First of Florida

There isn't much to say about yesterday's activities. We said good-bye to Georgia for the last time and drove into Florida. We'll be in Florida for the next couple of weeks, and we have reservations all down the road until we leave and cross into Alabama and then into Mississippi. As for yesterday's drive, we crossed over the St. Mary's River and Florida welcomed us.

We drove the beltway around Jacksonville and then turned off to head for our final destination of Mike Roess Gold Head Branch State Park.

Mike Roess is one of Florida's first state parks. It was developed on a 2,000-acre site by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) during the 1930s. It is located on rolling sandhills in an area known as the central ridge of Florida, a deep ravine with springs issuing from its sides that bisects the area and forms Gold Head Branch. Marshes, lakes and scrub provide a habitat for a wide variety of wildlife. Visitors can enjoy hiking and wildlife viewing along the park's nature trails and a 5.44-mile stretch of the Florida National Scenic Trail.

We won't be seeing any of that. Here's what we've seen of the park, and our campsite looks no different.

Smitty got out for a good walk here even before Mike had finished leveling the RV. You might say Smitty was the most adventurous of our group since that's probably all we'll see here. We'll be moving on to Orlando this morning. This was just a stopover for the night, and an inexpensive one at that. If you'd like to know more about the park, you can read about it on the Florida State Parks blog right here.

We had a bit of a mess in the trailer. Our nearly full five-gallon jug of water spigot came slightly ajar along the road and leaked approximately two gallons of water out onto the floor. As I'm writing this, I have the contents of the lower cabinet sitting all around me. A lot of it is kitty stuff, which causes no end of consternation, as you might guess. Fortunately our new Spotbot is a wet-dry vacuum, and so most of the water was sucked up, but the carpet remains damp. This is the second time this has happened on this trip, and so, obviously, we have to figure out a new way for the water jug to travel. We both have ideas about that, but it will require putting things away before we can try it out.

Orlando is our next overnight stay, but along the way we'll be stopping off at Blue Springs State Park with great hope of seeing the manatees there. One of the articles in my Florida folder has been encouraging in that regard, but we'll see what we'll see. It will be up to the manatees whether they decide to show themselves today. If not, it'll still be a good place to stop for some lunch. We'll be spending the next couple of nights in the parking lot at Mike's old company, and he'll be meeting up with some former co-workers. I'm also hopeful we'll find a quilt shop in the mix.