Prologue - The Great Adventure

Never carry bikes on the back of a camper!
We learned our lesson the hard way!  Stay tuned!

We finally hit the road a few minutes before 11:00am on a bright, Florida Wednesday morning after three months of planning and relentlessly spending money. We pulled into one of our favorite campgrounds, the Stephen Foster Cultural Center State Park, near White Springs, Florida, the first leg of our three-month journey, five and a half hours later. It was 94 degrees when we drove in and chatted with the friendly park ranger at the gate. This is one of the few parks where we don't have to get out of your vehicle and go inside. They have everything ready for you and bring it to your window. All a registered camper has to have ready is a driver's license to prove their age if they qualify for the Florida resident over age 65 discount.

This is our fifth visit to this beautiful park. Our last visit here had been somewhat of a disappointment as the normally lush vegetation between campsites had been completely cut back, leaving the normally secluded campsites naked and barren, the area between campsites strewn with dead vegetation. It has been ten months since we last visited, and the palmettos and wax myrtles have made a valiant comeback. They are now well over knee-high, but I doubt they will ever reach maturity. They'll probably get whacked again just about the time I think they have regained their mature beauty. It's pretty here when everything is green and growing, instead of spread across the campground in a brown, dying morass of coarse mulch.

We are only here one night this time as this is a great half-way break in the trip to Athens, Georgia. We have made the ten-hour trip in one day several times, but it is far more relaxing to stop and listen to the bells in the carillon, wander around among the beautiful, moss-draped live oaks, and wander down to the root-beer colored Suwanee River, breaking the trip into two days. Besides, this is the first day of a three month excursion, our very first extended vacation. A nice way to start the vacation and see if the money spent was worth it.

We awoke about quarter to six in the gray darkness of early morning. That is the time of day you can't really tell if it is going to be sunny or overcast, just that night will soon be over. I knew it would be a great day as I soon found my torsion bar pipe tool I thought I had left behind in Port Charlotte. I can't remove or adjust my trailer-hitch load levelers without it. We even called the young man who is going to mow our lawn to watch for it in case I left it laying in the grass where the trailer was parked. I'm sure it wouldn't do his lawn mower any good to run over that pipe. It also puts my mind at ease about my planning and checking details before we left Florida on our first three month camping adventure. 

We had already had one scare when we couldn't remember where we packed the wine. Talk about a scare! We found the box of with several bottles of liquid refreshment right where we put it. Of course, we put it where we would remember where it was! Wrong! We found it eventually, by accident, of course. The camper simply isn't that big.

Ilse fixed coffee and we both had a leisurely bowl of cereal before walking the dogs around the quiet, almost lifeless campground. No one was stirring. By 7:45 we were ready to roll, and after the “over and under” trailer check, we rolled over to the nearby dump station. We were serenaded by the morning chimes from the landmark carillon announcing 8:00 am as I took off my rubber gloves after unhooking the sewer drain pipe. We were ready to roll. As far as the closest gas station, anyway.

We had deferred tanking up when we got off I-75 the day before as the first gas station wanted $3.45 a gallon! We had topped off in Port Charlotte at $3.24, and paid $3.15 a gallon just north of Tampa. We assumed this station was just an Interstate ripoff and waited until we talked with the friendly ranger at the main gate. She advised us to use the station she used regularly, just up U.S. 41 from the park. We were surprised to find every station we passed in the area to be the same, $3.45. We had an ominous feeling about the price of gas for the trip, a $.30 jump per gallon in one day is scary!  Our next fill-up in Douglas, Georgia, brought a sigh of relief. Everything was good again as every station in the area was charging $3.15. We hoped the expensive bubble around Lake City and the surrounding area would be an anomaly.

We rolled into our daughter's place outside of Watkinsville at 4:00 pm after seeing wild turkeys on the roadway, and a pickup truck in front of us brake hard to miss a deer that decided to bolt across U.S. 41 at 11:00 in the morning. 

Thursday was weird-driver day. We saw enough bad drivers to write a chapter or even a whole book about. When you are towing a travel trailer at 60 miles an hour in Interstate traffic that runs 10 to 20 miles an hour over the posted 70MPH limit, you get a ringside seat to stupidity. From drivers who are obviously impaired, running off the road on both sides of a three-lane roadway, to drivers who cut across all lanes of traffic to make an exit, we saw enough to make us want to park and rest a while.

Now that we're parked safely in the driveway at our daughter's place, that's exactly what we'll do. If I remember where we put the wine.

