Fifteen years or so ago, John, my late husband, and I (plus our three dogs) were in year two of living in the modest RV we made our home after Hurricane Katrina.
We found ourselves on the east coast of Florida, not far from the beach, deep in watery, palm-encrusted terrain at a place called Bulow RV Resort.
Calling it a "resort" was hopeful.
We nicknamed it “Von Shithole,” which was also a little overstated, since it wasn't terrible. But there was no cement pad to level your RV on, it was often muddy and the RV stations where you parked were a tad random and haphazard.
The showers were left over from some 1950s state park situation, which we suspected this "resort" had once been, and wifi was only available around the office, so I would often work on my computer at a picnic table during the day.
They offered a special rate so we moved in for a few months in deep winter.
We loved the area. Flagler Beach was down the street, St. Augustine down the highway about 30 miles. We'd previously been living in Tampa on Florida's Gulf Coast, which we adored, and before that, Birmingham, Alabama, and Destin, Florida, where I worked at a local newspaper.
This was the first year we got a full taste of the "snowbirds," the influx of RVers from wayyyyy up north who usually spend some or all of January through May in Florida to get away from the freezing winters where they live.
Florida's population swells by roughly 800,000 or more in winter due to the snowbirds flying south for the winter.
We were often the youngest full-timers living at any park we stayed in. We didn’t know anyone. These snowbirds, from Montana, Kansas, and Idaho, all knew each other. Von Shithole was their collective winter destination and they came down in a loosely organized group every year.
Their RVs and incomes were larger and grander than ours. These folks owned businesses or farms, moved their lives down South for the winter months, and settled in. Many had motorcycles and golf carts in tow.
They were salt-of-the-earth citizens, the kind who probably had a "nice truck" and a "work truck," toiled early mornings for a good income and were the backbone of their community. No doubt they had a new gun and old family recipes tucked in a kitchen drawer.
And boy did they love to party.