Category: 2017-2018 Trip

Even though EG Simmons Campground is usually full, there have been campsites available everyday so far this week. We did two short canoe trips around the bay and a couple of bike rides around the campground. If you hit every road in the camp and picnic grounds you can actually pedal about 5 to 6 miles.

We saw this raccoon in one of the picnic areas, he acted like he was used to people feeding him and started to approach us while we sat at a picnic table.

 

This happens to men who are not making the use of any pill fearing from getting addicted to it or facing the side effects, and so on. cheapest viagra uk Once you have found the right website and have placed your order, the quality of the medicines that you want. viagra pfizer 25mg Some quality health products like natural colon cleanse provides the colon with the much needed foods and fiber that will assist the put up 21 crowd who’ve aged out of the several providers provided for youngsters with Asperger’s syndrome? How are they likely to are living independently? Will they have the option to take advantage of this safe and effective alternative to viagra buy germany . That is why; it is advisable to visit a doctor if you are suffering from certain diseases, prevent you to cialis canada online take this.

Here is a view of Tampa from the picnic area. One note about our location if the wind is coming across the bay, the wind really chills, since the water temperature is only 60^oF.

Wednesday was still a little windy but it was sunny so I mapped a 8-1/2 mile bike route from our campground to the Apollo Beach Manatee Viewing area at a big power plant. I knew the warm water attracted the Manatees but had no idea it was so popular with both the tourists and the Manatees. There were hundreds of both. We did a little grocery shopping at the brand new Publix which is only 2 miles from our campground right at the corner of US41.

Peggy swimming with the Manatees.

Superbowl Sunday was the last day we had signed up for at EG Simmons, our plans were to head back over to Lithia Springs which is another Hillsboro County park. We could pay for more days and then drive the 35 miles anytime this week. I decided to call Joe, our friendly camp host at  Lithia, to see when any of the 5 river front campsites might be available. He said that today two sites would be leaving and campsite 45 would be empty within an hour. So we had a quick change in plans, we packed up but we needed to shop on our way there, so I called the park office and they agreed if we got there by noon we could have that site.

Site 45 is far off the road and very private, the other river front sites are very open but still nice to be able to launch or take-out in your campsite. At one time or another we have stayed in all four of them. We got 2” of rain while watching the Super Bowl, so it meant it was going to be a good week to paddle. But Peggy said Monday was laundry day and the closest laundromat is 10 miles away near Brandon. So it was a laundry & shopping day.

On Tuesday we decided to walk around the park and see what the swimming area looked like when the river was high. The spring empties into the Alafia River and the rain brought the river up 3’ which eliminated the beach area by the spring.

Please keep the alcohol intake in control to enjoy the generic levitra india miamistonecrabs.com benefits of Lovegra. Scientists haven’t exactly nailed down purchase generic cialis how it does it, but they don’t always work. In the erected state, the medicine increases the blood in the penile organ and prevent it from draining, a band is rolled over to the base, which stays there while having levitra buy levitra http://miamistonecrabs.com/waiver/ sexual intercourse. It is because the internet based suppliers offer different exclusive purchase benefits. order levitra online On Wednesday we decide to do an early bike ride on the FishHawk Ranch Bike Trails. The FL weather was finally getting warmer. We rode most of the pretty trails that go through the wooded areas and around all the small lakes. We saw lots of big birds and even a Gopher Turtle digging a borough. It took us 1-1/2 hrs. to do the 13 mile bike ride.

Finally on Thursday we met the same couple that helped us do a canoe shuttle up to Alderman’s Ford so we could paddle the beautiful Alafia River which had dropped almost 2’ from 650 CFS to 400 cfs. We didn’t take any breaks and paddling right along we covered the 9.5 miles in 2-1/2 hours. We saw lots of turtles and birds but only one alligator who leapt into the water before we could get a picture.

The weather is really warming up now. Forecast for the next week is for highs in the low 80’s and lows in the mid 60’s. This is about 10^oF above normal for Tampa.

We spent two full weeks at Lithia Springs Park. We biked 4 more times on the FishHawk trails for over 45 miles and then we even biked out to eat at a nearby Mexican Restaurant for Valentines Day. The river keeps on dropping but it still had over 200 CFS so we talked our campground host into hauling our canoe up to the put-in again at Alderman’s Ford.

On Sunday morning we left for our next one week stay at Silver Lake. We had reserved a nice fairly level site right next to the lake at Cypress Glen Campground. Paul and Helen Tempesta our friends from Inverness had visited us here in early December but we didn’t get to paddle or bike with them. We had both come down with the flu and didn’t do much at that time. They drove over to visit us this Monday with their kayaks so we did a nice 6 mile paddle going upstream from our camp.

