Journey's End

Mon. Mar. 14-Wed. Mar.16: Well, this was a strange end to our trip. After driving across three states from I75 to I24 to I65, we got to Bowling Green, where we thought we’d stay for the night. But it was only 2:30 and was drizzly and getting colder, so we decided to keep driving. On the internet Marv found an Indiana State Park near Louisville we thought we could reach by about 6:00 and headed for it in our fourth state of the day. When we got there a sign at the entrance said the Park was open. But when we drove in, it was eerily deserted. No one was camping, no one was at any of the registration booths, the bathrooms were locked and the water was turned off. We drove back out and drove to the park office, which was dark and said it was closed. As we sat and talked about what to do, an old park ranger pulled up and told us that we were welcome to stay but the water wasn’t being turned on until the next Friday. We just weren’t ready to stay with no water so instead we called Sarah and asked if we could just come there a bit earlier than expected. After having dinner at Mariann’s we got to the Penquites about 9:30, popped up the camper to get out the food from the fridge and our stuff to stay for two nights, and recovered from 12 hours on the road. Craig was at work until after midnight and left at his usual 6:30am, so we didn’t see him at all until the next afternoon. Tuesday we enjoyed playing with outdoor toys with the boys in the garage since it was drizzly and cold. In the late afternoon we all went to see Craig’s new workspace in the building CSO Architects is purchasing, did some birthday shopping with Jordan, and then went to Sahm’s for dinner. Wednesday after we got up with the boys and took them to Preschool, we got all our things packed up and ready to leave in the afternoon. There was time for lunch and some playing, and then we took off when they went down for naps. The final leg of our journey was a breeze, with clear skies and clear roads the whole way. The temperature dropped from 65° to low fifties as we neared home. The trip had taken 51 days, 5445.5 miles, and 333.9 gallons of gas as we traveled through eleven states. The least we paid for gas was $2.78 in Picayune, MS at the beginning of our travels. Although we saw gas for $3.79 in Atlanta, the most we paid was $3.45 in Dublin, GA. Luckily, we only had to buy a few gallons there and then we filled a few miles later for $3.36. After SUCH a rocky beginning, once Analyn was home and healthy and we had sun and mid-eighties in Florida, the rest of the journey was pretty much flawless. It was a great second Winter Adventure. Our next trip comes fast on its heels, when we go to Nice, France on Mar. 31 for two weeks in France followed by a few days in London. Come back then to follow The Savage Traveler!

Atlanta

Sat. Mar. 12-Tue. Mar. 15: It was an uneventful but nearly all day drive from Savannah to Atlanta in mid-seventies sunshine. We found the RV Park at which we had a reservation for two nights. It’s good we had the reservation because they apparently did fill up. It’s certainly no great shakes but it will do. By the time we were set up it was time to watch the Spartans play PSU in the third game of the Big Ten Tournament. Sadly, we lost big time but what ya gonna do? Our plan was to be up bright and early to go to the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Park but after I had taken an early shower in the morning we remembered that it was Daylight Savings Time and an hour later than we thought. Yogurt made a quick breakfast and we were still to the Park by 10:00. Even though we were one of only about a dozen cars in the lot and we could see very few people we found that the first guided tour of his birthplace home was at 12:30. That was a little bit later than we wanted so we settled for seeing the film, looking at the displays in the center, and walking up the block to see Ebenezer Baptist Church, the Historic Fire Station, and the house where he was born. After a stop at Zesto Drive-In (begun in 1949) for their famous Double Decker, the GPS took us right to Rachel and Michael’s house. We got “the tour” of their cute, cute house, chatted for a while sitting in the 75° sunshine on their back porch, and then Michael drove us all to Atlanta’s wonderful Aquarium where we saw all of their splendid displays—Arctic, Tropical, Amazon and Mississippi Rivers, the 6 million gallon ocean tank with 4 whale sharks, giant rays and numerous other fish. When we left at 5:00 we walked around the building and looked at the adjacent Centennial Park. Then Michael drove us to “Six Feet Under” for dinner. This Atlanta hot spot is across the street from the historic Oakland Cemetery, where generations of venerable Atlanta families are buried. After wandering around and looking at the amazing crypts, graves and statuary we had a fabulous dinner at the restaurant decorated with old beer ads, a huge collection of old beer cans and other eclectic items like an old balloon tire bicycle. It was great and the food was amazing. Marv had blackened catfish, I had bar-b-qued salmon, Michael had fried catfish, and Rachel had their specialty, shrimp and grits. During dinner we found out that MSU was a 10^th seed in the NCAA tournament, keeping Tom Izzo’s streak of NCAA appearances alive. We said our good-byes back at their house and Marv and I returned to the camper and watched most of “The Terminal” on TV before going to bed.

