Anastasia – Third Time is a Charm

The St. Augustine light house is a few blocks north of Anastasia State Park

We planned our third visit to Anastasia State Park just outside St. Augustine, Florida, to coincide with a full moon. The brilliant, full Florida moon rising out of the Atlantic Ocean over the expansive, empty beach that stretches to the horizon, tempted us to try for yet a third time. The two times we have camped here in the past during a full moon left us with wonderful memories. But, as always, timing is everything!

We checked on-line reviews of the popular park while we patiently waited as Hurricane Chantal teased the northeast Florida coast before finally fading away, drenching the Atlantic coast as far north as New York. Ilse and I thought we might have to delay our arrival in northeast Florida, but Chantal obligingly allowed us to make the trip on schedule, leaving behind only occasional Florida showers. It was a six hour trip up from Port Charlotte. I avoided all Interstates, using only state and county roads. It was a marvelous, relaxed Sunday drive, and we were set up in the Sea Urchin loop, a first for us, in site 77 well before dinner time.

We read several comments about many of the campsites having no drainage, or worse, the drainage ending up in the campsite itself. Having never been caught in a deluge here, we were concerned about our unknown campsite. The hard-packed, sand-based sites here, are mostly flat, but only one or two are paved in the entire 139 site campground. Some though, are a little quirky in their layout.

The first six camping loops, sites 1 through 105, have better privacy than the newer seventh loop located further south of the other loops. There are no campsites across from each other in the first six loops as there is an island of vegetation in the center, and the one-way road only has campsites only on the right side of the road. The newer Coquina loop seems somewhat crowded by having double the number of campsites. They eliminated the center island and doubled the number of campsites.

The toilet and shower facilities are clean and well maintained as always, even after the hoards of toilet-paper-stuffing children blocked up all three commodes in our men's room on Sunday. The toilets were spotless just a few hours later.

Our first day was spent catching up on reading and just relaxing. Intermittent rain showers made it comfortable just to stay in the camper anyway. Getting ready for a two month long camping trip is hard work. Putting up hurricane shutters and closing up the house, prepping the car and trailer, planning the food and itinerary take time and effort. Why is it so much work to have fun? Monday was spent as the relaxing first day of vacation, after an early morning walk to the beach, of course.

Tuesday was the start of the real vacation. With sunshine and mild temperatures, I unloaded the bicycles and finally got into vacation mode. We eventually drove to town, did some grocery shopping and had Thai food for lunch. Well, it was supposed to be Thai food. I think it was just a matter of taking the correct numbered meal out of the freezer, putting it in the microwave according to instructions for whichever meal we ordered, punching a couple of buttons and serving it piping hot! Yum!

Really?

We got to do things we never had time for in the past. First on the list was a visit to Fort Matanzas National Monument, just a few miles south on famous US A1A. The weather held on Wednesday for our free boat ride to the small, but impressive fort that only fired its cannons in anger once. We had seen it from a distance when we brought a boat from St. Augustine to Ft. Myers way back in 19993, but only the teasingly far-off view as the Inter-coastal waterway passes on the other side of Rattlesnake Island from where the Spanish thoughtlessly built their fort hundreds of years ago.

Ft. Matanzas

We decided to check out Gamble Rogers State Park, some 30 miles south, as an alternate to Anastasia if we need to park our little trailer somewhere else. We were already south of St. Augustine, so why not take a look. Scratch Gamble Rogers, it isn't for us. We got back to camp just before the afternoon rains started.

We had a hint things weren't going to go as planned on Wednesday when storms really began to roll in. By Friday morning, it was obvious the comments on the Internet were accurate as some campsites had been flooded more than once. Most of them drained within hours, but some sites, such as 67 and especially 81, were under ankle-deep water for many hours. Definitely not for tent campers!

Site 81 after a good rain

We met Susan, from Naples, on Friday night after she backed in to site 81 and set up her tent. The original reservations had been canceled so she picked up the spot for a one-night stay. It rained almost as soon as she was set up, but it was a light shower and the water didn't encroach her tent. We later sat outside our trailer in the pleasant, but moist evening air as the sites drained and chatted well into the night. We joked about drying out the tents and bedding, but by the next morning it wasn't a joke. We had a torrential downpour just after she packed up and site 81 was soon under four inches of water.

