Wrapping up our winter trip at Ocean Pond Campground

John & Peggy at Cypress Glen

We got a nice early start from Cypress Glen campground at sunrise, 7:30AM on Monday morning. We stopped at Walmart, Aldi’s and Sam’s Club near Ocala then headed north on US-301 to Ocean Pond campground in Osceola National Forest near Lake City, FL. We were hoping to get one of the 19 sites with electrical hookups and we lucked out. When we got there at noon, someone had just pulled out of site 11. These sites are full everyday but usually from Sunday to Thursday if you get here by 10 AM you can get a site. It seems like these sites are always full on the weekends. There are three camps, the second one has water only and the last one in in a nice woods but not water, better for tent campers. On Friday mornings the three camps are usually full for the weekend.

Ocean Pond Campsite 11

We did a short 11 mile bike ride over to Olustee Civil War Battlefield where every February they do a large reenactment. We like this ride since only about 2 miles are on the paved forest road. The remainder of the ride is om narrow hard pack dirt roads. We came back via Cobb Campground a popular boondock area.

On Friday we took our last bike ride of our winter trip, a short 9 mile ride to Hog Pen campground. This is another rustic National Forest campground on Ocean Pond with individual sites and a latrine.

We biked 475 miles on our tandem bike this winter and we canoed about 110 miles.

We enjoy the old roads without all the fast truck traffic and it takes about the same time since it is a shorter distance than I-95. You feel like a tourist from the past with the little motel-cabin strips and roadside attractions along the way.

You need to slow down in a few towns but the traffic is very light and no big interstate accident delays.

We hope that on a Saturday afternoon the traffic through Charlotte, NC won’t be too bad and we plan to get to Mooresville, NC by dinner time and stay overnight at a Walmart.

We plan to leave early on Saturday 3/14 before sunrise. We love US-301 and will take it all the way north though Georgia and pickup US321 in SC and then to Columbia, SC where I-77 starts.

It has been another warm week with no rain and their forecast is for more of the same for another week.

One week at Silver Lake

We arrived early on Monday morning 3/2 and plan to leave early on 3/9. After our 17 mile bike ride on Tuesday we were surprised by the arrival of our friends, Bud & Pat, from Highland Hts, OH. They own the same model Phoenix Cruiser that we do.  They had hoped to spend the winter in FL but a serious illness in their family kept them at home until a few weeks ago. So now they were just heading south while we were heading back north. They plan to camp here at Cypress Glen Campground until Saturday. 

On Wednesday we biked with them on the Good Neighbor Trail to Brooksville, FL like we did last year. It is a 27 mile round trip ride and we stopped for lunch at the Main Street Café in the downtown. They both had new bikes, Pat had an E-Bike so she had no problem keeping up with our tandem bike. You have to peddle to make it go but on the level trails it can go 100 miles before recharging. In fact after we came back they both kept biking for another 10 miles or so. They even took a longer ride on Thursday while we rested and read our Kindle books.

Bud and Pat went biking again on Friday. It got cooler and we planned to paddle down the Withlacoochee River. We were dressed for the cool weather but the 25 mph wind made us turn around. It was still windy Saturday but it was supposed to be warmer on Sunday so we decided to paddle on Sunday and stay here one more night.

It was still cool at noon when we paddled downstream to Hog Island. But on the way back it was warm enough to take off our jackets. The last mile of our 8 mile trip found us going into a strong head wind which took us twice as long to cross the lake which was starting to have whitecaps.

The weather the past week and a half was cool to start and finish. But for most of the week it was again above normal temperatures near Brooksville.

When we leave here Monday we plan to do some shopping in the Ocala area and then drive all the way to Ocean Pond Campground in Osceola National Forest near I-10 in Northern Florida. It is only a 150 mile drive. We hope we can get a campsite there with electrical hookups.

We plan to stay there about 5 days while watching the weather reports for the driving conditions for our 950 mile two day trip back home. 

Slight Change in Plans

As I feared, when we got to Lithia Springs Park on Friday morning we found there was no available camp sites for the weekend. None of the other Hillsborough County Parks had any sites available. I looked at my maps and figured since it was still early in the day and the weather was finally warming back up, maybe we should take a bike ride and try for a free camp somewhere.

We had never tried the 29 miles long paved Van Fleet State Trail which runs from Polk City a little east of Lakeland, north to SR50. It was easy to get to. The trail is not as busy as the Withlacoochee State Trail and had less walkers. So the bike groups like it because they can run at 20 mph without worrying about running into someone coming around a curve. This trail is absolutely straight with one gentle curve.

We did an 18 mile round trip up and back to the next access parking lot and never passed anyone. The trail was in partial sun and it was a windy day.

Our plan was to then overnight at a Walmart parking lot in Gibsonia north of Lakeland. When we got there the lot was full of signs that said no RV parking. So we kept on going to Zephyrhills where we knew there was a quiet Lowes that we could park.

We had a good night’s sleep but needed to find something to do and where to camp for the next two days. We knew our campsite at Silver Lake was not available until Monday.

We found the Withlacoochee River Park nearby, I called and they said they had an available site but when we got there someone had taken it. He told us no problem the recreational field has 25 empty sites with water and 30 amp hookups but no tables.  It was out in the bright sun on this cool day so it was fine but other that a few short hiking and biking trails there was not much to do so we only stayed overnight on Saturday.
I suggested that we are still very close to the North end of the Van Fleet State Trail so lets go over there around noon on Sunday, and try that end of the trail.


This time we did a 19 mile round trip from Mabel to Bay Lake Trailhead. Being a Sunday we saw more people but it was an easy fast ride on a flat trail. They have toilets at the 4 parking areas and benches or picnic tables at one mile intervals. This end is through a swampy area but was still very scenic.

We had one more night to find a place to stay and we knew there was a Cracker Barrel Restaurant only a couple of miles from Silver Lake Campground where we had reservations for the next 6 nights starting Monday night. We had a nice dinner and stayed in their parking lot for the same price as the last campground charged. Of course it was right next to noisy I-75 but we were tired and slept well.

Early Monday we got our site in the Cypress Glen Camp loop and had another rest day. On Tuesday we will bike the Withlacoochee State Trail to the post office in

Nobleton where we can mail Joan and Meg’s birthday cards. As usual we will miss both their birthdays.