Manatee Viewing

All the local tours and tourists visit the Manatee viewing area near the Apollo Beach power station. Even though it was a windy day we decided to ride our tandem from our campground a 17 mile roundtrip ride, mostly on sidewalks or safe bike lanes. It took us about 45 minutes in both directions.

Most of the ones we saw today looked like babies, when it’s colder many more bigger Manatees come here. There were all sorts of fairly good size Tarpon swimming around the warm power plant discharge.

Wednesday was the nicest day we had in a while and they are predicting rain for Thursday morning and then more cooler weather. At least we are not back home in all the snow and ice.

So I suggested that we bike over to the little restaurant that we discovered last year that puts on great fish dinners. It is casual outdoor dining at a place that looks like an old ice cream stand. It rates as the best seafood restaurant in the area and is only a 3 mile bicycle ride away.

We got there at 4 PM to beat the crowds and also to get back to camp before it got dark.

Last Week at Lithia Springs

Our last week was a much cooler week. On Sunday the toilet water flush was leaking slightly since the blade flush valve was sticking slightly on the rubber seal. I had bought a new rubber seal a few years ago but I was not sure how to install it. Since Monday was a shopping and laundry day for us and we would be driving our RV up to Valrico. I looked to see how much further to a  Camping World.. It was only another 4 miles, so I called them, they said the seal and blade both have to be changed since the seals get hard and the blade rough. They said toilets were inexpensive and easy to install so I should just buy a new one but the cost added up to $275 with installation & tax. I decided not to do that. There is no shutoff valve for the fixture like at home so I bought one at Lowes, and it was easy to install. That way I can a least shut off the water if it is sticking on.

On our way back to camp we stopped and had a nice dinner at an authentic Mexican Restaurant, Lavilla, just 2 miles from camp. They now have doubled the size from last year so they must be doing well.

This was our last week at Lithia Springs but the weather turned colder. We took another 11 mile bike ride around the Fish Hawk Ranch trails. Our bike trips for the three weeks totaled 100 miles.

They were supposed to remove the log jams from the river on Wednesday. We checked on Thursday and they assured us that it was clear. I needed to figure out how to get our canoe and us up to the  Alderman’s Ford put-in. I talked the head ranger into throwing the canoe into his equipment trainer and taking the canoe up there. But he said no passengers were allowed so the campground host, Chris, offered to ride Peggy and me up there in his jeep. They really went out of there way to provide us another day on the river. The river had dropped to 250 cfs, but that is still a very nice level.

Friday was a nice warm day on the river and we saw lots of turtles and birds but when we got to the first log jam we found that the narrow path they cleared was choked with more branches that had floated from upstream. I tried for 30 minutes to open it up but when we tried to paddle our canoe through it was about 4” too narrow. So we had to do another portage. That was the only place we were obstructed.

Now back to the toilet story. I watched an on-line video about how to install a new seal, it looked really simple as the toilet top comes off by just removing two bolts and the base remains in place. I gave it a try, it was easy but I had the wrong rubber seal and the blade was rough so the valve was still sticking. Looking further into it I found a kit on-line for about $28 but didn’t know where to ship it, since we were leaving on Sunday. I went back to plan A, why not just order the toilet from Wal-Mart and then pick it up on our way to our new camping spot on Sunday. Free shipping to the store and it will be there when we pass by for about $160.

We were headed to another Hillsborough County Park called E.G. Simmons early on Sunday morning. We figured Sunday morning was the time most local campers leave but this was a MLK Monday holiday weekend and it may push things back to Monday morning. After picking up the toilet and shopping we arrived at camp about 9:30 AM.

We were #5 on their waiting list but they no longer have overflow campsites that we could stay in until a site becomes available. The check-out time is noon and there were 7 campers that may be leaving so we decided to wait and hope that the cooler day may convince them not to renew. While we were waiting I installed the new toilet in about 10 minutes. This place is popular since it is right on Tampa Bay and most of the campsites are on the water. We took a bike ride through both camp grounds, each with about 50 sites.  We saw a small motor home leave from site 25, and we liked the location on the water channel and the park road and hoped we could get it. We did get it and the weather is supposed to get warmer for a few days. Since we have been back in FL the only rain was last Saturday night while we were sleeping We spent the rest of the cool day Sunday watching the NFL football playoffs. We will stay here a least one week and possibly two. We can ride our bike to see the Manatees by the power plant outflow.

Last weeks actual weather

MON 1/14 Actual Temp 66° /46° Hist. Avg. 70°/51°

TUE 1/15 Actual Temp 61° /43° Hist. Avg. 70°/50°

WED 1/16 Actual Temp 59° /37° Hist. Avg. 70°/50°

THU 1/17 Actual Temp 73° /36° Hist. Avg. 70°/50°

FRI 1/18 Actual Temp 75° /41° Hist. Avg. 70°/50°

SAT 1/19 Actual Temp 79° /46° Rain Hist. Avg. 70°/51°

SUN 1/20 Actual Temp 68° /45° Hist. Avg. 70°/51°

Second Week at Lithia Springs

We are still waiting for the park to clear the two log jams out of the Alafia River. Peggy didn’t want to paddle again and portage through the mud. They are promising now they will have it clear by this coming Wednesday, so we hope to paddle it on Thursday if we can get somebody to shuttle us with our canoe back up to Alderman Ford.