Saturday night was an adventure, to say the least. Ilse commented on a sign she saw on the nearby Elks marquee that stated “Sat - Latin Dance.” So, we planned to stop by and see what was happening.  The adjacent St. Augustine Amphitheater was holding a concert by Sublime at the same time, so A1A, the street outside the park was jammed with police and flashing lights by the time we headed to the Elks club. The Elks parking lot was full, but not for the Latin dance. Turns out the dance had been held the previous weekend. They didn't take down the sign until the day before we showed up looking for some Salsa. The Elks club itself was fairly empty, save for a few regulars who looked at us nonchalantly as we walked in. The Elks make extra money by providing extra parking for the amphitheater.

We met Shirley, a thin, attractive blonde who was fending off the hands of Jack, somewhat heavier and younger by several years, as he tried to win her favor, obviously with Braille. Ilse and I sat next to them at the bar and ordered two gin and tonics that had to be thrown in the drain as the tonic water dispenser turned out to be empty of anything that vaguely resembled tonic water. The White Russian Ilse ordered as a substitute turned into a Miller High Lite beer when it was discovered their milk for the mixed drink had expired. It didn't take long for the bar to empty out. Not a real good night so far. Not for Jack either. Shirley kept telling him he wasn't going home with her and she wasn't going home with him, either. He kept asking, "Who hurt you, baby?" Poor Jack. We had free popcorn and played the jukebox. At least we got to dance to Patsy Cline. Not a real hot time in the old town that night.

We eventually made four trips to the beach without seeing sunshine even once, and the unending cloud cover made sure we didn't see any hint of moonlight during the full moon. Not until 3:00 am the next Tuesday, anyway.

So, even though we didn't get to see our full moon, we have had a great time. Tourists have a knack for crowding me out of anywhere they decide to congregate, and St. Augustine in the summer is a prime tourist attraction. We have another week here, and plenty of things to still see and do, depending on how much rain we get and how well we squeeze past the crowds.

We'll come back to St. Augustine, one of our favorite places, probably in time for the Christmas lighting ceremony in November. I'll have to see when the full moon occurs in November. We'll try for four, the third time didn't count.

[Update Note: Full moon will occur November 17th, 2013; the Lighting Ceremony will be the Saturday before Thanksgiving, November 23, 2013.  Festivities start for one of the best lighting ceremonies in the country (per National Geographic) at 6:30pm]

NEXT: On to Asheville, NC, and a great discovery, at:

http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2013/08/pleasant-surprise.html

 

1 http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2011/05/anastasia-state-park.html

2 http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2011/08/anastasia-state-park-revisited.html

3 http://piddlepaddler.blogspot.com/2011/11/bringing-baby-home.html

Watsadler – What RVing is All About

Sunrise at Watsadler on Lake Hartwell

Aaaah, now this is what it's all about! That was how we felt the three days we spent at Watsadler Campground on Lake Hartwell in northeastern Georgia. It wasn't all that much work to prep and load the camper, we have that down to a science. The only thing we forgot to bring was the soy sauce for one of Ilse's dishes. No problem there. 

We had stayed overnight at Stephen C. Foster State Park near Fargo, Georgia, the first night out, and traveled north to Watkinsville the entire second day on U.S. 441, enjoying the oddly empty highway through the massive strands of Georgia slash pines, wiped out in certain areas by the forest fires of two years ago. Replanting has been finished, but it will be years before it all comes back. 

We avoided the Interstate highways altogether, enjoying the vast expanse of mile after mile of empty asphalt. Once above Dublin, the road is mostly four lane, divided highway, up through the center of the state. We spent the Easter Vacation week with our daughter and her family near Watkinsville, just south of Athens, Georgia.

Flax Fields near Athens, Georgia

The weather at first week was rainy and chilly, but it decided to cooperate just before we headed to the campground, and Spring sprung right before our eyes! It only took a week! Marvelous time to be in Georgia, a marvelous time to be at Watsadler, a really great campsite.

We spent the second day at Hartwell site-seeing, driving up the South Carolina side of the lake to see another Corps of Engineer campgrounds at the Springfield Campground before heading over to Anderson, South Carolina for lunch. The Springfield campground is larger than Hartwell, but is a seasonal campground.

Lake Hartwell, Georgia

It opened on April 1st, the week before we got there. It appears to be as well laid out as Watsadler with only a few sites not directly on the lake, but it has a swimming beach which must be popular with the kids. 

Go to http://www.recreation.gov/ for more details on Corp of Engineer campgrounds at Lake Hartwell.

