O'Leno State Park Outing
As I mentioned in the last blog, I will be giving reports on our adventures in 2008. Although we elected to not spend another 4 – 5 months on the road this year, we are trying to get out more for shorter trips.
One such trip was to O’Leno State Park. O’Leno State Park is located just off Interstate 75, about half way between Gainesville and Lake City, Florida.
Descriptive quote from Florida State Parks Web-Site: O’Leno State Park: Located along the banks of the scenic Santa Fe River, a tributary of the Suwannee River, the park features sinkholes, hardwood hammocks, river swamps, and sandhills. As the river courses through the park, it disappears underground and reemerges over three miles away in the River Rise State Preserve. One of Florida's first state parks, O'Leno was first developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930s. The suspension bridge built by the CCC still spans the river. Visitors can picnic at one of the pavilions or fish in the river for their dinner. Canoes and bicycles are available for rent. While hiking the nature trails, visitors can look for wildlife and enjoy the beauty of native plants. The shady, full-facility campground is the perfect place for a relaxing overnight stay.
Our choice of travel date was to coincide with the annual Isle of Eight Flags Shrimp Festival – May 3rd and 4th. Not that we don’t like the Shrimp Festival, but after you’ve seen it several times, you get tired of the crowds and disruption to the normal pace of life. So we decided it would be a good time to get out of Dodge!
O’Leno State Park is roughly 115 miles from home and less than a 2 ½ hour drive. We took the “back” roads down but decided to take all Interstate coming back. Although the motor-home is not hard to drive on 2-lane roads, sometimes it’s just easier on big roads.
We did have two bits of “excitement” on this, our first outing since January. The first was when I pulled the fuse from the Saturn (to allow towing) and dropped it into the engine compartment. You’d think it would fall straight through, but no, it had to lodge in an unreachable spot. Since it had to be “out” anyway, I gave up trying to retrieve it and drove on to the state park. None of my spare fuses would fit (too small!), so I borrowed a fuse from a different circuit and drove to the auto parts store to get a replacement. Yes, I did buy a couple of spares.
Then while checking in to the campground, I noticed the tailpipe on the motor-home was flopping around badly. Inspection found the tailpipe hangar strap fastener bolt had rusted through. I bought a new hangar strap at the auto parts store (while there for fuses) but there was no where to fasten it. So I borrowed a page from a friend of yore – a friend we camped with back in the mid-70’s while working at Hughes. He worked for the phone company and always had a pocket-full of cable ties which he used to fix everything. So I bought some of these at the auto parts store and jury-rigged six cable ties into three different loops which I then wrapped around anything I could find. It looked funny, but we got home without it falling off. (I had a more permanent solution performed while having the rig serviced at the Cummins / Onan shop last week.)
Today’s photos are from the O’Leno State Park. The first and most memorable was the Don’t Feed the Alligator sign posted beside the swimming hole! The river is the Santa Fe River mentioned in the Florida State Park web-site. It does go underground close to the park and re-emerges under a motel / lodge just outside High Springs, FL. (I’m not exaggerating – the motel is built right on the bank above the river’s “cave”.)
In my next blog, I’ll write about some of the other things we saw (things beside doing repairs).
One such trip was to O’Leno State Park. O’Leno State Park is located just off Interstate 75, about half way between Gainesville and Lake City, Florida.
Descriptive quote from Florida State Parks Web-Site: O’Leno State Park: Located along the banks of the scenic Santa Fe River, a tributary of the Suwannee River, the park features sinkholes, hardwood hammocks, river swamps, and sandhills. As the river courses through the park, it disappears underground and reemerges over three miles away in the River Rise State Preserve. One of Florida's first state parks, O'Leno was first developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930s. The suspension bridge built by the CCC still spans the river. Visitors can picnic at one of the pavilions or fish in the river for their dinner. Canoes and bicycles are available for rent. While hiking the nature trails, visitors can look for wildlife and enjoy the beauty of native plants. The shady, full-facility campground is the perfect place for a relaxing overnight stay.
Our choice of travel date was to coincide with the annual Isle of Eight Flags Shrimp Festival – May 3rd and 4th. Not that we don’t like the Shrimp Festival, but after you’ve seen it several times, you get tired of the crowds and disruption to the normal pace of life. So we decided it would be a good time to get out of Dodge!
O’Leno State Park is roughly 115 miles from home and less than a 2 ½ hour drive. We took the “back” roads down but decided to take all Interstate coming back. Although the motor-home is not hard to drive on 2-lane roads, sometimes it’s just easier on big roads.
We did have two bits of “excitement” on this, our first outing since January. The first was when I pulled the fuse from the Saturn (to allow towing) and dropped it into the engine compartment. You’d think it would fall straight through, but no, it had to lodge in an unreachable spot. Since it had to be “out” anyway, I gave up trying to retrieve it and drove on to the state park. None of my spare fuses would fit (too small!), so I borrowed a fuse from a different circuit and drove to the auto parts store to get a replacement. Yes, I did buy a couple of spares.
Then while checking in to the campground, I noticed the tailpipe on the motor-home was flopping around badly. Inspection found the tailpipe hangar strap fastener bolt had rusted through. I bought a new hangar strap at the auto parts store (while there for fuses) but there was no where to fasten it. So I borrowed a page from a friend of yore – a friend we camped with back in the mid-70’s while working at Hughes. He worked for the phone company and always had a pocket-full of cable ties which he used to fix everything. So I bought some of these at the auto parts store and jury-rigged six cable ties into three different loops which I then wrapped around anything I could find. It looked funny, but we got home without it falling off. (I had a more permanent solution performed while having the rig serviced at the Cummins / Onan shop last week.)
Today’s photos are from the O’Leno State Park. The first and most memorable was the Don’t Feed the Alligator sign posted beside the swimming hole! The river is the Santa Fe River mentioned in the Florida State Park web-site. It does go underground close to the park and re-emerges under a motel / lodge just outside High Springs, FL. (I’m not exaggerating – the motel is built right on the bank above the river’s “cave”.)
In my next blog, I’ll write about some of the other things we saw (things beside doing repairs).
posted by Wayne and Margaret @ 10:30 AM
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