So we biked the Fish Hawk Ranch trails for 4 more days, covering another 50 miles. We have tried to follow all the different bike trails that go through the natural areas of the large housing development. Fish Hawk is in Hillsborough County a suburb of Tampa with a population of 18,000. The average home cost is $350K. Many of the individual developments are gated communities, but we sneak in behind cars or on bike paths.

The trails are 5’ wide concrete sidewalks. There are lots of curves, hills and valleys which keep our average speed below 9 MPH. Except for the weekends not many people use the trails.

There are all sorts of large birds like Egrets, Sandhill Cranes and ducks, I’m sure there are alligators in the ponds but we haven’t seen one yet.

We had two cool days but the weather has been great with no rain.

MON 1/7 Actual Temp 79° /46° Hist. Avg. 70°/51°

TUE 1/8 Actual Temp 79° /52° Hist. Avg. 70°/51°

WED 1/9 Actual Temp 73° /46° Hist. Avg. 70°/51°

THU 1/10 Actual Temp 63° /41° Hist. Avg. 70°/51°

FRI 1/11 Actual Temp 73° /37° Hist. Avg. 70°/51°

Sat 1/11 Actual Temp 79° /50° Hist. Avg. 70°/51°

SUN 1/12 Actual Temp 80° /54° Hist. Avg. 70°/51°

We have one more week here and then we plan to try to get a campsite on Tampa Bay at another Hillsborough County Park, E.G. Simmons. It is always full and it may be buggy, but we will give it a try early on Sunday 1/20.

First Week at Lithia Springs

We flew back to Orlando on New Years Eve morning. There were no delays and we picked up our RV at the KOA storage lot near the airport by noon.  After a lot of grocery shopping we got to the campground around 3 PM and got the last campsite, #7, available. I guess this week is a popular camping destination during the holidays.

The campsite was small and not level so on Tuesday morning we found a  site closer to the river, #30, that had just opened up. We took a few bike rides around the FishHawk Ranch trails. See this link for a map. https://bcpoa.org/FHMap.pdf  These paths are 5’ wide concrete sidewalks that mostly go through natural areas around the ponds and woods of this large housing complex. There has to be at least 30 miles of trails along with some mountain bike trails and roadside sidewalks. We biked about 40 miles on 3 rides. The paths are very curvy and slow. There is a large grocery store only 3 miles away which makes it easy to pickup more provisions.

Then my door lock broke. Luckily I was able to push the plunger in and get out of the RV, luckily we also have front doors so we were not trapped inside.

I got on the internet and found that this model lock fails after a few years and a new better designed lock is available. It is still made in the USA but costs about $100.

The Phoenix factory was closed for the holidays so on Wednesday morning I ordered the lock on E-Bay from RV and Auto Parts in CA. I got the lock in 1-1/2 days by USPS, fastest shipment ever. It took a while to put it in because the dead bolt mechanism interferes with the aluminum channel in the door. So after some drilling, filing and Dremel cutting, I got a slot cut in the channel and it works great.

On Friday morning campsite #37, pictured above, opened up so we moved again since it is one of the only 5 sites that are right on the river. We like the river sites because we can get shuttled up to the put-in at Alderman’s Ford and paddle the 9 miles back down to our campsite. A friendly camper from MN, camped next to us, had a rack on his car and carried our canoe and us up to the put-in.

On 12/20 they got 7” of rain in the area and the river came up 10‘ almost flooding out these sites. The river was now back down to 500 cfs from the flood at 3500 cfs but we found it was totally blocked by large trees in two places. Peggy did not like portaging through the muddy jungle. It took us almost an hour more than it usually tales us. We were the only boat on the river that Saturday afternoon. It was nice and fast with no shallow shoals like in low water.

Our plans are to stay here until January 20th and then see if we can get a campsite at another Hillsborough County Park called EG Simmons.

I almost forgot to mention, finally we have really warm weather. See actual weather:

MON 12/31 Actual Temp 82° /59° Hist. Avg. 70°/52°

TUE 1/1 Actual Temp 82° /57° Hist. Avg. 71°/52°

WED 1/2 Actual Temp 82° /61° Hist. Avg. 71°/52°

THU 1/3 Actual Temp 81° /61° Hist. Avg. 71°/52°

FRI 1/4 Actual Temp 82° /63° Hist. Avg. 70°/52°

SAT 1/5 Actual Temp 68° /50° Hist. Avg. 70°/52°

SUN 1/6 Actual Temp 72° /45° Hist. Avg. 70°/51°

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