20 feet wide and 82 feet long, this house boat is en-route to Kentucky

We kicked back, read books, walked the dogs, walked the dam, and took hundreds of photos of the dogwoods and azaleas that were in full bloom in the Hartwell area. We used our new hotspot to check e-mails, again proving that we really don't need to do that very often, and to keep an eye on the weather which threatened to turn stormy late Thursday, the day we were to check out and head south. No problem, we planned to be on the road early enough to miss most of the bad weather.  For a video bicycle tour of Watsadler, click on

A Bicycle tour of Watdsadler Campground at Lake Hartwell, Georgia

Athens, Georgia.  That's not smoke, it's pollen!

We checked out reluctantly on Thursday morning and headed back toward Florida, having spent a great two weeks in Georgia. We made it even better by calling Monica, our daughter, and arranged to meet her and Claire, our granddaughter at a Publix supermarket parking lot in Watkinsville for lunch as we rolled back through once again, this time headed south.

We had a great lunch, then called ahead to Stephen Foster Folk Cultural Center State Park, the one in Florida near White Springs, to get the late arrival gate code in case we were delayed by the storm. No problem there, either, as the main entrance is manned until 8:00pm after April 1st. After a leisurely ride back down U.S. 441, we pulled in to the beautiful Florida park a little after 7:00pm, and within minutes were fixing dinner and once again checking e-mails.

Site 9 at Stephen Foster Folk Cultural Center State Park, nestled amid the giants!

NEXT - On the road again: Third time is a charm, at:

http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2013/07/anastasia-third-time-is-charm.html 

Watsadler RVisited

Actually, it's Watsadler revisited as this is the third time we have camped at the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers Campground on Georgia's Lake Hartwell.

We planned to meet our friends Arlene and Richard at the campground for a three-day reunion since we have shared side-by-side campsites here twice in the past, but illness forced Richard to cancel their reservation and kept him home under Arlene's special care. We will simply have to reschedule for Watsadler again next year.

Still all nice and shiny, we prepare to leave the Watkinsville grocery store.

We spent the previous week outside of Watkinsville, Georgia, parked next to our daughter's house. We had the opportunity to babysit our granddaughter, Claire, during her school break while Mom and Dad worked. A great time for us to get to know our granddaughter. We also got to share her fourth birthday. The only problem is there is no place to empty our gray and black water holding tanks as we sleep in the trailer while we are there. The only RV park in the area doesn't accept outside dumpers, even for a fee, so we usually just haul it, carefully, to the next campsite and dump when we get there.
.
By the end of the vacation week, the weather turns warmer, trees begin to show the first shades of light green, and pollen covers us like a blanket. We leave Watkinsville late Monday morning, but by the time we pull into Watsadler campground on Monday morning, my blue SUV is green. The yellow pollen sees to that. Funny thing is it rained all day Tuesday the week before and washed everything off, only to be inundate us once again as soon as the trees dry out. I even hosed off the Toyota before we left the house that morning. Hay fever season is in full swing here. Yellow pollen swirls up from the road behind each passing car as if to say “don't leave without us!”

It Pollened last night

The Watsadler campground, located on Highway US 29 just before you cross the state line into South Carolina, is one of the few campgrounds in the area that is open all year long. They close one loop on December 1st of each year as the demand simply isn't there to keep the whole campground open, but by Easter, the whole campground is back in service.

We take our time driving up from Watkinsville, Georgia, but it is still a short trip, less than fifty miles. Despite my dawdling and slow driving, we still arrive a little after 11:00am. I checked the reservations the week before on the possibility we might check in a day early and found our site was open until our first reserved day. Usually it isn't a problem to arrive early if the site is vacant. We have been allowed in early at many Corps campgrounds. If your site isn't cleared yet, you have to wait until the other camper checks out as happened to use last year at Raystown Lake. There, we simply drove to the visitor center parking lot and waited until check in time.

For the first time in the many, many times we have checked in at Corps of Engineer campgrounds, we meet Grumpy. Grumpy informs us she has our on-line reservation but the site is not yet vacant. Someone reserved our spot and hadn't yet checked out. [It turned out to be vacant - the site had not been used.] We are informed we can not be admitted. OK, fair enough, rules are rules. We decide to go back into town and wait at the Walmart parking lot. But I mention I was going to pull through the dump station and empty my holding tanks as I turned around.

“I'm sorry but I can't let you do that!” came the grumpy voice from inside the dark gate shack.

“Excuse me?” I said, looking around the almost empty camp ground.

“I'm sorry but I can't let you do that!” she repeated.

“Why not, there's no one here?” I asked incredulously.

“Someone might check out and you'd be in the way,” was her illogical answer.

Even the Corps of Engineers can't get it right every time, so we toodle back to town with full holding tanks.

