Our first hurricane warning as RVers!
We entered Florida shortly before the warnings for Hurricane Dorian, and decided to turn north to wait it out until we knew what Dorian would be doing. (Our hearts break for the Bahamas, who will be recovering from this for a long time.)
We drove as far as Macon, GA, and ended up at the Al Sihah Shriner’s RV Park, run by the Al Sihah Shriners. The Shriners, if you don’t know much about them, are a service-oriented fraternal organization which runs hospitals specifically for disabled children, in order to help them lead happy, healthy lives. The RV park helps them support their mission, but also offers a safe place to stay for families seeking medical treatment for their children.
When we pulled up, we told the host that we weren’t sure how long we needed to stay, because we were just waiting out the hurricane. He understood, and told us to go find a spot we like, and he’d come find us to check us in. There are two areas for RV parking: one is a gravel loop with hookups outside the loop (and plenty of grass), and the other is a grass lot (and we aren’t sure if the grass lot had hookups). Most of the sites around the loop were back-in, but there were a couple pull-thrus, as well. We found a shady spot under a tree, and needed some creative block placement in order to properly level our rig, but it was so worth the trouble!
We stayed here for several nights waiting out the storm, and enjoyed the peace and quiet so much that we stayed two more nights just to decompress from a stressful couple of weeks. Even the cats loved it! Lillian was so happy to watch the cardinals from the bedroom windows, and Tycho had a great time walking in the grass, prancing after butterflies.
There are a few out buildings on the property that they rent for events, and there was what looked like a family reunion our first night there. The next day, the place was so clean that we wouldn’t have known there were a few hundred people partying the night before. The dumpster (we could only find one) stayed full the entire time we were there, but it was Labor Day weekend and everyone was concerned about the storm, so it was understandable.
The park is $40/night, and they offer a $10 discount for Passport America, Escapees, and All American RV Parks memberships. (Yes, this is not a 50% discount for Passport America, but the Shriners do good work, and we had no problem paying $30/night for a safe and beautiful place to stay to an organization that also supports helping disabled kids.)
Our camp host never did come to find us, and we never got any neighbors. It was such a wonderful, peaceful break from what had been a stressful month of travel. We left our payment and a thank-you note in the mailbox on our way out.