Next: Why you never carry bicycles on a rack in the back of your RV, at:

http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2012/06/northbound-seriously-northbound.html

Whacked! Stephen C. Foster Cultural Center St Park

One of our favorite campgrounds got whacked! Stephen Foster Cultural Center State Park at White Springs, Florida, was almost unrecognizable when we pulled in late on a Wednesday afternoon in the middle of September. Gone was the lush vegetation that separated each campsite, and with it the privacy and seclusion that we so enjoyed here in the past. I doubt the palmettos and myrtles were removed for fire reasons as the ground was covered with a thick layer of cuttings and mulch, branches and dead palm fronds. 

Site 7 at Stephen Foster CC State Park in April, 2011...

If removing fuel from possible wild fires was the reason, all they did was move the fuel from vertical to horizontal. It may take years for the bushes and trees to grow back, if it is allowed to grow at all.  I certainly hope so, and I'm sure in time it will look like the campground we remember.

The campground is still a great campground, just a little shock for us from what it had been.  Now, it is like most of the other nondescript campgrounds that offer little privacy between sites. To us, it now looks less like a state park, and more like a commercial campground.

...and Site 8 on September 22, 2011

As we backed our twenty one foot travel trailer into site 8, we were distracted by a fairly loud male voice booming from a class “A” camper parked next to us in site 7, the site we had used twice before in the past. We stopped and listened as a group of six or seven men and women sitting in lawn chairs arranged around the side of the camper, paid rapt attention to a recorded sermon about the Bible blaring from the camper's outside speakers. 

They seemed oblivious to us as we hooked up our electric and water connections. My wife and I decided to retire to our trailer and turn on the air-conditioner even though the outside temperature was really quite pleasant. Even with the windows closed and the air on, it was still possible to listen to a deep baritone voice tell everyone within earshot what he thought the animals thought about as they boarded Noah's Ark. Really, Grown men and women listening to a lecture about what animals thought as they boarded the ark! I listened for a few minutes, resisting the urge to comment on the somewhat entertaining discourse. I wondered if the speaker had recently read George Orwell's Animal Farm. Oh well, perhaps the carnivores were having a telepathic, philosophical debate about what, and when, to eat. 

Maybe the cows were trying to ban the crocodiles; they can swim so they don't need to be on the boat, right? I wonder who remembered to bring the fire ants?  If the volume had been that loud for rock music, I have no doubt there would have been complaints, particularly from them.

The impromptu revival meeting - I hope it wasn't scheduled - broke up soon afterward and middle-aged couples wandered back to campers and RVs around the campground.  Silence once again prevailed over the awkwardly naked campground.  We don't know if they were traveling together or if they met at the at the park for an event of some sort.  

We had a an uneventful night, forgoing our usual traditions of shrimp cocktail and spaghetti dinner, as we didn't really feel this one night stop-over qualified as our first night of camping.  

We weren't rushed, and leisurely unhooked everything the next morning. We were wished a nice trip by our pleasant, smiling evangelical neighbors who were having a big group breakfast as we pulled out. We were on the road by 9:00am and looked back at what had been one of our favorite campgrounds with a twinge of remorse. One last look back confirmed it did not look as we remembered it from past visits. We wonder how long it will take to grow back. Maybe it'll help deaden the sounds between camp sites.

Next: A change, this time we head south to the Collier - Seminole State Park, at:

http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2011/11/collier-seminole-state-park.html

Stephen Foster Folk Cultural Center State Park, Revisited...

The Carillon at Stephen C. Foster Cultural Center State Park, Florida

We once again dropped in at the Stephen Foster Folk Cultural Center State Park in White Springs, Florida, this time on our way home. We stopped there for the first time three weeks before on our way north to the Georgia mountains. 

Our original plan was to stop on the way back at the other Stephen Foster park, the one in Georgia, but since we hadn’t made reservations at either one, we decided to do the “drive-in” at the Florida campground.  

We had the kayaks strapped on top of our SUV, but it was just too hot, and we were just too close to the end of our very first ever, three week long vacation to take what would have been a short paddle at the Okefenokee park. 

This time, however, we decided to forego kayaking at the Georgia park and headed instead just a little further south, and just a little off US 441, on the west side, to stay at the Stephen Foster Cultural Center State Park, not far over the Florida state line. Like the Georgia park, it too, is located on the Suwannee River.

We usually travel US 441 rather than I-75 through Georgia as the roads are mostly great and the traffic is a lot less hectic. We usually make better time to Athens, Georgia, via US 441 from north Florida than Interstate 75. The highway also takes us near one of our favorite campgrounds, the Stephen C. Foster State Park, near Fargo, Georgia. The park is right in the middle of the Okefenokee Swamp. 

