No, We're Not in Florida Anymore.

I know, I've been neglecting my documentation of our travels. My creative energies are being channeled into my interior design fantasies. Apologies offered. I'll do a quick update now. This Spring and Summer are all about friends, family, and future too I guess.

Our last stop in Florida was a very stimulating one in Jacksonville, where I dashed around madly trying to visit all the furniture stores to feed my fantasies and determine which ones will be most useful when we come back to Jekyll Island in the Fall.  Jekyll is about halfway between Jacksonville and Savannah, both of which have more furniture and interior decor stores than can be found closer. Furniture Mart will be my lead provider I think, with the local Jacksonville West Elm and Ballard Design stores in supporting roles. Brunswick also has Sweats, a nice but small furniture store, which will be a great local resource.

Then we parked at Coastal Georgia RV Resort in Brunswick and spent the week gazing longingly at the construction site where our townhouse will be. We also walked the beaches on Jekyll Island every day and explored the local territory, including St. Simons Island. From the Jekyll beaches we viewed porpoises and manatee in the shallow waters, enjoyed the deep green shade of the oaks, and basked in the relaxing atmosphere of the Island. What a beautiful place Jekyll is. Even more beautiful than we remembered. We're still feeling really good about our decision to live there.

After a too short and wonderful week with our family (Hi Bob, Caroline, Catherine, Will, Sarah, Cathy, Jess and Michael!) in Mount Pleasant, SC we started making some serious headway northward.  For us that still means moving only about 2 hours on travel days, and spending a couple of days at each stop.  

In our slow and steady style we actually made it through South Carolina and North Carolina, into Tennessee, and stopped for a week at the tidy Two Rivers Landing RV Resort in Sevierville and the Great Smoky Mountains. While there, we revisited our favorite spots in the National Park, perused the hugely comprehensive Smoky Mountain Knife Works, and had a lovely visit with Rick's old friends, Bob and Barb from Louisville.

On through Tennessee, Kentucky and into Ohio, we stopped for a great visit with our new friends Barb and Phil, in Mount Vernon, OH. They were kind and generous to let us stay in their home over the Memorial Day Weekend. What a blessing it was to get a break from the crowds and expense we would have encountered in an RV park on this holiday. And Phil and Barb are just so much fun to be with. We explored all around the beautiful Ohio countryside, including Granville, where I went to college and where Rick's great grandfather was a pastor and president of a local women's college (predating Denison University, my alma mater).  Granville is still such an idyllic little town, and I think Ohio is just about the most beautiful state in the country. Thanks Phil and Barb for showing us around your home state!

After a few of more quick stops in pastoral Ohio, the northwest corner of Pennsylvania and western NY, we've landed in apple country north of the Finger Lakes for a week to catch our breath from all this hard ramblin'.  : )  Right now we're at NorWin Campground and Fruit Farm, kind of an unusual stop for us. The large campground of primarily summer homes/trailers of local folks, is surrounded on all sides by a beautiful farm, with fruit orchards, corn fields and goat pastures. Our hosts couldn't have been nicer, and found us, on short notice, a pull-through spot with an open sky so we could use our satellite. We'll get both cars serviced, clean house, do a lot of laundry and let Honey run through the orchards.

We'll be in New England very soon for some long awaited visits with many dear people who we love and have missed. Our travels will peak at Acadia National Park, then we start the long trip back south, stopping in New Hampshire and Vermont for a couple of weddings and a visit with my son Mark. Lots to look forward to.

P.S. Sorry, no photos. There is something bad going on between Picasa (Google's photo program) and Blogger (Google's blogging program). I'm not feeling hopeful about where it's going, so the future of this blog is in question. I'm very tempted to bad mouth Google, which has basically abandoned Picasa users, and may be planning the same for Blogger.

Yes, We're STILL in Florida

We do like to move slowly when we can. We've been snailing along through central Florida, staying a week at a time at a series of pleasantly surprising campgrounds. I'll just mention the last few here for those who are interested, and get on with the story.

