Author: keelhauler

I left early Sunday morning to head north to Cypress Glen Campground. I got to my campsite-48 at 11:30am. 

My plan was to take the Good Neighbor Bike Trail to Brooksville on Monday. It’s normally a nice 26 mile flat rail-trail ride, but right before town the trail was blocked and I was detoured to the road, no bike lane and a big hill. I tried a different route back around the detour but it was still hilly. It added a about a mile to my bike ride.

I checked the river level and was surprised that the low water in December (50 cfs) caused by the Fall drought was gone and the winter rains brought the level way up to 240 cfs. It was the wettest winter ever.

I decided on Tuesday I  would see how far up the Little Withlacoochee River I could paddle. After about a mile I eventually got blocked by a tree across the narrow
river, so went back and then up the main river to Crooked River Park. I scared
an alligator who then scared me by jumping into the river next to my kayak.

On Wednesday my daughter Joan and my grandson Jake flew in to paddle with me on Thursday at Weeki Wachee Springs. They got a motel room nearby and picked me up. No car rack so I couldn’t take my kayak. We rented a single and a tandem and got an early start so it was not crowded when we paddled up the river from Rogers Park about 2-1/2 miles. We hoped to see some Manatees but no luck, they didn’t need to come upstream to the warm spring water.

Here we are back at my campsite, it was a fun visit but they had to head back to Tampa for a party with Brian’s mother to celebrate Joan’s and her birthdays.

Joan brought me some birthday gifts including this Biking Jersey.

I was able to leave by 7:30 AM on Sunday morning for a sunny 3 hour drive to Ocean Pond National Forest Campground between Jacksonville and Lake City, off I-10. They don’t take reservations but even though it is now Spring Break time, I found 3 open sites in the camp with 120v power, but those sites all had the power broken so they were only charging the same as the non-power sites, $10/night, I grabbed a favorite site #11 and saw that the camper behind me was using the 50 amp power plug in his site, so I asked him if I could run a long 30 amp cord to his unused 30 amp plug. He said fine, that’s what he did last week when he was in #11 and then moved to #6 when it became available. I was in site #6 for 10 days last November. Both these sites are large and nobody is around you. I noticed there were a dozen empty water-only sites available when I arrived.

Here is a Link to my Blog when I was here in November.

I visited with many friends along the way. You can read about the trip in Chronological Order, Click link Florida Trip 2023-24

When I got to my last campground, Ocean Pond, the previous day’s heavy rain made some of the sandy roads that I ride on a little soft but I was still able to bike another 28 miles in two rides around the Lake and through the Olustee Civil War Battlefield.

I like to stop at Ocean Pond before heading for home so that I can pick two sunny days to drive home. The travel window this year was a little tight but as long as I could get an early start and make good time I could beat the storms that were coming to Ohio on late Thursday.

 

 

 

 

On Thursday I made the 390 mile trip home in 6-1/2 hours. It was sunny and no rain but two hours after I got back there were thunderstorms and tornadoes in central Ohio. 

 

Friday was warm to I could wash the winter grime off my RV and got a good start unpacking, especially when my daughter Joan stopped by to help.

 

 

 

 

Of course it now looks like the next 3 weeks here will be cooler than normal. No complaints, it was a nice winter and I was able to do all the things I planned and got in a lot of Cardiac Rehab again. 

 

I enjoyed all the nice campgrounds and for the entire trip the average camping cost per night was less than $18.

 

Most of all we all missed Peggy

 

I have a tentative plan for my 2024-25 RV trip to Florida. I made reservations at the places I could and hope to be able to get a campsite in the campgrounds that do not take reservations by getting to most of them early on a Sunday morning. I do not drag a car so anyone that wants to share a campsite with me that has a car or van camper, I’m sure I can fit you on my campsite. Tents are also OK but no RV’s. Only one per site. I will update this schedule as I go along.

Click for Tentative 2024-25 Trip Plan You may download and print this PDF file.

 This is my revised schedule.

