be difficult.  However, we may even pull out on Saturday and boondock one night at Walmart just to get moving.  We’ve met some folks who spend the WHOLE winter in this little town ….. I can’t imagine !!!  I’d go bananas.  Heck, I already am!

‘Tis life on the road.