After leaving the Everglades, Miami and the Keys behind, we came to north Florida to take care of some of our legal/tax stuff in our resident county, on the way stopping at St George Island State Park for a week.
St George was awesome but for another blog.
We arrived in Crestview, more specifically, Holt, 10 miles west, to stay at Eagle’s Landing RV Park. For the first night we actually stayed at River’s Edge RV Park, a huge tree filled fisherman’s paradise park at the bottom of “the biggest hill in Florida” as one man called it, but we had almost no cell phone or mifi (our own wireless) signal and the campground wireless was limited to about 2 hours a day per person. Originally we had asked for a week but needed to go get cash. On the way to an ATM in Holt, we saw Eagle’s landing just past the freeway and pulled in to ask some questions. It was a much better spot for signals and they had Tengo internet, a bandwidth limited but not time limited, internet (2gb every 48hrs). We felt bad but told River’s Edge that we changed our minds and decided to only stay a night. The woman was a bit grumpy but what could she do, or why would she really care. They seemed to have plenty of people there. We stayed the night and moved to Eagle’s Landing the next morning.
The people at Eagle’s Landing were really nice. The couple at the office said they co-own the property with their aunt and uncle who were also camp hosts, while they lived in a double wide at the front of the property (with about 10 kids from what I can tell, maybe foster kids? maybe ever kid in Holt? – a town of population 500 or so).
The park has just over 100 spots with plenty of space our your front door and to the front and back, assuming your trailer or bus isn’t 50 feet long by itself. The north side of the park has a huge long strip of open land specifically for dogs. Dogs have to stay leashed but that’s why they invented extending leashes I guess. They also don’t discriminate against breeds of dogs, openly at least. The ground seems pretty well free of poo, one owner stating that there are over 100 dogs in the park but you’d never know because everyone is so good about picking up after them. I think you’d also never know because most of the dogs are little indoor lap dogs who rarely go outside. I’ve seen about 5 dogs so far. There is no cable but, that is completely normal in state parks of course so it wasn’t disappointing to us. With antennae you get about 40 channels, 15 watchable ones, and that’s still more than we usually get. The park also has public restrooms and showers, pretty normal, except that Eagle’s landing only has one toilet shower combo room per gender, (Most people are using their own showers and toilets though so don’t think you wont get a chance at it), and they have a laundry room with 3 washers and 3 dryers for only $1 each! Before we were even setup I was walking to the laundry to take advantage, and a nice old lady even folded my clothes while we were out (I’d only told her she could move them if I wasn’t back and she wanted the dryer, nice!).
We spent Christmas and New Years here and have now returned after 2 weeks in Pensacola to take care of some unfinished business with the DMV and tax office in Crestview. Because the park is basically a big field (not my favorite park design but everything is spacious and nice so we didn’t mind), we weren’t able to keep our awning out because of the wind but it was much to cold out to be outside anyway. The weather got down to 18 degrees around Christmas so we prepared our hoses and pipes as best we could (also another blog) and kept the place warm with out new space heater.
Eagle’s Landing RV Park is probably the best RV park between Tallahassee and Pensacola (inland), depending on what you want. If you want to “camp”, try out River’s Edge RV Park at the bottom of the hill, If you are traveling full time or want a break from “camping” (we stay in camping places most the time), it’s a nice and super affordable dip back into civilization.
