Kate’s Fish Camp was wonderful. The owners were lovely people. They provided a private and secluded area. We felt safe there. There was a bathroom that was cleaned every day and kept in great shape. There was this wonderful outside shower. One of the owners, Monica, makes wonderful soaps, body washes, and shampoos. She would talk to us about the local area and give us some really great suggestions.

Everything was exciting but also very overwhelming. It was very hot and humid, and I did not want to go outside at all. This left us in a very small area. We had purchased an InTech Flyer Explore, which is their small toy hauler. We had one bed that was a tip-out. The bed was approximately a full XL size. If I slept on the outer side, it was really, really hot and hard to sleep. If I slept on the inner side, my husband was not able to get up and down during the night. We decided to extend the bed into the tip-out and have a queen-size bed with both of us having space on either side of us to get up and down. This worked great for sleeping, but meant we had no space to move around during the day. Our solution was to have a day mode where we moved the mattress back inside the tip out and a night mode where we rotated it back out into the main cabin. We also had not realized how much space our cat would take, who was traveling with us. By the time we had her litter box down, a place for her to sleep, and her food and water out. There was no floor space left in night mode. We also realized very quickly with my husband’s mobility issues. (For those who don’t know, my husband has multiple sclerosis.) that he was not really able to get in and out of the camper easily and fell a few times early on leaving to go to the bathroom. This required us to really make changes to accommodate his health, but also to prevent us from bickering all day long as we bumped into each other. The other thing was if we wanted a drink of water or a snack, we had to leave the camper and open the side kitchen and slide out the fridge. This led to arguments about who had to go out and open the fridge. We thought these were all just teething problems we would eventually adjust to.

We set up our Gazelle Tandem Gazebo and put all of our totes and gear in the Gazebo and it was full!!!! We were carrying so much stuff but continued to struggle to downsize. We did end up getting different totes that we thought would be easier to move and also be better in different weather conditions. We have pictures of the Home Depot truck delivering the new totes. We also had help from a local Gainesville guy who helped up relocate from one spot at Kates to another since it was a lot of work and it was so hot. He helped us organize our totes and get rid of a ton of stuff. It definitely made us realize how much work it is to move. 

We started using the Hip Camp app and Google to figure out where we were going go next. We decided we were going to go to Georgia and look for a place that was affordable, provided us with a bathroom and a shower, and would allow us to set up our gear in a way that made sense for us.