I am leaving a day early because of forecast rain on Sunday. I started my trip last year here also, it was cool but dry, read Last Year’s Story & Pictures

 I decided to leave a day early because of the heavy rain
forecast for Cleveland on Sunday. That turned out a good choice since Saturday
was sunny & cool. Since I was planning to visit my friends Greg and Sandy
Lewis in SC on Monday I had an extra day and that worked out well also. I did
the same thing I did last year. Overnighted at a Lowes in Galax, VA, it was very
quiet and had good Wi-Fi. A mile down the road there is a great Mexican
restaurant and had the same Mexican stir fry as last year. 

Chestnut Creek Falls

The New River Trail
starts in Galax and follows the beautiful little Chestnut Creek for 10 miles
down to the New River and then  40 miles along the New.

Trail Tunnel

Last year they were replacing 3
bridges so you couldn’t take the trail downstream along the New River. You
could only go upstream 5 miles to the town of Fries.

Both Directions Closed

There were no signs of hurricane of flood damage along
Chestnut Creek so I was hoping to go downstream 2-1/2 mi to Byllesby Dam. 

It
turned out both directions were blocked since the hurricane’s big flood took
out parts of the upstream trail. The downstream trail totally washed out
hundreds of tons of gravel destroying the trail that they had repaired last
year. It may be finished next year a worker told me. 

Conflunce of New & Creek

I decided to drive a few hours to Forest City, NC so I would only have 2 more hours to drive in the morning. My GPS decided to give me a shortcut that I knew would be interesting when I saw a sign that said no semi-trucks. It was a five mile long narrow switchback road down the mountain to I-77. Luckily only a few cars were coming up hill. 

I left at 8 am on Monday morning, the overnight rain had ended, from Forest City, it was on;y a 2 hour drive to Greg & Sandy’s home in Sunset, SC. It turned out Greg had just got back from a tennis tournament in Memphis, TN and Sandy was in CA for a funeral. I plan to be here 3 days visitng and biking,

Greg Lewis is a long time paddling buddy originally from the Cleveland area that I have known for almost 50 years. He and his wife Sandy built this beautioful home in the mountains above Lake Keowee almost 15 years ago. 

Peggy and and I have often visited them when they were home and did some hiking and biking with them in the area.. 

They would visit us at our cabin in WV and Greg & I spent many days paddling the Upper Yough. We biked with Sandy on the GAP Trail along the Casselman River.

When we first bought our Tandem Bike, Peggy, Greg and I headed over to Pickens, SC to peddle the Doodle Trail, an 8 mile long paved trail that goes to Easley, SC.

It was cool on Monday but Tuesday was a sunny 75^o F day.

So on Tuesday Greg and I decided to do the Doodle Trail. I had forgotten all the small hills. Our 16 mile ride had over 800 feet of elevation changes to traverse. It was a good workout. We decided to have a late lnnch at a nearby Mexican restaurant and skip dinner. On Monday Greg had cooked me a great fish dinner.

Greg is painting the inside of his garage this week so when they come to do a colorful chip floor he doesn’t get paint on it. I’m trying to catch up on all my e-mails and plan to leave on Thursday.

I was going to do the Doodle Trail on on my way to Greenville, SC, but the weather forcast is for a rainy Thursday, so on Friday I will do the Swamp Rabbit Trail that I also did last year. The weather is supposed to warm again to the mid-70’s.

I heard parts of the trail may still be closed from Hurricane Helene. I think I’ll stay at a Walmart in Traveler’s Rest and start at the North end of the trail and see how far south toward Greenville I can go until I need to turn around.

 I left Greg’s home on Thursday after the overnight rain
ended at 2pm. It was only a 1 hr drive to North of Greenville. This is the
beginning of the beautiful wide paved Swamp Rabbit Trail that goes though
Greenville. I parked at an Ingalls Super Market parking lot where they said
overnight parking for the trail was OK. I left Greg’s home on Thursday after the overnight rain ended at 2pm. It was only a 1 hr drive to North of Greenville.

This is the
beginning of the beautiful wide paved Swamp Rabbit Trail that goes though
Greenville. I parked at an Ingalls Super Market parking lot where they said
overnight parking for the trail was OK.

So I did my 25 mile bike ride to Unity Park and back. It is
mostly downhill heading into Greenville so I peddled about 3 mph slower coming
back. I checked out where I could park my RV when I did the next part of the
trail past Reedy Falls and past the zoo. I got back about 3 pm and it was nice
and sunny and warm. I decided to stay overnight here again and start working on
my new plans.

