Author: keelhauler

We hoped we could find a site at Fort Desoto in St Petersburg but there were no reservations available starting on a Thursday so we decided to go back to one of our favorite campgrounds, Lithia Springs. We got there at 9 AM on Thursday morning and they said that 5 people hadn’t renewed and maybe somebody would be leaving, check-out time is 11 AM. We lucked out, a camper left Site 37 which was the same river campsite we stayed at last month. It was the only site that became available that day.

We found out that they never cleaned out the log  jam on the Alafia River so if we paddled we would still need to do a portage. We decided to stick to biking around the Fish Hawk Ranch bike trails.

It was really hot so we did two early morning 13 mile tandem bike trips on Friday and Sunday It finally cooled down on Monday and on our last day we did another 12 mi trip. Other than a short in and out all three trips were on totally different trails. Peggy loves the nice curvy paths in the natural areas. For our first time we saw an alligator next to one of the ponds.

One of the trails goes right down the middle of the high tension power lines but most of the trails are in very scenic areas.

We will head back to Cypress Glen campground in the Withlacoochee National Forest on Tuesday, we have reservation for the same site we stayed at in December. They will close this campground after 3 days as they are finally getting around to re-leveling all the campsites. Bud & Pat , who we camped with at WP Franklin, with the Phoenix Cruiser from Highland Hts, OH are supposed to be there when we get there.

Our plans are to visit our friends Paul & Helen in Inverness when we leave the campground, we will then head over to Silver Springs to do a scenic paddle.

The weather turned really warm like last year, the red temps are above normal.

SUN  2/17 Actual Temp 83° /64° Hist. Avg. 78°/56°

MON  2/18 Actual Temp 85° /71° Hist. Avg. 78°/56°

TUE  2/19 Actual Temp 89° /68° Hist. Avg. 78°/56°

WED  2/29 Actual Temp 83° /70° Hist. Avg. 77°/56°

THU  2/21 Actual Temp 82° /70° Hist. Avg. 73°/55°

FRI  2/22 Actual Temp 86° /72° Hist. Avg. 73°/55°

SAT  2/23 Actual Temp 86° /72° Hist. Avg. 74°/56° Bike 13 Mi

 

We left Lithia Springs on Tuesday morning. On Sunday & Monday we has two nice bike rides on the Fish Hawk Ranch trails. Bud & Pat were camped at Silver Lake in their Phoenix Cruiser wondering if we were coming. They thought we were coming on Monday. They were forecasting rain for Tuesday but it did not rain at Silver Lake, but we just hung around camp for the day.

On Wednesday we decided to paddle down the Withlacoochee River to Hog Island. We took a rest break at one of the three group tent spots and then paddle around the island and back to our campground. The river was high because of last week’s rain, it was running 600 cfs, so it took a little longer getting back. The total trip was 9 miles, and it took 3 hours. If we could have arranged for a shuttle down to Nobleton, I think it would have been the same distance but faster because it would all be downstream paddling. You can actually do a 7 mile bike shuttle since the bike trail goes right past the take-out in Nobleton.

On Thursday, Bud & Pat suggested we do a bike ride on the new 10’ wide Good Neighbor asphalt bike trail. We could take it all the way to the center of Brooksville and have lunch at the Main Street Café. It was a good choice, great sandwich and black beans with  rice. It was a nice long rest stop, so Peggy didn’t get tired at all on the 27 mile ride on our tandem.

On Friday Bud & Pat headed to Holder Mine campsite in the same State  Forest, we headed to our our friends Paul & Helen’s house  in Inverness. We hoped to provide them with a little support since Paul is scheduled for major heart surgery on Monday.

Before we got there we did another 18 mile bike trip on the Withlacoochee State Trail from Floral City to north of Inverness. This part is very pretty next to the city parks lakes. There are several road crossings but no major roads and the traffic usually yields to bikers,

Helen cooked us a great dinner and we really enjoyed their hospitality. It’s now spring in FL, take a look at Helen’s flowers. We left their home at 9 AM on Friday and by 10:30 AM we were at Silver Springs State Park boat launch.

Since the State Park took over from the old owners they now allow you to put-in right at the head of the spring. They also rent canoes and kayaks. We did a 4 mile paddle up and back to the campground’s boardwalk which would be a one mile walk if you wanted to launch there. If you say you are a camper from state park there is no charge for boat or persons to launch right  at the spring. There is plenty of parking but weekends are busy.

The river is back to its crystal clear state of years ago. The park service is now doing a really great job maintaining the river and the grounds. We saw lots of birds, gators and turtles. They introduced a canoe trail that you can paddle up or down the river or a narrow water trail. We paddled about 4 miles which took us only two hours even with the picture taking.

