Category: 2024-2025 Trip

Very Wooded Campsite #72

As I mentioned in my last blog this park was not scheduled
to reopen until the day after the first day of my two week reservation.

So I needed to find a place to stay for one night. I drove to Bradenton, FL on Friday afternoon and found another great spot to camp at a Lowes store after doing my weekly grocery shopping. It was a level spot with good free Wi-Fi.

The usual check-in time at FL State Parks is 3 PM, but since they have been closed I figured I would try to check in at 10AM. No problem, the place was empty. I’m not sure what is going on but even though 12 months ago the campground was fully reserved, there are at least 10 empty sites here every night No one has stayed more than 2 nights on the site next to me.  

Sarasota Bayfront Park

There are a few good reasons to choose this campground. Most campers have bikes to ride the 30 mile long Legacy Trail a wide asphalt trail that goes between Sarasota to south of Venice.

Venetian Waterway to Shamrock Park

This week I biked 100 miles on four rides; south to Shamrock Park, North to Sarasota Bayfront Park, into the beautiful neighborhoods of Venice and their beaches and along Casey Key, a barrier island, which is near the campground.

Nokomis Beach near Casey Key

I have never tried kayaking along South Creek which flows by the campsites. The jungle between the sites and the creek is almost impenetrable and the parks launch is across the creek which is too far unless you drive. The creek just flows out to the inland waterway and is too
far from any access to the Gulf of Mexico.

Here is where I rest after my bike rides

The weather has been great, starting out in the 60’s in the morning and reaching the mid-70’s by the time I finished my bike rides.

I checked into WP Franklin Corp of Engineers Campground on an island at a lock on the Caloosahatchee River by noon on Saturday.

Here is an aerial view, this is the 3rd time I got campsite #8.

The campground is northeast of Fort Myers in a quiet neighborhood.

For paddlers or fisherman there is a lot to do. You can fish from the dam area, launch a boat from the boat ramp upstream into fresh water or go downstream through the lock and fish in salt water.

For paddlers, about a mile down stream, you can paddle up the narrow Telegraph Creek about 3 miles , beyond that it is very narrow and often blocked by fallen trees. 

I expected to see hurricane damage this year but everything looked normal, except I saw no large alligators but many more smaller ones.

There were plenty of birds and a few turtles. 

Paddlers can also paddle about 1-1/2 mi upstream from our campground and head south up Hickey Creek, a wider and deeper creek, to a park with a landing and a picnic area and  pavilion. You can continue upstream another mile or so but it narrows and you will again be blocked by fallen trees.

For bicyclists you can bike around the nearby neigborhood streets which will require short rides down River Rd which has no bike lanes but light traffic. I try to wait for no traffic and sprint to the next street. It is not hard to get in a 8 to 10 mile trip. There is a regional park 2 miles down River Rd that has mountain bike trails. If you have a car you can drive 10 miles over to Babcock Ranch which has miles of paved bike trails through this newer growing planned community.

You can also get some pretty sunrise or sunset pictures from your campsite.

I am nearing the end of my two week stay at the beautiful campground at Franklin Lock on the Caloosahatchee River east of Fort Myers, FL. I got to paddle two more times on sunny days; Once, down the big river a couple of miles but I headed back when it started getting windy. 

And once upriver to Hickey’s Creek another small river that goes through a small park with a hiking trail that crosses over the river twice. It eventually narrows and is blocked by deadfall. This year I paddled up the creek about 2-1/2 miles making it about a 8 mile round trip from the campground.

Snow in the FL Panhandle

This week the big polar vortex storm that brought below zero temperatures back home and record heavy snow to the Florida panhandle, pushed all the way down to SW Florida bringing rainy days and temperatures that never got to 60o. Cold and rainy is not conducive to outdoor activities. 

I felt cooped up looking out my windows watching it rain and listening to the howling wind. Tomorrow they are predicting frost warnings north of here.

My plans are to leave here
Saturday and drive to Tampa Bay and hope to get a nice campsite at EG Simmons County
Park, they don’t take reservations so maybe the bad weather will cause some campers to go home early. 

EG Simmons East Campground Site #79

The forecast is finally calling for an end to the cold spell and promising temperatures back into the high 70’s later next week. 

The forecast is finally calling for warm weather and my reservation at WPF ended on Saturday 1/25/25. The plan is to drive 100 miles north to Tampa Bay and see if I can get a campsite at EG Simmons County Park. They do not take reservations and I heard that since the hurricanes all of their sites may not be available because of power problems or trees that need to have branches removed. 

I needed to get propane and grocery shop before I got to the campground, which delayed my arrival until noon, but that is the checkout time anyway.

There were a few sites available and I got site #70 which is just down the line from the picture I posted in my last blog.

You can paddle here on their canoe trail within the park or you can paddle out into Tampa Bay going north to Apollo Beach or south to Bahia Beach as long as there are no storms or windy days. I’ll probably try all options on sunny days to get some exercise.

You can take a 6 mile bike around the large park on the paved roads.

There are lots of residential streets nearby to ride your bike but there are no designated bike trails. I like to ride over to Bahia Beach or Apollo Beach and bike through the upscale neighborhoods or shop at the nearby grocery stores.

One place I like to ride is to the Manatee viewing area about 8 miles away in Apollo Beach. There is a large power plant that discharges warm water back into the bay. The Manatees love the warm water. If the bay temperature goes below 70^o they head here by the hundreds. The bay, after the cold spell, is only in the 50’s.

 

 

When I was getting ready to leave a big truck from the Manatee Hospital rolled up to return a small Manatee back into the water. I swear I saw Peggy trying to help walk the Manatee down to the bay, since the 14 volunteers were having a hard time carrying it.