The town of Hartwell is only a few miles west of the campground, so it is no big deal to wait in the parking lot at the nearby Wal*Mart. We use the time to shop, pick up groceries and even buy a mobile hot-spot. We buy the Virgin 3G/4G unit for $89 and a $20 access card. I know, I know, coverage is Sprint so we will have spotty coverage at best. But, it is exactly what we need to check e-mails and pay bills. We won't be watching Netflix, though. At least we won't have to lug everything to the nearest library just to see e-mail. 

I have to charge the battery in the new hotspot before we can activate it so we'll have to wait until we get settled in the campground. No, we don't have smart phones with built in hot-spots. We have two old, flip-open cellphones on a Dinosaur Verizon plan that only costs us a little over $70 a month. No reason to double that for a smart phone and a hotspot since we won't be on the road for more than a couple of months. Not yet, anyway.

When we finally check in at our appointed time, we have to deal with Grumpy yet once again, and yes, it is just as frustrating as the first encounter. Some people just know have to have a good time. But, we are in our slot within fifteen minutes, most of that time waiting silently while watching a closed window in the gate house, and completely setup within a half hour. It is going to be a great three days. 

The weather had been anything but good the entire preceding week, from cold and rainy to rainy and cold. Not much fun to camp, or RV for that matter. We packed our trusty electric blanket, despite heckling from our Viking friends, when we headed out from Port Charlotte, Florida, two weeks earlier. The blanket was used gratefully every night of our trip but the first two, so we didn't have to use our camper's gas heater. Not until we got up in the morning, that is. Fifty degrees inside the camper means turn on the heat.

This is the perfect time of year to see the dogwoods and azaleas in full bloom, the weather just has to cooperate with the schedule. The perfect schedule is to pick the week after the Easter week public school vacations when everyone has returned home from the first outing of the year. Nobody here but us. Seriously, the next twenty sites are vacant the entire time we are here. Ilse and I spend three days at Watsadler parked next to a reclusive stranger and his dog, and toast to Richard's health. It must have worked, latest news is he has recovered from his bronchial infection.

Richard, here's to next year! Clink!

NEXT: Another great visit at Lake Hartwell, at:

http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2013/04/watsadler-what-rving-is-all-about.html

Northbound for Easter - Back to Fargo

I get this silly urge to sing Willy Nelson's "On The Road Again" every time we head out with our travel trailer in tow. Just part of the routine, I suppose, but it happens every time. I don't even give it any conscious thought. Ilse just starts laughing and I know I've stepped into the realm of RVing once again. This time we are headed up to Athens, Georgia, to see Monica and Troy, our daughter and her husband, and their daughter, Claire. We'll be there the week of Easter vacation so we get the grand duties of baby-sitting Claire during the school break.

End of Day One: Stephen Foster State Park, Georgia

We decided to leave late Good Friday morning and make it a two-day trip. It's easier that way, even though we did the 580 mile trip in one day the last several times we traveled. We have a favorite campground right at the half-way point of the trip, so we thought we would stay there Friday night and start again early Saturday morning. I checked the Internet and logged on to Reserve America at http://www.reserveamerica.com/, the account I use for on-line State Park reservations, to check Stephen Foster Cultural Center State Park at White Springs, Florida for openings. No openings, not a single one. The pretty, easy access Florida park was booked solid. Its location near the intersection of I-75 and I-10 makes it a great one-nighter for the flood of RVers headed north at the end of another winter season. A quick check of the other Stephen Foster State Park, the one near Fargo, Georgia, showed plenty of sites available.

Fargo is 65 miles northwest of the Florida park, and unless you're traveling on U.S. 441, it is rather inconvenient. Camping reservations made on-line for a single day over a weekend result in a two-day minimum charge, so we decided simply to drive up and check in at the park. They only charge for one night's stay if you show up and do it in person. We were taking a slight chance, however, as this is the peak season for the popular Okefenokee park. They do 80% of their business during March and April. Luckily, the camp ground was less than half full when we got there. They had both loops open this time, something we hadn't seen before.

We were lucky to get there. We were almost taken out when a tandem, 18 wheeler strayed into our lane just out side of Gainesville on I-75. I don't mean just up against the white line, I mean half way across our lane. Luckily, I had a break in the heavy, bumper to bumper traffic and swerved our trailer into the vacant outside left lane to avoid being torn up by the thoughtless behemoth. If I hadn't had the lane to serve into, we would have been hit hard at 65 miles an hour. We wouldn't have made it to Fargo.