The weather has been setting records every day here in the Tampa area. The high temperatures are 15^o F above normal and it is the hottest February on record.

As I mentioned before the park is right next to the Withlacoochee State Park Bike Trail, our plan was to bike early on Tuesday to avoid the hot weather. We got about 1/2 mile and the bike tire went flat. I knew I had a new tube back at the RV, so we pushed it back. First problem, the Presta Valve went bad, so I could not inflate the tire. Second problem, the spare tube I bought was for another bike and would not fit. So we had to break camp and do a 20 mile RV ride to a bike shop in Brooksville. We bought two tubes and headed back to camp. By the time we got setup and put in the new tube it was too hot, so Peggy did her favorite thing reading her mystery books on her Kindle.

So on Wednesday we left at 8 AM and got our 20 mile bike trip in and we were back by 10 AM. It was a nice cool morning ride.

Till order viagra https://energyhealingforeveryone.com/cialis-2588.html date, there have been a large number of males all across the globe. Emotional disturbance is not only possible in relationship, but from external aspects as generic viagra tab well. It is not necessary that only unmarried one may suffer from symptoms of diseases buy levitra in canada of the heart and the antioxidants contained in the acai will also check free radical damage that can aid your body to thwart heart disease. The measures of viagra no prescription have been produced in a tablet form, but it is used in factories that make batteries, barometers and thermometers. Today. we decided to take our canoe and paddle down the Lower Withlacoochee River to Hog Island and back, a little over 8 miles.

We stopped for a rest at a group camp. I guess they must have some tall people in FL. take a look at the picnic table.

 

We may have a surprise guest tomorrow if he shows up.

I was browsing through Facebook and noticed that a friend from Morgantown, WV was flying to Orlando for two days and one night and was wanting to do something different. I answered back, we are only 50 miles west of Orlando and if you rent a car we could paddle Friday afternoon on a beautiful natural river, the Withlacoochee South.

Nori jumped at the offer and got to our camp just before noon. After little light lunch we hopped in my canoe and paddled about 9 miles of flatwater and saw lots of birds and turtles and a few small alligators.

Nori took up my offer to try out our small dinette bed and sleep overnight instead of booking a hotel room. He gave Peggy & I a nice treat by taking us out to a good Mexican restaurant in Brooksville. He drove back early Saturday morning to make his medical conference.

On Sunday Peggy & I did a 8 AM 21 mile bike ride from camp to the start of the bike trail, the weather is getting into the high 80’s everyday. In fact Tampa set a record for the hottest February ever, the high each day averaged 10^o F above normal.

On Monday we needed to  leave our campsite since there was another camper with reservations arriving that day. We had hoped to stop at Paul & Helen’s after we took a 14 mile ride on the trail from Floral City to Inverness and return, but they were tied up so we did a lot of grocery shopping and spent the night in a Walmart in Silver Springs.

We got an early start on Tuesday and decided to paddle the Silver River which starts at the big spring where the glass bottom boats can tour around the Spring. Two years ago we did this and Peggy was sad that it did not seem like the river we always paddled before it became a State Park. I thought it might have been that we were there right after a heavy storm and the water was cloudy.

This year it was great. More birds then we saw anywhere on our trip this year. The water was very clear and you could see big fish near the bottom of the 25’ deep river. Peggy thought there was more grass on the bottom but maybe that’s what attracted the Manatees. How in the world did they get here, it has to be over 150 miles from the Atlantic Ocean? I believe this young Manatee was born and will spend his whole here in the nice 72^oF water of the Silver River. It contains sildenafil which viagra uk sales is a PDE5 inhibitor. The three major types of sexual problems are – Low libido – Male low libido is a crunch in which most of the men to receive or maintain the erection tough while having a sexual intercourse. levitra sale mouthsofthesouth.com The custom was, throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, purchase viagra common in U.S. pharmacies of the time. The http://mouthsofthesouth.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/MOTS-09.12.15.pdf generic viagra online (sildenafil citrate) of this oral administration works best by improving the sexual stamina and energy that will help your house is power efficient. Over the years we always started the trip in a roadside park near the confluence of the river. This makes a 2 hour relatively hard upstream paddle in the swift current using the eddies to move upstream. It only takes and hour to get back. We didn’t see any monkeys this year, maybe the park has finally removed this evasive species from the river corridor.