Jonathan Dickinson State Park, Hobe Sound, FL 

https://www.floridastateparks.org/park/Jonathan-Dickinson

This one is just about perfect. Reasonably priced, large, full hook-up sites, close to the ocean and shopping yet quiet and surrounded by nature, great hiking/biking trails, well taken care of. We'd go back and spend a month in a flash.

Jonathan Dickinson State Park - Site #79 (paved!)

             

River Ranch RV Resort, Lake Wales, FL

http://www.riverranchrv.net/riverranchrv/outside_home.asp

A kind of odd place. It's an ownership resort that the owners all seem to be leaving. Many lots for sale. It's affiliated with a dude ranch kind of resort with a rodeo, teepees, glamping - all beautifully landscaped jungle style and very well cared for.  The sites were kind of tight getting into and it was pretty pricey. 

River Ranch RV Resort - Site #278

             

Wilderness RV Resort, Silver Springs, FL

wildernessrvparkestates.com

This place is all about the location, right near Silver River State Park and close enough to Ichetucknee River. (More about those later.) The park is known for it's little restaurant and sweet shop that makes great whoopie pies.

Stephen Foster Cultural Center State Park, White Springs, FL 

https://www.floridastateparks.org/park/Stephen-Foster

This is a very nice state park, but kind of far away from almost everything. Good for catching up on the blog and some nice hiking. There are some very nice long pull-throughs, but very few sites that would get satellite reception. All the sites are 30 amp and have no sewer.

Stephen Foster Cultural Center State Park - Site #34

Florida is like three totally different worlds: the beach-focused, busy, wealthy east and west coasts and the Keys; Orlando and all the theme park culture; and the central wild and agricultural stretch that starts at the Everglades, squeaks around Orlando and continues all the way to Georgia. Some call it the "old" Florida. Since leaving Jonathan Dickinson we've been hanging out in the latter and enjoying it a lot. It's rural and surprisingly remote in places, but full of hidden treasures, like the many rivers and crystal blue springs.

But back to Jonathan Dickinson on the beautiful east coast of Florida for a moment.  Much of the east coast is heavily developed, but there are little windows of undeveloped seashore, like between Jupiter Island and Hobe Sound, where this state park is located amidst miles of undeveloped rolling sand dunes.

It's a great location to visit some really excellent beaches, including the amazing miles-long Juno Beach where dogs are always allowed off leash. They're treated like one of the family- no fuss about it. The dogs have miles to play and swim, are not crowded into a nervous little area, and are pretty relaxed as a result.  The ocean was divine - perfect temperature, manageable waves and pretty colors. Ahhhh....

We also visited the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse and took the guided tour.  Rick was fascinated by it all and walked up to the top. 

I opted out of the climb and lounged around under this spectacular ficus tree. Florida does have some amazing vegetation.

As we were leaving we saw this fisherman (with the gold necklace) haul in an amberjack after fighting with it for a long long time.  He and everyone around him were pretty excited and full of admiration for his accomplishment.  I guess it doesn't happen every day.

While at the River Ranch Resort near Lake Wales we spent a very pleasant afternoon at Bok Tower Gardens.  Near the entrance gate there is a visitor's center, gift shop, cafe and plant shop. In the patio garden they had created a wall of epiphytes (air plants) that happened to be in bloom. Not something you'd see anywhere else in the USA. They also had about 15 varieties of baby airplants for sale in the plant shop.  I was seriously tempted.

Bok Tower was built in 1929 by author and publisher Edward Bok.  It has a carillon that gives  automated concerts several times a day... 

...but occasionally it is played live. We just happened to be there at the right time for this unique experience at the end of our guided tour through the gardens (designed by Frederick Law Olmsted!). Our guide dropped us off at the base of the tower at a seating area where a closed circuit TV allowed us to view the carillon player as he gave the concert.  Watching the grace and finesse of his playing gave us a whole new appreciation for carillon music, which can sound kind of clunky and off key.

Closed circuit TV at the base of Bok Tower

We aren't big on the theme  park experiences that central Florida has to offer, so we passed on all that (except for one very fun visit to Epcot with our friends Lynn and Glenn) and spent more time hiking and paddling. While at the Wilderness RV Resort we kayaked the Silver River from one of Florida's newest state parks, Silver River State Park. 