The Slash Pine Forest surrounding the campground

I hate the Interstates when I'm towing the trailer and will gladly accept any reasonable alternative. U.S. 441 from Lake City, Florida, up through central southern Georgia is the perfect answer. The only problem is getting to Lake City from Port Charlotte. I just bite the bullet, take a couple of aspirin, and stay in the right-hand lane of I-75, except when I'm dodging morons who shoot down the entrance ramps and pull into heavy, fast moving traffic without once looking anywhere but straight ahead. Amazing there aren't more horrific crashes than there are. The Interstate portion is only four hours or so, but it is enough for one day.

Here a gator, there a gator, everywhere an alligator...

We pull through the main gate of the Okefenokee Refuge right at 4:00 in the afternoon, and notice two things different from our last visit: The horrific forest fire that closed the park for months two years ago changed the slash pine forest dramatically, and they have had more rain than expected. Water is high for the first time in years. There is a six foot alligator lying by the side of the road as we pull into the trading post/park office. The campground area was spared from the devastation of the fire, but a Ranger told us the once heavy tree canopy surrounding the lake is completely gone.

Gators were everywhere

The young lady working the computerized register system has all sorts of troubles and the registration process takes about twenty minutes. While we wait on computer responses that must eventually be corrected, a young man standing impatiently at the counter rather arrogantly asks if they have any alligators here. A woman behind the counter doesn't say anything, she simply looks out the window. I look out the window and I can see three of them lying on the bank by the boat ramp and two more swimming across the small lagoon. The tourist, with a New York Sweatshirt, doesn't catch the hint and assumes he is being ignored. He mumbles something under his breath and walks off, stumbling around the gift shop. All he had to do was look up.

Sunset in the land of the Trembling Earth

Again, the toilet/shower facilities are spotless, and except for the first swarming wave of new born mosquitoes, are a pleasure to use. The park uses the Georgia system of assigning a camping pads according to the length of your camper and allowing the individual camper to pick any empty pad with the appropriate color designator. We drive through both loops until we find an orange colored site that is convenient to back into, and twenty minutes later we have a glass of wine to celebrate a safe first day on the road. Later, we walk the dogs, staying close to the camper, no reason to look for trouble, and hook up to the community TV antenna. Oddly, it is warmer here than back in Florida.

So far so good, I'm still whistling Willy's song about being on the road again.. No Interstates tomorrow, I have even more reason to whistle.
NEXT: Watsadler on Lake Hartwell, revisited, at:

http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2013/04/watsadler-rvisited.html

Close to Home

We haven't decided where we're headed this summer, but probably not back to the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania where we spent three months last year. One thing is certain, we are going to enjoy what we've got here at home while the weather is great. We'll do it without driving too far. But, what to do in southwest Florida in January? Why does everyone come here in the wintertime? Is it just because we don't have snow or sleet? Would children rather make angels in the sand than in the snow, especially if they're wearing only bathing suits? There must be something to do here besides sit and bake in the semi-warm sun, especially when the occasional Red Tide makes the beaches unbearable. We decided to act like tourists, driving not more than a hour's travel, for kayaking or biking, or whatever else would make us feel like newcomers to our state.

We decided to do both biking and kayaking. That would give us a chance to try out our new bicycles, the ones we picked up to replace the bicycles that were damaged when our bike rack on our camper failed and we dropped both of them in the middle of US 41 out in the Everglades, and to see if our Pungo kayaks still float after a summer of non-use. We decided to start with one of our favorite fresh-water paddles, Shell Creek, not far from near-by Punta Gorda.

Shell Creek Boat Ramp at Hathaway Park, Punta Gorda, FL

Our fourteen-foot Pungo kayaks were easily cleaned and loaded on our small boat trailer. That's only after a I mounted two new tires, though. I checked the dates etched into the sidewalls before I started preparing the kayaks and determined the tires were manufactured in 1988. That meant they were twenty-five years old. They showed brittle, cracked signs of aging, so they got replaced. I repacked the wheel bearings on the little trailer, as well. Well, one of them, anyway. The inner bearing on one side deteriorated and fell out as I slid the hub off the axle. Better here than on the road. So, another trip to my favorite trailer fix-it shop, and after throwing money on the counter, I headed back to reassemble my trailer. I shouldn't complain, they had the tools to knock out the race (part of the bearing that is pressed into the hub) that I would still be banging on, so it works out well: I give them money and they give me a trailer that works.