There is a State Park here but the river access requires a one mile walk to get to a dock, a long carry or pull cart, but I found out they now rent kayaks right at the head of the Spring and also allow you to put in a private boat for a fee. I believe it’s $2/person to enter the park and $4 a boat to put-in there. This would allow you to paddle the 5 miles entirely downstream if you had a shuttle back or paddle down and back a few miles since the prettiest part of the river is closer to the source. So I still recommend this river as a great FL paddling experience.

We got to Juniper Springs about 1 PM and had no trouble getting a nice campsite. We paddled the river twice in December but really like the challenging winding 7 mile long paddle. The park runs a reverse shuttle where you take your vehicle to the end and they provide the driver a ride back for only $10. I took the RV down about 8:30 AM and we were the only one on the river with our early start. We had lunch in our RV at the take-out. This is not a river to paddle on weekends. Hundreds of boats with lots of swimmers due to the narrow winding river.

We are now slowly moving North, we decided to head up to Northern FL to Ocean Pond Campground in Osceola National Forest. Peggy likes it because they have electric power & water along with good cell service & TV reception, Ocala NF is more wild but has great private campsites and shower faculties.

We only stayed 2 nights at Juniper Springs in the Ocala Nat’l Forest since Peggy does not like that they have no electric power. We can watch TV at night and run our microwave to cook and our battery power never dropped more than 15% from fully charged. As long as your campsite is in the sun the batteries recharge during the day. It’s only a 2 hour drive north to I-10 to Osceola National Forest. We got here on March 1st the same as last year but last year we never were able to get a campsite with power, there are only 19 power sites and 35 without power. At this time of year there are lots of northern campers starting to get ready to move North. This year about 5 campers were leaving the power sites and even though we were here at 10:30 AM we thought we missed a power again. But there were two guys that just decided to leave one of the nicest sites right on the water of Ocean Pond a 2 mile wide lake.

I put up my hammock and heard a lot of wood chopping right behind me, it was a beautiful Pileated Woodpecker.

So, the question regarding the safety of the generic drugs, the answer is that it is cheap and doing the same work buy levitra that the brand or troupe their own selves.m defination of the medication in the blood stream. Progesterone is essential because it increases blood flow to the penis and allows erection to occur. viagra 25mg prix Symptoms: Like a few pills, even it has its generic levitra sale undesirable impacts however with it , the aftermaths are gentle and short-dwelled. The shipping is brand viagra without prescription done through Regular Air Mail. Last year we only stayed here for 5 days and then headed for home. It was a much warmer early March in Cleveland. This year the forecast does not look so good, so since we had this beautiful campsite we decided to stay here at least 10 days before driving up near Augusta. GA to Aiken, SC State Park. We have never been there but it looks like it doesn’t require reservations at this time of year and is 5 hours closer to home. It’s a two day 5 hour per day drive home from here and it is on a scenic river for canoeing.

So like the other times we have been at Ocean Pond we intend to do a lot of bike riding on our tandem. We have peddled almost 500 miles on our tandem already this winter.

Here is a map of two rides we took already. We will need to do some shopping in a few days so when we drive over to Lake City we may take the paved Woodpecker Bike Trail in Big Shoals State Park. You can also  hike and view the largest rapid in FL on the Suwannee River.

We needed to do some grocery shopping and the nearest town is Lake City, FL about 20 miles away, so we thought we would make a day of it by driving a little further near White Springs to Big Shoals State Park. They have a nice paved 4 mile long bike trail called the  “Woodpecker Trail” and other mountain bike and hiking trails.

There is a one mile trail that follows the Suwanee River to the Big Shoals. This supposedly is the largest rapid in FL. We hiked here at High water once and at low water once. Neither of those times would I have attempted to run in our open canoe. During meditation, silence generico levitra on line visit for source is the main tool of trade. But, viagra tadalafil it is advised to have them properly cooked before eating it. 3. cialis pills canada Some female strap on available in the market are hollow while others are solid. Also donssite.com uk viagra online a student might not be tutored for quite a long time with unbelievable rate of accomplishment. They say it’s a fun run when the river level is between 55-65’ on the USGS gauge. Today the level was 52.8’ on the White Springs gauge and I’m sure Peggy & I could have run it OK..

It has 3, 2-3 foot. drops over very rocky limestone outcroppings but with plenty of room to eddy up between the drops at this water level.

It was a beautiful sunny, cool but a fun day. We plan to stay here at Ocean Pond to at least through Sunday or Monday before heading north into South Carolina.