 

Peggy at Julies Fish House

 

Sat 2/6 was my last night at EG Simmons Park on Tampa Bay. I had two weeks of great weather and no sand fleas. I’ve been here a dozen times in
January & early February and only ran into them one time. I think that’s why this campground is not full all the time and much easier to get into, even in peak season. They do not take reservations, so early birds usually can get a site.

My next campground is Lithia Springs which is another Hillsborough County Park. It is very popular and almost always full, so you need to get on the waiting list by 8 AM if you hope to get a site.

So since I needed to do my bi-weekly grocery shopping I couldn’t get there early unless I overnighted nearby on Super Bowl Sunday. I stayed at the same Valrico Lowes store when I was here in November. It’s quiet and they have good wireless internet.

I left Monday at sunrise but found myself second in line when I got to the park. However that worked to my advantage. He chose the only available site at 8am and I waited until some other sites would empty after the
weekend. I got site #45, which is the best large secluded campsite in the parks as you can see from the pictures. It overlooks the Alafia River but is a little steep getting to the water to launch my kayak.

I like this campground for a couple of reasons. A great friendly campground host Chris from IL, a scenic river with lots of wildlife to paddle with no crowds and access to over 30 miles of winding bike trails through an upscale housing development.

Click Picture for big map

Chris has always helped me out with a shuttle, to do any downriver trips since I don’t bring a car and it would be hard to use my motorhome. The water level early in the season is usually good but since the hurricanes they have had a drought and the river is only 100 CFS.

So on Wednesday I decided to just put-in at my campsite and paddle down and back up the river to see if the shallow areas are passable.

I paddled downstream to near Bell Shoals bridge without hitting any shallow shoals, but if I had set up a shuttle it would have been much easier to keep on going to the take-out at the Brandon Boat Dock. That would have been about a mile longer than doing an up & back. 

To get back upstream I had to paddle back up about 5 shallow rapids and found that one was too shallow to paddle up so I had to get out and line the kayak back to the top of the rapid. So next time I’m just going downstream.

But I’m glad I did not paddle downstream from Aldermans Ford. 

When I got back I met a paddler from Sandusky, OH that had just come down from there and it took him 4-1/2 hours. He had to carry his kayak around 4-5 trees that blocked the river.

 

Signing off from MoonPieTown

 

These are my plans for the next month

 

 

Just before I left Lithia Springs last Monday, 2/24 for 6
days at Silver Lake I found out that I needed to stay an extra day since my Hillsborough River two day reservations starting on 3/2 was cancelled but I could still stay for one night. I was heading back south again to Tampa to fly to the British Virgin Islands on Wednesday. That’s why I picked that campground.

Of course site 47 that I was going to would not be available for that extra night. I lucked out since site 48 would be available for one night, so today I moved over one site. I choose this site since it is the closest site to the boat launch and also has a great view. I was here for 15 days in December on site 46. So all 3 of those sites are good but #47 is the best.

I’m always thinking about Peggy and today I swear I was seeing double.

But I never did paddle this week; I decided to do a couple
of long bike rides on the beautiful trails instead.

The 46 mile Withlacoochee State Trail runs from near Dade
City to near Dunnellon, FL, and there is a newer 10 mi trail that starts in
Brooksville and intersects the Withlacoochee Trail near our campground. 

This makes it easy to get in 3 different 25 mile round trip bike rides shown on map. I needed to get a haircut so I wouldn’t look too shaggy on the upcoming BVI trip
and luckily a few years ago I found a good barber shop 1-1/2 mi after the end of the trail near Trilby toward Dade City.

 I have been very busy since I got home but now finally got some time to finish my 2024-25 Blog.

My last post was my last week at Cypress Glen and I was heading to Hillsborough River State Park outside of Tampa. The campsite I was supposed to stay in for two nights was not available so I got another which was available for only 1 night. I came early in the morning and they let me sign-in but not go to my campsite until 3 PM. But the did let me launch my kayak. So I paddled upstream until it was too rocky and then went down river and planned to eat lunch at Dead River Park. Well they had a boom across the river about 1/2 mile before the park. I had to turn around and ate my lunch on a sand bar. The river looked clear of fallen trees but maybe they haven’t cleaned up that park yet.

The next week I met up with my three daughters in Tortola, BVI. I flew out of Tampa, Pam who is in Cape Coral for the winter drove to Miami airport to fly from there. She met up with Joan and Meg who flew in from Cleveland. I got to Tortola and rented a car and met them when they got there an hour later. I rented the same beautiful beach house on Cane Garden Bay that Peggy and I had rented with 3 other couples in 1998 & 1999. It is the only house on this popular beach filled with restaurants and one hotel.

Cane Garden Bay – British Virgin Islands

This is a link to some pictures and a slide show of our BVI trip. If you click on the first picture you will get a slide show, or you can just scroll through the pictures.

Our BVI Trip Slideshow

After I flew back to Tampa, I did one more bike ride near Ocala on the Cross FL Trail, then I stopped at Ocean Pond Campground in Osceola National Forest to check on the driving conditions when heading back north to Ohio. I usually stay a little longer but found out that if I left on Friday I could make it home by Saturday with sunny skies and no rain. When I got back home it was 70oF and sunny. I drove 550 miles in 10 hours to Wytheville, Va on Friday and 400 miles to home by 1pm on Saturday. Traffic was light except for Charlotte, NC.

I left home on 11/10/24 and just got back home on 3/15/25, 125 nites on the road. Things went smoothly and I did a lot on biking, over 700 miles but only 70 miles of kayaking including my week in the BVI. Everything went as planned but other than visiting Pam in Cape Coral. I never had any other friends come down and visit me this year. So I’m rethinking what I may plan for next year. Maybe I should sell my RV and just rent some houses near where I usually camp and invite friends to visit me there.