Our 2019-20 Florida RV Trip Starts & What a difference a Day makes.

We decided to head back to Florida again this fall & winter and bring our lightweight Mad River canoe and our Burley Tandem Bicycle, along with my mountain bike.
We love all real Florida Parks where we can canoe and bike. As usual our itinerary does not include any private campgrounds. We stay in State Parks, National Forests, County Parks, State Forests and Corps of Engineer campgrounds. When we are traveling to and from FL we use Walmart parking lots to spend an overnight.
We did all our trip planning and campground reservations starting in December until the end of February since the weather in November is a big factor in where we will head and when we will actually leave.

The last couple of years we spent time in SC & GA, but this year the weather forecasts started to look bad. We wanted to leave about November 11th after our big family party and pre-thanksgiving celebration.

This year everyone came to Joan and Brian’s new home to also celebrate our 60th wedding anniversary.

I think we have aged a little, can’t see well and forget things.

When we woke up on Sunday 11/10 the weather forecast was predicting the start of a big snow event and low temperatures.

We quickly finished packing and left at 10 AM. We drove in beautiful warm and sunny weather almost 400 miles to Wytheville, VA by 5 PM. We actually used a Loews parking lot next door to the Walmart. It was much quieter and had better free internet.

Since the forecast was predicting that this storm would push south all the way to FL, we decided to skip visiting our friends Greg & Sandy Lewis in the SC Highlands and biking in GA. We took I-77 from Cleveland all the way through Charlotte to Columbia, SC and then jumped off the interstates the rest of the way to FL. We lost 30 min due to road construction north of Statesville, NC but had no delays in Charlotte. They finally finished the roadwork North of the city and are almost done if you drive through the city on I-77.

Our itinerary for Monday was to drive 8 hours to Jesup, GA. From Columbia, SC to Ocean Pond campground in northern FL is 340 miles by all interstate highways and it is 20 miles shorter taking US301 the old main North South route which goes all the way to the southwest coast of FL. It is part 4 lane divided and part two lane. There are some school zones and a few small towns with traffic lights. But there is NO traffic and very few trucks. It reminds you of traveling 50 years ago when little strip motels and two pump gas stations lined the route. It is a very relaxing, scenic drive and believe it or not, it only takes 10 minutes longer, and that’s if there are no accidents or construction on the interstates.

We did get to Jesup, GA by 3:30 PM and spent the night at a quiet Walmart. It was a sunny drive with temperatures in the mid-seventies. We got an early start Tuesday morning and made it to our campground by 9 AM. With cold weather forecast we figured there would be a lot of travelers moving on and no weekend campers from Jacksonville showing up yet. It is still two weeks to the busy Thanksgiving weekend here. We had no trouble getting a campsite with electric power & water.

Our only problem is we still have 4 weeks to kill before arriving at Silver Lake near Brooksville, FL. We can spend 2 weeks here and do a lot of bike riding around Ocean Pond.

Some possibilities when we move on are the Okefenokee swamp which has good paddling, the Ichetucknee River which is a nice paddle up and down a spring fed river, A bike trail or two like the St Marks to Tallahassee paved trail or the rivers in the big bend area south of Tallahassee like the Wakulla, Aucilla, Econfina or Wacissa.

However the weather here went from 75^o F on Tuesday to 36^o F on Wednesday morning with some light afternoon showers. But it’s still a lot better than suffering in the cold back home.

We will be back at Silver Lake - Site 47 on December 9th and then drive to the KOA near the Orlando airport where we will leave our RV in storage to fly home to spend Christmas with our big family.

Any friends that care to join us along the way, now is the time to let us know. On all of our reserved campsites there is room to share with a second vehicle, since we don't pull a car with us.