February 28, 2025 - March 24, 2025 -- Ragan's Family Campground, Madison, FL - Fulltime Families Family Reunion
Written By: Wendy
After a very long travel day of 10 hours, we pulled into Ragan's Campground as weary travelers. The long haul was worth it though because this is where we'd be spending the next month, along 113 other families that travel full time. This is the site of the Fulltime Families Family Reunion Rally, which is their biggest gathering of the year. We were excited to meet some new families and to be stationary for almost a whole month, the longest we've ever stayed in one place. The first week of the rally is jam packed with activities all day long, including morning coffee talks, specialized crafts and games for the different age groups of kids, happy hour chats, and evening fires or activities just for the parents. The next two weeks after the one official rally week are spent with the kids doing either sports or drama camp. We mentally prepared ourselves for the nonstop month of activity and the constant socialization as we pulled into the campground, but first we needed sleep from the very long travel day. Yes, first sleep, then party!
As families arrived and the first couple of days of the rally unfolded, we were surprised by the number of people we did not know, which was most of them. We felt that we had done exceptionally well building community in the short amount of time we'd been on the road and had a solid group of friends we could rely on that we had just been hanging out with for the past 2 months. None of those friends were attending the rally because there are only so many things you can squeeze into a winter in Florida. We'd heard so much about the Madison Rally, though, so we really wanted to experience it for ourselves. It might have been out of our comfort zone because we didn't know many people, but we knew we could make friends. I mean we'd done it before, right, so how hard can it be?!
The thing about the Madison rally is that it was kind of like going back to high school. It felt a bit cliquey, and we did not know which clique we should or could join. The clique that ruled the roost was the non-working moms of teenagers. They were here with all their besties, and most of them had been coming for years. They spent their days walking around the campground in a pack making sure to get all their steps in for the day. The only noticeable variation in their day was that around 4:00pm, they would swap their travel coffee mugs for drinks in koozies. Their days of constant parenting were behind them as their responsible and self-sufficient teens ran around all day with their friends and only checked in when they needed to eat or sleep. That left the moms free to do whatever their hearts desired most of the day without having constant demands made of them by tiny humans. I looked on at them with great sighs of envy, for that was definitely not me; I was a working mom of littles. I would gaze longingly at them walking by as I sat in my clam, working away on my computer to the sounds my children screaming inside our trailer. I did not have endless hours to walk and socialize with other parents. I had to wake up early to work most mornings before my kids woke up. When I did try to socialize, I was often cut off mid-sentence by one of my kids who needed to go the bathroom or wanted a snack or wanted to be pushed on the swing or...(endless possibilities here, use your imagination!). Ok, so teen mom clique was definitely out for me. There was the AI clique. Those parents would talk about AI and the possibilities for hours. Maybe a possibility for Scott, but also out for me, I could not hold up in that conversation and would end up making a fool of myself by asking a ridiculously dumb question. There were the parents of middle schoolers, who were often just as awkward as their middle school age students. Not there yet, luckily. There was the exercise buffs, who would exercise for long periods of time together every morning. I love exercise, but I just didn't have that kind of time on my hands that most of the people had for the amount of time they spent exercising daily. I joined one of the workout groups on the second morning, and I was so sore for about 3 days after that I could barely walk. Too intense for me. There were the musical parents who jammed together, but my instrument playing days were behind me. After several days, I realized that the parents of young children is its own loosely formed clique. I say loosely formed because we are always running off in different directions to meet our kids' needs so it takes a bit longer for us to form together and create relationships. At the mom's night in, part way through the week, I finally realized that I found a little group when I was waved over to join a table for dinner and waved over again at the photo booth a few times to come take pictures with some other moms. Ok, making progress in the friends department!
As the official rally week came to a close, Scott and I were grateful for things to slow down a bit. It had been a fun, but exhausting week trying to make it to all the activities and kept everyone properly fed and not too sleep deprived. On the last day of the rally, a large storm rolled in and it poured rain most of the day. I welcomed the day of rest to cozy up in our RV and recover from the week.
