Category: 2016-2017 Trip

After two nights at Manatee Springs State Park we chose to head south to the  Withlacoochee State Forest campgrounds.

US19 is a fast 4 lane divided highway, a much more pleasant drive than I-75. It is a little slow from Crystal River to Homosassa Springs.

We stopped at a Wal-Mart there and finally caught up with my e-mail and internet.

There are 3 different campgrounds here on Silver Lake. Two have electric & water hookups for only $15 per night if you are over 65 years old.

Florida State Parks only give senior discounts to Florida residents, so it is nice getting a discount at a State Forest.

Here is a view of Silver Lake from our campsite at Cypress Glen campground.

The Silver Lake camp has 23 electric sites and Cypress Glen camp has 34 sites and is a little further from the noisy I-75.

We planned to get here mid-week so we could get a good site. We were startled at the entrance station which had signs posted that all their sites were full, or I mis-read the signs, since very few sites were occupied at either campground. We got the site I was hoping for since it is only 100 yards to the canoe launch spot, the picture above.

After we setup, a cloud came by and dropped a few drops of rain, more light showers may come on Thursday, it sure has been dry and a little warmer than normal so far on the trip.

Besides paddling, the big attraction for us is the 46 mile long Withlacoochee State Trail. It is a beautiful paved trail that is far from any busy roads with lots of wildlife. We are at MP9 right outside the campground and can ride the trail to a shopping center only 5 miles away.

We are here at Silver Lake for 12 days. The weekend crowd was non-existent. They must be all staying home this weekend since the place was packed on the weekend after Thanksgiving.

Silver Lake is really just a wide spot in the Withlacoochee River. On Saturday we decided to take our canoe down river for a long paddle. We paddled downstream and went around Hog Island and then paddled back upstream to our camp.

We passed 2 kayaks and then a group of 7 who were camping overnight on Hog Island. It was a long but beautiful day. It took us 3-1/2 hours to paddle the 10 miles.

We saw lots of birds, like Ibis, Egrets and Herons. Mostly near the island, so it was worth paddling that far downstream. If you only wanted to paddle downstream past the island to Nobleton. There is a canoe livery there where you could rent a canoe for this section or have them shuttle you and your boat back. If you have a car you could spot the car and bike back to camp. We have done this, also when our kids were little, I took the youngest and hitched a ride back to camp. Everyone stops for a little kid.

We rested Sunday and watched some football. On Monday we decided to bike on the paved Withlacoochee Trail that parallels the river but you can’t see the river from the trail. We biked all the way downstream to Townsend Park and back in two hours. It was a 16 mile round trip. Peggy didn’t want to go that far but she did fine.

Besides passing a lot of bicyclists on the trail we saw several large turtles. One was digging a deep hole, I not sure if that one was a Gopher Turtle but he could dig really fast and sand was flying everywhere.

The weather has still been great. Temperatures in the low 80’s but tonight they are forecasting a little rain. But we will see, it hasn’t rained here for almost two months.

We have been here at Cyprus Glen Campground for more than a week and the place is still fairly empty. There are lots of campers in FL but I don’t know what kind of campgrounds they are looking for.

The bridge you see in the distance is I-75.

We have large sites, electric & water and the cost for seniors is only $15/night.

Another couple arrived with a canoe, paddled one day and left.

The top picture show the new canoe dolly I bought to take the load off my back, which I hurt last year. It is aluminum, folds flat and weighs only 5 pounds. One person can pull the canoe with ease even on soft ground. On Wednesday we paddled upstream for about 3-1/2 miles. There were not as many birds but we finally saw one big alligator that we frightened. We paddled for 2-1/2 hrs.

On Thursday we biked south on the Withlacoochee State trail. It is a nice wide paved trail with lots of riders but first we have a 1-1/2 mi ride out of our campsite on a hard packed road to get to the trail. We biked the steep overpass over US98 and turned around about 2 miles before the trail ended.

On our way back, Peggy rested at the Ridge Manor Trailhead while I peddled down the highway for 3/4 mi to shop at the big Winn-Dixie. I have nice shopping bag pannier that can hold a lot of groceries.

There is a nice laundromat here so when we leave on Monday we will stop back here for some clothes washing.

For the first time since we got to FL, we had some overnight rain and a big cool down. It got down to 50^o and tomorrow morning it may hit 40^o, but at least it’s better than the big snowstorm that is hitting the Great Lakes.

On Saturday we did another canoe paddle downstream, this time just to Hog Island making it only a 2-1/2 hr trip which was more to Peggy’s liking.

This weekend the campground got pretty full but by 11 am Sunday everyone was gone again. We also started to get ready to leave here on Monday morning to eventually get to the Orlando Airport to fly home for the Holidays but first we will stop at Wekiva Springs State Park for three nights. If we drove directly to the Orlando Airport from here it’s only a 2-1/2 hour drive. Last year we spent a few days at Wekiva Springs and paddled the 8-1/2 mi Rock Springs Run into the Wekiva River. It is an amazing wilderness area just north of Orlando and for those without a canoe or kayak there is a outfitter, King’s Landing, that rents boats and does the shuttle. A warning, it is very popular  on weekends in warmer weather due to the fact it is in the middle of millions of people and visitors.

We will take our time getting to the campground. We need to do laundry, grocery shop and fill our propane tank along the way.

After our short drive from Silver Lake to Wekiva State Park we decided that Tuesday would be a nice day to spend on Rock Creek Run. It is a 8-1/2 mile paddle down a beautiful river with lots of wildlife. We  saw 6 small gators, many big turtles, an otter that kept swimming in front of the canoe and lots of birds. It was a mostly sunny day in the low 80’s.

