Winter Travels 7

February 21-25: We got to our campsite at Withlacoochee State Forest-Holder Mine Campground Wednesday afternoon and found that the prescribed burn they had emailed/warned us they were doing today was going strong. But instead of being away to 

the north of the campground (where they expected little impact on it) it was on two sides of us, with the flames in plain sight. The wind was carrying clouds of smoke into the campground and the host said they were allowing anyone who was concerned about respiratory problems to move to the Tillis Hill campground, about ten miles away. Tillis Hill isn't nearly as convenient to Inverness, where we were volunteering with Citrus County Habitat for Humanity, so we opted to stay. We dropped the trailer without opening it, and went into the Library to do some things on the internet, including posting updates to The Savage Traveler.

This is how the burn looked from the truck window as we drove north into Inverness.

We stayed at the library about three hours. When we returned to the campground it was worse, not better. There were two fallen trees on fire into the road. White flakes of ash were drifting down. Black pieces of ash as large as two inches square littered the ground. And the flames were leaping ten yards away from our site. Thick smoke was everywhere. We were forced to move to Tillis Hill and set up again, this time in the dark. No smoke there but our clothes, skin and hair reeked of it. Also, I rechecked the email we had received about the planned burn. It said the fire would not be near the Campground but there could be “some smoke”. Sheesh!!!!

The fire had burned all the way to the road side on the east side,
only stopping when it hit the sand of the road.

This was one of two trees that fell into the road.

The line of fire was easy to see from the road. In places, standing trees
were flaming like torches. It's hard to remember that this is natural and
good for the forest and its animals.

This fence was directly behind our campsite. While we were gone, this
small patch had apparently jumped the fire line and burned but was put out.

The smoke and ash were heavy in the air and drove us to leave for Tillis Hill.

In some ways I prefer Tillis Hill because it is stretched out so much and has the added interest of being a horse park with about 32 stable stalls where campers can bring their horses and ride the miles of trails. We also had pretty strong phone and internet signals, unlike Holder Mine, where there is no signal at all. It was busier than we had ever seen it and, over the weekend, many campsites had ATVs and spent all day riding the sandy backroads through the forest. But, like all the rest of the campgrounds we had visited, the campground was completely quiet at night. All we heard at night were the ”Who-cooks-for-you?” hoot of the Barred owls and the deep, low hoots of Great Horned owls.

Riding a portion of the Withlacoochee  Trail between
Inverness and just south of Floral City. 

Our campsite at Tillis Hill had a wide open field behind it,
with the stables on the other side. We could hear the horses from here.

Marv getting artsy with the canopy over our trailer.

We helped put finishing touches on the tan house above on Thursday morning. We returned
on Saturday morning for the dedication as the owner, Kim, got possession, but since they
went right from a 9:00 Dedication to the 10:00 Dedication, arriving about 9:55, we were a little bit too late.