We were on our way by 1 PM but we decided to stay at the local Walmart only a mile away and do some shopping at Aldi’s & Walmart and then stay overnight. On Sunday morning we expect to drive over to Juniper Springs in the Ocala National Forest. On Sunday it is usually easy to get a walk-up site without making reservations. So we will see how we do. There is no power or water hookups but they have nice showers and easy access and shuttle to run the 7 mile Juniper Run, we have been paddling this river since 1969.

The weather bureau kept forecasting rain but none happened other than a 1/10” drizzle. The red temps are above normal.

SUN 2/24 Actual Temp 84° /63° Hist. Avg. 74°/56° Bike 13 Mi

MON 2/25 Actual Temp 79° /59° Hist. Avg. 74°/56° Bike 12 Mi

TUE 2/26 Actual Temp 74° /56° Hist. Avg. 75°/48°

WED 2/27 Actual Temp 79° /57° Hist. Avg. 75°/48° Canoe 9 Mi

THU 2/28 Actual Temp 79° /56° Hist. Avg. 75°/48° Bike 27 Mi

FRI 3/01 Actual Temp 82° /56° Hist. Avg. 75°/48° Bike 18 Mi

SAT 3/02 Actual Temp 82° /58° Hist. Avg. 74°/56° Canoe 4 Mi

 

On Sunday morning we left our Walmart overnight in Silver Springs and got to Juniper Springs by  8 am. It was full from Saturday night campers but the place would be pretty empty by noon checkout time. But I was then informed that we could not canoe Juniper Run because of a bad bear somewhere in the Nat’l Forest north of SR40. They also said that none of the through hikers on the Florida Trail could come into the forest and had to make a new trail to bypass it. This is a really stupid policy. If a bear got used to people having food in the back country and is bothering people the bad bear should be euthanized. They decided to eliminate the people who are hiking & canoeing. This is not a common policy in National Parks. If a bear goes bad, they are eliminated. I hope somebody reviews this policy. This park does some weird things like last year taking two full years to fix a boardwalk damaged in a hurricane. It could have been fixed in a month if they wanted people to enjoy the park.

So we went over to nearby Alexander Springs for two nights. It’s been at least 10 years since we stayed here. It is not that good for biking or canoeing. Most people just paddle near the spring and take out where they put-in. We used to canoe the river from the bridge on 445 down to 52 Landing. You need to run your own shuttle and the sandy roads didn’t look that good after the rain. The park volunteers had no information about road conditions. After the weekend crowd left the campground was pretty empty. It is near the Paisley mountain bike trails but we don’t do single track with our tandem on the deep sandy trails.

So We left early Tuesday for Ocean Pond National Forest campground near Lake City. We drove through some light rain on our way and found out that they got flooding rain for the past two days, we only had a nighttime rain at Alexander Springs. It’s only a 3 hour drive north to the Osceola National Forest. We got here on March 5th, about the same time as last year but last year we were never able to get a campsite with power hookups. There are only 19 power sites and 30 without power but have water hookups and 18 rustic sites.. All the campsites with power were full but an hour after we arrived an RV pulled out of a power site 3 days early which we quickly snagged making Peggy very happy. We will be here until we have a good driving window for Cleveland, Probably not until 3/12 at best.

A cold spell hit on Tuesday. Red temps are above normal.

SUN 3/03 Actual Temp 86° /61° Hist. Avg. 74°/48°

MON 3/04 Actual Temp 81° /63° Hist. Avg. 74°/48° Night Rain

TUE 3/05 Actual Temp 54° /36° Hist. Avg. 72°/48° Light Rain

WED 3/06 Actual Temp 57° /35° Hist. Avg. 72°/48° Sunny

THU 3/07 Actual Temp 67° /43° Hist. Avg. 73°/48° Bike 14 Mi

 

We enjoyed our last 6 days camping at Ocean Pond Campground. We were lucky to get a site with electrical & water hookups. When we got the site we didn’t realize that it would be the last one to become available. What seems to happen here is a local camper gets a site and when he is ready to leave he waits for another local friend to arrive and he gives them his site. We saw only 2 other out-of-state campers in the 19 electrical sites and on Fri & Sat nights the whole campground was full.

The weather was perfect for biking so we did three long tandem rides, all about 14 miles long. We went around the lake, over to the civil war battlefield and on a dirt road north on the I-10. Three totally different loop trips. Very little traffic and the dirt roads were not sandy so we had no problems. One interesting thing that we saw was at the $2/night Hog Pen campground on the lake there was a drug bust. Seems like some guys must have been making Meth and go caught. The police must have destroyed their stuff and campsite, which was marked off with yellow police tape. I thought a bear had attacked some campers, but it was the smokie kind not the real kind of bears.

We watched  the weather reports and it looked like if we left Monday we would have good weather all the way from Florida to Cleveland assuming we made it in 2-1/2 days.