We stopped for lunch at Otter Camp the third campsite we saw along the river. We needed to kill some time since the shuttle pickup is at 4 pm, which was 5 hours from when we put in.  We still got to the take-out by 3 PM and had a nice rest under their covered picnic area. King’s Island personnel were great and helped me unload and load the canoe onto our motorhome.

They said in the summer they put over 100 boats a day on this section. Today they had two other private kayakers besides us. There were a couple of other boats paddling this section but we were really by ourselves the entire day.

Peggy saw this very tame Egret or Heron standing there watching us load up.

We leave here tomorrow afternoon to put our RV in storage for a few weeks at a KOA near the Orlando Airport. We will fly back from the beautiful 80^oF sunny FL weather to the freezing snow covered Cleveland, OH area. But, we will spend Christmas with our 4 married children, their spouses and our 16 grandchildren. By this time in our trip we always miss the family, so we love going home, but we will continue our FL  trip right after the new year.

We had a nice Christmas with our kids and their families.

But now I’ve started to think about getting back to our FL trip.

We hope to fly back to Orlando early on January 4th.

Our RV was been on  storage lot at a KOA campground only 5 miles from the airport. It’s only a  short $13 Uber ride to get to the airport. They now pickup at the airport with an extra service charge. We will have to see how that works.

See the map # for our  Jan. plans.

Date   #   Campground
1/5  3 Hillsborough Rv
1/8    4  Fort DeSoto
1/11   5  Lithia Springs
1/15  6  WP Franklin <
1/29 7  Collier Seminole
2/5  7a Koreshan
2/8   8  Lithia Springs

Last Tuesday night we had a 93rd birthday party for our long time NASA friend Harry Bloomer. His two children Jeff & Buffy along with our other NASA friends all celebrated at Pier W.

Peggy, Dessey, Fran, Shirley, Harry, Jeff, Art, and Al waiting for our cocktails

Jeff, Buffy, Dessey, Shirley, Al, Peggy, Fran, Art and Harry getting ready to serve the birthday cake after dinner.

We will be celebrating New Year’s Eve this year with my son Jeff and his family.

We spent New Year’s Eve with my son Jeff and his family. Of course Peggy & I decided that 10 PM was a good time to celebrate the new year.

We flew back to Orlando on Frontier airline and it only cost us $148 for a round trip ticket but of course if you want to bring luggage or choose a seat you could spend another $25 each in both directions. Of course since we have a home at each end we don’t need to bring anything except my computer and a warm coat.

We had taken Uber to the airport from the KOA storage lot and it cost only $14 for the 9 mile ride. I knew the price would be higher for airport to KOA but was surprised when I got the $37 charge. Last year we took a Holiday Inn bus to a nearby hotel and then called Uber. That only cost $12. We had a short drive to Lakeland, FL and did a lot of grocery shopping and ended up at a Walmart where we decided to spend the night. Our reservations for 3 days at Hillsborough River State Park did not start until tomorrow. We made the reservations that way in case a snowstorm cancelled our flight. We just left the Cleveland area just in time since the day we left the temperatures plunged into the teens and snow was forecast every day.
The place we found to stay overnight was out of the way and quiet. See top picture. In actuality it was next to the dumpsters and truck turn around to get into the loading docks. But we tucked our little motor home in there and had a nice nights sleep.

We got to our campsite at Hillsborough river where we planned to canoe and bike. I came down with a bad cold that night and rested all day Friday. I feel a little better now so maybe we can paddle tomorrow.

When we got to our destination for the next 3 days Hillsborough River State Park. We have been here several times because we love the river and the bike trails around the park.

It was cool when we unloaded the bikes and our canoe. A friendly camper neighbor helped lift it down from the RV.

The campsite I picked was right across from the canoe launch.

We rested on Thursday since I was coming down with a cold that I caught while back home.

On Friday I felt even worse so all we did was a short walk along the river. Then the cold front came in bringing rain and thunderstorms. Then most of the day Saturday the temperature started to drop and the rain continued off and on. At 1 PM the rain stopped and I wanted to paddle the river since we were leaving on Sunday. It was cool and there were no turtles or alligators and of course no other paddlers but we did see a few birds. Anhingas Egrets and a big Red tail hawks. We paddled down to Dead River Park and back in less than 2 hours including our rest stop at the park.

We got our bikes and canoe back up on the RV, again with a little help from a camper. We heard from Bob Nicholson our long tome paddling friend who now lives in CO. He left on Tuesday and is driving to Florida and is going to meet up with us at Fort Desoto Park in St Petersburg. Can’t wait to hear the story of his drive since he left right when this storm was sweeping across the country.

Click for Trip Map

I found out that Bob Nicholson has been reading our blog and decided to see what FL was like.

My old kayaking friend lives in CO and Bikes, Kayaks and now SUP’s. He left home on 1/3 and fought through all of the snow storms with his newly outfitted 4-wheel drive camping van.

We texted back and forth and he finally caught up to us when we stopped to shop in Tampa on our way to Fort Desoto Park.

Bob was excited to see the beautiful tropical island on the south side of St Petersburg.

The campsites in this park are expensive $45/nite so we don’t stop here very often but Peggy wanted to come back and bike by the beautiful beaches.

However we could have picked a warmer week. As you see it got down to 39^o on Monday morning but is warming up. It looks like we will have some warm temperatures when we leave here on Wed. morning to head to Lithia Springs and try to get a nice campsite near the Alafia River.