Yesterday we left the Tampa area after having spent a few days at the Florida RV Supershow. As the blog title implies, we along with 52,000 of our closest friends, attended the event this year. We parked out on the event’s grassy parking lot along with 800 other motorhomes and trailers. The show featured every RV from a small one person pop-up trailer to a few motorcoaches that were priced in excess of $2 Million! You could go in to see them, but you had to have an escort and take your shoes off at the front door. There were seminars and vendors with every gadget known to man. There are also many RV Resorts (not called RV Parks anymore) that will actually sell you a site and it is deeded to you as real property. Depending on the Resort and the site, you can add everything from a small shed to a small cottage for guests to use when they visit you. Also the location of the site and the resort determine the price for the lot. Some were as little as $40,000 and some we saw were as much as $400,000+. Then you are charged a monthly “maintenance fee” to help defray the cost of maintaining the facility. And, don’t forget that since this is real property, there are tax issues to keep in mind. We took the brochures and looked at their pictures, but kept our wallet in our pockets.
One of the neat things about RVers is their general friendliness. I could just be standing outside of my motorhome and several folks would wander by and strike up a conversation. Take the dog for a walk and you could be guaranteed to find out something interesting about at least four people. A couple had contacted us via email and said that they were going to be at the show and wanted to meet us. They had read my blog (surprisingly, someone besides me reads these things!) and were in Alaska the same time we were. They were even in the same area! Amazingly, they found us at the show. Recognizing us from our pictures on the blogs. We had a great conversation and now we have two more friends!! This RVing thing is great!
WARNING- EDUCATIONAL STUFF FOLLOWS--MAY BE EXTREMELY BORING TO SOME READERS... During our visit to Tampa, we took a day trip to Tarpon Springs. This town is noted for having the largest Greek-American population of any city in the US. It is also know as the source for fresh sea sponges. It seems that the waters off the western coast of Florida and along the Gulf coast all the way to Louisiana are teeming with sponges of all shapes and varieties. This town was founded by Greek sponge divers because of its abundant sponge beds. The sponge starts as a single cell organism and as it grows, the cells link up and form channels within the sponge. Seawater flows through these channels and food is filtered out for the sponge. After five years, a sponge has grown to a size right for harvest. The divers remove it from the rocks, leaving a small residue. From this residue, a new sponge will take shape and grow. There is estimated to be over 13,000 square miles of sponge beds, so the resource continually renews itself. Once the sponge is harvested, it is hauled up on deck and washed to remove a membrane that surrounds the sponge. The sponge as we know it is really the skeleton of the organism. Once cleaned, the sponge is threaded on a line and hung from the mast to dry (thus getting them off the deck and out of the way). This is how they come in to port.
There are dozens of varieties of sponge and each can be used for a different purpose. There are the wool sponges that are soft and work well in the shower or for washing the car. There is a sponge that is almost like velvet. It is used to gently wash off makeup and such. The sponges in the photo above are Vase Sponges. You can actually plant Orchids or Air Plants in them. The plant will take root in the sponge and the sponge will absorb and distribute the water you add for the plant. These sponges can be 2 to 3 feet in diameter!! The sponges are bagged up and sent to market to be sold around the world. And yes, we bought some for use in the motorhome.
Then the question is asked, what do you do with your boat when you stop fishing for the season? We found the answer. You put it away like shoes in a closet. See below...
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