“No dogs, no blacks, no Catholics need apply”….grocery shop sign from a previous era, one that you might suppose wouldn’t be tolerated today; however I’ve found a possible successor. Not nearly as inflammatory, but if you’re part of the excluded, just as troubling.

“No dogs, No kids, No tents”….
“Pet Rules”, clearly displayed outside the registration office, says that dogs are allowed only in the designated areas, followed by a map that encompasses the entire site, creating one vast designated no-go area. Ergo: No dogs. The entrance hoarding prominently boasts that you are entering an ‘Exclusive Seniors’ resort’. Ergo: no families, especially No Kids. The light-up neon sign posted six metres up a pole and visible from outer space, claims ‘campground’ status, the brochure even has an banner icon that is distinctly tent shaped. With the qualification that they might be welcome in April, when nobody tents in Florida. Ergo: No tents.

Quick history. Fact one: Western societies are ageing, the ‘greyagers’, the ‘baby boomers’; born and raised, work and retired in the winter cold north, have done well, they’ve got their annuities, their pensions and their health. Fact two: southern Florida has equitable climate. Put these together and you get fact three: those ageing boomers, those ‘snowbirds’, like the Sandhill cranes, have migrated in their thousands, south. It’s a fact that’s been happening for decades. On previous trips we’ve met them, entered their domains, camped under a tree, becoming the the ‘floor-show’ entertainment for the evening, attended the ‘spaghetti supper’, failed to win a ‘stars’n stripes’ in the bingo draw . In short it was all part of the cultural experiences. Only much has changed in the last thirteen years.

We’ve just been turned away from the third ‘campground’ in quick succession. Which would have been an interesting commentary on the altering demographics of southern Florida, if it wasn’t for the fact that the sun is just a few inches above the horizon, in a tropics where a gloaming is but a transitory twilight. It’s the second night in succession that we’ve encountered this new phenomenon.

George and his son Lennie pride themselves in running the only, or so they claim, campground in Southern Florida, one that happily accepts ‘kids, dogs and tents’. It’s how we’re greeted as we complete that dash against dark, a fast, exhilarating ride through fragrant orange groves in a warm purple light. Although he does wonder if he might be tempted to alter his welcome by transposing the first two groupings. He also confirms what we were starting to suspect; that a lot of the family run campings have been, or are being, bought out by corporate entities, jobsworth managers replacing the owners and gives an interesting insight: Floridian tax law differentiates between campgrounds and RV parks, more favourably for the latter. Where once an owner-operator would have been more than happy to accept our undeclared dollar to pitch a tent in an otherwise unproductive corner, now the manager is happy to turn us out onto a soon dark highway.

All of which leaves us with an interesting dilemma. The plan for this trip had been to make use of the Adventure Cycling Association’s plotted routes. Waymarked maps that concentrate on quiet back roads that connect places of interest with the services that the adventuring cyclist needs: principally food and lodging. The food is still there, it’s the sleeping spot that’s becoming debatable.

The good news is that there’s still the county’s, the state’s, and the national parks’ campgrounds, all of whom still accept, nay, even encourage their use by ‘dogs, kids and tents’.

It always takes a few days to get back into the silent rhythm of the journey, to relearn the rules of the road, to be forcibly reminded that which works in one country isn’t always pertinent in another. As Bill Bryson commented, I’m in the other half of his “two countries divided by a common language”. It’s a timely reminder that there’s a new clutch of rules on this side of the Atlantic, a whole new set of ideas to be explored.