Savannah area

Tue. Mar. 8-Fri. Mar. 10: Happy Birthday, Jordan!! Driving “down the Colonial Coast” involves driving northwest, then south, then southeast, so that we hadn’t traveled far as the crow flies but put on more miles than it would seem. Our first stop was at the town of Beaufort, the heart of Gullah Geechee Heritage. Like we had seen in South Carolina, at the end of the Civil War white people abandoned plantations and towns along the coast very quickly, leaving the area to freed black slaves. The isolation of this area made it possible for the slaves to preserve more of their African linguistic and cultural heritage than any other community in the U.S. Gullah is a blend of British, American and West African culture, food, religion and traditions. In nearby Penn Central, Penn School is one of the nation’s most historically significant African American educational and cultural institutions. Begun in 1862 as a school for freed slaves it continues its mission now as a local, national and international resource center. We were welcomed and hosted by a gentleman who was a student at the school until 1948, when he needed to go to work. It was another time we had an area virtually to ourselves and we immersed ourselves in the displays and history of which we knew so little. We hoped to have lunch nearby in a Gullah restaurant but couldn’t find a way to park the truck and camper so we regretfully drove on and ended up eating our picnic lunch in a parking lot. Continuing on we arrived just south of Savannah at Skidaway Island State Park where we could stay for four nights to take advantage of several sites in the area. We never left the park on Wednesday. In the morning we biked their 3.1 mile Big Ferry Trail loop which included alligator ponds, an observation tower from which we watched a nesting pair of osprey and two raccoons hunting in the salt marsh, an Archaic period shell midden, Confederate earthworks for defending the Skidaway Narrows, and one of the 31 moonshine stills left from the Prohibition era. It was a similar trail to the one in Lake Kissimmee, but not as sandy and not as long, so I enjoyed it much more. After lunch and an extended time on the internet at the park headquarters, as well as some time reading in the sunshine, we went to the Nature Interpretive Center to look at their displays and for a talk on the archeological history of the Island. Following the presentation we hiked on the 1 mile Sandpiper Trail loop and the 1 mile Avian Loop Trail through maritime forests and over salt flats and tidal creeks, where we saw the heaviest, most dense Spanish moss of the whole trip! As we neared the end of the trail, 4 deer sprang away in front of us. Back at the campsite we both took showers and then enjoyed spaghetti and meat sauce. On Thursday we drove to nearby Wormsloe state historic site. There a colonial avenue lined with spectacular live oaks leads to the tabby ruins of Wormsloe, the home of Noble Jones, who arrived in Georgia with James Oglethorpe and the first English colonists in 1733 to found a Utopian colony called Georgia. Despite the demise of the original Trust Company, Jones flourished and was one of the last survivors of the colony and ten generations of descendants succeeded him at Wormsloe, expanding and adapting the plantation over three centuries. It was cloudy, drizzly and 63° as we hiked into the tabby ruins of his original house, to his grave site and then into the Colonial Life area, but we had the place to ourselves other than some students from Emory University who were there doing volunteer clean-up work. Just as we left the area the rain really came down hard and the temperature dropped to 55°. We hoped to find someplace “local” to have lunch, but as we drove we didn’t come across anyplace that was open and looked interesting. By the time we arrived at Fort McAllister, the rain stopped for good, it was very windy and the temperature eventually worked itself back up to 61°. We bought a couple of bags of trail mix to tide us over and ate it while