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 2nd 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.
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