Reedy Falls in 2023

It was hard finding places to camp that would have something
to do since many of the GA campgrounds were closed for all of next week. The
only ones I found available were Magnolia Springs SP south of Augusta and Laura
Walker SP on the north side of the Okefenokee near Waycross GA. Next week that’s
where I’ll stay but I still have about 10 more days to find camping spots.

On Saturday morning I decided to drive to a Walmart near the
trail in Greenville, it was only a 20 minute drive and I could park there and
plan my next few weeks before my next confirmed reservations at Cypress Glen
campground near Brooksville, FL. It took me all day to get reservations and complete
my planning so I’ll not get back on the trail until Sunday morning. After that
I’ll drive a couple of hours to Augusta to see if parts of that trail have
reopened.

I
just found out that Lithia Springs County Park near Tampa has reopened but that
will take me 2 hours further south than Cypress Glen but it might be the only
nice place to bike & paddle. So this is my new Tentative Trip Schedule.  

On Sunday I headed to Augusta hoping that some part of the Savanah River
Trail would reopen but there were hundreds of trees down and they were doing a
major cleanup. The TV news said it may not open until after the New Year. So I
stayed overnight  at a Lowes and left the next morning for a short 1
hour drive to Magnolia Springs State Park,. The last time Peggy and I were here
was in 2018 when we were on our way to Jekyll Island.

There are a couple of trails to walk or ride a trail bike but there were too many branches on the trail for me to attempt. So I rode my bike around the park roads and took a short trail walk. The skies were cloudy but it hit 70o on Monday & Tuesday. A very light rain came in on Tuesday night and it was damp and cool on Wednesday so I wrote this blog.

This was the site of the largest Confederate prison during the civil war. Camp Lawton, near Millen, Georgia, housed 10,000 Union prisoners at the end of the Civil War. When General Sherman’s forces approached in his “March to the Sea”, prisoners and guards quickly fled leaving the remains of the camp—and even its exact location—lost to history. But a Yankee prisoner had descriptions and sketches allowing them to locate the approximate site location. PBS did a story about a group of archeologists who spent 3 day here 16 years ago with a team and helped locate artifacts and its exact location. 

This is a nice clean park that is probably popular in the summertime, but it was pretty empty at this time of year,

I will leave tomorrow for another short 3 hour, 140 mi drive to Laura Walker State Park near Waycross, GA near the northern edge of the Okefenokee Swamp

A big cold front is coming in tonight and even though I’m heading south near the FL border, it is expected to be breezy and high around 60o. Peggy and I were last here in 2017 and did a little hiking & biking. I played a round of golf when we were here in 2008 on the course that is part of the park.

2008 Golfing at Laura Walker State Park in GA

My new travel plan is to drive 4-5 hours on Saturday to near Tampa, camp at a Lowes in Valrico, FL and then on Sunday morning see if I can get a nice campsite at Lithia Springs County Park. They don’t take reservations so I always try to get here by 8 am on a Sunday morning in order to get a good campsite after the weekenders leave.

 It was cold at Magnolia Springs, 30’s in the morning but
sunny and high 50’s by the afternoon. but I did get a short 6 mi bike ride on their trails.
The trails were hard packed and were free of branches. The trail went around
the lake and past lots of empty cabins. The trail was scenic and free of hikers
at this time of year.

I left on Saturday morning and drove 5 hours from Ga to East
of Tampa. After some grocery shopping I stayed overnight at a another Lowes
parking lot in Valrico, FL, since it is only 20 minutes away from Lithia
Springs. I love this park and have been coming here for years since they don’t
take reservations and if you get here early when the gate opens you can usually
find a campsite. I got campsite #38 across from the riverside campsites which
were all full.

I usually camp here over Christmas time, and was not planning
on coming here this year until late February. 

My plans were to stay in Northern
FL in the Osceola National Forest and then drive over to the Withlacoochee State
Forest in December. Since the National Forest was closed due to Hurricane
Helene, I headed 60 miles south of the Withlacoochee, where I have reservations
for first two weeks in December.

Sandhill Cranes on Fishhawk’s bike trail