And now for something completely different…

I’d heard long ago that the restaurant at Cherry Pocket had some great food but never got around to going there before moving from the area. Lately, while googling around, I came across their website and discovered they have full-hookup RV sites, so a short dining and camping trip was in order.

Cherry Pocket is a Florida fish camp in the full sense of the term.  It’s not neat and tidy, has no manicured lawn, has no particular amenities; it does have old-Florida charm and some mighty nice friendly people.

At first glance the Kountry Klub entrance doesn’t seem so spiffy but that’s just appearance; the restaurant/bar is pretty nice inside. Not upscale but properly clean and decorated.

A small community has grown at Cherry Pocket. There are elderly travel trailers that have screen porches and other rooms grown up around them and there are newish park models. The community is nestled along a small indentation in Lake Pierce.

The story is that the land was owned by a man named Cherry and he said it looked like a pocket.

There are only a few transient RV sites; two or three near the lake and I believe a couple more off to the side.

Did I mention food? We went for dinner Tuesday evening and it turned out the be the all-you-can-eat catfish night and I definitely did my part in keeping the catfish population down. The next night we had fried shrimp and oysters, all very good.

Cherry Pocket Steak & Seafood Shak

3100 Canal Road
Lake Wales, FL 33898
ph: 863-439-2031
cherrypocket.com

It’s been two months since we left home and this fulltime RV lifestyle really suits us. We do everything we do at home, just on a smaller scale…plus we get to enjoy the cooler weather up on the mountain.

We like it so much that we’ve committed to a year’s rent for our site. Even though we won’t be here for three months or so the cost is about the same as paying monthly for the time we will be here and it secures our site for when we return.

Since our site is in a lower part of the CG we’ve named it Hicks Holler; no sooner did we do that than the Hicks family from Tennessee moved into the site directly across from us!

We’ve been discussing what to do; looks like our best option is to rent out the house at Lake Como. The rental income would pay costs there plus our rent here in Tennessee or in Florida during the winter or wherever else we may wander.

Now we just need to get rid of all that stuff…

Newport Park Campground is a super little park on US 98 between Nowheresville and BFE.

It’s a 15-site CG on the St. Marks river at, you guessed it, Newport. The St. Marks NWR and lighthouse is right across the street, Shell Point Beach and the Spring Creek Restaurant are a few miles west and Crawordville’s a few more miles northwest. The Wakulla Springs Lodge is right nearby. As far as I can determine, there’s no other CG within 40 miles.

The first night we were there every frog in the universe tuned up; the next morning every bird joined in the cacaphony.

All sites are FHU for a princely sum of $15. The showerhouse shows its age but it’s clean. Call the CG hosts at 850-925-4530 to make a reservation. We stayed in site #7

Here we are snuggled in; it was cold and rainy.

Real woodsy.

Fog rises over the St. Marks River.

And Mister Tigger is in full alert.