Ilse under way in her Pungo 140

It used to be our daughter's Laser sailboat trailer, back in the old days when she was a teenager. She's forty-one now and has a trailer of her own. We still hang on to a lot of the old stuff. Memories of grand times, I suppose. The trailer still works, though, so there is no real reason to abandon it. I've modified the old trailer to carry our two kayaks, and if need be, our seventeen foot canoe as well. The trailer takes up space in some kayak launch or parking areas, but it is so much easier than trying to lift the kayaks to the top of the tall Toyota Sequoia. I swear it gets taller every timer I try to lift something up there. Besides, we can take the canoe with us as well in case we have friends who want to paddle with us, and we did again this time as our friend and neighbor, Beth, joined us with her son, Franko, visiting from upstate New York during spring school break. We'd all act like tourists.

The only gator seen on this trip, being watched by a wary Green Heron

We put in at Hathaway Park, where the Pay-to-Park ticket dispenser again failed to work. Poor Charlotte County, all the expense and hassle of installing a ticketing system that really sucks. Sarasota County saves money by having free parking at all county parks, but poor, misled Charlotte County still jumps through vendor's hurdles trying to grasp that elusive dollar and seventy five cents, or whatever, from all park attendees. At Hathaway on this beautiful day, there were three cars. I'm sure they missed the small fortune they would have collected had the system worked. There were four cars in the parking lot by the time we left. The machine was still broken and no one had yet paid. Big deal. No one comes out here to check anyway. They can't afford the gas. All the county does is aggravate the locals and really make the tourists mad. But, on to the creek and another great paddle.

Several new houses line the otherwise quiet banks of the creek, the main water supply for the city of Punta Gorda. We still enjoy the quiet of the creek after passing under the only highway bridge. We didn't see old Al, or old George, the huge iconic alligator that everyone knows lives there. His name depends on who tells you the story about the fifteen foot, sometimes sixteen or even seventeen foot long 'gator that has been there as long as Methuselah. I've scared him off the creek bank once in the past, but this time he is nowhere to be seen. The only time I've seen him was when I was with a German friend of mine, Dr. Hans-Jörg Lucas, who was paddling Shell Creek for the first time. Mecki didn't say a word as the huge alligator slammed into the water just a few feet in front of us, but he did turn and give me a look that said in no uncertain terms, “Are you sure we're safe?” Yes, we were, and we had a great time.

Big George, but this one resides at Shark Valley, not Shell Creek  - photo © George Mindling 2012

Big George, but this one resides at Shark Valley, not Shell Creek - photo © George Mindling 2012ut this trip we see only one little 'gator sharing his creek-side log with a green heron. Turtles, of course, are everywhere.
We have a nice paddle, heading upstream for an hour and a half before turning around and casually paddling back to the take-out ramp at Hathaway. Quiet and beautiful, with overhanging trees filled with bromeliads, and the occasional palmetto sticking up in the middle of the creek. Not found on any travel brochures, but still one of our favorite paddles.

A 5 minute video of Shell Creek is on youtube at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vx3J8zRaC8
 

Next: Finally, back to Fargo, at:

http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2013/04/northbound-for-easter.html

The Four State Park Campgrounds - Florida Keys

Welcoming committee at Fort Zachary Taylor, Key West, Florida

The similarities of the four Florida State Park campgrounds in the Florida Keys that allow recreational vehicles and camping are fewer than we expected. Each park offers unique vistas or features not found at the other parks. Even the day use fees differ from park to park, depending on facilities and services offered. We visited all four of them, from John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park where we were camped at the very top of the keys, to Bahia Honda, just south of Marathon and the Seven Mile Bridge, where the Overseas highway swings west toward Key West. We also toured Curry Hammock State Park, located in between the two, but we were allowed access to only those three parks, as Long Key State Park, also in the middle keys, doesn't issue any kind of visitors pass.

Our Venture sailboat  at Lignumvitae Key Botanical State Park, 1982

There are several really unique Florida State Parks in the keys that don't have camping facilities, such as the Dagny Johnson Key Largo Hammock Botanical State Park and its mahogany forest, which is actually north of Pennekamp on Old Card Sound Road, and the boat-only accessible Lignumvitae Key Botanical State Park, located near Robbie's Marina in Islamorada. At the far end of the U.S. Mainland is Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park, located in the Truman Annex at Key West. None of these parks offer camping facilities, though, and we wanted to catch up on the state of the parks for future reservations. John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park has only recently added full sewer hook-ups, and we thought it would be nice to see what else is new in the Florida State Parks of the Florida Keys

John Pennekamp Ocean Reef State Park – MM 102.5

We made reservations at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, located in Key Largo at Mile Marker 102.5, months in advance as all Florida State Park campgrounds fill up rapidly during the winter season. Even though the weeks following Thanksgiving are known as the best time to visit the Florida Keys, the campsites are almost always full as soon as the snowbirds head south and Pennekamp is no exception. There were no empty campsites the entire four days we were there. The RV campground is a single, dead-end paved road with a simple turn around, or cul-de-sac, and a key-pad operated security gate for entrance anytime, day or night.

