Winter Trip 2016-O'Leno State Park

Wed. Mar. 2-: First thing in the morning on Wednesday we stripped the bed and put the sheets and towels in the coin washer at the bathhouse. They washed and dried while we broke camp. It’s so much easier to make the bed when the camper is still partly closed so we will remake the bed when we open at O’Leno State Park. It was about 2 hours to the park, which is just north of Gainesville.  Since we were last there they had updated the bathhouse, which now had good, deep showers that actually had heat lamps in each stall! Marv had chosen a nice site on the outside of the Magnolia loop. 

We set up and took a bike ride down to the river to reacquaint ourselves with this fascinating place.  There are spots throughout the park where one can dial a phone number and enter the access code and a recorded voice tells you the history of the area. We learned that humans have occupied the site for 10,000 years. The Santa Fe River flows into the park and at “The Sink” drops underground at a rate of 900 million gallons a day. It runs through submerged limestone caverns for three miles and pops back to the surface at “The Rise”, where it has even more water accumulated from sources that feed it underground. In 1539 the first Europeans visited the site when de Soto came through Florida with his Conquistadors. In 1860 a town sprang up called Keno, for the lotto-like gambling game. For ecclesiastical reasons it was changed to Leno.  At its height it boasted four mills, a hotel, and a cotton gin and 600 people. But by the 1890s the longleaf pine had all been removed and the railroad by-passed the town by a few miles and the last people abandoned the site. It became known as “Old Leno”, then shortened to O’Leno. In 1936 first the WPA and then the CCC returned to the site on the river and developed the State Park. Now it is a popular place for fishing and hiking. Back at our campsite we relaxed for a while reading and overlooking the hammock behind our trailer. Cardinals, Carolina Wrens, and a noisy and active Red Headed Woodpecker sang and called from the trees. The signs of spring emerging were more evident to us here than they had been farther south, where they tend to think and talk in two seasons—the wet and the dry. Tiny leaves were coming out, the red maples that were pretty much leafed out in Zephyrhills were just budding, and the red bud was beginning to bloom. There were no sabal palms or palmettos in this hardwood hammock. We had dinner and read inside in the evening as the temperature dropped into the forties. 

Thursday morning after breakfast we biked back to the river side and hiked the 1.66 mile trail that circles “The Sink”. The trail passes through several different biomes including hardwood hammock and long leaf pine flatlands. Along part of the trail there had been a recent prescribed burn and the roots of one large toppled tree were still smoldering and smoking. The burns are necessary to keep out the hardwoods and clear the understory so the pine flatland environment can flourish. 

Left of the trail: no burn
Right of the trail: Burned clear

The trail was wide and well-maintained and easy to follow. The rushing river abruptly opens into a wide round lake completely covered with duck weed. With the amount of water that goes underground one might expect a whirlpool like a flushing toilet or something. But there is a barely discernible rotation at the top of the “lake”, only visible in the large logs floating in the middle that were lined with large turtles sunning themselves and enjoying a sort of Turtle Merry-go-round, turning at an appropriate turtle speed. We watched them for a long time before continuing the hike on around The Sink and meeting back up with the Santa Fe River on the other side. We crossed the river on the old CCC Suspension Bridge and got back on our bikes. We biked out the camp road and then cut off to take part of the Dogwood Trail to the Dogwood campground loop and then back to where we began the Dogwood Trail. From there we hiked the .66 mile Limestone Trail, which leads to an area of limestone outcroppings and a spot where the limestone was quarried long ago. 

Nice view down river towards the Sink

Explanation of the River's Sink and Rise

Turtle Merry-Go-Round at the River Sink

More turtles. Note the covering of duck weed on the water

Panoramic of the Sink from opposite shore, across from where the river enters the Sink

After all the hiking and biking back to our campsite we shared a peanut butter and banana sandwich which Marv surprised me by making. Since we were on a Vegetarian roll for the day he hard boiled some eggs and left them to chill in the refrigerator to make deviled eggs later for supper. Then we drove the truck about 5 miles away to hike the “River Rise” Trail. The park was out of trail maps but the old codger at the gate house said it was obvious where to take the trail. It wasn’t as obvious as he made it sound and it is more of a sandy two track that is used for horseback riding. We walked for half an hour and were getting a little worried that we were in the wrong place when suddenly we saw a sign and a wooden fence that indicated we were at the “Rise”. Again there are no dramatic signs of water bubbling up from underground but there is a small lake or pond with water running out into the river as it continues its flow to the Suwannee River. The water top here is not covered with duck weed or anything else. The spot is very quiet and serene and for the whole hike we didn’t see any other people. Returning to the truck we figured we had hiked somewhere between 2 and 3 miles, at least. Although it only got into the low seventies we both welcomed a shower that evening, after we got all of the outdoor things put away in the truck, to cool down and relax before bed. 

Trail to river's Rise

Panoramic of the Rise and the river going on its way

Intrepid Hikers

During the night the predicted thunderstorm came through with some heavy rains that ended before day break on Friday. We got the camper all closed up and stopped at the dump station before getting on the road by soon after 10:00. The day started out cloudy and in the 50s, where it remained into the afternoon. After a couple of hours on I75 we left Florida and entered Georgia. We got off I75 and took US82 northwest across rolling farmland, stopping for lunch at the “3 Squares Diner” for lunch. By around 3:00 we crossed Lake Eufaula and entered the town of Eufaula, AL, where we entered the Central Time Zone. Just outside of town we found Lakeside Resort State Park and registered for a campsite. The lake is actually a miles long reservoir formed by the damming of the Chattahoochee River. Our friends, Carol and Macel Ezell, who spend their winters there, recommended we ask for #61. “Shari” at the desk said that her records said it was open but someone may have taken it in the meantime. If so, she said to just take a site and let her know what it was. Sure enough, when we drove into the campground, #61 was taken. But we found a drive through-site along the edge and about 3 sites away from Ezells that we thought we’d like at least as well and so we set up there. We have no one next to us on either side and the sites are all nice and wide.  Besides that, we open out to the woods and no one is behind us. Ezells invited us for stew at their fifth wheel and we stayed to watch the MSU Women’s team win their quarterfinal game to advance to the semifinals of the Big Ten Tourney. The temperature, which had barely risen to the low 60s, dropped quickly when the sun went down. It promised to be a chilly night! And it was, down to the upper 30s or low 40s. But with our electric blanket on 3 and an electric heater on low we stayed cozy. Ah, the wonders of camping with electricity!