Silver Springs is one of the largest fresh water spring in the world, putting out 550 million gallons of water daily.  It has a long and varied history as a water-based entertainment park. At one point monkeys were brought in and put on one of the islands to create a jungle theme. The imaginative owners didn't know the monkeys could swim, so now their descendants live a relatively natural and free existence at several points along the Silver River. (I don't know why they aren't all over Florida by now.)  

I learned another fascinating fact while visiting the lovely Appleton Museum, a small art museum at the College of Central Florida in Ocala. There was a short term photography exhibit about Paradise Park, a twin park to Silver Springs, which was for about a decade "exclusively for colored folks."  In the spirit of "separate but equal" it had all the same features and fun. How easy it is to forget that before the 1960's most of Florida's tourist attractions were segregated or unavailable to people of color. Silver Springs was eventually integrated, and later the state of Florida bought all the land surrounding and including the spring, and recently re-opened it as a state park. Now visitors have access by boat to the source of the spring and the river system that flows from it, and the state does its best to preserve the beauty and natural state of the springs. (There is no longer any swimming or fishing allowed in the spring or river.)

Rick and I paddled our kayaks from Silver River State Park to our campground, an easy downstream trip that took us about three hours.

The river passes the remains of the old tourist attractions, along with varieties of wildlife, including alligators, turtles, gar, jumping mullet, herons, egrets, wood ducks...

Mama wood duck and three ducklings

...swallow tail kites (one putting on a flying show for us, here skimming the water for a drink)...

...and yes, monkeys. We saw about three families or troops going about their business along the river.  This is a mother and baby, but you'll have to take my word for it.

For the first time we also saw why those growths at the bases of cypress tress are called "knees." Here is one example of a long chain of knees extending from the cypress tree on the left. The water  must have washed away the ground that usually hides the infrastructure of the knobs/knees above ground that we usually see, leaving behind this fence-like structure that does look a lot like knees. 

Silver Spring is impressive for its size and the monkeys of course, but we still think the Ichetucknee is the best spring in Florida.  We just had to paddle it again.  

The beautiful Ichetucknee River

We basically just replayed our paddle of three years ago, but got off the river at the southern most point in the Ichetucknee State Park before the river joins the Santa Fe and becomes a grueling six hour paddle against the wind.  This river is like nothing else we've ever experienced - like a magical wild river in a fairy tale. 

Afterwards Rick took a dip in the Blue Hole - the source of the Ichetucknee.

 It was cold and the current coming out of the hole was very strong. Here he is right above the upwelling of the spring.

We're finishing up our four months in Florida in Jacksonville at the Pecan Park RV Resort. It's just a stop along I-95, and right under the flight path for the commercial and fighter jets from the nearby airport. Wouldn't recommend it, but it's easy on and off with big concrete pull-throughs. We're here so I can check out some furniture stores in Jacksonville. We'll also spend tomorrow on Amelia Island before we go back to Brunswick, GA to see our future home on Jekyll Island next week. We're so excited!

Southern Florida

So here's what we've been up to lately.  For January and February we were parked at The Great Outdoors in Titusville, FL.  We stayed there a few years ago and met our good friends Nick and Cindy. We returned to spend some time with Nick and Cindy again and to get some repairs and updates done on the RV. We also made some new friends, Phil and Barb, who we hope to see again later this summer in Ohio. We did end up getting new carpet, and we love it, but with the repairs - what's to love?

Anyway, the time at The Great Outdoors seemed to fly by and before we knew it we were on the road again on a mission to explore southern Florida before it got too hot. On our way south the hydraulic pump for our whole leveling and slide system pooped out. Turned out the bushings were shot. We had just pulled into a nice campground at Savannas Recreation Area, but we couldn't open our slides or drop our jacks. In our rig, when the slides are closed, we can't get to anything but the kitchen sink, the refrigerator and the control panel. So we were without a change of clothes, toiletries and or a place to sleep until we could get it fixed.  I won't bore you with all the details, but four costly days later we were back on the road on our way to the Flamingo Campground in Everglades National Park.