we explored the museum. Early in the Civil War, a battery that evolved into a massive earthwork was erected by the Confederate Army to protect Savannah, the Ogeechee River, a vital railroad bridge upstream, and rice and cotton plantations along the river. The stronghold withstood seven major naval attacks by Federal forces, including the largest guns used by the Union Navy, before falling at the end of General Sherman’s “March to the Sea”. During the late 1930s Henry Ford purchased the site and began extensive restoration. Then under the supervision of the Georgia Historical Commission, the earthworks and bombproofs were restored to their 1963-1864 appearance. It was eerie to wander the extensive grounds all by ourselves and Marv got some great pictures. When we had seen everything, a ranger suggested some places for lunch. We ended up enjoying authentic bar-b-que at the Smokin’ Pig. YUM! Since we ate about 3:30 we were satisfied with salads with turkey and cheese for dinner before we finally watched the Netflix movie, “Shadows in the Sun”, which we had brought with us. Friday dawned cool (46°) and perfectly clear for our day in Savannah. Directions from the campground took us directly to the Visitors Center, where they directed us to a booklet called “The Savannah Walking Tour & Guidebook”. The tours span Savannah’s rich history from the earliest days as a British Colony to the modern day setting of books and movies. It was the perfect resource for two people who are willing to walk. After seeing the James Edward Oglethorpe-narrated film about Savannah we felt ready to seize the day. First we took the .8 mile “The Booming Westside” tour, including the Farm Market area. We ended up near the Riverfront so we then walked the 1.2 mile “Along the Riverfront” tour. By then it was time to get in line for lunch at Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House, a Savannah tradition since 1943 that several people had recommended as worth the wait, and it was! We waited in line with a friendly woman native to Wisconsin who had lived in Savannah for 7 years. She assured us it was THE place to eat and that she brings all visitors there. She also told us that that morning they had been to the “Greening of Savannah” where the Irish dignitaries of the town add green dye to six of the most important fountains starting with the iconic Forsythe Park fountain to kick-off their HUGE St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. So we could look forward to seeing the green water the rest of the day. We weren’t seated with her at our table of 10 but with four other people at our end who were also very friendly. The family-style meal was on the table when we sat down. Their specialty is fried chicken but with it were jambalaya, pulled pork bar-b-que, and Brunswick stew plus about 14-15 Gullah/Soul/Southern side dishes. They keep bringing it until you’ve had enough and then you roll yourself on out to clear your own place (!) and pay at the door. We really needed to work some of that off so we finished the day with the 1.5 mile “Squares of Luxury” and 1.7 mile “The First Squares”, both highlighting the famous squares of Savannah which were plotted and planned by James Edward Oglethorpe himself. 22 of the original 24 squares have been restored and protected. Along the way we saw the birthplace of the American Girl Scouts, the many fountains (including most of the now green ones) and statues, an historic church on nearly every square, and homes and graves of generations of Savannahians. The temperature never got more than 60° but the sky was sparkling blue the whole time. We walked between 5½ and 6 miles and were incredibly exhausted but satisfied that we had seen as much as one could see in one day. Our time in Savannah was pretty rigorous. We biked over 8 miles, did miles of hiking at the park, walked several more miles on Thursday at the historical sites and then walked all over Savannah. It was a great way to end the southern part of our trip before we head home over the next few days.

