Sawmill Campground in Dade City Florida

So I got to Sawmill Campground pretty late at night on Thursday night... after having to stop to have the Freightliner service done on the RV. You may remember I wrote about having to have the Freightliner service done on the problem that disappeared as soon as I pulled into the Freightliner facility. That fun afternoon, combined with some really bad traffic put me way later than I wanted to be.  But I digress so, I went to I got to Sawmill at about 9:30pm. I called first to make sure that it would be OK to come so late. They have a gate and it’s always manned so they say it was fine. I pulled up to the gate and there is a Southern woman manning the gate. I think I’m falling in love with these southern women. They all seem to have the same routine down pat; it goes like this:

“Hi baby, how are you doing Sugar? Do you know how to get to your site Darling? Let me show you on the map Honey. It’s pretty easy Sweetie you’ll be fine.“

I don’t think I’ve been called so many endearing names as I have on this trip. And I swear they all follow the same script with the same list of endearments. Good thing is I find it endearing. Getting there so late and it being dark, despite a full moon, meant that I had to back into my space in the dark and on my own. Just for the record, I have not done this before.  Even in the daytime with someone directing you, it can be hairy backing up such a long RV.  So I detached the Baby Beast and pointed the headlights toward where I had to back in. It took me a whole lot of forwards and backwards and forwards and backwards and forward and backwards to get myself in, including one backwards where I saw the headlights menacingly in my rear view mirror,  meaning if I kept going I was going to hit the Baby Beast… That would not be good.  That could ruin an already not so wonderful day.

The good news is I did it;  the bad news is that I wound up I parked in spot 156 instead of 157. It was hard to know which spot was which... did the number go to the concrete patio pad or to the pole with the utilities.  Well, guess what?  I wasn’t moving it. And nobody ever said anything the whole weekend so I guess it was not a major problem.  I purposely asked to be in the back by the river.  It’s less busy, less crowded (meaning easier parking in my book), and I had enjoyed being back there last time I was there.  It was nestled in the woods, back behind some of the cabins.  The river was incredibly high because of so much rain lately.  The guy next to me said we were swamp neighbors!  HAHA... no alligators though so all was good.  

Here you can see the Beast nestled in the trees as I walked back from the pool through the cabin area. 

I got up the next day,  made myself a delicious breakfast and out I went to the pool around 10 o’clock.  It was already pretty crowded. I put on some suntan lotion and gave it enough time to dry, then I went in the pool... and they pretty much stay there for six hours until the clouds got to ominous and thunder threatened. I got out of the pool and learned a lesson about Florida weather. There are dark clouds, then a drizzle, then a rumble... no lightning... then all the sudden torrential rains come down for about half an hour to 45 minutes, then the rains stop and are followed by bright blue skies, sunshine,  and everything being completely and utterly dry. You can hardly tell that it had rained.

Well I have to say that was basically my day on Friday and it was my day on Saturday as well... and it was absolutely delightful and delicious. Spending all that time in the water, spending all that time in the sun, meeting so many wonderful people - it was good. I met so many great people... I had a long conversation on Friday with Curtis about our kids and the joys of seeing them out in the world and our shared belief in some sort of higher power. Curtis had a cross around his neck so it’s pretty obvious that we had some big differences, but we delighted in our similarities, and how they affected us, our lives, and our views on so many things. Move on to Bill, who I met when I was walking around at night. We became fast friends and talked about everything and anything.  It’s amazing how much ground you can cover in a short while.   I met JD and Dave in the pool and our conversations were about people and relationships and things that work and things that don’t work and things that we have no idea about... but I enjoyed the two of them thoroughly. Hearing about their views of life and why they moved to Florida and why they were coming back to get a gay campground after having stopped going to gay campgrounds for a while.  New views, New perspectives. It’s nice.  Read my post on gay campgrounds and you’ll see much of my views on this topic. It was interesting to talk about that with a couple of people who had really thought it through as well. Again I really enjoyed getting to meet them at Jed already commented on one of my posts here. Yay!

Entertainment is interesting at Sawmill.  Often, there is a theme to the weekend so the entertainment centers around that. On weekends like this when there is no theme, they have some standards for the permanent residents and the visitors.  So Friday night was Bingo.  Now I have heard of Gay Bingo before but I never went in Philly.  It’s not called gay bingo here... it’s just bingo.  I guess the gay part is too obvious.  The hostess for the evening is the resident drag queen.  She was dressed to the hilt, but, as she said, it was way too hot to shave her legs or put on heels.... HAHA!  She had a mouth on her!  Anything anyone said was fodder for her quick and sharp wit.  All the humor had a sharp edge to it, but you knew to take it for what it was.  Being new, I was the butt of a good chunk of humor and I loved every minute of it.  I was amazed at how quick she was... a wee bit jealous of that!

Saturday night was a show.  It was not a drag show per se.  It was hosted by the same drag queen as the night before, but there were three others, lip syncing to songs and touring the audiences for tips.  There was also a male belly dancer... yup, that was different! And a “magician.”  He had been there when Peter and I were there before so I knew him, but his super low-keyed humor and approach were fun.  His closing skit was to have the MC put her back to him.  He handed her a book and told her to make sure he could not see it.  “Open the page and tell me where you are and let me see if I can read your mind.”  She did.  Page 146... “I see something about enchantment.”  RIGHT!!! PARAGRAPH 5 begins with “enchantment.”  Move to another page... and he kept telling her more and more and she was more and more amazed that he could remember SO much from wherever she was going.  Of course, we in the audience knew that he had he own copy of the book in his hand.  In ensuring that he could not see her book, she could not see his.  He kept telling the audience to shhhh.... His timing was perfect and her amazement so utterly real that it was really really funny!!!  

After the show, I danced for two hours and had a blast!!  Perfect last night.

So sawmill was beautiful, the people were beautiful the entertainment was fun and lively and I thoroughly enjoyed my stay. If you’re so inclined, I recommend going. If not I hope you enjoyed sharing the visit with me. Don’t forget to leave comments and subscribe!