Our Winter in Arcadia, Florida

by Ronnie and Jim · Published April 24, 2020 · Updated September 28, 2020

It seems like years ago now but we left to come back home just a few weeks ago. The new world of living with the coronavirus has taken over our lives. Nevertheless I wanted to post some photos of our trip….we were encamped in our motor home in Arcadia for a little over two months.

We arrived here at this RV park called The Ranch at Arcadia Palms on January 11th. We often had some morning fog which made for beautiful sunrises. This was the view from our site minutes before sunrise on January 19th about 8 AM. The view is toward the old ranch house which is being remodeled into a sort of clubhouse. The pool, pickleball courts and shuffleboard courts will all be over there. Unfortunately they were not ready for us this year….the owners did give all of us a nice discount this year and on next years price in compensation for lack of these amenities.

Weather was mostly warm and sunny but often very windy. Later in February and into March we had a bunch of really hot days …in the upper 80’s. However, always by late afternoon it cooled down making for lovely times at cocktail hour.

The city of Arcadia is a small town about 35 miles north of Punta Gorda on US 17. On up north about 15 miles is the little town of Zolfo Springs.

Before the railroads it was an important town on the Florida Cracker Trail, a cattle trail from Bradenton to Fort Pierce. Cattle herded from this area and the Florida Heartland were run to the coasts along this route as early as 1850. This part of Florida, away from the coast, is still cattle country.

The last weekend in February we went to Zolfo Springs to their annual flea market, a huge event with hundreds of vendors…..a lot of really odd stuff for sale. Others were there to exhibit things like old tractors and steam engines. It was a lot of fun.

An old steam powered tractor still working

We picked a local Mexican vendor for our lunch from at least 30 different food vendors ……

We each had this dish – two ground beef tostada’s and rice

I was stuffed but when we continued our tour of the grounds we found a vendor selling home made ice cream powered by this ancient steam engine dating from about 1904.