Retirement Dreams: March 2013

After a terrific visit with my son and his family in the Tampa area, Bob and I have been staying at the Gregory E. Moore RV Resort at Topsail Beach Preserve State Park. This is an immaculately maintained state park that used to be a private park before the state took it over. All of the 156 RV sites have concrete pads, electric and sewer hookups. I think that we got one of the best sites in the park, since we are right on a small lake, and have a great view along with privacy.

View from our campsite at Gregory E. Moore RV Resort

Love this campsite!

The beach is beautiful. There's 3.2 miles of secluded, white sand beaches to stroll on, and that gorgeous emerald green water that gave this area the name "the Emerald Coast".

A tram runs from the campsite to the beach hourly, so if you don't want to walk or ride the half mile to the beach, you can jump on the tram - very convenient!

The weather here has been unseasonably cold for this time of year. A cold front has been hanging around for the best part of our two week stay. It's gone down as low as 35 here at night, and has only warmed up to the 50's in the daytime. It's finally starting to warm up now, so today we spent a great day on the beach. It's certainly not warm enough for Bob and me to swim - the water's only about 62, and the air temperature is about 72. That's not stopping all of the kids here on Spring break, though.

This park has a heated pool, which is unusual for a state park. The pool temperature is a comfortable 75 degrees. We were in it at the beginning of the week, and plan on going in again over the weekend.

We've certainly enjoyed bike riding in this park. There's a nice 3 mile ride to a beautiful lake, so we've biked there as well as to the beach. There's also a number of nice hiking trails.

We've really been having fun during our stay here at Topsail Beach in spite of the chilly weather. I've always heard good things about this place from other RVers, and now I know why. There's even a dog park in Santa Rosa Beach, so we've gotten Mirra out there twice, and will probably take her again over the weekend.

Speaking of Mirra and dog parks, she had a great time with my grand dog Sabine during our visit with my son. We took the dogs to the dog park at Fort DeSoto Park, which is outside of Saint Petersburg. The dogs had a blast!