Time in South Carolina

Sat. Mar. 5-Mon. Mar. 7: Nearly the whole drive up I95 and along Hwy. 17 from St. Mary’s, GA to Edisto Beach, SC is designated as scenic, passing through pine hardwood forests and seemingly endless salt marshes. Spring was definitely springing and we could see blooming dogwood and red bud in the woods, and daffodils, camellias and azaleas in people’s yards. We thought we’d see a “local” place to eat lunch as we followed 17 but it passes outside of towns for the most part and we arrived at the State Park after 1:00 without having eaten. Janet Ronk had told us that the State Park had two parts--one on the beach and one nearby in the Live Oak forest. We stopped there first, assuming we would want to camp away from the beach and more sand gnats. But the woman at the registration seemed pleased that she had one more site available at the beach and assured us that the gnats (she called them no-see-’ems) were not too bad yet and that they would be no better in the forest than the beach. She encouraged us to look at both spots and come back and change if we preferred. The campground on the beach is very narrow and squeezed in between a low dune along the water’s edge and a wide salt marsh with flocks of egrets and ibises. We could hear the surf pounding from the campsite and had no bugs at all so we decided to stay. It was 3:00 by the time we were set up and settled and went to have “The Big Salad” at Whaley’s. We got back after grocery shopping and had a call from Janet Ronk, asking if we were in town and if we wanted to join them for beef stroganoff for dinner. Having eaten lunch so late we begged off from that but agreed to have them pick us up Sunday morning to go to church. Then we rode our bikes over to the day use headquarters to use the WiFi to Skype with Sarah and the boys and update the blog. Leftovers added to a can of soup with cheese and crackers were an adequate late supper. We walked over to the beach in the dark and found that it was high tide so the waves were undercutting the dune right at the edge of walk-through. It was wild and wonderful to see the white waves in the dark water with nothing but stars overhead. The two couples at the site next to us were noisy around their campfire long after we went to bed but earplugs helped drown out their noise but also the soothing sound of the surf. Ronks were picking us up at 9:30 on Sunday morning and we were getting the promised off-and-on rain showers. But we made our way to the front gate without getting too wet and Janet drove us to the Presbyterian Church of Edisto Island. As the service got underway there was a heavy downpour and thankfully that was the end of what had sounded like it would be all day rain! The church was established in 1685-1695 and two buildings had preceded the present building, which was built in 1830. Following the Civil War the whites abandoned the area and the church, and the freed blacks in the area took it over. But when the whites began to return in the 1880s they took back the building. Later a white woman built another church just down the road for the blacks to use for worship and it is still there, still a black church and called the Edisto Presbyterian Church. The Presbyterian Church of Edisto Island has an ancient cemetery beside and behind the church building full of the old island names, many of which still have family members attending the church. The building was completely renovated and restored in 2006 to how it looked when it was built, complete with the raised wooden pulpit with two spiraling staircases to reach it. The two pews at the front right side of the balcony are the only original pews and they were “slave pews” back in the day. The entire downstairs is made of boxed-in pews with little swinging doors and when they took the offering it was in old long handled cloth baskets the ushers held across the pews from the two aisles. It was Communion Sunday and they do it at four long, low, narrow, wooden tables with benches that seat 10 (also original, as far as one old timer could tell us) set up at the front. The ushers excused about half the congregation to go down and sit and everyone was served bread and wine personally by a deacon, leaving the tiny cup in a special glass dish in the center of the table. After one other seating, everyone had been served so there were about 80 plus the deacons that day. It was a pretty traditional service but it was also kind of stunning to have it in such an historic setting. During the service Marv felt his phone vibrating and when we left he had a message from LifeLine telling him that his mom was in the hospital. It took several phone calls to sort things out as we drove with the Ronks to have Brunch with some of their friends but he finally talked to his mom and his sister and found that it isn’t anything new, but continuing problems with her energy and not feeling well because of what has been diagnosed as congestive heart failure. They were going to do a few more tests and drain fluid from her lung that was causing her some pain, but she expected to be released Monday or Tuesday. We had a lovely Brunch of crème brulé French Toast (me) and a bacon and cheese “Pomelet” (Marv), which was a huge omelet wrapped in a huge pancake. OINK!! We shared liberally with each other and were stuffed afterwards. The Ronks took us back to the camper and stayed long enough for a “tour” before heading home to nap. We hiked the mile and a half up the beach, collecting shells for the grandsons including a nice sand dollar, till we reached the creek outlet into the Atlantic. Even at low tide it was clear we couldn’t cross