Warm Florida weather, it depends on where you traveled from!

 December 2025:

Winter was late getting here in 2025. It was the 21st of December before we departed for our winter Florida trip and Myrtle Beach was still having fairly mild weather. I briefly thought, if this is going to be an exceptionally warm “El Nino” winter, maybe we should just stay home. 

I don’t know what happened to “El Nino” but the winter turned out to be colder than normal. We had left as planned on the 21st and missed the snow in Myrtle Beach, but experienced the chill in Florida. 

As usual we avoided all interstate highways

On the way south we stopped one night in Kingsland Georgia, staying at the Country Oaks Campground. We ran the heater at night and continued to do so for the rest of the winter trip.

Our new favorite stopping place on the way south.

On Monday the 22nd we arrived at our destination in Mount Dora Florida. We are staying at Lake Saunders RV Resort until the end of the month. The park is mostly permanently anchored RV’s and “park model” homes, with a small transient area on the shores of Lake Saunders.

Lake Saunders RV Park in Mt Dora

It is a quiet 55+ park, while it is at capacity, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of folks in residence. Maybe they’re all staying inside because of the cool temperatures. Our site is on a small canal that leads out to the lake. There are only about ten Transient RV’s with us in the transient area, all from the far north and happy to be here.

Our site by the lake

aerial view of Lake Saunders RV Park 

We’ve been to Florida for many winters and we don’t feel like vacationers, we live a pretty normal life in the RV. We were very consistent in going to the gym on Mon/Wed/Fri which is our schedule at home. One of the reasons we chose this RV Park is because Planet Fitness is right up the road. 

We’ve been to Mt Dora some years ago, so we didn’t need to do a lot of touristy things, the downtown is very nice, but it’s also crowded and expensive. We found a really good local restaurant that is outside the tourist area called Haystax.  I will say the town does an excellent job with all the Christmas lighting. We drove through it twice at night, both times it was too cold for us to get out and walk, but we enjoyed the drive around the square.

In the downtown park

This should come as no surprise; our favorite activity is rummaging in thrift stores and Mount Dora and the surrounding towns have quite a few of them. As I write this in March 2026 I don’t recall if I found anything significant. I did buy DVD movies, we watch one each evening when in the RV. Millie leans more towards clothing, more often than not she buys something that she later alters into very attractive and fashionable garments. She is really a talented designer with extraordinary sewing skills.

 We attended Christmas Eve services at the First Baptist Church in Mt Dora. they held two services that day, we went to the 2nd one. It was well attended but full, I think the earlier one had a larger congregation. The service was not a big production, but it's not about a show, it's about the message, right!

This is the end of the 2025 blog, but the trip continues in 2026 as we go further south to Stuart Florida.

That's all folk's, our story continues in the 2026 blog