Juniper Springs Again

Our plan after our bike trail ride in Ocala was to overnight at the Silver Springs Walmart. Then on Thursday morning take a short paddle around Silver Springs.

However after the ride, for some reason, I had a stiff neck and it was still sore in the morning, so we decided to make this a rest day and head over to Juniper Springs in Ocala, NF and camp for 3 nights.

Usually we would head north to Ocean Pond Campground in Osceola NF near I-10 in Northern FL. But they closed their campground last Match 15th and it never reopened due to the Covid virus. It was the only campground that we came across that never reopened.

At Juniper Springs they set aside about 30 campsites for First Come First Served. All the remaining campsites can be reserved on-line and are always full on weekends. The reason this park is not more popular is that they do not have electricity or water hookups at each campsite but they do have nice hot showers and a dump station.

The FCFS sites that are available when you arrive can be occupied for 14 days, so usually in mid-week you can get a campsite but on weekends they may be full.

It is a very pretty park and used to have a nice board walk that paralleled the river from the campground to the swimming pool at the spring.

 

The board walk was damaged in a storm 2 years ago and even through they repaired it, they only opened it for a short time and then closed it again. They claim they don’t know if NF or it’s concessioner is responsible for upkeep. So nothing is done. We sneak around the closed gates and still walk the boardwalk, but it is a shame they don’t at least fix a few boards and reopen.

Juniper Run is a great 7 mi paddling trip for paddlers that can control their craft, it is not for novices. But since the Covid issues they have not been renting canoes/kayaks or doing shuttles for private boaters.

Some park volunteers may still be willing to give you a hand in dropping off your vehicle at the take-out parking lot and giving you a shuttle back to the put-in.

It was only 41^o on Friday morning and I still had a stiff neck so I think for now we may be done paddling on our trip.

This is a picture of Pam, Peggy & Jeff 52 years ago at the same swimming area.

I like to keep track of how many miles we bike and canoe on our vacation trip. The biking was about normal, we biked 475 miles on our Tandem, 26 miles was our longest ride. Our canoeing was a little less than normal, we only paddled about 75 miles.

We were on the road for 106 days this year and our average camping cost was only $14.50/night. We stayed at fewer state parks and a few more nights either with a friend or at a Walmart parking lot when travelling.

The weather forecast is for rain on Saturday and the start of a warming trend back home. So depending on how accurate the weather forecast is, there is a possibility that we would leave Juniper Springs on Sunday Morning and we would start driving north.

Like the last few years we plan to take US301 North to South Carolina before getting on I-77. The map shows our basic plan and where we may stop each night but actual plan will depend on the time of day we get to a nice Walmart overnight stop.