Ibis walk through the campsites

All 47 campsites have water and sewer hookups, as well as 30 amp and 50 amp electrical service. There were coin-operated washing machines but we weren't there long enough to need them. Maximum length is 45 feet, so we were just fine with out little 21 foot travel trailer. The camping area is far enough away from US-1 as to shield the campground from highway traffic noise, but is not near the water's edge as the other parks we visited. Still, the dense hardwood forest is unique in itself and creates an environment not found at the other parks.

Pennekamp is one of our favorite parks in Florida. Ilse snorkeled for the first time there back in the early 70's, and we still fondly remember the old glass V-bottom boat, Discovery, that took us for our first view of the beautiful coral reefs that are part of the park. The Discovery has been replaced with a flat style of glass-bottom boat, the Spirit of Pennekamp, which remains just as popular with tourists. The boat made tours twice daily while we were there.

The old observation tower next to the welcome center that offered a grand view of the park and the surrounding waters has been torn down as the State of Florida decided it was too costly to modify the tower to make it ADA compliant. It was simply torn down. The Ranger-run visitors center, though, still has its marvelous salt-water display tanks and is a great place to start a visit to Pennekamp.

The swimming areas are still as inviting as ever although it was a little cool for us Floridians. Kayak and canoe rentals are more popular than ever as the number of boats available for rental is astonishing. According to the park brochure, John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park is the first undersea park in U.S, and encompasses approximately 70 nautical square miles. In other words, you can't see most of it from land.

...Memories  - The old vacant lot in Tavernier today

On a bright, warm, clear Tuesday morning in late November, we slowly headed out of our campground at Pennekamp and turned south on U.S. 1 toward Bahia Honda State Park. We stopped at all the old places we knew along the way for a nostalgic look at places we took for granted so many years ago.

We had a less than memorable breakfast at a restaurant that no longer deserves its honors, then stopped just past Tavernier Creek for our first dose of reality, looking up the old sandspur-covered vacant lot where we used to tie up our sailboat. Today, a beautiful two-story house sits where we used to park our van, and a seawall with a boat-lift has replaced the coral rocks we used to clamber over to get to the boat.

...and in 1981, before the building boom

We passed Robbie's in Islamorada, having stopped there the day before only to be totally ignored by the Tarpon we were trying to feed. Still a nice place to visit if you're looking for atmosphere. You can see Lignumvitae Key Botanical State Park from the dock at Robbie's and if you want to paddle over to the state park, Robbie's rent kayaks as well. We haven't been back to Lignumvitae in many years, but we made day-sails to the state park back in the early 80's just to visit and eat our picnic lunches while we owned the sailboat we kept up in Tavernier.

A Super-Male Iguana climbs up the steps on a seawall.

We headed on to Bahia Honda, passing Curry Hammock State park which we planned to visit on the return trip, and through busy Marathon with its airport that now boasts a real terminal. Immediately after leaving Marathon, we crossed the new Seven Mile Bridge. Well, we still call it the new bridge even though it was opened in 1982.

I look for the Peter Fancher memorial plaque every time I drive across, but I have yet to spot it. Minimum speed is 40 mph, so rubbernecking is hard to do, especially in the usually heavy, two lane traffic. The plaque is in memory of the 39 year-old bridge tender killed the week before his retirement in 1982, when a backhoe that accidentally extended while being towed on a flat bed trailer failed to clear the bridgetender's 200-pound propane tank mounted below the tender's shack. The explosion killed Fancher and closed the old swing-bridge forever. The new, 65 foot-high bridge was slated to open in less than a year when the accident occurred.

Bahia Honda State Park MM 37

Just a few miles south is the entrance to Bahia Honda State Park, one of the most popular RV destinations in the country. It isn't difficult to see why. It looks as if it were on the edge of the earth and all you have to do is walk to the beach and sail away. The park, located at Mile Marker 37, is the southernmost Florida State Park with campground facilities in the keys. Mile Marker means it is 37 miles from the end of U.S. 1 in Key West.

Everything in the keys is found by the Mile Marker. We pulled into the front gate and asked if we could check out the park for future camping sites. The friendly young ranger explained the rules of the temporary pass, then handed us the full complement of brochures for the park. We took a slow tour around all three camping loops, the Buttonwood, sites 1 to 48, Sandspur, sites 49 to 72, and Bayside where the remaining eight sites, 73 to 80, are located. Only the Buttonwood loop can accept our little 21 foot travel trailer, but all sites on the loop have water and electric. Not all sites on the other loops have electricity.