We left Monday 3/11 before sunrise at 7 AM EDT. We took US-301 all the way though Georgia and US321 in SC getting to Columbia, SC by 1:30 PM. We got gas and took the bypass around Charlotte to avoid slow traffic and got to Mooresville, NC by 4 PM. Plenty of time for shopping and some fast food. Another Walmart over night.

If we get out of here around 7:30 AM tomorrow we expect to be back home in Ohio by 4 PM assuming the day goes as smooth as today. We did get two brief light showers Monday but there is no rain in the forecast.

We decided to head back to Florida again this fall & winter and bring our lightweight Mad River canoe and our Burley Tandem Bicycle, along with my mountain bike.
We love all real Florida Parks where we can canoe and bike. As usual our itinerary does not include any private campgrounds. We stay in State Parks, National Forests, County Parks, State Forests and Corps of Engineer campgrounds. When we are traveling to and from FL we use Walmart parking lots to spend an overnight.

We did all our trip planning and campground reservations starting in December until the end of February since the weather in November is a big factor in where we will head and when we will actually leave.

The last couple of years we spent time in SC & GA, but this year the weather forecasts started to look bad. We wanted to leave about November 11th after our big family party and pre-thanksgiving celebration.

This year everyone came to Joan and Brian’s new home to also celebrate our 60th wedding anniversary.

I think we have aged a little, can’t see well and forget things.

When we woke up on Sunday 11/10 the weather forecast was predicting the start of a big snow event and low temperatures.

We quickly finished packing and left at 10 AM. We drove in beautiful warm and sunny weather almost 400 miles to Wytheville, VA by 5 PM. We actually used a Loews parking lot next door to the Walmart. It was much quieter and had better free internet.

Since the forecast was predicting that this storm would push south all the way to FL, we decided to skip visiting our friends Greg & Sandy Lewis in the SC Highlands and biking in GA. We took I-77 from Cleveland all the way through Charlotte to Columbia, SC and then jumped off the interstates the rest of the way to FL. We lost 30 min due to road construction north of Statesville, NC but had no delays in Charlotte. They finally finished the roadwork North of the city and are almost done if you drive through the city on I-77.

Our itinerary for Monday was to drive 8 hours to Jesup, GA. From Columbia, SC to Ocean Pond campground in northern FL is 340 miles by all interstate highways and it is 20 miles shorter taking US301 the old main North South route which goes all the way to the southwest coast of FL. It is part 4 lane divided and part two lane. There are some school zones and a few small towns with traffic lights. But there is NO traffic and very few trucks. It reminds you of traveling 50 years ago when little strip motels and two pump gas stations lined the route. It is a very relaxing, scenic drive and believe it or not, it only takes 10 minutes longer, and that’s if there are no accidents or construction on the interstates.

We did get to Jesup, GA by 3:30 PM and spent the night at a quiet Walmart. It was a sunny drive with temperatures in the mid-seventies. We got an early start Tuesday morning and made it to our campground by 9 AM. With cold weather forecast we figured there would be a lot of travelers moving on and no weekend campers from Jacksonville showing up yet. It is still two weeks to the busy Thanksgiving weekend here. We had no trouble getting a campsite with electric power & water.

Our only problem is we still have 4 weeks to kill before arriving at Silver Lake near Brooksville, FL. We can spend 2 weeks here and do a lot of bike riding around Ocean Pond.

Some possibilities when we move on are the Okefenokee swamp which has good paddling, the Ichetucknee River which is a nice paddle up and down a spring fed river, A bike trail or two like the St Marks to Tallahassee paved trail or the rivers in the big bend area south of Tallahassee like the Wakulla, Aucilla, Econfina or Wacissa.

However the weather here went from 75^o F on Tuesday to 36^o F on Wednesday morning with some light afternoon showers. But it’s still a lot better than suffering in the cold back home.

We will be back at Silver Lake – Site 47 on December 9th and then drive to the KOA near the Orlando airport where we will leave our RV in storage to fly home to spend Christmas with our big family.

Any friends that care to join us along the way, now is the time to let us know. On all of our reserved campsites there is room to share with a second vehicle, since we don’t pull a car with us.

We left home early due to the bad weather and plan to stay here at Ocean Pond campground in Northern FL until Thanksgiving day.

We then will be paddling our canoe in some FL Springs; Ichetucknee, Wacissa, Juniper, Silver Springs and the Withlacoochee River and work in some Rails to Trails; St Marks, Nature Coast and the Withlacoochee State Trails.

We have been camped at Ocean Pond campground in Osceola National Forest for the past 12 nights. Our plan is to leave on Thanksgiving morning. The weather has been sunny everyday this week. The high temperatures have been between 68 to 75^oF, the lows have been in the high 40’s.

This is the perfect temperature for taking rides on our tandem bike. It’s been 3 months since we have done any riding and besides being out-of-shape our hard seats have been punishing our soft tooshes.

