Hillsborough River State Park

This is a really nice state park, and it was a good thing we made reservations a few months in advance. Even though we got here on a Sunday afternoon all the campsites were full for the night.

The weather finally got back to normal for the Tampa area. It had been running 10-15^o F hotter. When we got here it was cloudy, 65^o F and it looked like rain.

We had enough time to bike all around the 3 campground circles and bike along the river to see the big Class II rapid. We stopped at the little museum near the fort to learn about the Second Seminole war. On the way back from our 4 mile bike ride a little drizzle began and then it rained off and on until we went to bed.

We decided to paddle on Monday afternoon after it got sunny and warm. Even though the river was right behind our campsite I needed to carry the canoe down about 4 more campsites to find the path to the boat launch since the river banks were very high.

The river was very pretty, we paddled about 3 mile down past Dead River Park. We took a break and paddled back upstream about a 3 hour trip. We only saw a couple of small alligators and a half dozen turtles since it was cool. They rent canoes upstream of our campsite but I guess the cooler weather kept everyone off the river, we only saw 2 other canoes.

We left our canoe at the boat launch so that we could paddle again on Tuesday. This time we paddled upstream past the livery, past the two bridges and one little rapid. But it was too rocky to paddle upstrean above the Class II rapid. We only paddled a couple of miles in one hour and then I carried the canoe back to the RV.

Tomorrow we will leave early and see if we can get a campsite at Lithia Springs County Park, which is only abour 25 miles away.