Lake Wales Day Trip - Storms on the Way

(Wauchula, FL) - Hi 80 Lo 62 --  We took our time this morning doing our normal routine of C&C (coffee and computers).  The weather forecast calls for severe thunderstorms with the possibility of tornadoes, so we checked to see if we would have time to get in a day trip.  We saw that nothing significant is expected until late this evening, so off we went.

We left just before noon and headed north to Florida's Natural orange juice processing plant in Lake Wales.   We were on S.R. 98 near Frostproof and I happened to see a street sign with my maiden name on it.  I just had to get some pictures.

That was quite a surprise!  I'm going to do an online search and see if a Spurlock lives on that street.  It's a fairly short street, and it was probably named by the first resident who built a house there. 

We stopped at the Florida's Natural Visitor's Center, which is across the street from the large plant.  They don't have any actual tours, so all we could do was watch a 14 minute film telling all about the orange juice they make and how they make the cartons and jugs to put it in.  They also had a very small museum of the Florida citrus industry.  It wasn't the greatest "factory tour" experience we've been on, but it was informative and I'm glad we went.  I didn't take pictures because the batteries in my camera went dead right after I took the pictures of the street sign above.  There was the obligatory gift shop, with samples of all of their juices. Very good I must say. We went to historic downtown Lake Wales. I've heard of that town for a long time and wanted to see it.  It's a very old town, and like a lot of the small cities and towns in Florida there were many empty storefronts and buildings downtown.  There were a few very pretty murals on the sides of some buildings.

On the trip to and from Lake Wales we came across several RV parks, which we drove through to check out. We've had several requests to give our opinion of RV parks whenever we can.

Lake Wales campground, Camp N Aire, and Shady Nook RV Park,  all in Lake Wales, are very old parks with lots of park models.  Very tightly packed and 'old' looking.  We didn't care for these.

Camp Inn RV Resort, Frostproof,  is fairly nice, and we would be ok staying there for an extended stay, but it's not quite as nice as where we are currently (and it's more expensive).

Torrey Oaks RV & Golf Resort, Wauchula, is very attractive, but very 'golf' oriented, which doesn't suit us.  They offer many of their lots for sale.

Adelaide Shores, Avon Park is great!  We're seriously considering that one for next year. Very clean park with lots of activities, and very close to the Avon Park/Sebring area.  I managed to get a couple of pictures before my batteries went dead.




Remember, these are just our opinions.  You might have a very different opinion when you see them.  We still have time to decide on next winter. We haven't ruled out going west.  We also may stay here again next year, it's a very nice park at a nice price, and we're getting to know more people.  But it's fun to look.

While driving through one of the RV parks these birds were right next to the road. They're huge, but we have no idea what they are. We also noticed that the parks with small lakes have warning signs for alligators.

We started running through small rain showers on the way home, but the worst came later.  When we got home we turned on the weather radio and listened as tornado watches and warnings popped up all around us.  We now know what the warning alarm sounds like on the weather radio!  There were two "tornadoes reported" that were not far from us, but their direction was away from us so we didn't feel the need to leave the rig.  The only place we could go was the clubhouse, so we took the chance and stayed put.  The rain really started coming down, and there was some serious lightning and thunder for a little while.  Jim rolled the rooftop antenna down, but we didn't feel the need to pull the slides in.  We rocked a little, but nothing serious.  It all finally passed, and now we should just have off and on rain the rest of the night. Nothing like writing the blog during a severe storm!

It was a great day, except for that severe weather thing.  :)