Last few days At EG Simmons

Some of my blog readers were wondering where all these camp spots were in South West FL I made this map of where we have been since early December.  

1. Silver Lake - Brooksville

2. Lithia Springs - SE Tampa

3. WP Franklin - Ft Myers

4. Pioneer Park - Zolfo Springs

5. Myakka SP - SE Sarasota

6. Ortona - La Belle

7. EG Simmons - Tampa Bay

8. Lithia Springs - SE Tampa

9. Silver Lake – Brooksville

This Covid year has been much different with respect to camping. We found some parks completely closed, some only using 50% of their sites and some parks, that in the past were always full. This winter, they were not totally full even on weekends.

We took another short canoe paddle around the mangrove islands on Friday. We wanted to try to avoid the wind but even though we did not go out into the bay it was no fun paddling in the strong winds.

On Friday night three US Bombers came by 3 different times practicing for their Super Bowl flyby. They need to fly over the stadium exactly at the end of the Star Spangled Banner at 6:15 on Sunday. They came from 3 different airbases hundreds of miles away and were making sure that they could coordinate their arrival time.

The weather like most years was unpredictable. December was warmer than normal, January was colder, so we were glad we headed south a little sooner than previous years. February, so far,  has been above normal temperature. We probably have had less than 1” rain and almost all of  it has  fallen at night.

So we were surprised on Saturday when we took a 18 mi bike ride over to the Apollo Beach area. We were almost back when a light rain started to fall, so by the time we got back to camp we were pretty wet. It was warm but getting more humid. An hour later it was sunny again.

On Super Bowl Sunday morning we were awakened by another thunderstorm that lasted all of 15 minutes. The rest of the day we had beautiful sunny skies  and low humidity.

The Tampa Chamber of Commerce must has made a deal with the devil, to end up with such beautiful weather for the Super Bowl.

We decided to stay on Tampa Bay at EG Simmons County Park for the Super Bowl Weekend and then next Tue or Wed try to get a campsite back at Lithia Springs after another grocery shopping trip.                       

On Super Bowl Night I shot this video    Super Bowl Bomber Fly-By