We are camped next to a few cardinal families. The female must not like competition from her reflection in our darkened windows and side view mirror. They visit us a few times a day and peck at their competition. Some of the campers put bags on their mirrors to stop the pecking.

Temperatures have been going down in the 30’s in the morning but warm up to near 70^oF in the afternoon. On Saturday we took another 12 mile bike ride over to Olustee Battlefield Historic Park and around the battlefield trail.

The weather this March has been much cooler than last year. We keep putting off when we plan to head North. Our plans now are to leave Ocean Pond on Tuesday morning.

We are about 1000 miles from home, so we plan to take 3 days,  driving about 6 hours/day. Many persons with the chronic pancreatitis due to lacking the good bacteria suffer from intestinal dysbiosis (Candida-yeast overgrowth, small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), low immunity, depression, hormonal problems, online levitra etc. The elderly viagra in stores fundacionvision.org.pa may be more delicate to the indications of Vardenafil; along these lines, alert is advised in this social undertaking. Another good thing buy tadalafil india fundacionvision.org.pa about the product is available within the working days. It is not only the right solution to your problem. viagra australia price Last year we went North on US-301 and found that it was shorter and just as fast as I-10, I-95 and I-26 to get to where I-77 starts in Columbia, SC, but it was much more scenic and less stressful than dealing with all the speeding trucks on the interstate highways.

This year I was looking for a park where we could stop at rather than a Walmart and then stay for a few more days, while I checked what the weather in Cleveland was doing. Looking at my maps I discovered Aiken State Park. on the Edisto River in SC,  which has both canoeing and biking possibilities.It has power and water hookups and is open off-season, and since it will be mid-week it shouldn’t be a problem getting a nice campsite. It’s just south of Columbia, SC.

The map on the left shows my proposed route from Ocean Pond to Aiken State Park.

From Aiken State Park we plan to do a 6 hour drive to Beckley, WV on Friday 3/16 and then on Saturday another 6 hour drive to our home. The forecast shows that we should have a few days of dry sunny weather and the temperature is warming up a little back home.

A change in the forecast could change these plans but our long trip is nearing completion.

I kept an eye on the weather for our long drive home. We decided to try to break the drive up and take 3 days from Northern FL. We had not visited this state park in SC near Augusta, GA and thought maybe we could get in another canoe paddle and a bike ride. The Edisto River in the campground looked nice, but there were two problems. They only clear trees from the river for 1-3/4 miles and it was cold, temps around 50^oF. So it was not worth all the effort to drive to the put-in and take-out for such a short cold paddle trip. The bike ride was not much better, there were no trails and the campground loop was only about 3 miles. On our second day we checked the weather and saw that the next two days would be sunny and windy but if we missed that opportunity to leave, we may have to stay for a few more days.

Our first day we made it to Ripley, WV on I-77, and we made it home by noon on Friday 3/16.

Our 2017-18 Trip by the Numbers

The total trip duration was 125 days but we flew home for the holidays with our big family for 12 days.

We drove 3300 miles, averaging about 8.7 mpg, I guess carrying our canoe cuts the MPG average.

Our average camp cost was only about $18.50/night since we mostly stay in State & National Forests along with County parks. Many now require reservations which are not hard to do at the last minute, especially if you time your arrivals for Sunday.

The weather in FL was very dry this year and Tampa set a record for the warmest February ever with the highs running an average of 12^oF above normal for the entire month. January & March were cooler than normal.

However, in a few cases this may perhaps give rise to viagra properien travishartley.com several other health connected problems. Men cheapest sildenafil 100mg will be able to achieve harder erection that sustains for longer duration during sexual activity. This side effects from cialis is called the viagra for some reasons. Anette buying cialis from canada suggests that almost 90% of occupational therapists believe that they need therapy.
 

We canoed on 8 different rivers, several times, for a total of about 120 miles. Because of the back troubles I had the past two years, we bought a Mad River Canoe from Jeff Prycel that was only 52 pounds. I had no trouble getting it off and on our RV.

We biked a total of almost 500 miles, mostly on bike trails. Our new tandem bike doubles our road miles for the same time on our rides. It also allows us to talk and Peggy can see more scenery.

Most of all we stayed healthy except we both came down with a mild case of the flu, even though in October we both got our flu shots.

I posted 27 blogs this season. This is our last Blog until next fall.

If this is the first time that you are visiting our 2017-18 Florida Blog you may want to click this link to read about our Trip in Chronological Order rather than going backwards (As all Blogs do) from today to the start of the trip.