the creek, so we hiked back to the campground, this time into the wind, which was harder. The Ronks had urged us to take the road to Botany Bay Plantation. In 1840 Mr. Townsend had combined land from the Bleak Hall and Sea Cloud plantations into his 4,687.5 acre Botany Bay Plantation. There remain a few ruins from both plantations but the area is now owned and maintained by the DNR. There is a driving tour through the area with a few historic stops along the way. It took us about an hour and then we drove to the Ronks’ place for a light supper of cheese, crackers, and sausage balls and a pleasant evening of conversation. We got to bed a little early so we could be up and on our way to spend Monday in Charleston. It took us a little over an hour to drive there on Hwy. 17 and find the Visitors Center where we bought tickets for a 1½ hour Gray Line historical tour in a minibus, followed by a tour of the restored 1803 Joseph Manigault mansion. This 6,000 sq. ft. townhouse was used only part time, when the family came from their rice plantation to Charleston for the social season. With a little better idea of the lay of the land we began wandering down King Street until we found “Boones”, a bar and grill that had half price burgers that day. It took a while but we had hearty hamburgers and sweet potato fries with a beer to fortify ourselves to spend the rest of the day wandering along the three hundred year old streets, finding as many of the historic houses as we could from a book borrowed from the Ronks that Marv’s parents had given them years ago. We walked so far and saw too many things to list. Suffice it to say we were blown away by the history preserved so beautifully and were left with impressions of pre-Revolutionary War homes, intricate wrought iron, “single houses”, fountains, stunning opulence, stirring courage, horse drawn carriages, blooming gardens and trees, cobblestone and brick streets, dolphins leaping in the harbor, far-off forts, and a soaring bridge. We were exhausted by the time we drove back to the campground for a light supper but felt we had seen as much as was possible in one day in Charleston.

Northeast Florida/Southeast Georgia

Wed. Mar. 2—Fri. Mar. 4: Saint Augustine wasn’t on our original itinerary, but when I realized how close to it we would be driving, I suggested we should stop and look around. Even though we hadn’t researched it, it was very easy to follow signs to the Old Town. We stumbled on a lot to park the truck and camper that was free and walked to the nearby visitor center. There we bought a booklet with five walking tours of the town. We managed to do three of them. First we walked through St. George Street, reading about the reconstructed or rebuilt buildings. Coming out near the Plaza we looked at the area that had more of the structures showing the English influence of the 1800s. From there we crossed over Castillo Avenue to walk along the waterfront to see the fort, Castillo de San Marcos. It was built from local Coquina stone, just like Bok Tower was back in Lake Wales. Begun in 1672 (completed in 1695) it is the oldest masonry fort in North America. It encompasses 235 years of Spanish influence in Florida and flew 4 nations’ flags, including old and new Spain, Britain, and the United States. It reminded us a lot of the old fort in San Juan but smaller. When we left the area about 1:00 we felt like we had learned a great deal about the oldest city in North America (San Juan is older but Puerto Rico is considered part of the Caribbean, not North America). Lunch ended up being at McDonald’s where I finally heard from ORS that my check would go in Mar. 8 for unexplained reasons. I wrote back demanding an explanation but there wasn’t much more I could do from Florida. It was about an hour’s drive just across the border into Georgia where we got a site at Crooked River State Park. There were horrible, biting gnats that drove us to distraction and we considered moving sites. But they seemed to be everywhere so we stayed put and found that they were not bad when the sun wasn’t beating down on the site. And this is going to be a good spot to do the two visits we hope to make in southern Georgia. The weather forecasts suggested that Thursday would be the best to go to Cumberland Island National Seashore so, without really knowing what we were doing, we headed out with a packed lunch. I’ve been having trouble again with vertigo so I had a hard time getting started but felt there was no choice but to ignore it and carrying on regardless. Driving into old town St. Mary’s at 9:30 I noticed a sign that said the ferry runs at 9:00 and 11:45. We found the National Park Visitor Center and learned that we could buy tickets at 11:00. So after looking at the displays in the Center we just wandered along the St. Mary’s riverfront until we could buy the tickets. Then with a backpack with lunch and extra clothes, sunscreen and bug spray, we boarded the small ferry for the 45 minute ride down the St. Mary’s river to Cumberland Island. It was sunny, very windy and in the high 60s to near 70 degrees. Once there, a ranger gave the small group who got off at Dungeness landing (the ones who were camping got off at Seacrest landing) an hour or more walk-and-talk about the history of this part of the island. A grove of Maritime forest with Live Oaks is the site of two magnificent estates, separated by 100 years but sharing the same foundation and name Dungeness. The first was built by Nathaneal Greene and his heirs. The ruins which still stand are the remains of Thomas and Lucy Carnegie’s Dungeness, built in the mid 1880s. The younger brother of