Check the website (listed at the end of this article) for details. The park uses a dump station for all loops. Both of the other loops have a 14 foot size limit on trailers and RVs. Getting to Bayside involves driving under U.S. 1 where the clearance is a meager six feet, eight inches!

Yep! If you're vehicle is taller than 6 feet, 8 inches, you aren't going to use Bayside or the cottages as they are also located on the other side of U.S.-1. There are three duplex cabins on stilts, five units available total, but you won't get there with an SUV with a kayak roof-rack or a tall van.

The rental cabins at Bahia Honda

The waterfront sites are unique in they are directly on the Gulf of Mexico, but offer no shade. In fact, not many of the sites offer shade as the buttonwoods and seagrapes that surround the campground simply don't grow tall enough. But the location is marvelous! There is a boat ramp and a basin that faces the old railroad bridge that was converted to highway use back in 1938. The bridge was abandoned in 1972 when the new concrete bridge was built further north, effectively cutting the state park into two sections.

It makes a unique, immediately recognizable backdrop to the state park. We made it back to the ranger station with a few minutes to spare, and made a note to revisit this park in the future whenever we can get a reservation. Yes, we will be back.
A short three minute video tour is at:  http://youtu.be/9askoMlESkA

Curry Hammock State Park – MM 56.2

We once again drove across the seven mile bridge and through Marathon, this time headed north. Just north of the city is Curry Hammond State Park, and we pulled in to check it out. Again, a friendly gate attendant wrote out our 30 minute temporary pass and asked us to park in the main parking lot near the day use area and walk the camping loop.

They prefer not to have visitors drive through the camping area, a policy we agree with wholeheartedly. Not as big as Pennekamp or Bahia Honda, but once again, a different way to see the Florida keys. There are 28 sites in the campground, located on a single loop with some directly on the Atlantic Ocean. The campsites right on the water do not have immediate access to the Atlantic because of the buffer of protected sea grasses.

Campsites on the ocean at Curry Hammock

The only access to the water is via a single walkway through the protected area. Clean and well maintained, each site has water and full electric service. As at Bahia Honda, the park is serviced by a dump station. There is no shade. The campground is unique as the maximum RV length is 70 feet!

Just outside the campground is a playground and picnic day use area. The kayak rental and launch area is the other side of the parking lot, and is simply a wide, put-in spot in the mangroves. OK by us! Not a large area, but the water access is great. Again, we returned our pass at the gate, and with a friendly wave, we were once again on our way up busy highway U.S. 1.

Long Key State Park – MM 67.5

Luckily for us, the campground we decided to visit last on our day-long, research outing was Long Key State Park. We planned to stop at the campground on our return north to Pennekamp from Bahia Honda. If we had stopped at Long Key on the way south, we would have assumed all Florida State Parks have restrictions on short-term, look-and-see visits, and probably not visited the other two parks. Long Key State Park is the only one with the strange policy requiring full admission, even if just checking the facilities.

We had already visited Curry Hammock and Bahia Honda when we pulled into the Florida State Park located at Mile Marker 67.5, in the middle keys just south of Layton. We didn't expect any problems as we had our John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park camping sticker that we had on when we visited the other two Florida State Parks, valid for three more days, affixed to our windshield.

It made no difference at Long Key State Park. Either pay full price or no admission. After we protested that the other parks allowed visitor's passes and we had no problems at the other locations, Ranger Robert leaned over and quietly assured us we would get a refund if we came out again in thirty minutes or less. My wife wondered if he would be there in thirty minutes or if he would be “at lunch.” We declined his odd offer and headed back to John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, confused as to the different rules and policies of different Florida State Parks. Too bad, we would like to see Long Key State Park.

We had no problem with Bahia Honda State Park or Curry Hammock State Park, where friendly rangers issued us visitor's passes valid for thirty minutes. Not enough time for an in-depth study, but plenty of time to see all the campsites and check the facilities. We even got to check the cabins at Bahia Honda. All of Florida's State Parks get great marks, except, of course, for Long Key State Park.

Mausoleum in Key West Cemetery

Check the following sites for more  information.

Bahia Honda State Park - https://www.floridastateparks.org/park/Bahia-Honda

John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park - https://www.floridastateparks.org/park/Pennekamp

Curry Hammock State Park - https://www.floridastateparks.org/park/Curry-Hammock

NEXT: Close to Home - Acting like a tourist, at:
        http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2013/01/close-to-home.html