Because of time and budgets, we weren’t able to make it home to Michigan to spend Christmas with our families, but Kendra’s parents were able to fly down and spend the holidays with us in sunny Florida.
With the Airstream in-tow, we left from St. Augustine and squeezed into the “Arrivals” lane at the Orlando airport to picked up Ken and Rossi. We squeezed them and their luggage into the back of our Chevy with Noel and continued to our next destination: Lakeland.
As random as this sounds, the campground we stayed at has a lot of special meaning to me. Decades ago, my late grandparents purchased a small winter home within Sanlan Ranch which doubles as an RV park that also has a golf course, nature trails, three pools, shuffleboard courts, and everything else you could ask for.
As kids growing up, our family would road trip from Michigan down here to Florida every few years. Even in my freshman year in college I drove down here with my aunt, uncle and cousins.
Since then both my Grandpa Dawson and Grandma Jo have passed, but three sets of my aunts and uncles have continued the tradition by purchasing my grandparents’ old place along with a couple others just down the street from each other.
They all returned home to Michigan to spend the holidays with their kids and grandkids, but they generously offered a place for Kendra’s parents to stay for the week just a golf cart ride away from our trailer site, which Noel gave her approval after sticking her head out and scanning the area for any lurking alligators.