After harvesting sugar beets in North Dakota, we were ready for a nice warm winter in southern Florida. So we headed for Silver Palms RV Resort in Okeechobee where we had jobs lined up for the season.

First Impressions

Just inside the main gates to Silver Palms is one of 5 lakes. The owners around the lake have decorated their palm trees around the lake with blue spotlights. It is a sight to behold.

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Silver Palms RV Resort is a 5-star luxury resort and we really enjoyed it there. While Silver Palms does rent out a few lots, most of the lots are owned. Most owners are snowbirds who are there for the winter season and go north for the summer. All of the roads are paved and the owners are required to pave their RV pad and landscape their lots. Most owners also put in a tiki hut and a casita. Most of the tiki huts are fixed up with entertainment centers, outdoor kitchens and some even have bars. While some of the casitas are fixed up nicely, most are used for storage and many have laundry.

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Silver Palms has a huge heated and cooled swimming pool and hot tub. There is a bar and grill right next to the pool. The bar and grill were open Tuesday through Saturday from 11:00 to 5:00. The grill had a regular menu and most days there was a daily special. They also had live entertainment poolside on Tuesdays and Fridays.

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The poolside grill is in a corner of the huge clubhouse where they have regular entertainment events. In the clubhouse are a large ballroom, a pool hall, a card/game room, an exercise and fitness room, and a library.

Entertainment, Activities, Parties, Sports, Exercise and more

Across the pool from the clubhouse is the owner’s lounge. It’s a small lounge just for owners to use for private parties, meetings.

Just to the south of the clubhouse are the pickleball courts. Nearby you will also find volleyball, basketball, shuffleboard, and petanque courts.

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Silver Palms always seems to have something going on. In addition to the sports listed above here is just a brief list of some of the things to do; DJ or live entertainment, painting, cooking, quilting arts & crafts, dances, dance classes, line dance classes, golf cart drive-in-movies, Yoga, Zumba, water aerobics, billiards, bingo, bunco, cribbage, euchre, poker, Mahjongg, Mexican train, Petanque, Texas Holdem, bus trips to shows, entertainment, and events.

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There is a lot to do at Silver Palms, but there isn’t a lot to do in the Okeechobee area. There is a WalMart, a little shopping, a few restaurants, and a couple of flea markets on the weekends. It is at least a 45-minute drive to the east coast and 1 hour to the gulf coast. After about a month we were both ready to move on. But because we had committed to our jobs, we stayed until they were over mid-April.

We did take the time to go to both coasts a couple of times, one thing you must do if you spend a Winter in Southern Florida. One of the most interesting things we saw was several blue things washed up on the shore. We had spent quite a bit of time in the water that day, and when we got back home we found out that they were Portuguese Man O’war. They are not a jellyfish, but a siphonophore. They have very nasty stings and can even be deadly,

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Fishing

Of course in Florida, there are a lot of fishing opportunities, both freshwater, and saltwater. Anyone who know me knows I love to hunt and fish. So I will make another post about the fishing I did in Florida.

Our Jobs for the Winter in Southern Florida

Sherry’s experience in the food industry is what got us the jobs. She was the cook in the poolside bar and grill. I told them I would fill in and do whatever they needed. So when we got there I found out I was going to be a bartender at the poolside bar and grill.

This was a totally new experience for me, as I had never been a bartender before. I was a little nervous at first and a little slow mixing drinks. I did end up enjoying tending bar by the end of the season.

The manager also asked me to help and give guidance to the activities director. She was young and needed some guidance they hoped I could give her. Well, that didn’t work out, so when she quit, they asked me to be the activities director. I guess I didn’t say no firmly enough, because I got the position on top of being the part-time bartender.

Because the previous activities director was not very organized, I had a mess to get straightened out. So my 20-30 hour job had turned into a 40-50 hour job for few weeks. Covid 19 also was going on about this time and we had a few cases at Silver Palms. So some of the big events inside the clubhouse that I had scheduled, I ended up having to cancel. Canceling scheduled events was not a very fun experience. A lot of the entertainers were not very happy, after all, that is their livelihood.

After I got everything straightened out, the activities director ended up being a job I enjoyed. Once the entertainers got to know me, we really got along well. There was some bad blood there before.

Friends for life

Silver Palms management, the kitchen manager, the owners, and the entertainers were all begging us to come back next year. We really loved it at Silver Palms, and we will miss the great friends we made. But the whole reason we retired and bought our RV was to travel and see the whole country. We may come back to spend Winter in Southern Florida in a few years, but for now, we are going to keep movin’ on.

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