Andrew, he died in 1886 leaving his wife, Lucy, and nine children. She expanded the original acquisitions, eventually owning 90% of the island, and built four more mansions for her children. When Dungeness burned in 1959, it had not been occupied for many years. In 1971 the heirs donated Plum Orchard (one of the additional mansions built) as well as supporting funds, which helped win Congressional approval for Cumberland Island National Seashore. The National Park Service now owns 90% of the island. After her talk, as the group wandered the extensive grounds of the ruins, we were treated to the sight of several of the feral horses that have roamed the island for 400 years since the time of the Spaniards. Behind the cemetery we found a boardwalk that led along the edge of the saltwater marsh. The tide was out and ibises, egrets, and a great blue heron fished in the shallows while the mud was skittering with fiddler crabs. The boardwalk came out in sand dunes which led us to the Atlantic beach that stretches as far as the eye can see with absolutely no development. As always when I walk a beach I thought of Judy Kabodian. We walked virtually alone on the hard packed sand but noticed a truck and a large group of people gathered far down the beach. As we approached them, most of the group moved on but the truck and a few people remained. When we arrived we found that there was a small humpback whale that had washed up on the beach. The rangers were trying to get the skull free and deal with the carcass. It was sad but was a real privilege to see a whale in that wild setting. The trail headed back into the forest and came out at Seacrest landing, where there are rocking chairs on the porch of the ranger station that were SO welcome after what was a hike of between 4 and 5 miles. At 4:00 a ranger gave two PowerPoint presentations, one on armadillos and one on the feral horses of the island. The ferry ride back was uneventful. We mutually agreed to have dinner at the Riverside Café, where Marv had fish and chips and I had crab cakes on a Greek salad. Back at the campground we used the WiFi at the office, saw 4 deer cross the road in front of us, and then did laundry and watched some TV before hitting the sack. Rain started during the night but it quit by the time we got up and got going Friday morning. I was feeling better after trying Benadryl during the night. Highway 40 to the Okefenokee Parkway is a scenic drive and it was a pleasant route to the Swamp. It was cloudy with a bit of drizzle and it was 61° as we arrived. First stop was at the Visitors Center where they showed a 14 minute, award winning video about the Okefenokee Swamp to just the two of us. Then an automaton like the presidents at Disney World told us tales about the swamp and how it has been affected by humans over the years. The only way to get into the wilderness area is by boat and the outfitters take people in or one can rent a kayak or canoe and paddle a few miles down the canal to get to open water. We opted to take the boat but wanted to wait until the weather improved. In the meantime we drove the Swamp Island Loop Drive. We had to return to the Center to get the interpretive brochure telling what we were seeing. We stopped at the Chesser Island Homestead, which was first established in 1858. The present buildings were built in 1926 by a grandson of the original Chesser and he and his wife lived there until 1958—100 years in the same family. Now the buildings are kept up by USFWS and used for educational programs and festivals such as a Cane Syrup celebration. A volunteer told us tales of the family and the homestead. She also said we should hope to get Joey as our boat guide, since he was 7^th generation in the swamp and his wife is 8^th. From there we drove to the Boardwalk trail where we ate our picnic. The three quarter mile boardwalk took us to the 50 foot Owl’s Roost Tower. We saw two alligators along the trail, one with babies, and several large turtles in Seagrove Lake from the top of the tower. By the end of the drive the clouds were clearing and it was 71° and the boat ride was sounding more appealing. One boat was just leaving as we walked up and they said the next one was at 2:45. So we bought tickets for it and took the Cane Pole trail along the canal. There were three pileated woodpeckers near the trail that we watched and took pictures of for a while. The path led to the Minnet Prairie—in the swamp, large areas of open water, which sometimes dry up completely, are called prairies. We headed back to the boat dock and found at least 7 large alligators and one large turtle along the banks. We were happy to find that our boat guide was indeed Joey, who has lived his entire life as a swamp man as were his ancestors so we felt like the ride was quite authentic. It took a while to go down the canal but there were innumerable alligators to entertain us along with Joey’s laconic narration. He took us into the prairie and ran the boat up next to a large alligator that ignored us as we soaked up the sounds and sights. It was during our ride that I had one of my favorite, sort of iconic, conversations of our whole trip. Joey and I were discussing whether the woodpecker is pronounced pile-ated or pill-e-ated, agreeing we had both heard it both ways. He drawled in his DEEP Georgia woods accent, “Ah guess it’s one a them tah-may-ter/tah-mah-ter kind of thangs.” It was cooling off as we returned to the boat dock and left Okefenokee Swamp. On the way back to camp we stopped at a Framing and Gift Shop that sold ice cream and coffee which we enjoyed before we returned for couscous and leftover pork chops.

