Cody's Catfish Pond and RV Park

Cody’s Catfish Pond, Weeki Wachee FL

It was a nice cool Wednesday night at Fort De Soto Park in St. Petersburg.  Very good sleeping weather.   The palm fronds in the breeze off the water were wonderful to listen to.  Woke up in time to go down to East Beach for the Sunrise and then to finish packing up to leave this really wonderful park.

We were on the road by 10am.  Our get out time is definitely improving.  I had looked the day before, just on a lark, to see if there were any Whole Foods Grocery stores in the area since it is such a big metropolis.  Sure enough, there was one that I had passed unknowingly on my way to and from the Tampa Airport to pick up Carrie.   So we determined we would go by there on our way up the coast and pick up some organic produce and free range, no pesticides, no antibiotic meats since they do not seem to be plentiful in the regular Florida grocery stores.

After the shopping, we got on the Veterans Highway Route 589 which is a toll road that goes parallel between I 75 and Route 19 which has a stop light every 3 blocks.  The toll road was nicely paved and lightly traveled.  We found out why it was so lightly traveled when we had to stop 5 times to pay tolls in the 42 miles we drove north.  The total toll to go that 42 miles was $12.25.   Can’t say I would recommend this road but maybe it’s just me who finds a toll booth every 6 miles and 30 cents a mile to be a bit much.

We were on our way to Weeki Wachee Florida to do some biking and kayaking at the Weeki Watchee Preserve, Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge, and perhaps to Homosassa Springs State Park.  After checking for parks in the area we settled on Cody’s Catfish Pond and RV Campground recommended by all 3 reviews on the RVparkreviews.com.  The pictures on line give a different impression than the one we got when we pulled in. It’s our first private campground and it’s pretty “unique”. 

Getting to the campground was an act of faith.  Directions said turn off of the Florida famous Route 19, known in a lot of places as "Commercial Way".  I think that would be a great name for Route 29 in my own home town of Charlottesville Virginia. One chain store/restaurant after another for mile after mile after mile.  Off of Route 19 we turned onto St. Andrews Blvd and were greeted with the entrance into "The Heather", a gated golf club community, complete with little staffed guard house and a man who is there in the evenings to wave everybody through.  Couldn't figure out the point of that.  But I was pretty convinced as we drove that this was not the way to the RV park I'd seen and read about.  You go through this up scale community, turn on about the 6th or 7th street down and finally in about 7 more streets the road turns to dirt/sand and dust.  Now it seemed at least possible that Cody's was down here and sure enough a mile or so later you dead end into Cody's.  I guess Cody was there first and the swanky digs got built up in front of him but it seemed pretty strange to be driving a 34' mobile home down the streets of a Sunshine State Golf Resort. Here's the dust road going in as it gets to Cody. That's us parked in the far right.  Too close to the road as it turned out. 

A close up of the "dead end".

The site we had was actually very nice but it was one of what looked like only 3 that weren't permanent residents with travel trailers on blocks or with skirting.  This is the view from under our awning.  We were right on the pond.

Our site from across the pond.  Can you see us on the right of the far shore?

Currently Cody has 89 sites and seems to save a very few up front for "short timers".  We don't actually have too many pictures of the "rest of the park" but we do have one of  "the lighthouse" and our neighbors and another of the basketball court and outdoor laundry facilities.

After getting set up, we were off to look around and check out the area.  It was later in the afternoon by the time we set out so we were only able to get the lay of the land and find the springs, the preserve, the Refuge and 4 of the very nice local parks the county of Hernando provides.  At least 3 of these have beaches for swimming in the Gulf which I definitely want to come back to.   Can't get enough of that water.

We found ourselves at Bay Point Park just in time for sunset.  So here is a picture of sunset over the Gulf  about 100 miles north of our sunrise.   Looks a lot like Florida doesn't it!  :-)