When we went to bed at 11:30 on Wednesday night it was still 71° and it only got into the mid-sixties overnight. Thursday we went over to the Rec Hall for Biscuits and Gravy or 5 different kinds of homemade preserves. They had peach, fig-cherry, fig-lemon, strawberry and pineapple-something. They were really yummy. Armadillos had been busy overnight and we had several large holes along the road near the camper. Marv & I packed and closed up the camper while doing one more load of laundry and thinking we’d do one more bike ride before we left. Ross ran into town to get bulbs to fix some lights and when he came back they thought it was too warm for a bike ride. So we ended up pulling out about 11:30. As we drove past ranches and orange groves, I saw a whooping crane walking beside a wetland area. We stopped on our way north and ate a picnic and got to the State Forest by 3:00 or so. The area is surprisingly rolling, with some hills that afford a little bit of a vista. We are at Tillis Hill Campground in the Citrus Reservation of Withlacoochee State Forest. It’s really an equestrian campground and the four or five other camps here are all horse/RV combination trailers. We have a large site on the end of the loop with no one near us. While relaxing, after setting up, we saw a pileated woodpecker fly into the top of a nearby tree. There are no lights and no road noise so we really feel like we’re in the middle of nowhere. We had a campfire, partly from firewood left at the site next to ours, and cooked hot dogs for dinner, then went to bed in the silent forest.
Friday we puttered, rode bikes around the campground, and visited the 4 horses that were in stalls. The campground is really perched on top of what passes for a mountain in Florida and has a long, paved hill leading up to the gate. Ranger Sid told us that the area is a limestone ridge that used to be sand dunes at the edge of the ancient, and much higher, Gulf of Mexico. Sid also warned us about how difficult that hill can be and we weren’t inclined to try it just yet. After eating lunch at the camper and putting chicken thighs in the little Crockpot with fajita flavoring, we drove to the State Forest Headquarters to get more information on nature trails and short hikes in the area. Everything around the Tillis Hill campground is many miles long and either intended for horseback riding or part of the Florida Trail that meanders all over the state. We found out that some trails that are listed on the State Forest map are no longer open because of staff cutbacks, but there was a nice trail nearby at McKethan Lake. We hiked 2.3 miles on it, stopping for the 24 interpretive stations explaining the hardwood hammock and longleaf pine/turkey oak communities. There was lots of dogwood in bloom and some flowering jasmine, sometimes right together. We didn’t see a lot of wildlife but we heard pileated woodpeckers, and there were some White Egrets and a couple of sandhill cranes around the small lake. It’s a really lovely area with picnic tables off of the one way drive that circles the lake, but we had it practically to ourselves. When we returned to camp the thighs were easy to remove from the bone and we enjoyed them with lettuce and sliced peppers in whole wheat wraps. Yum!! The temperature was slow to go down from the high 80s where it had been most of the day and so it was a warm evening right up until we went to bed. It had been really windy all day but the SW winds died down after sunset before picking up again and turning to the NE overnight.
Our weather had been so perfect for such a long time but we knew that the storm that dumped 6 inches of snow in East Lansing was making its way across the east from New England to northern Florida with high winds, snow, and even tornadoes. The severe weather was all north of us, but we knew that Sunday and Monday there was a good chance of rain. So we decided to chance the stiff breeze and cooler temperatures to ride our bikes on Saturday. Ranger Sid had suggested we take our bikes to Floral City and ride the Withlacoochee State Trail. At 46 miles it is the longest paved Rail-to-Trail in the state and runs from Gulf Junction (Citrus Springs) to Owensboro Junction, six miles north of Dade City. It passes through a variety of habitats and is well used. We shared it with other bikers and some walkers the whole time. We rode north first, thinking that the stiff winds would be a problem, but they turned out not to be a big factor as we were pretty protected most of the time. The day was much sunnier than forecast and the temperature was in the upper 60s, also better than forecast and perfect for a long bike ride. It was about 7 miles to Inverness where we rode around some city parks before turning around and going back to Floral City. Riding with the wind we made slightly better time and stopped at the edge of Floral City at a bagel/sandwich shop where we had burgers at a picnic table outdoors. A bit further on we stopped at the Ferris Groves stand where I had a fresh strawberry milkshake and Marv had a huge strawberry shortcake. The whole store smelled of the crates of strawberries that three women were hulling and slicing in the center of things. When we got back to the truck we had biked 15 miles. We were parked right near a small museum so we made a quick stop to learn more of the history of the area. The three things they really highlighted were the phosphate mining that was integral to the area’s development, the devastating diesel train engine head-on collision of 1958(?), and the history of the lovely, towering Live Oaks that line the streets, are over 100 years old, and are hung with Spanish moss. We got back to the campground by about 4:00 where we relaxed a while and then played some Ladder Gulf (Marv beat me in both a long and a short game) before eating the chili that had been cooking all day. Marv also finally flew down the hill below the campground gate on his bike at 30 mph and managed to pedal back up. After dinner we were thrilled to see that Purdue beat Michigan by 14 points AT Michigan. That puts them two games behind us with Ohio State still one game back. We then built a campfire where we listened to MSU annihilate Nebraska. Draymon Green also got his 1000th rebound, to go with the 1000 points he already had (only the third MSU player to ever do that). What a great night for MSU Basketbal!
Our nearly perfect weather came to an end early Sunday morning when the rain began. It continued until 11:00 or so and then let up for a while. So we ate an early lunch and then took a chance on the forecast to drive north to the Oxbow Recreation Area’s two trails. It turned out that the two trails along the Withlacoochee River were made as four Eagle Scout projects, apparently quite a while ago. In fact, the Nature Trail seemed to come to an end. But we made our way around the area for a 1½ mile hike. The path along the oxbow revealed some really pretty spots. Although the first trail was around a Cyprus swamp, it was different than others we had seen because the knees were most of what remained of the Cyprus while the rest was becoming a pine hammock. It drizzled off and on while we walked and the temperature was in the fifties; quite a contrast to the sun and 80s we had had for so long! We drove back to nearby Inverness and, seeing the long boardwalk path around Cooter Pond that we had ridden past on Saturday, we decided to walk it. As we finished the rain was picking up again. We bought a few groceries and had ice cream at McDonald’s and figured that we might as well go to a movie, since the rain seemed to be returning in force. “Tyler Perry’s Good Deeds” was showing at the right time and it made a pleasant diversion from the weather. When we came out I checked ESPN on my phone and we found out that Wisconsin had beaten OSU in overtime, thus assuring MSU of at least a part of the Big Ten Championship. Hooray!! Afterwards we returned to the camper to make chicken and rice and watch the Academy Awards show (something we would never have done at home), did the dishes, and began packing up to leave tomorrow.
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