The next morning was the start of sports camp. Parker was signed up to attend two 1-hour session a few days a week over the next 2 weeks. He had zero experience with sports, so I was a bit nervous about how it would go. When we arrived, I discovered that he would be in the youngest age group, which was more focused on turn taking, following directions, and an introduction to team games. Perfect, that's exactly what he needed. To my surprise, I also found out that I could drop Caroline off as well and then leave them for an hour. Leave them?! Completely?? Like have a 1-hour break in the middle of the day? Whaaat?! I love my kids, but gosh was it lovely to have two reliable breaks in my day during those weeks! I took full advantage of those breaks. During a couple of the times, Scott and I chatted about pre-planned topics we needed to discuss, we met with our financial advisor one morning (adulting at its finest), and one afternoon, I went out to coffee with some other moms. Teen moms. See, I can hang now! For exactly one hour and then I'm back to a mom of littles. At least I got a glimpse of what my future would hold.
As the days ticked on and relationships grew with other families, I realized that we made up an essentially self-sustaining community. All of us had different talents and skills, and we were all happy to share them with others. You needed a hair cut? There was a lady that traveled with a salon chair. Want some fresh baked cinnamon rolls one morning or homemade cupcakes for your kid's birthday party? A couple of teens had a thriving bakery business. Need some cleaning products or health shots? Several moms selling a variety of those. Want some entertainment of watercolor classes or guitar or ukulele lessons? Done. How about some pizza dough delivered to your campsite? We got you covered. And the list goes on. It amazed me at how many of our needs could be met without ever having to leave our campground with exception of fresh food. Although if we were there longer, I'm sure some people would start farming the land. It felt like a glimpse at what old barter communities looked like 500 years ago. One day, our fuel filter light came on in our truck. Scott made an appointment at the closest dealer, 50 minutes away. The dealer then called and cancelled the appointment, much to our annoyance. Later that day, he met one of the guys at the campground who was a diesel mechanic. He could come to our site tomorrow and change our oil and fuel filter. Amazing! I attended multiple watercolor classes in the evenings with friends taught by a very talented mom and had ukulele lessons taught by a teen. I truly loved how much this community supported each other's unique talents, passions, and side hussles.
We realized early on that we could use this time with this supportive community to grow our 50 Pies opportunities. At the beginning of the month, we made pizzas for one kid's birthday party, and we were paid to do it. Paid to make pizza, what?! But that's against your mission, you might say. To that I say, we only promised people 50 free pies in each state, nothing more. We already had our pizza party plans for the month that would bring us to over 50 pizzas for Florida, so the family willingly paid us to make pizza, which ended up being so fun. For our official 50 Pies pizza party, we made 23 pizzas, and we could not make them fast enough. With well over 150 people that came to our party, we had a constant long line of hungry mouths to feed. Most people only got one slice and even still we ran out of pizza at the end. People were so complimentary of our crust and asked several questions about how we make it, that we realized that we could sell our dough. I quickly made a sign up sheet and took dough ball orders for us to deliver later. Our dough ball delivery was such a success that we took several rounds of orders and sold over 100 dough balls throughout the month. Apparently we can make money with this 50 Pies thing! It was so fun and eye opening to see just how much this community supports each other.
As the month was winding down, and I had yet to even leave the campground after 2 weeks, I was itching to get out and explore. We had an adventure day with another family and went to a strawberry farm to go strawberry picking on a sunny and warm Saturday morning. The large red juicy berries gleamed in the sun, and our kids had fun running through the rows to find the most delicious looking berries. After a picnic lunch, we headed to Ichetucknee Springs State Park to do some afternoon paddle boarding. I marveled at the unique Florida beauty of the cypress trees and Spanish moss knowing that this would be one of my last Florida adventures. It was a day well spent with new friends.
Throughout the month, Scott and I were also able to take advantage of the abundance of teens around and get a babysitter a few times. We had a couple double dates and were able to enjoy some the adult evening activities without having to worry about our kids for a few hours. For our last date, we decided to get out of the campground and for just the two of us to have a nice meal together. Well we were in northern Florida with not a ton of options close by, in the middle of the day on a Tuesday. Hmmm, where to go? Waffle House? Yep, that's right we did our one and only special date at the local Waffle House. Classic small town Florida. At least we had time to chat!
And with that, our month in Madison, Florida came to an end. We drove away sad to leave so many people behind that we had grown close with, but we were ready to move on and see new sights!