Family Time in Spring Hill, FL – Barrington Hills RV Resort

Our goal for getting to Florida on this time scale all started with wanting to meet up with Chris’ folks before they ended their snowbird season in Spring Hill.

The time had finally come to put down the landing gear, stow our tray tables and put our seats in their upright positions (we did not however turn off our cellular devices) to make our final approach to our destination after a 6-week 2000 mile cross country repositioning.

The final stretch from Santos Campground in the Ocala area was a mere 1.5 hour hour drive, on the very traffic ridden I-75.  Thankfully we were heading south where traffic was actually moving, because the northbound lanes were bumper to bumper RVs heading north (Hooray! More Florida campgrounds for us!).

 

Barrington Hills RV “Resort”

We’ve come to the area many times in the past, and have tried three different campground in the area and have not yet found a favorite. None of them are exactly our cup of tea.

But since we tend to spend most our time over at the parent’s house anyway – we generally prefer the closest option for the easiest commute.

Our first choice for proximity, even though the most expensive at $250/week, was Holiday Springs RV Resort. But they flat out denied our reservation for being under 55. We’ve also stayed at Aripeka West before, enjoyed it once and the second time had neighbors threatening to shoot each other. We decided to pass on that experience.

So, it was back to our default of Barrington Hills RV Resort (our review), part of the Encore network. The location adds another 10 minutes to our commute each way – but with Passport America rates it comes out to just $147/week (including their ridiculous $4/day ‘resort fees’).

It’s a basic park, that’s decently maintained with mostly park models instead of RVs. The sites are decent enough with usually working hook-ups, and the lawns mostly trimmed weeds.

But for a place to sleep at night while we focused on family – it does just fine. As we arrived just post-season, the park was mostly empty with just those who tend to stay year round left behind.

Family Time

Our time here was mostly focused on family, so not many exciting blog worthy stories.

We’d wake up each morning, attend to a couple work related items, head over and spend the day (usually consisting of helping sort out their tech issues, share in meals and hanging out), come home late at night and repeat. There were waterfront dining outings, sunsets, meeting their friends and lots of laughter.

My mother also came over from the east coast to spend a few days – and share in the anniversary of my father’s passing 3 years ago. It warms my heart that our parents get along so well and have developed a friendship of their own (they frequently get together even when we’re far away.)

When we can consider our family friends, that’s also a wonderful thing!

We had a couple of invitations for social meetups, which we so appreciate. But we just weren’t able to accept most of them due to our limited time in the area.

For our one evening open, we did arrange to meet up with new-to-the-road nomads Kait & Joe Russo – who run their blog We’re the Russos where they are sharing a lot of what they are learning about the RVing lifestyle.

Fun couple who we hope we get to cross paths with again and we had an enjoyable evening sharing in wine & appetizers.

What’s Up Next?

So.. that’s that. A wonderful week with family and new friends made.

We’re now in the Orlando area, and will soon be making our way to Melbourne to prep for our upcoming cruise! We’re so excited, and SO ready for a little vacation. Hopefully we will survive a bandwidth disconnect for a few days at sea and not wither away from withdrawal (nothing a fruity tropical drink can’t fix, I imagine).

I’m going to try to catch up the travelogue from our time in other locations around Central Florida over the past couple of weeks. If I’m successful, I’ll schedule those posts out in our absence. I’m honestly not sure what else will get posted in the coming weeks.

So, apologies up front if things get a little boring around here. We promise to bring back some fun stories from our non-RV adventure, and get back to all the content we’re intending to create but just don’t seem to be able to find the time for.

In mid-May, we’ll move back into the bus and our intention is to start heading up to New England for new-to-us locations and attending the Escapade in Vermont.