Spring Vacation 2021

We just returned from our first vacation of the year. As we often like to do, we journeyed down to Florida to swim, kayak, and snorkel in some of the huge freshwater springs that are peppered across the state, mainly in the panhandle and north-central area. Generally, we like to explore springs we've never encountered, but this time we chose to revisit five that we'd seen in past years: Salt Spring, Wekiwa Spring, Rock Springs, Silver Glen Spring, and Alexander Spring.

My favorite of these is probably Silver Glen. The water clarity there is among the finest I've seen, and it's full of fish and other aquatic life. Basically, it's perfect for photography. The area around the springs is also heavy with wildlife and you never know what's going to come gliding in from the sky or ambling out of the nearby forest.

So, today, here are a few photos from Silver Glen. I'll post some more photos and information about the other places we visited as I unpack and process the 1000+ images and video we shot.

I have to say that this was one of the most perfect, most relaxing vacations we've taken since we bought out Casita travel trailer in 2005. The weather was perfect, and the modifications we made on the trailer before we left proved to be brilliant for us. In the week before leaving we replaced the old carpet with plank flooring and added an eight-inch memory foam mattress to the bed. Both improvements were far better as far as overall comfort for us than we could have imagined.

Our campsite at Salt Spring Recreation Area, a National Forest facility.

 

 

GoPro photo as I snorkeled toward the main vent at Silver Glen Spring.

Striped mullet in the main vent.

The shallows.

The view toward the head spring.

Almost Done...

Well, 2014 is almost one for the history books. My day-job became so intense and difficult that I have almost no energy remaining when I get home in the evening for my writing job. I always kept a blog to fire up my creative energy to get me going on my novels and short stories. As anyone who has followed my blog can tell, production on TIL THE LAST HEMLOCK DIES fell off precipitously. I didn't even hit 200 posts.

What will the new year bring in that respect? It's hard to say. Impossible, rather. I will note that I'm getting older and just don't have the strength to do some of the things I did when I was younger. (Such as sitting at the keyboard and creating fiction for hours after I had just put in a full day of labor.) I'll keep trying and I'll keep writing, but production of fiction is terribly slow, these days.

I have made plans for 2015 to go camping, rafting, kayaking, and hiking. No solid plans to take any backpacking trips, although I have noted some long weekends when short backpacking opportunities may arise. We'll see.

I'm left with an old John Lennon quote (from "Beautiful Boy"):

'Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.'

McAfee Knob, Virginia. Ironically, one of the most comfortable spots I have ever slept. There was a hollow spot on the clifftop that seemed to be perfectly constructed for my body. I reclined there and fell promptly to sleep. (Photo by an old hiking companion.)

A "walking tree" in Congaree National Park in South Carolina.

Swimming in Salt Springs in Florida. My wife could not pry me out of this place. It remains one of my all-time favorite Florida springs.

Darkside Cliffs in the Wilson Creek area of the Pisgah National Forest.

Salt Springs!

One of our favorite places in Florida are the big springs in the Ocala National Forest. And one of the best of these is Salt Springs. We're definitely going there in May. Can't wait to get back there!

Spring Vacation 2013

Well, we've chosen our vacation spot for this Spring. We'll be heading back to Florida to explore some of the big springs that we enjoy visiting. We'll be spending time at two where we've been before, but also heading out to find two where we've never been. Also, we're hoping to do some kayaking in a couple of wilderness areas we've had our eyes on for some time.

All photos from 2011. It has been two years since we've hit the springs of central Florida.

Boardwalk trail through a Florida forest.

We enjoyed this campsite because it had complete hookups: Water, Electric, and Sewer. We didn't have to visit the dump station to clear out the gray and black water tanks.

I get a kick out of the forests in Florida.

On the Ichetucknee River (The Tuck).

Three Campsites

Carole and I love Florida parks. Everywhere we stay the facilities are generally excellent and most often superlative. There are few state parks or National Forest campgrounds anywhere we've stayed that even come close to the parks and forest campgrounds in Florida.

On this trip, we used three different campgrounds. Our first two nights were spent at the Salt Spring Recreation Area Campground which is a National Forest site. The US government bought it from private concerns in the 1970s and ever since it has been a Federal area. Because it was originally in private hands and was a commercial campground, it has one thing at every site that few other Forest Service campgrounds can boast: sewer hookups for travel trailers. This was the only public campground where we've stayed that had this option. It was nice to not have to pull up to a dump station and wait in line to dump the gray and black water tanks.

Our campsite at Salt Springs.

After the second night we moved on down to our primary destination, the Fort DeSoto Park in Pinellas County in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area. We'd found this park by accident on a joy-ride while visiting central Florida several years before. Back then we were floored by the park and thought that it was one of the most beautiful beach state parks we'd ever seen. It was (and remains) one of the most beautiful oceanfront public parks we've ever visited, but we were wrong about one thing:

It isn't a state park. It's a county park! Pinellas County has, in Fort DeSoto Park, one of the greatest county parks I've ever heard of. The place is pretty big (over 3K acres) and it's hard to believe that you're so close to such a huge urban area. The beach and forest areas are pristine, packed with wildlife, and there is so much to do that the idea of leaving the island seems to constantly be a bad one. At the risk of making the place more popular than it should be, I have to say that it's one of the finest parks we've ever visited. I can't say enough good things about it.

Campsite at Fort DeSoto Park, front view.

Casita and stuff as we were unpacking. (The accordion contraption is a clothesline for drying clothes.)

Rear view of the campsite at Fort DeSoto. The sites are really big to accommodate the enormous rigs rich folk have.

This was the view we had from our site, looking out into the bay.

One of the many, many, many bird visitors we had at our campsite at Fort DeSoto. They would generally arrive in larger numbers at low tide, as this ibis did.


After our five-night stay at Fort DeSoto we pulled up stakes and headed for O'Leno State Park. We chose this one not because of the park environs, but because it's so near Ichetucknee Springs State Park which was our main destination for the last two days of our vacation. Once more, we were rewarded by fine facilities in Florida State Parks. The site was spacious, shady, and had water/electric hookups. And we had only a nine-mile drive to the Ichetucknee Springs and River complex where we wanted to spend most of our time.

That said, O'Leno is a good destination in and of itself. The park is beautiful, has a lot to offer in the way of swimming, canoeing, fishing, hiking, photography, and history.

Just after our arrival at O'Leno State Park.

After a day of swimming at Ichetucknee Springs.

Brief video of part of our fantastic kayak ride down the deserted Ichetucknee River.