Time to head home. Besides, the Florida park is just a few miles from the unavoidable Interstate 75 to head to Southwest Florida. The Florida park has easy access, nice clean facilities, and wide, easy campsites that make it a real pleasure to visit.

After a quick, pleasant registration, we headed for our spot, the same one we had used three weeks earlier. Only scattered RVers around the park, we had the campground mostly to ourselves. As we fixed dinner, it began pouring rain, and again we were happy we had passed on kayaking. Something to do another day. 

We went through our pile of brochures and pamphlets and reflected on what was really a great three week venture. The little Jimmy SUV had done well, and we were happy with our Cikira 13FD. Costs were not exorbitant and we actually spent less on campgrounds than we had budgeted.

We had made several decisions that we will follow-up on before we head cross-country to San Diego next year for an Air Force reunion, including tow vehicle and even a slightly bigger trailer, and that will be a study in itself.

The trip home the next morning was uneventful, but again we jumped off of the Interstate near Bushnell, Florida, just to take US 301 through Dade City and Zephyrhills on a “recon” run. We were back on the Interstate though, soon after passing the Hillsborough River State Park. We were home in just over an hour.

Sneaking a quick look at the Internet soon after opening up the house, I came across an email I had to open. It was from a friend about the Stephen C. Foster State Park in Georgia we had decided not to paddle the day before. The Clinch County News had posted a special video about an alligator feeding frenzy in the access canal just beyond the boat ramp at the park. It's currently on YouTube at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CQ1N1mAi9s.

Yes, we’ll go back to the Georgia park to go kayaking. We just won’t put in first thing in the morning. 

Next: Close to home - The Myakka River State Park in Florida:

http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2010/09/myakka-river-state-park.html 

Stephen Foster Folk Cultural Center State Park, Florida

We continually confuse our Florida friends when we tell them we camped at the Stephen C. Foster State Park in Georgia. They always ask, “Do you mean the one at White Springs?” No, we answer, the one at Fargo. Georgia. The two state parks are less than 60 miles apart, are both on the Suwanee River, and are really quite different from one another.

The Carillon at Stephen Foster Folk Cultural Center State Park

The one at White Springs is in Florida, and is actually called the Stephen Foster Folk Cultural Center State Park, located right on U.S. 41 just a few miles east of I-75 and north of I-10. We made our first reservation at the Florida park as a convenient overnight stop on our way north on our first extended camping trip in early August. We have previously camped twice at the Georgia park, which is 17 miles east of U.S. 441 near Fargo, and plan to stop there again on or way back.

The friendly Florida State Park ranger at the gate brought the prepared paperwork out of the guardhouse right to the car. I didn't even have to get out! As we drove in the immaculately manicured grounds, dominated by the beautiful Spanish moss-draped Live Oaks, we were impressed with spacious layout of the park. The center of the park is dominated by a Carillon, which tastefully played its bells for us as we drove by. Actually, it was playing the time, but it was a nice symbolic, welcoming touch.

The Florida state park system lets you select your RV site ahead of time, which is easy to do on the Internet, whereas the Georgia park system is first come, first served, based on the size of your unit. The Georgia state parks usually require a drive-through at least once to see which sites are available, which at sites like Unicoi and Amicalola can be interesting to say the least.

Camp site 7 at Stephen Foster Folk Center State Park

Our preselected site was clean and roomy, easy to back into, and separated from the adjacent sites by bushes and shrubs. We soon unloaded the bikes, and even though the temperature was still 94 degrees in the late afternoon, we took a leisurely bike tour of the park and its gently rolling hills. We rode down the access trail to the canoe launch on the Suwanee River and decided we would return here as a destination sometime in the future. We rode to the typical visitor center where you can get information and brochures, as well as T-shirts and caps, and all of the assorted souvenirs usually found at campgrounds.

The campground at the Stephen C. Foster State Park in Georgia, is also clean and with private campsites, and although the access road is somewhat tighter, there is also room to maneuver your vehicle. The Georgia park has rental boats and canoes, a paved boat ramp and a visitor's center as well. Both campgrounds have rental cabins, playgrounds, and amphitheaters for Ranger lectures. The difference is in the location. If you stay at the Georgia park, make sure you are stocked up ahead of time. A milk run for forgotten groceries is a 40 mile round trip.

Next: Our first major outing to the Georgia Mountains: Carter's Lake, at

http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2010/09/interstate.html