As we set up our campsite the mosquitos were so thick we had to dig out the unused bug shirts we've been carrying around for over five years. Thank goodness we had them and bug spray or we'd never have made it through that first day.  After that though a strong wind started to blow and kept the mosquitos away for the rest of our week in the southern Everglades. While there we took a boat ride and a great ranger guided paddle through the mangroves. We took a few nice hikes along the main road into the park, but though we saw the crocodiles and alligators that hang around the visitors' center at Flamingo, we were surprised at how little wildlife we saw of any kind. One great sighting was a pair of very vocal and active barred owls on the boardwalk Pa-hay-okee Trail.

Barred owl

Crocodile at Flamingo Marina

The next stop on our southern Florida tour was Chokoloskee, a teeny tiny island (built on an ancient Calusa Indian shell midden) on the west coast, south of all the development, where there is not much more than an RV park, a few blocks of homes, a Cuban restaurant and the historical Smallwood Store.

We stayed at Outdoor Resorts of Chokoloskee, a very unique RV park.  Most of the sites back up to the water and have a deck and a boat launch. Those that don't, have free access to a couple of boat launches on the property.  The park has three beautiful salt water pools and spas, tennis courts, activities and lots of lovely landscaping. It is an ownership park with smallish sites pretty tightly packed together. It does rent a limited number of sites for limited nights, and we got one of those for a week, at an uncomfortably steep price. (This season is turning out to be uncomfortably pricey all around, what with repairs and Florida's high campground prices. Oh well, it happens sometimes. This too shall pass.)

Onward to Arcadia, FL, where we stayed in a truly exemplary park called Riverside RV Resort, right on the Peace River, a favorite among paddlers. It has huge sites, several free boat launches, a wonderful dog park, pool, adult activities, and it's super friendly and clean. We'd highly recommend it. From there we visited Naples (spiffy), The Ford and Edison Winter Estates (interesting), Sanibel and Captiva Islands (too crowded) and Brohard Paw Park.

The. Best. Dog. Beach. (east of California.) 

Happy Honey at Brohard Beach

Next we moved South Bay RV Campground, a county park at the southern tip of Lake Okeechobee. We are so often surprised and pleased at the quality of county parks, and this is one of the best yet. It has nice clean, large sites in an attractive natural setting, at a reasonable cost finally!  We're just here for a couple of days before we go to Jonathan Dickson State Park on the east coast. We'll be in Florida for a few more weeks, then we'll start traveling gradually northward.

Update: We found another great off-leash dog beach in Jupiter, FL. This one is even bigger. It's at the corner of Ocean Blvd. (A1A) and Marcinski Rd. There's plenty of free parking and the beach is free too.

Motel Limbo Redux

FYI, none of the pictures in this post have anything to do with the content. I took them early one morning at Ellie Ray's RV Resort and I'm sharing them with you because the actual content is such a drag.  If you don't want the news, just look at the pictures. It's good to have choices. 

In our blog stats there is this entry from before we actually started traveling, entitled Motel Limbo, and it is one of the most popular posts ever, for no clear reason. I'm thinking it's just the name. Does it sound like pornography? Is that why it gets so many hits? Well, it's a pretty dull, short post with no photos, so don't bother checking it out. But, here we are again, in a motel, playing limbo. How low can we go? Probably not much worse than this particular Days Inn.

We're back in Titusville at this Days Inn because our RV is once again in the shop, and this is the closest motel that will allow us to have Kona with us for a reasonable fee. (Now there's a pet peeve tangent I could go off on but won't.)  Some readers may recall that we had an issue with our bedroom slide that required a very time consuming fix for a little problem. Well it looks like they did not put the slide back with all the hatches properly battened, and various hoses and wires are hanging down into our hydraulic slide compartment in a way that they shouldn't. As a result, every time we open and close the slide all those hoses and wires are being pinched, pushed and pulled into odd places and angles. There may even be some kind of water leak in the area from a smooshed hose.