Ocala National Forest (Happy B'day, Ken!)

Sun. Feb. 27—Tue. Mar. 1: The drive north to Ocala National Forest was a bit different than what we had seen thus far in Florida. Heading north on US27, a divided highway here, we passed through many cities with lots of retirement communities for a while. When we got near Clermont the countryside became much more rolling hills and there were fewer towns. The elevation rose to 160-180 feet and there was more scrub pine flat wood forest. We stopped to do email, blog update, and research the Ocala National Forest area. MSUFCU showed that my pension check hadn’t been deposited on Friday, as Marv’s had and mine has always been. That was a big concern but we couldn’t do anything about it on a Sunday. We decided to head for Juniper Springs campground, which has 60 sites with flush toilets and showers but no electrical hook-ups. We were pretty sure that this was the place we had come for showers back in 1973 when we were camping at Mill Pond with Dave and Karen Sullivan. Part of what we wanted to do while in Ocala Forest was revisit the areas in which we had vacationed nearly 40 years ago. We had a wonderful site (#38) with lots of vegetation between sites and no sites behind or across from us. The bathroom was right nearby and the only complaint is that generators can and do run between the hours of 6:00am and 10:00pm. Those are pretty liberal hours! After setting up we rode our bikes around the area and found that there are three camping loops, including one that is tents only. Bears are active in the area and we were warned to take care of trash in the bear-proof containers and keep food inside. Fern Hammock Springs can only be hiked into and aren’t open for swimming, so we didn’t do that while we had our bikes. But we headed over to Juniper Springs, where we parked the bikes and walked in to look around. The swimming area was originally put in by the CCC and there is a mill with a water wheel that is closed right now because it needs major overhauling. They had an original CCC-er who had helped build the mill and an expert from Vermont consult on what needs to be done and are awaiting funding to make the repairs. There were people swimming in the clear 72° water along with little minnows and some weedy areas amongst the cleared sand areas. There is a canoe livery where one can do the 7 mile, 4 hour long Juniper Creek run, which has alligators and snakes and a great wilderness area. We wondered if we could put in our kayak but looking at the creek at that point it seemed too shallow and too narrow. Back at camp we found we had a good enough phone connection to have conversations and send texts. After watching the sunset right from the back of our site we made dinner and read before bed. On Monday (Happy Birthday, Ken!!!) we drove north to Salt Spring to check out that area and get groceries. We both had a memory of stone or cement rectangular spring fed pools from our 1973 visit and we hoped to find them. We also needed the internet to check on my check. The small Visitors Center gave us some information and told us where we could sit at a picnic table nearby and use the internet. That worked in the morning when I found that the check still hadn’t gone in. I left a message on the ORS site. We made a short visit to Salt Spring, where they have put a 4 foot cement wall around a larger area than Juniper Springs. The spring was only added to the National forest lands in 1979 so we knew that wasn’t the spring we were seeking. There is full hook-up camping at the park but sites are lined up right next to each other and we’re happy we didn’t choose to go there for our camping. But the spring was very nice and we stayed quite a while, choosing to eat our picnic lunch there. A couple of people were swimming in the slightly saline springs that have large (12”-18”) mullets that skip across the water and leap clear out. While we ate, a cute little feral piglet came trotting down the cement sidewalk along the pool wall, then turned around and looked a bit panicked until finding its way out and into the scrub. It was very cute and not at all the threatening beast we expected from a feral pig. After lunch we drove to the Salt Spring Trail to hike its two mile loop into the wide Cyprus swamp and waterway that leads from the springs eventually to Lake George, the 2^nd largest lake in Florida. We looked for but didn’t see any of the alligators, osprey, or eagles we hoped to see. The temperatures in the