Final Week of Steve & Anne's Trip

We left Stephen Foster Park Monday morning after the temperature warmed to around 60o. It is a short drive to the Ichetucknee spring fed river. Of course our GPS took us down a sandy NF road instead of a nice paved road. There is a fee to park, pay at gate, but if you have your own boat keep going to the boat drop off on a narrow path, you then park in the big lot. There is a long wooden walkway to the put-in.

The river was beautiful with a strong current. It was a cool morning and not many turtles were out. I much preffered starting at the, now closed take-out, going upstream when you are fresh and then drifting back, than the opposite. 

Here is Peggy ready to launch at the old Take-out.

Steve and I were in my lightweight canoe and Anne paddled my old 14' kayak. 

We saw no other paddlers until we were back near the put-in where a large group had just launched on a downstream paddle trip.

We then split up since Anne needed to pick up a prescription in Lake City and I needed to buy 2 new 6 volt deep cyle batteries for the RV power system in Gainesville. 

We met up again at, Silver Springs State Park, our next overnight campsite #21. We headed to Silver Springs launch site on Tuesday morning. There were lots of private and rental boaters launching. New fees, $2 per person to launch but no parking fee if you camped at the park.

We paddled down the SS River a couple of miles and saw lots of turtles, a few alligators and one Manatee. We then paddled back since we hadn't set up a shuttle.

After we got back from paddling we drove to Juniper Springs campsite #16, next to our sneek trail. This once beautiful park in the Ocala NF gets more rundown each year. There are no boardwalks left, campers can't even see the river and the trails are overgrown

Erin Bethea in 2023 ducking under a tree

   The river has a fast  current but is partially blocked by fallen trees.

On Wednesday we decided to do a shuttle and leave Steve's truck at the Juniper Run take-out. We launched about 11:30AM for our 3 hour 7 mi trip. 

We saw no one on the river but met up with a paddling group from Upstate New York who we saw at Silver Springs yesterday. They had launched an hour earlier and had just gotten to the take-out before we landed.

Steve and Ann are heading back to the land of Ice & Snow on Thursday morning, so I'm on my own for the remainder of the trip. So anyone that knows me is welcome to camp with me for free, see my schedule. 

We had a nice last supper at a really nice restaurant, Drifters Riverfront Bar & Grill in Astor, FL on the St John's River off SR40.