Holidays just give us
a SOLID reason to PARTY, HEARTY!
Labor Day weekend was full of stuffed stomachs, boogie shoes, belly laughs and hair of the dog kind of mornings. AND if we had to do it all over again, we
wouldn’t have done it any differently.
Families piled in Thursday and Friday, ready to get their
long weekend started. Campers. Fifth-wheels. Pop-ups. CLASSIC . Golf carts. BBQs.
Tiki lights. Corn hole. TVs SETUP OUTSIDE RVs! The only thing missing from
Camping World’s inventory were lawn animals!
The park was BUZZING with life and the energy all pointed to
one thing. FUN!
To help set the tone of the weekend, Camping World from Lake
City sponsored a Biscuit and Gravy breakfast Saturday morning, catered by
Branford’s Cuzins Café. Biscuists. Gravy. Eggs. Bacon. Sausage. Toast.
Potatoes. Juice. Coffee. We weren’t messing around because biscuits and gravy
is a Sturgeon Family favorite and it wouldn’t have been a holiday weekend if we
didn’t share the goods with the park, ESPECIALLY when Cuzins makes these country
breakfast potatoes that are sinfully delicious and need to be SHARED WITH
EVERYBODY!
Now, being that it was the LAST deck party of the Summer and
the FIRST GATOR game of the year, ORANGE and BLUE was out in full force and the
tunes were pumping to keep the party groovin! The river was filled with people
trying to beat the heat, the lounge was packed with pool sharks, football fans
and bikers enjoying a tasty beverage, popcorn snack and the AC. The energy was high and it made for a great
afternoon.
Steel Bridge, a TRUE LOCAL FAVORITE with a wide genre of
songs finished out the day’s festivities by playing outside on the patio stage.
They truly now how to make you want to get out of your seat and shake your
booty! I even saw their Emcee attempt a FLIP, OFF the stage and into the crowd!
He was VERY CLOSE to landing it but may have misjudged the distance from the stage
to the ground a little bit. Oops! But hey, high-five for the intensity!
Sunday the temperature was turned WAY UP and the only thing
to keep you cool was the river and an ice cold beverage! Hitting up the
Ichetucknee was a MAD HOUSE! Boats upon boats were tied up, one fellow refer to
it as the “redneck yacht club”, ha! Being on the boat was nice and all but
personally, I think being on a floaty in the river was the sweet spot!
Had a few spicy chicken wings, tried some homemade baked
cookies, dangerously delicious chili cheese dip AND saw TWO. TWO very LARGE manatees
casually swim by who paid no mind to the hundreds of boats overhead. Amazing!
After a long afternoon on the river, Big John’s smoking BBQ
and pickled ribs were CALLING!! Getting to the food tent and seeing the spread,
man-oh-man, it wasn’t a BBQ it was a FEAST! Every type of pasta, potato and
taco salad you could think of! Baked beans with bacon, ham, hamburger…green
bean casserole, deviled eggs, coleslaw, cornbread, mouthwatering meatballs…UPSIDE
DOWN PINAPPLE CAKE! I could seriously go on and on! We ate until ALL the food
was gone and bellies were protruding over pants!
Funniest part about the whole thing…was my boyfriend from
Seattle kept being taunted by the campers about this amazing BBQ… “He had never
seen a BBQ like the South’s BBQ.” “Never
tasted ribs like Big John’s ribs.” “Didn’t even know what a proper green bean casserole
was until he had one in the South.” So here he wakes up from an after river nap
– nudge-nudge- ALL JAZZED to get a plate full of the “South’s fixins” and to
his surprise, ALL the food was gone, the only thing he tasted of the South’s
famous BBQ was a handful of potato chips, HA! Snooze ya lose! Truly!
But the party didn’t end with fully bellies, oh-no-sir-ee.
The DJ cranked up the jams, a volley ball game started up and corn hole
tournaments began. As the sun set it was a full on BBQ after party, dance
party! People kicked off their flip-flops and got down in the sand. What my Seattle boyfriend did learn about the
South was that line dancing (Wobble. Baby. Wobble. Baby. Wobble. Baby.) and moon
shine is still going strong!
Waking up Monday morning the park was QUIET. The holiday festivities
had kicked everyone’s butts and it was time to relax before packing up and
heading back to J-O-Bs and school. Overall the weekend was an AMAZING TIME,
surrounded by good people with big hearts! The campers showed us what it means
to be a community and made Ellie Ray’s feel like home, can’t thank you enough
for that! Although you can’t relive a party, we are very much looking forward
to next one!!