mid-eighties continued and we were pretty warm from the hike. We then returned to Salt Spring to get our groceries and try the internet to see if the check had shown-up but this time we couldn’t get online. We went on to the nearby Springs and found that they have been left in their natural state and afford the largest swimming area of the three we have seen. We talked to a woman there and explained what we sought but she didn’t have any idea of where it would be. We were really hot when we got back to Juniper Springs so we put on our suits and enjoyed a refreshing swim. It was lovely! The sunset was once again enjoyed and then Marv built a fire with the great Live Oak wood we had bought at Lake Kissimmee and we cooked brauts and roasted marshmallows for S’mores and watched the stars in the clear sky. After seeing a really good falling star we spread out the fire and went to bed. The temperature only fell into the upper sixties and during the night the first rain that we’d had in 3 ½ weeks fell. We stayed snug and it was all over by morning when we were ready to get up. We took our coffee with us, thinking we would stroll over to see the Fern Hammock springs and ended up taking the entire nature trail that comes out at Juniper Springs. We saw a flock of turkeys, including a Tom who spread his tail and looked very important until he saw we were not intimidated. Fern & Juniper springs have many sandy “boils” without any of the deep rock fissures we had seen in the springs on Sunday. The nature trail is a boardwalk along Juniper Creek and we were just sorry we hadn’t bothered to bring a camera. We hoped to spend Tuesday at Mill Pond, which we knew was only Day Use now, and perhaps put the kayak into the pond to paddle around. First we went a few miles west to Forest Corners. We visited the Ranger Station there and talked to a woman around our age with some history in the area. She couldn’t think of a spot with the rectangular springs we remembered so that remains a mystery for us. But she told us that there was a new library just past the Winn-Dixie where we could use the internet. Once again we were concerned to see that the check still hasn’t shown up. I left another message on the ORS site and we did some other emails and some research to help us decide where we are going in the final two weeks of our trip. Then we bought a Subway foot long to enjoy at Mill Pond. But when we drove back there we found that the area was closed. We could drive into the boat launch area so we sat on the sand overlooking Mill Pond and ate our sandwich. Then we decided, since there was no one around, we’d walk into the Day Use area and look around. It looked pretty much as we remembered from so long ago and it was easy to imagine that the picnic area would have been the campground back then. We took some pictures of the swimming area, where we remembered seeing all the people leave the water at the same time and realized there was a large alligator swimming in the deep area. When we returned to the truck, Marv wanted to try to find a trail he read about the night before called the Lake Eaton Sinkhole. The map we bought on Monday had us take a sandy road that had been freshly grated and packed that day and we felt almost like we were “off roading it”. The half-mile hiking trail led us to the very impressive dry sinkhole. It is 462 feet in diameter and 122 feet deep. They have recently added (Stimulus money?) a wonderful boardwalk around the rim to keep people from furthering the erosion of the sides, and steps to a large viewing platform 80 feet down. Nothing said how long ago the area had sunk but the vegetation suggested it was long ago, possibly in prehistoric times. We didn’t see any other tracks and saw no one else until we were leaving and a man from Sweden came to do the trail. We followed a different route back to the highway to take a picture of the Mill Pond sign to email to Dave and came back to camp. While Marv took his camera down to get pictures of the Fern Spring and nature trail we had walked in the morning, I took a shower and washed my hair. We began picking up our campsite and Marv grilled pork chops while I cooked apples and made a salad to go with leftover potato salad for dinner. We finished the Ben & Jerry’s Peanut Butter cup ice cream pint begun earlier in the day and tried to get things ready for a quick exit early the next morning. It had been a really nice and somewhat nostalgic return to a favorite memory of our Youth.