A Time and A Place

"Life is like a coin. You can spend it any way you wish, but you only spend it once."

The one nice thing about being in an RV park --  big or small  --  with paved streets is that you can ride your bikes.  Where we landed last week, the lots are huge and the streets are paved.  There are no hills to ride up or down.  There isn’t much traffic and the riding is easy.  Even Terry has been out riding the bike every day. 

Toni and Doug are here and we had another friend show up a few days ago.  Linda is parked next to us in her new Mercedes Sportsmobile.  This super Class B is new to her.   It’s beautiful and I think she’s enjoying the fact that there is snow at her home in Minnesota but where she is there is only sunshine and lots of it.  We have one more  friend pulling in today.  Things are good!

It seems the longer we are on the road the more educated we become. Some of that education hits the pocketbook pretty hard. Other parts of it just includes more information added to our memory banks. I’ve always thought if we ever settled on a snowbird park that a small park would no doubt be better than the big ones. I figured it’d be easier to get to know fewer people than huge groups of people. Well, there is another side too. In a small park there’s fewer people to get to know so eventually everyone knows everyone. You can’t have a potluck or a barbecue for a few folks – common RV activities – without a possibility of making others feel slighted. I guess there are pros and cons no matter what type of RV park you choose.

We were invited with Toni and Doug to a barbecue the other night.  Toni and Doug have stayed in this small park for the last three years and they know absolutely everyone here.  Toni makes a point to know everyone no matter where she goes.  She’s definitely a very outgoing person but one who never wants to hurt anyone’s feelings.  There was a little concern at the time of the invite about the little get together being for just a few and others not being invited.

The very next night we did our own little potluck with us providing part of the meal, the Lairds bringing part and Linda adding some.  We even had another neighbor join us.  However, since we don’t know very  many folks here, hurting someone’s feelings by not being invited wasn’t an issue.

---- Small group gathering

Some snowbirds are just more comfortable returning to the same park year after  year.  It’s a comfort thing.  Once they find a park in a place they enjoy, that’s where they head.  In a large park there are lots people.  There are so many people that not everyone knows everyone else. Over time  they eventually meet others with similar interests. It’s like birds of a feather sticking together in their own little group. 

In a small park there are fewer people.  Thus, the groups overlap. Having a group barbecue means you have to pick and choose who to invite and who to leave out.  Well, that is if you don’t want to invite the whole park.  If you don’t invite everyone in the park, you take a chance of hurting feelings.  Word seems to pass along pretty fast in small parks because everyone soon gets to  know everyone else.

In larger parks there are activity directors who keep the active people active with new activities and gives residents a chance to meet others who enjoy the same thing..  Sometimes the smaller parks leave the activities up to those in the park.  New blood brings in new ideas.  Old blood doesn’t always want to change.   Needless to say, it can certainly be a tug of war.

Our own little potluck ----

Over the years we have stayed in both transient parks like our Thousand Trails membership provides for and stayed in parks with leaseholders.  We’ve also done quite a bit of boondocking which isn’t in a park at all.  We’ve discovered there definitely is a difference in the activities and in the people who choose these activities.  Is one better than another?  Absolutely not.  Sometimes we go to a park for the location and other times we go to enjoy the people.  There’s a time and place for everything.

Today …. we’re off to the casino with Terry’s mom.  Wish us luck!

PS - I thought I better post something before I heard from Sabrina.

‘Tis life on the road.