Episode 1 “Secrets” provides viewers with an inside look at what goes on for owners developing a new RV park and some tricks they have taken to follow the building codes while still making it easy for RV users to utilize their services. After that we take you to the TECO Manatee Viewing Center where you can get up close with Manatees in the wild and for Free!

Click here to learn more about Timberlane RV Park in Bradenton FL

Transcript:

Hello I am Mark Koep with CampgroundViews.com the best place to find see and share
campgrounds and RV parks
We’re here in Bradenton Florida at the lovely TimberLane RV Park or what will soon be
Timberlane RV Park. You see we are going to tell you a little story about opening up a brand new RV park and the process you have to go through to get this into this… we are going to get an inside look and speak to the owners about what it’s like to take nothing and turn it into something people want to pay for to park their RVs there. It is an interesting story and maybe you can get some tips if you’re thinking about starting your own RV Park. Plus we have found a free thing to do outside Tampa that is really cool really interesting and allows you to see manatees up close and in the wild.

First we will go over to Timberlane RV Park in Bradenton Florida.

I’m Steve Simone and this is my family my wife Debbie and daughter Lisa we own the park.

We asked him to tell us their story.

Yeah a gentlemen started it almost twenty years ago and he had a couple of starts and stops. He had done a lot of the in the front half of the park the infrastructure development with the sewer, water, and that and we had to re-certify it all because it’s been inactive for quite a while but in the back
we got CNS engineering here in town engineering in the back and we are trying to permit that with the county and hopefully by the middle of this year start the putting the infrastructure in the back when we are done we will have about a hundred eight sites.

Mark: “So is it easy?”

Steve: It takes a lot of work.

Mark: “You didn’t just jump into this?”

Steve: yeah I know we planned it again I’m retired I had a neighbor in the Florida Keys that owns a few of them and he talked me into the fact that I’m fairly handy and the family is very close and doing projects so he said you guys might want to try it so we did some research we are new to it but it’s going to be an adventure.

Mark: So as you can see the property is really looking good they kept a lot of natural trees a lot of the natural landscape they planted over 600 plants in addition to what they’ve cleared out so really it’s a very natural looking park sites are about 60 feet deep in taking over the park that was started twenty years ago and never finished they had to re-permit a lot of stuff and you’ve got things like this this is an address that way if there’s an emergency call to this site 7536 there is actually a physical address at that site where the emergency responders can go.

Problem is there are no curbs so they had to put posts up. If you are an RVer you are looking at this post going that is ridiculous how am I going to back into that site without hitting the post? They were smart enough to realize that you would ask that same question so what they have done is come up with this idea. PVC plastic in an over-sized hole comes right out weighs about five pounds. Get it out of the way, park your rig… and after you are done slide it right back.

So smart sticking to the codes and making it work that’s what’s cool about this. We learned about this while speaking to them and watching how they worked. They are making this work. It is not easy to open and RV park and it is definitely not cheap but it can be very rewarding…

Saying goodbye to the Simone’s we headed over to the Manatee Viewing area next to the Coal Fired TECO power plant. Like the snowbirds who flock to Florida in the winter manatees flock to the coal power plant to lounge in the warm waters ejected from the facility. It truly is a stunning contrast between the industrial looking power plant and the “pod” is that the right word for “Manatees”? Is it a “pod” a “school”, “grouping”, “gathering” or maybe it’s an a rally it’s like a RV rally of manatees all hanging out in the water that’s a comfortable 68 degrees sticking their nose up every once awhile to take a breath just looking pretty cool.

There are a great viewing decks nice little walkway, gift shop, a cafe and all sorts of fun stuff… best part of this is it is all FREE! Check it out.

Thank you for joining us on this week’s episode we look forward to seeing you again next week remember to subscribe to us on YouTube and check out the site at CampgroundViews.com “V-I-E-W-S” dot com