Except for SR250A and the campground roads all the forest roads are packed sand with lots of little potholes that we need to keep dodging. So we bike one day and rest one day to get used to the bike seats. So far our 4 rides have totaled only 56 miles and our average speed is just over 8 mph.

We see an occasional car but these are pretty safe rides unless some hunter mistakes us for a deer, it is hunting season here in the forest.

 

We really enjoyed our long 16 day stay at Ocean Pond Campground. Since last blog we got in one more 13 mi bike ride. Our legs and tooshes are finally getting used to the biking. So now it is time to try some canoeing. One of the prettiest river not far from here is the Ichetucknee Springs which we try to paddle if we are nearby. We left our campground on Thanksgiving morning and found room at the take-out to park our camper.

I guess a lot of people like to paddle on this 3 mile long river on the holiday. Almost all were starting at the spring and paddle the 3 miles to the take-out. We avoid a shuttle and paddle 2 hours upstream against the current and coast back in less than an hour.

I forgot my camera and I’ll bet we saw 1000 tame turtles on every tree in the water sunning themselves. And they just sit there even when you are next to them.
There are many large birds here also like Ibis, Egrets, Great Blue Herons but our biggest thrill, especially today being Thanksgiving, was watching 8 turkeys fly across the river right in front of us. There is no fishing allowed on the Ichetucknee and no food or drinks except in personal bottles, no drink bottles, which made the area very clean, even though 1000’s of tubers float the river on warm days, the water is always 72^oF.
After we paddled, we headed west, as per our plan and stayed overnight at a Walmart in Perry, FL. We didn’t realize that Black Friday started at 6 PM. We found a place to park for the night way in the back for their trucks and ignored the frantic shoppers.

We left early in the morning while it was still very cool to try to avoid any crowds on the Wacissa River. It was a short drive and we were on the water by 9 am. This is another beautiful clear river formed by large springs. However it is totally different. Didn’t see any turtles on our cold morning start but plenty of big birds including anhinga’s. The river was very wide and shallow. We did get a thrill seeing about 5 otters playing right in front of us.
If it wasn’t hunting season you could paddle about 10 miles downstream to Goose Pasture Campground, a primitive first come campground on the river. So our paddle was another up and back trip. We paddled to the dam and back about 7 miles. At the dam turnaround the temperature finally got into the mid 70’s and it was very sunny.
We did not enjoy this river as well because of the fishermen in little motor boats. But it had a great parking lot with plenty of room which was right next to the water.  So by noon as the day got warm  many more boats began to arrive. We had a short drive to our next campsite at Newport County Park. We got a nice site #14 with power and water and there were opportunities nearby for boating & biking.

After two days of paddling Peggy wanted to rest and read, so we had a relaxing day and later walked over the St Mark’s River bridge to a popular Oyster Bar restaurant. Even though it wasn’t even 5 pm and only 2 tables were full it took us an hour to get our food. Peggy’s shrimp was fine but my two little fish were not good. I’d skip “Oust Too” if you are in the area. We heard that Savannah’s Restaurant, which was about 4 miles away and right next to the rail trail, had a great sea food buffet but we didn’t get there.

On Saturday morning we drove the RV with our bike to the Wakulla Station Trail-head which was about in the middle of the 16 mile rail trail. It had plenty of parking and a friendly attendant that would watch the vehicles. The 12’ wide paved trail , with other trails leads all the way to Tallahassee and has covered benches about every two miles. I was surprised that even though this was a Saturday morning we saw very few bikers considering how nice the trail is. It was in the woods the entire way.

We decided to bike south to St Marks and then biked over to the small San Marcos de Apalache State Historical Site. Established by the Spanish in 1680 and taken over by USA in 1820. They have a small museum & short walking trail to the top of a hill that was an old gun magazine that was never excavated. We planned to get back to the park by noon so we biked a few miles past our start for a total  of 18 miles and then enjoyed a light lunch and rest while watching Ohio State beat Michigan in the comfort of our RV. At half time we headed back to camp to watch the rest of the game. We had planned to here stay for another day and bike out to the lighthouse which was on a road right across from our campground but the weather forecast called for morning rain and temperatures dropping into the low forties the next day.

 

So we moved up our itinerary to head to the 32 mile long paved Nature Coast State Trail which runs from Cross City to Chiefland on Sunday morning. They were predicting 80^oF and partly cloudy skies.

There is a good parking lot access to the trail across from Fanning Springs. We biked North about 4 miles to cross the bridge over the Suwannee and then back into Fanning Springs State Park. They charge $6 per vehicle to see the spring but let us in on our bike free since we were just heading in to take a picture and come right out. We biked about 10 miles on this very pretty wooded trail.
We then drove to go grocery shopping before checking in at Manatee Springs State Park. It’s usually booked on weekends but sites are readily available from Sunday to Thursday.