Juniper Springs

The springs hasn’t changed much since 1969 when we first visited the park with Jeff and Pam.

However hurricanes the past two years, dropped a few trees and damaged the nice boardwalk that parallels the first half mile of Juniper Run. The damage is not that bad but it’s been closed for two years. Excuses like no money, forest fire danger were ridicules. I’ll bet it could be fixed in one week if anybody cared to fix it. We walked past the barricades and explored the entire boardwalk. We found 3 or 4 small sections missing but the rest was perfectly usable.

The walk allows visitors to see the beautiful white sand bottom stream and watch the inept paddlers going by.

We decided to do an early paddle on Tuesday morning. They do a shuttle for private paddlers for only $10. I used to do a bike shuttle, about 8 miles on very busy state highways. Years ago unless you had a second car, this was your only option and early morning traffic was very light. But now, we just drive our RV to the put-in, drop Peggy off with the canoe and drive to the take-out parking lot where there is room for my RV, if you get there early. The park service then drives you back to the put-in.

The river was much higher than we have seen it in years, so the 3 mph current was great and there was more room to maneuver around all the fallen and overhanging  trees,

However they still tell paddlers the 9-1/2 mile run will take 4 to 5 hours. We saw no one else on the run, due to our early start. We paddled as slow as we could and it took only 2-1/2 hours. However when we watched the rental boats launch and the lack of any paddling knowledge, some of those paddlers may not make it in 5 hours. I guess that is why the put-in closes at noon.

The weather has been great for the past two weeks, High 70’s and sunny every day. On Wednesday morning we decided to do another early morning paddle on Juniper Run. They were predicting 80^o temperatures with sunny skies. One good thing about taking our RV to the takeout is that it gets more sun than our campsite so the solar panels charge our batteries better.

We saw about 6 deer standing next to the stream at several places along the way but no alligators and very few birds today. They are predicting rain tomorrow and we will leave in the morning to do some grocery shopping on our way to Silver Lake in the Withlacoochee State Forest. We like this campground since it is on a lake which is a wide spot in the Withlacoochee River, which is a nice scenic paddle. It is also next to the 46 mile paved bike trail that runs from Rainbow Springs to about 10 miles south of Silver Lake.

They finally started to repair the boardwalk on Wednesday but they said it would take another month, they sure are milking this job.

Palatka State Trail

We took our time leaving Ocean Pond on Saturday morning. Our next trail ride would be on a paved section of the Palatka State Trail which we read about on Trail Link. The various sections are paved, dirt or under construction. From the info on Trail Link we decided to do a 10 mile paved section from Keystone Hts. to Florahome.

We parked our motor home at the corner of “Happy & Healthy” in their large parking lot, right next to the trail. Our 21 mile round trip ride to a little trailside antique store (Old RR station) was very pleasant with temps in mid 70’s.

After the hurricanes in FL, one of the roadside lakes went across the trail.

Should we cross, Peggy asked?

Doesn’t look too deep, I replied.

Actually it turned out to be a foot deep, luckily I was wearing sandals because the water was above my pedals. Peggy stuck out her legs and keep her shoes dry.

Later we heard that an alligator likes to come ashore there, but we saw no sign of him on either of our crossings.

By 1 PM we were back to our start for a light lunch in our RV. Our plans were to overnight at Walmart in Palatka, shop & go out to eat dinner at a local Mexican restaurant.

We could have just continued on to Juniper Springs as it is only an hour away. But it’s tough to get a campsite on Saturday, so we will follow our plan and head there tomorrow morning.

Enjoying the warm weather at Ocean Pond Campground.

This National Forest campground is on the north side of a 2 mile in diameter round lake, which is what Peggy likes to call it. There are 3 different priced portions, Electric & Water, Water, and Rustic, all right in a row. It is usually full on weekends, so we got here on Sunday morning and had no trouble getting an Electric site, #8, which we like since it is next to the woods.

We have never Canoed here since it didn’t look that interesting. I guess you could take a six mile paddle following the shore line all round the lake, but we like biking on the park roads and trails. On Sunday we peddled over to Cobb campground, which was still full. It is very rustic with no facilities. We took a few side roads and made it back to camp, about 8-1/2 miles.

On Monday I did some computer programing for our KHCC website and the Vermilion River Race. On Tuesday we took our traditional 14 mile ride around the lake, with a stop at the RR Depot museum in Olustee.

Then on Wednesday we peddled over to Olustee Battlefield and biked around their trails reading about the biggest Civil War battle in Florida. It was a 11 mile bike trip.

Here is what we imagined the battle was like. They say 10,00 troops were involved resulting in 2800 casualties.

Peggy can’t hold them off.

A nice Friday after an all day rain in the Okefenokee

The rain started early on Thanksgiving morning. It never rained hard but it spoiled a lot of families big cookouts. We stayed in and read but this year we had no turkey leftovers, so we had chicken leftovers instead. South of here it rained over 2”. We are in the middle of nowhere but every once in a while we can access the ATT 4G network but there is no phone service. But they do have a TV cable service that gets the 4 networks and a few other channels.

So on Friday morning I went to sign up for 2 more days camping as planned but was told there were no sites available for Friday night, only Saturday night. That won’t work, we told them we will move in with another camper for the night and made a reservation for Saturday night. We didn’t move and it never really filled up, so we had no problem.

Friday was cool in the morning, so we planned to paddle around noon after it had warmed. This 7-1/2 mi round trip paddle was to the Minnie Lake shelter and return. On this trip we paddled a narrow slow moving river through the towering Cypress trees.

When we got to the day use platform, we found a young couple were all set up to camp overnight. They said the normal shelter was closed for camping so they used this platform instead. So we had our rest stop there and headed back to camp.

Saturday started out cool but quickly warmed to the 70’s, Sunday will be a shopping day on our way to Ocean Pond Campground, where we hope some campers will be leaving after the long weekend. It at least has good 4G service for internet access. This National Forest is right off I-10 and is very popular for snowbirds since it is only $12/night for Electric Sites and $6 for water hook up sites.

Back to the Okefenokee

It was an easy drive to Stephen Foster Park in the Okefenokee Swamp, and even though this was Thanksgiving week the campground was far from full. We enjoy this park because in late November there are very few mosquitos and the weather is cool and not humid which is good for canoeing.

We are camped again in Site 16 which is only a 0.3 mile walk from the site to the boat launch. We had no trouble dragging our new light weight canoe on our wheeled carrier from the campsite to the water.

The last time we were here  it was a little windy, this time the lake was like glass.

We started our 4 mile paddle to the west around 10 AM when the fog lifted. We saw dozens of gators.

Most just sunk out of site as we approached. A few stayed on top to watch us. We saw lots of Egrets, and other birds along with a few turtles.

One big gator had a really bad injury. The loser in a fight or did a motor boat hit him? It looked really bad.

We headed back to camp at noon but since it was so nice we took another 3.5 mile canoe ride east to Billy’s Island, where there is a short trail and explanation of how the early settlers in the area made a living logging all the huge Cypress trees. There is a nice landing here.

There were fewer gators but lots of Herons and Egrets.

They are forecasting heavy rain for Thanksgiving Day and then the weather is supposed to warm into the high 70’s. Our next planned camp is at Ocean Pond campground in the Osceola Nation Forest about 60 miles South of here near Lake City FL. But they will be totally full for the weekend, so we decided to stay here until Sunday morning.