We're trying to be good sports and recognize that this is all just part of the full time RV life.  But on top of this issue we also have (or had) a fresh water plumbing leak into our undercarriage and one of our furnaces wasn't working this morning. We have no idea how long these repairs will take. So we're hanging out in this poor excuse for a motel for who knows how many days, eating at Cracker Barrel, watching TV with all the commercials (sans Tivo) and basically breathing through it.  It's not that bad and certainly could be a lot worse.

So, let's all be grateful for the rays of light and love in our lives, even during the dark and dreary times. 

And breathe.

Kayaking the Ichetucknee River

Well, my fantasy Florida experience finally became a reality. I've been looking for the perfect clear, spring fed river to kayak on, and after many close calls we finally found THE ONE. (I'm sure there are others, but this is ours, for now.)  

We are camped at Ellie Ray's RV Resort on the Santa Fe River near Branford, FL, in the heart of spring country. While we were setting up, the park owner "Sturge" dropped by to see if we were doing OK or needed anything. While chatting we mentioned that we were planning on putting the kayak in the river, and he said, "You've got to do the Ichetucknee." 

We did some research and discovered that it was very close and very accessible. Ichetucknee Springs State Park protects the headspring and upper Ichetucknee River and regulates its use. In the summer the "Ich" is wildly popular with the tubers, and is often maxed out, with lines of people waiting to get in the water. In the winter, much of it is closed to tubers to give the river a chance to recover, but remains open to canoes and kayaks. Yeah!!! In the summer they also have trams that take tubers back to the parking lots from the last take out point. We just parked Ms. Subaru at the North launch and intended to paddle all the way back to our campground, about 6-8 miles downstream, then come back with the truck to get her. Below is the map from the State Park website.

The night before, we drove up to the North Entrance of the park to scope out the situation, and were advised by the park ranger as to how to proceed the following day. She let us drive down to see the launch and take a peak at the Head Spring and the Blue Hole. Unfortunately we didn't have our cameras with us. There was about a half mile hike to the Blue Hole, which is over a spring vent that comes up through a series of deep caves popular with divers. Swimming is allowed there, and a few intrepid youngsters were jumping in and looking down into the hole with their snorkel gear.  We both agreed that these two spring swimming holes were the best we'd seen so far.

After exploring around the park a little, and locating the launch area, we went home to prepare for a big next day. Little did we know how big it was going to be!

The launch area has this neat platform a couple of feet wide to assist putting in your boat. I'm standing in the ankle deep water here, getting ready to put in. The water was gloriously clear and a comfortable temperature.  We got our kayaks in with only one of us, who will remain nameless, getting dumped into the springs. 

Here's Rick in the river, in his kayak.

As you can see, the water is just dreamy. This is what I've been looking for.  It's so clear that you can see all the fish and turtles swimming along with the white sand or pale green water grasses behind them.

In some places the upper river is very narrow and winding, and you have to be alert so as not to end up in the cypress knees or grasses that line the river. In other places it opens up. It was in places like this that Rick spotted otters a couple of times. 

We passed the Midpoint Dock and then got out for a little break at Dampier Landing. It was a bit of a hike to the restrooms, but it felt good to stretch our legs.

Along the Ich we also saw lots of turtles and birds (a couple of swallow tail kites!), maybe a manatee, but no snakes or anything else that felt dangerous. It was very peaceful.

The Ich leaves the State Park and passes through a residential area, where the homes have these boardwalks and wooden decks quite a ways from the house, to accomodate the fluctuating water level. The water was very high and most of the docks were flooded.  We didn't see a single person on the river until we were almost to the Santa Fe River, the next leg of our journey.

Now, I had assumed that this would trip would be pretty easy becasue it was all downstream, and we would be protected from any breezes by the trees that line the whole river. But once the Ich meets the Santa Fe, it is much wider, and unfortunately, the wind picked up and seemed to be blowing right up the river.  Because the water level was so high, there was almost no current (1 mph the website said).  So, we were paddling against a head wind, with almost no current to help us along. Needless to say, I stopped taking pictures and just focused on paddling, paddling, paddling. Sometimes I got into a rhythm and it wasn't too bad. Other times I was feeling pretty whiney and wishing a knight on a jet ski would come rescue me.  But I tried to keep up and not be too grumpy.  

