Great Campsite at Lithia Springs

Superbowl Sunday was the last day we had signed up for at EG Simmons, our plans were to head back over to Lithia Springs which is another Hillsboro County park. We could pay for more days and then drive the 35 miles anytime this week. I decided to call Joe, our friendly camp host at  Lithia, to see when any of the 5 river front campsites might be available. He said that today two sites would be leaving and campsite 45 would be empty within an hour. So we had a quick change in plans, we packed up but we needed to shop on our way there, so I called the park office and they agreed if we got there by noon we could have that site.

Site 45 is far off the road and very private, the other river front sites are very open but still nice to be able to launch or take-out in your campsite. At one time or another we have stayed in all four of them. We got 2” of rain while watching the Super Bowl, so it meant it was going to be a good week to paddle. But Peggy said Monday was laundry day and the closest laundromat is 10 miles away near Brandon. So it was a laundry & shopping day.

On Tuesday we decided to walk around the park and see what the swimming area looked like when the river was high. The spring empties into the Alafia River and the rain brought the river up 3’ which eliminated the beach area by the spring.

On Wednesday we decide to do an early bike ride on the FishHawk Ranch Bike Trails. The FL weather was finally getting warmer. We rode most of the pretty trails that go through the wooded areas and around all the small lakes. We saw lots of big birds and even a Gopher Turtle digging a borough. It took us 1-1/2 hrs. to do the 13 mile bike ride.

Finally on Thursday we met the same couple that helped us do a canoe shuttle up to Alderman’s Ford so we could paddle the beautiful Alafia River which had dropped almost 2’ from 650 CFS to 400 cfs. We didn’t take any breaks and paddling right along we covered the 9.5 miles in 2-1/2 hours. We saw lots of turtles and birds but only one alligator who leapt into the water before we could get a picture.

The weather is really warming up now. Forecast for the next week is for highs in the low 80’s and lows in the mid 60’s. This is about 10^oF above normal for Tampa.