Six hours later we pulled into our campground. Knowing what we know now, we both agreed we would have been happy to just do the Ich from the North Entrance to the last downstream take out landing in the park, and skip the Santa Fe completely. The part of the Santa Fe we paddled was not all that special anyway. 

Despite minor travails, I do feel grateful that we didn't get rained on, and that the Ichetucknee was the most beautiful paddle of my life. Now I can leave Florida feeling happily satisfied, if we ever get out of here.  More on that soon.

Florida's Nature Coast III: Cedar Key

We had planned on staying at the Cedar Key RV Resort for a month, but due to needed repairs, we ended up at The Great Outdoors for that month instead. We still wanted to visit Cedar Key, so we are here for just three days. It's a very nice, lightly wooded park in a rural area about seven miles from Cedar Key. The sites all have very large grassy spaces around them, concrete pads with asphalt aprons and full hook ups.  There are laundry facilities on the main buildings porch (that's a first!), very clean new bathrooms, a large multi-purpose club house with full kitchen, and a large, sparkling pol. The managers are very pleasant and helpful.  I'd recommend it to anyone, except maybe a family with kids who want activities. I also think it would be a great place for a rally.

Pre-dawn at Cedar Key RV Resort

Our first morning here I got up before dawn and drove into Cedar Key proper and situated myself in a spot where I thought I might catch the sunrise.

Pelican just before dawn.

Success!

A black skimmer at sunrise.

While pulling out of my morning photo spot I caught this osprey near her nest, also taking in the sunrise.

Just before downtown proper, I stopped at Kona Joe's for a cup of coffee and a pastry. They have a back porch overlooking the water that also would have been a great place to watch the sunrise.

Fishing decor at Kona Joe's

The town of Cedar Key used to be primarily a fishing community, but as a result of the gill net fishing ban they have had to change their economic reliance to tourism.  The town still depends on the ocean for its livelihood in many forms, with homemade signs along the road for fishing guides, smoked mullet, mullet dip, oyster, crabs and clams.  Many fisherman are now clam farmers, who got their start with support from government agencies that introduced the science of clam farming to the area.

Cedar Key seems proud of its history, retains much of its old charm, and has no chain stores, chain motels or chain restaurants - so unusual  The old downtown area is the most interesting, but I can't tell how business is doing there. There is a famous restaurant that draws a crowd, Tony's, which was recognized as having the world's best clam chowder for three years in a row. (We tried it and I loved it. It was a little spicy for Rick.)

There are several historical buildings and older rental homes downtown in addition to hotels, B & B's and a few motels.

The old Hodges House

The old Lutterloh store

A local artsy boutique

The waterfront is busy with clammers, boat tours and recreational boating of all sorts.

Cedar Key marina

Low tide exposes the oysters and barnacles

Horseshoe crab at low tide on Seahorse Key

We took a three hour boat tour of the area with Captain Doug's Tidewater Tours, around a few of the many off shore islands.  The water here is very shallow, making it difficult to navigate at low tide, which is was when we went out. Our captain was very skillful and entertaining, with lots of stories about the sea life around here and the history of Cedar Key.  Near the end of the tour we were graced with a playful porpoise in our wake, escorting us back to the marina.

A view of Cedar Key from the north side of town

The sugar sand town beach

The Captains Table, recently closed

Fishing off the new town dock

It looks like the town has had some destructive storms in the past few years, or else some of the older structures have just collapsed over time.

Scenic ruins off shore

The newer part of town has a few touristy shops, bars, restaurants, etc. It's all very relaxed, colorful and a little funky, like a mini Key West. The town is described as what Key West was like 30 years ago, and I'd say that seems pretty apt.

Manatee drawing the tourists in to this restaurant

The whole of the newer commercial area right on the water

Overall, I'd say that the "Nature Coast" has a lot of unspoiled natural areas and unique smaller towns with just enough amenities for travelers who are looking to get away from the cities and suburbs that are typical of much of the USA. It certainly is different from Orlando.  It's got the fresh water springs, the ocean, a few beaches and plenty of opportunities for nature lovers on land or sea.